Pathway to Japanese Literature

Meiji 42—Taishō 2

Production Period

To My Elder Brother and Mother

I dedicate this collection.

Author's Preface

Now, as I publish this poetry collection, I cannot bear to release it without uttering a word.
For every emotion contained in these poems is a fragment I have trodden through with my life's full strength.
To press further: though penning my own preface feels presumptuous—like mending flaws in the work—my existence has progressed inseparably from these verses. Standing here now, I can pierce through my psyche at each moment of their making and, across that complete mental terrain, lay bare my heart's hidden depths—the vital hungers I bore from birth.
I now resolve to expose in this preface the subterranean current that engendered this entire corpus of poetry.

In my twenty-first year, I first wrote poetry.
That is "White’s Slight Movement," which stands at the beginning of this collection.
True, I had written four or five pieces since childhood before then, but nothing I particularly wished to express—when I did write, my mind inclined more toward novels.
Then abruptly, spurred by a certain stimulus, I began composing verse.
That stimulus was the free verse movement then arising in Japan’s poetic circles and the many works by fellow poets emerging alongside it.
Among these, Mr. Fukuda’s "Twilight" from the Free Verse Society’s pamphlet and several poems by Mr. Mitomi—the former violently roused my soul from its slumbering depths, while the latter drove it into bottomless melancholy.
For months I could not free myself from the impression those readings left.
Whether sleeping or waking, meeting others or walking thoroughfares, those poems’ dark excitation and chilled passion held me captive.
Thus that summer I wrote three poems, and when my life’s first rupture came at year’s end—Meiji 42 [1909]—I wrote all five poems appearing in this "Weight" in one burst.
I now deem these my debut works.
For they are the primal cry and groan of a soul rising alongside my life’s upheavals.
That is to say, in that year I "lost the whole world and gained my own soul."
Yet this soul of mine remained an enigma beyond solving.
I could not bear the torment of crushing my cryptic heart in a press.
From "Weight" and "Dedicated to Poe," from "From the Window," "White’s Slight Movement," and "Fallen Leaves," through the following year’s (Meiji 43 [1910]) "Winter," "Sabbath Evening," and "Memory," to most works compiled with "Heart" in the year after that (Meiji 45—Taishō 1 [1912])—"Since Eating Wisdom’s Fruit," "Revelry on the Eve of the Deluge," and all others—every one springs from that heart’s insoluble enigma.

I then gazed intently at this life.
I shed tears at the misery buried deep within all humans living through this existence.
And I became a shadow-dwelling bird that could not sing, beating its wings within the trees.
Thus I let pass the year of Memory and Silence.
Then came and went the following year—Meiji 44 (1911)—in which I wrote nothing at all.
I abandoned art, abandoned friends, abandoned home, abandoned all who had loved me.
At times I tried to bury my entire life.
At times I moved among strangers—tallying accounts on abacuses, gripping shovels—crossing that brink between being and nothingness.
Yet within those acts lay nothing I truly sought, gaining only my own near-fatal illness.
I despaired.
I became convinced life held no purpose or hope beyond death.
And yet I found myself unwilling to die.
Through tears, I wanted to live once more—to re-examine this life entire.

Ah, I have a past that remains inexhaustible by regret, no matter how much I regret it.
My beloved sister and aunt died during that time, while I, who should have died, still live on.
My ultimate lament lies here.
Those who are loved depart, leaving behind those they love.
How unbearable must the manner in which they clung to life have been for those who came after? I take on the pain of existence they left behind, and the burden of my life is thereby squared.

I gasped.
I seethed.
And at times my life became utterly despondent; I once dreamed of my deceased father, sister, and one other person all in a single night.
And waking in midnight's depth, I trembled unbidden.
My life still could not find its proper course.
I fell into darkness's abyss and met death in dreams.
Thus arose again thoughts of suicide—yet I could not die.
However wretched or agonizing life became, I could not cease tracing back through each preceding year, through era upon era before that, believing its future must brighten.
Whatever that primal principle might be, this truth stands firm.
No matter how it torments me, I will not die without seeing this life through.
To perish now would mean darkness born of darkness.
I cannot endure such blackness.

Fundamentally, even when I reflect on my childhood, I was by nature a bright and cheerful child.
Even in the poems from these past four years since Weight—born from that pessimistic gloom—there would burst forth unbidden verses singing of cities without sooty hues and seas alive with lively, optimistic rhythms.
But my heart remained sealed off from all joy.
Having lost all reason to live in life, despairing of everything, dismissing all as void, already feeling even poetry writing was meaningless—yet that lingering attachment to life which betrayed my heart made me write "Gravestone" about living like vermin yearning for death; lament a life with nothing but appetite in "Fantasia" and "The Blacksmith’s Simpleton"; write "The Orphan Girl Holding a Fan" trembling in darkness and my "Lifetime" about youth’s decline gnashing teeth to die buried alive amidst nebulae—nearly reaching the pinnacle of stagnation again—I suddenly felt the vigorous surge of Genesis.
I lived.
I grew.
I pushed away everything from my past and leapt decisively into a new world.
My past had been a world of death, not one where I opened my eyes to live.
It had not been a world where I exerted strength to live.
I had never loved my own body at all.
It was not a world where even if they tried to kill this, they made efforts to keep it alive.
Was it not indeed no trivial event that I was born into this life?
Hadn’t the very act of raising my first cry in this world of death indeed been a powerful voice?
Had I not bestowed upon this world a new existence—an indispensable existence?
Ah, you who tried to kill that self of mine from within me!
Let there be new genesis.

Thus, the eyes through which I viewed my world transformed utterly.
Swiftly, my heart—like frost-withered grass meeting spring’s day and sprouting forth all at once—began yearning for a world hitherto unknown and stretched out toward it.
And then, unable to bear it any longer, I raised my voice.
This is indeed the voice of birth.
It is the first cry of birth.
A miraculous event, like those found in fairy tales where a mute child begins to speak, thus occurred at the midpoint of my life.

It is truly a miracle.
It is the mystery of life.
My immeasurable power abruptly awakened, and my heart marveled at unfamiliar lands, unfamiliar skies, unfamiliar people.
And the power that had been shrinking and cowering until now stretched out all at once—underground, skyward, toward every direction—with astonishing vigor.
I live anew.
I grow anew.
I feel immense love for new life's sprout, using all my past as fertilizer.
I gave thanks.
I gave thanks for my subtle power.
When that grateful heart wrote Child of the Sun and declared me his beloved child—his hidden one—my own heart overflowed with inexpressible joy.
Ah, I love light more than anything else.
The world of light is indeed where I shall journey.
Even as tears flow, I will pursue it without cease.
I shall pursue it without cease forever.

From then on, I advanced toward the distant shore like the waves of the great ocean—plunging to the depths, surging to the surface, plunging and surging again.
Though Genesis was a rare conflagration within my heart, that this blaze did not consume my entire being becomes evident from how works of utterly divergent nature—Winter Dusk and Distant Homeland—emerged intermingled unbeknownst to me during that same epoch.
The volcanic joy of Genesis, commencing with A Letter to All My Friends as its primal utterance, became a pyre that consumed all conventional ties and vestiges of my former self, assuming the office of assailing, demolishing, and overthrowing both my past existence and the relational webs that had enmeshed me until then.

Thus waging battle upon battle, battle upon battle, my heart fought valiantly until utterly exhausted.
The works from Sun Worship—"Song to the Woman I Claim as My Own," "Storm," "Song to Japan's Literary Figures," "Song of Manhood," and "Voyage Song"—are my life-affirming cries that emerged from within those struggles.
Above all, I cherish certain passages of Voyage Song most dearly.
And thus, steeled by the voice I myself had cried out countless times, I endured that year of rebirth (Taishō 2).
I am a Child of the Sun.
Though I plunge into whatever abyssal depths, never shall I cease yearning for that blazing orb of majesty suspended in air—that great sphere of sacred flame.
The farther I stray from it, the more profoundly I feel this attachment’s depth.
When measured against the time I wrote this collection’s final piece Sun Worship, I cannot deny my present self—barren of new works—has sunk into yet deeper adversity. Yet I harbor no doubt that within the fiery future kindled here, I shall become something extraordinary.
Behold what sword-points shall spring forth from this place! Witness what cries shall burst forth!

I cannot begin to fathom how many people there are whom I could never thank enough for bringing me this far.
And now, among them, I conclude this preface with gratitude to my elder brother who labored tremendously in bringing this work to publication, and to Mr.Kimura Shota and Mr.Kimura Shohachi, who encouraged me and bestowed me with strength.
My love will come to be understood.
My love will come to be understood.
Behold, my fervent love!

February 28

Fukushi Kojiro

Weight

This is the problem of one who has lost the entire world and gained his own soul.

Aasaa Simmons

"The Symbolist Movement in Literature"

Meiji 42 (1909) Work

White Quiver —November

Radiance in Midair

The avenue's treetops sharpened.

Awakened light rested at the corners of buildings.

[It] embraced a dream of vivid radiance.

The air of the decayed Western-style mansion

The hollow sound—the farther it receded...

In the grove of friction

Faintly rests

The aura of walls trembling with daylight thoughts

Ah, upon the crumbling wall

The drift of sunlight

Radiant yet agonizing,

Monochrome tremor

The sharpness of a sneer—

A color mocking ruined fantasies

Cast forth its bare chest

Its collapse!

Remnant!

Glittering across undulating light

The winter day passes unsparingly

A faint tremor ripples through.

Weight —November

The rain falls—

The dark night ceaselessly

Chaos... shattering—the sound of a dream

In the moment heavy eyelids open

Darkness creeps

Layers upon layers enveloped.

On the floor—the room’s interior—

A lamp stood on the desk.

Soundlessly...

From the weight’s base burned a flame,

pale and rasping as it surged—

Was that midnight’s voice?

The deeply sleeping sick woman’s...

Or perhaps slackened eyelids?

Soundlessly… from the weight's base
The flame burns
The flame wearied by illusion
Waning yet flaring up

………………………
Weakly grazing the edge
Flaring up…
I dream again

Within it
Endlessly, the soul—
Stumbling lost in desert rain

Fallen Leaves —November

The tormenting surge of overwhelming emotion

The aura of rain and dim gloom—

Drops dislodged from the eaves—

Ceasing only to swell again

Unending points…points

At the end of a dark day's life

A fragment of endless lament

As tear-drenched lips tremble

The singing voice ceases and sinks—

On the water

In the unbreakable thread of life

The door of darkness in chaotically falling sleet

Today again

Before the sealed furnace

Scattered, chased by the wind.

Prison and old age have ended!

From the Window ――November

The wing of a blue bird that forgot death

Soft light circles the glass window

The glimmering forest's amber sun

Smiling at traces of fallen intuition

When I sniff the desk's scent and strike lightly

Birds in the trees rustling wings!

With fierce joy they forage swiftly

Turn aside your beak—I implore you

Greedy sleepers boring through trunks!

A warm soft hymn of hibernation

Even the mythic giant fallen from sky

Would they behold this tender joy?
Circle, circle, winged swarm—
Through transparent wings' lingering fragrance...
The air glimmers like aged blossoms
Humming a ditty as smoke ascends and drifts

To Poe —November

Leavemy loneliness unbroken!

“Raven”—E.A. Poe

The dense forest’s pure white glimmer

The more I walked through the forest's fallen leaves—
Midday thoughts circled and lingered...
I searched for meaning in each step and character
When finding eyes within scattering leaves' shadows
The clear November sky—
I contemplated an emotional serenity surpassing even that

Alas, this poem too was embraced here
While passing through solemn faded graves
A life that had swirled like a storm—
With cold eyes we shot back—we!

The Raven trembled its wings at 'Nevermore'—
Winter day's tears seeping into stone
We who lagged behind your fevered passion—
The sound of wind crossing clear snow!

………………………

……In vain, we froze completely!

From these quivering lips—

"With a pistol

Pierce through this brain,"

the final poem of you who said

To seal...

Memory and Silence

O God, Thou hast wounded my love.

Paul Verlaine’s “Wisdom”

Created in Meiji 43 (1910)

Southern Coast —January

Treading on sunlight, treading on wax-colored flowers

Shore

Sand dunes

Green sea

Over the sound of scattering sunlight...

Melting and closing eyes

(Light and waves...)

Hazy white

Sailboats and seabirds

……………

By the wavering light, waves were woven
Lines became weight, flowed, and crumbled together
(Thick light and waves...)
Surfaced only to drown while smearing hot color
The horizontally flowing oil of sunlight
(The cloyingly sweet frolic of mating season—)
Water dashed its chest against the rock.
Stretching and shrinking seaweed—
(Light and waves licking and vying with each other, melting together…)
Seaweed washed ashore on the shore
(In the heat of the sun swaying gently
In hidden flames,

Before they burned completely, swaying gently as they burned!)

A swirling stench groaned

O swarm of sticky flies!

(Soaking the rock, swelling in sandy ground

Thick light and waves...)

Innocent desires piled up

Crumbling and overflowing—the southern coast

Memory —January

Through the outskirts town without streetlamps

I walk with a dark heart...

From a corner——

The shadow-light floats in the depths.

Along the darkening creek, the motionless dimness of houses

There are bridges here and there.

The defoliated tree-lined avenue's

treetops overlapping in an unbroken line

Lingering sighs like aged decay

With a dark heart, I merely walk…

Restless Silence —April

Teeming warm sunlight

The paving stones breathed

In dust like pollen

Silent passersby moved busily

And passed by each other heatedly

From windows hung flower decorations

The red shadows of crowds treading paving stones

A faded yet fragrant morning scent

Enveloped like birch-colored ketto

At times the tram's roar startled as it rushed past

Warm dry gray windows

Warm dry gray windows fixed their gaze toward the sounding direction

The crowd walked with dance-like steps
With red, sweat-beaded faces,
It drifted chaotically between patches of sunlight and shadow.
Yet weakly clear,
Dust-filled sky
Crowded among the various hats of the throng
A warm stimulus swelled.
Pale whitish light —August 10
Dim the candle.
A deep shadow fell.
Beneath the flame
The shadow continued to touch my fingers.
Beneath the wall

A delicate phantom sleeps.

I walked through rooms since that day,
While reading faltering thoughts,
I walked through the dark corridor while sleeping.

That troubled slumber

Traces of fingers
I was drawn onward into hollow windows
A moment's pale whiteness
Winter —September 25
of unadorned life
Town’s street lamp—
Smiling while wiping tears, the town’s street lamp—
The willow-like sleet poured down
Ceaselessly, the paving stones coughed
The passing figures were driven downward
A fading single streak of water’s light
In a certain street lamp’s oil reservoir, gray waves of
Dim light…
Thus came the muttering night.

Against the chilly touch of the wall,
The oil flame resembled an estuary gas lamp.
The willow-like sleet poured down,
Trembled against the estuary’s waves.
The thin-glass belly of the caretaker
Clung to silver shadows.

Sabbath evening —November 18

The melancholy of an old candle's flame smoldering dimly

Ah, alas! The melancholy of nuns' chorus.

In the Sabbath evening's fading light, the ashen silver tarnish was felt profoundly.

The weeping sound of bells faded away

The dim twilight through snowfalling windows

Kindle flames for memories of days gone by

The storm passed through treetops, opening the forest's bosom

Dissolving tears in repentance's pit

Let this funeral night pass.

The bell rang with the wind by the dim-lit window's edge.

"Come dusk, come dusk"—the nuns' dark forest chorus

Courtesan —November 18

In the street of votive lamps through countless nights

Melancholy moon dahlias bloom

Raw eyes drink phosphorescent blue light

Snug in the scarlet undergarment of her chemise,
the buried chin's loneliness and sorrow—

Though the gas lamp glows,

The parlor's dream clouds dimly in the distance.

In tears dissolved in white powder—the gas mantle’s pallid weariness, the weariness of brothel life.

The moon dahlia sucking sleeping breath from red lips

The moon dahlia sucking sleeping breath from red lips

Laborers in Edo-machi,

The melancholy of the moon dahlia

Soul

Gregers: “If what you say is true and what I say is a lie, then life isn’t worth living.”

Relling: Nonsense! Life becomes perfectly comfortable once we've driven off that damn debt collector—you know, the one called 'idealistic demands' that's always tormenting us paupers.

Gregers: (staring straight ahead) In that regard, I feel glad—when I consider what my fate truly is.

Relling: Rude—what do you mean by "your fate"?

Gregers: (about to leave) The thirteenth seat at the table.

Relling: “Hmph. Nonsense.”

*Henrik Ibsen’s The Wild Duck*

Meiji 45 – Taishō 1 (1912)

Soul —January 25

(When I meet great difficulties, my chest dances...

Alas, my heart—

Buddha’s fire sealing joy—
An effigy of ash that burned but never opened, the lock upon my chest—
Chains linked suffering endlessly, chains hanging dimly
In the eerie mystery of unseen spirits
The cry was a bird in agony’s shadow…)

(Without ever opening my chest to joy—
“But I am grateful you obtained Poe for me and were pleased to do so!
The shadowed bird is *The Raven*, you know.”

Gooho had a soul that contemplated quietly to the very depths!
Poe held a demon that sank to the very depths!

Ah, is there no one—that brother who opens his chest to melancholy down to the very depths—
Not shouting, not lamenting, falling brother!)

To S-- Who Gave Me Poe's Tales

Musician —January 25

The forest grows branches thick enough to cast shadows, the leaves breathe—

The small bird sends my shadow darting beneath the sun.

Ants in its chiaroscuro, tracing white delusions amid the grass’s fragrance—
They drift half-asleep through visions of sparrows’ eggs as hard gleaming castles.
In waking reality they chase sharp silk dreams about,
The world is darkness—and light—fingers race across the keyboard…

Hallucinatory Moonlit Night —January 25

There shone the luminous lunar realm

In blue tree shade lingered a listless light

At the threshold of crossing over—the sole thing that cried out was the wind-whipped forest's branches

Death stood solitary

Silence of—

The moon sprawled vast and blue like some great cat

Night howled through the wind-tossed wood

Ghost —February 8

In the hollow heart

The pale blue spark burns stealthily

As if drawn into the snowlight
The timid wolf proceeds

The endless swamp darkens beneath ice

The throbbing shadow figure
Wanders through eternal lament

The time will come when even this spark extinguishes

The endless swamp becomes a cathedral of specters' coffins

Ice Temple—

Sinking into bottomless waters

FANTASIA —February

At the ship’s hull—

Across the old bridge where geta teeth clattered

Now in waking reality pillowed on waves—

Monotonously the blind person thought

The thin-rimmed silver watch’s tick-tock and

Grieved over the bilge water

The life of fish in the water’s depths was appetite’s

appetite sought the soul—

Gravestone —February

Upon shallow earthworms' lifeless corpses
Cherry fruits ripened.

In a drab world struck funeral clappers—
Drunken wives struck clappers—

Crimson pearl of lewd hearts—sound of kisses
I yearn for death

Shrill throbs the moonlit crow's beak—one night dawned this awakened heart
Drunk yet sobered by leaf-shaded water

I sold tears moment by moment
Illusory clappers and kiss-sounds ringing through ears

In daytime dreams let them flow past—
The starving infant's cry

Whenever remembered strained ears—
Footsteps footsteps

Night Before the Flood REVERIE —June 13

Ⅰ

The alarm bell rang ominously.

The eternal night air threaded silent darkness through its intervals.

The sleeping birds under the eaves cooed sorrowfully and trembled the air.

The river mouth, street corners, factory roofs—all swirled in lonely drowsiness,

I had drifted into sleep unaware of when, and now suddenly awakened again.

A candle burned, flickering a distant silver past.

Sodden grief led my shadow deeper into bewilderment.

When the hushed rustling of leaves faded into the air,

After that hush, the rain-laden air spilled and stirred from the window.

The storm, leaving all memories behind, seemed to have died in the immemorial past.

From the rain gutter came the intermittent plink plink of falling water.

That was the endlessly ceaseless falling lonely resonance.

From the skylight, the dim light of rainy air mingled softly.

That was a bottomless mirror casting tearful eyes.

The white spread expanded in the depths of half-sleep.

The pallid mirror gazed at the room of sorrow.

It seemed to protect the soul of this night.

Ah, even as I slept, let the candle’s flame keep flickering.

In the hushed rustling of leaves, my thoughts wandered unconscious, ceaselessly circling the deep abyss.

Ah, even as I slept, let the flame keep flickering onto the mirror.

As my thoughts vanished into the hushed rustling of leaves, my dream sank pale eyes downward.

Ⅱ

The storm turned the world into quiet tears and memories.

In the depths of my sleep,

An overflowing river flowed away.

My soul was chilled and soaked

In the sound of water, the wind cried

Open up its soul,

The rustling of leaves swayed in the air.

For me, that rustling whisper of leaves remained ungraspable.

The glimmers of darkness falling into my chest had no end.

The dense treetops soaked in water trembled bodily.

The wind that faded away while sobbing had no end.

Ⅲ

My memories had sunk white bait fish before I knew it.
I groped through blindness, walking between dream and reality.
While the rain’s footsteps faded yet chilled my skin from some unknown tree, suddenly a crimson coral mermaid submerged her azure belly into water.
The mirror became once more eternal darkness.
The reminiscence of old age heaved a sigh.
And the candle's flame flickered.

That must be a voiceless fish spanning millennia.

The box of sorrow compelled senility's regrets and obsessions to choke the chest,

a death-mask visage caught between weeping and laughter.

On long sleepless nights, it flickered reflections into the mirror.

A soundless mirror in the hollow of misty rain.

That mirror, blurring three bars, dimly teared up toward the ceiling.

In the half-asleep room, the candle flickered.
Amidst the distant water sounds, the melancholy of rustling leaves, and the millennia-old silence fading into the air,
a silvery shadow faintly stirred on the wall.

Somewhere, a mouse gnawing on hard bread hid in silk curtains and sobbed.
In some greenhouse, campanula and hollyhocks and palms swayed their heads.
All time wove pallid histories while being swept through rain.
The halted clock’s pendulum
sank into eternal depths.

My life flows like a barrel through a cold hollow.

Before Departure ――June 27

The low sky dimly reflected the city lights.

Under the pale moon, a light rain began to fall.

The night train's bell resounded.

The shouts of the crowd began to stir all at once.

Ah, where am I going?

The crowd trailed out through the ticket gate.

I woke suddenly from a faint dizziness.

I left the bench.

Ah, where am I going?

All alone wilted and dejected walks Platform.

The chained grief remains forever unloosed.

All alone wilted and dejected walks Platform.

The maiden’s chest that does not flutter in the crowd

That chest resides within my sick and weakened chest.

That sorrow is like a pendulum marking time.

Helplessly and weakly like a pendulum marking time.

Whenever I remember, I ring the bell.

That recollection resides within my sick and weakened chest.

Ah, where are you now?

An incandescent lamp sighs in pale lavender.

Where is your smiling face?

Cerulean Platform swarming with human figures

In precarious life

Sighs endure

To one who exists not in this world

Lips tremble

Lonely and all alone—where do I go?

Under the pale moon, a light rain began to fall.
A faintly bright night sky.
Lonely and all alone—where do I go?

A Lifetime ――June 30

Blind Man One and Blind Woman Two―sad life was born between them.

Opened the fourth door,

Sat upon the fifth chair,

Lit the sixth lamp,

Whipped the seventh woman’s corpse.

And then, at the eighth strike, his strength drained away dejectedly.

He raised a hand of sad supplication to God.

His body became purely light as if floating upward.

The jet-black brocade curtain lowered the ninth secret.

The moonlit night seemingly illuminated by dreams hazes pale blue within.

The stars hang uncertainly in the sky.

When he made the tenth sigh,

The antiquated memory fell utterly silent.

When he lit the eleventh flame,

Moonlight shook the hazy firelight.

Behind the twelfth marble statue

Before me lies a life-transfused old man fallen face down.

The snow-white withered rose
Suffused half-remembered memories with its fragrance as it went.
In the thirteenth sky

A coffin floated like a nebula.
The sorrows of a lifetime—regrets, griefs, and reminiscences—
There they hid and gnashed their teeth.
They lamented elusive chains
I raised the fourteenth hand of supplication.

After Partaking of the Fruit of Wisdom ――July 24

If I walk beneath the chestnut tree

In the deep fallen leaves

Your sighs

My sighs

The voice of a mountain dove whose whereabouts cannot be known

Trembles like the lone black leaf remaining on the treetop.

The desolately howling orchard guard dog

The sudden, sharp report of a repeating rifle’s discharge

From the distant mountain range, not a single cloud stirred.

Even the rustling of distant pale green wheat fields

The sun shone sorrowfully and still.

At this unbearable moment, your dark shadow—

Like a crow soaring through the sky, fell into my chest.

Like handcuffs, like a hoop,

Heavily, with painfully labored breathing, embraced my chest.

Ah, must we once again repent?

Like that dog howling in the distance
Must we howl at sin and torment?
In the orchard of the desolate hour
The white daylight palely quivered.
In the depths of that chilly grove
The dog was barking sorrowfully.

Mr. Ponkan the Blacksmith ――July

The pear blossoms had bloomed pure white, yet
today too fell the mingled snow and rain again.
Muddy water rushed headlong into the blacksmith’s trough,
while the stark-naked willow wantonly drenched its tender green leaves.
The son here was Ponkan-san—
to the clangorous weeping of the striker’s hammer
I wanted to taste the season’s first strawberries—
when he struck the iron anvil,
when he struck with hands scorching hot—
“Ah, if this be a dream, let me wake!”
Ponkan-san...
What fills this world—
the cloistered son’s widowed existence—
like the needle-tip of a clock’s hand—

The fragile-minded maiden's existence

In the comings and goings of cold and heat through these years
My chest was naught but the creases of withered flowers.
My chest was nothing but a rootless hunger out of season.

The Orphan Girl Holding a Fan ――July

Within the fan, the orphan

Closes white vacant eyes.

In convalescent gloom,

The dazzling red evening sun shines.

In the wind, poppy seedlings sway unsteadily.

As though parents half-remembered exist somewhere in the heart—

Here and there, sparkling clear water gushes forth.

Ah, Director-san—strict as Paul and gentle as Peter

On the day I first came here,
I was like a bird flying towards that Lord Sun.
Yet come nightfall, I’d be haunted by nightmares,
would start crying,
I would see dreams of unknown foreign lands,
I would cower in dark corridors…

Letter to All Friends ――November

Awakening is itself a birth.

It is one new soul's life.

I do not have many, but to those friends who were deeply intimate in their varied closeness, I want to say this.

When I now think of you all—and you—I only sink deeper into this endlessly deep swamp of debt.

And to think I’m only now bringing that up—

The things I have done are every form of blasphemy.

It is a blasphemy against human hearts.

Ah, I have thus pointlessly desecrated every pure and noble land until now.

Now, at last, I will speak from my own soul.

I was once a beggar.
I was a fraud.
I was a thief.
And I was painfully pale and sullen,
I was a perverse specter.
If you resent having been deceived by that,

I beseech you all to hate me with all your might.

I have no memory of deceiving people,

but that I had not yet been born—

I bear the sin of having believed myself born.

Thus I desecrated.

I desecrated human hearts.

When will I ever repay this debt?

This sin committed against people

can never be wiped away in a lifetime.

Within me, a soul of grievous profundity

today awakens.

A foundationless yet firm step has been taken.

I kick away the dead husk of all that has been.

It is the moment I raise a birth-cry from my heart.

The perverse specter transfigured,

Burning with crimson-scorched eyes, I issue commands.

It is I who owe life a debt.

I squirm within the womb's shadow.

It is I who am the true terrifying debt demon.

In life's depths that debt lies concealed.

Abandoned debts left unreclaimed.

There existed a formidable debt I had never known until now.

First, I will set fire to the forest
and drive out a mass of beasts.
I shake off the agonizing demon from myself
and claw my way up from myself into flesh.
I will listen to the deep sobbing voice.
This is indeed fierce life.
Is there a life more true than this within me?
This is indeed the unstoppable birth of a soul.
It is no longer blasphemy.
The sorrowful, anxious lamp's flame flickers ceaselessly.
Jewels sparkle in myriad hues, resplendent.
In the dimness, myriad lonely tears are deciphered.

My heart is always singular.
I listen intently to the strange death-throe sobs.
My heart is always singular.

The oil flame in the dish flickered ceaselessly.

This was indeed the voice I raised.

It was the birth cry clawing upward.

The soul grew ever more sorrowful the more it awakened.

A certain verdict reached my ears.

"I am the terrifying debt demon."

Jumbled shadows were cast upon the surrounding walls.

Shadows with disordered footsteps and no sound trod through the town.

A pale white flame ceaselessly flickered from the oil dish through that space.

I listened intently to the sobs of death throes.

"Ah, I am the terrifying debt demon."

Genesis——November

“Woman, your sins are forgiven” —The Gospel of Matthew

I breathe different air.
I feel different power.
I myself am now grass.
A new genesis.

Pounding and pounding—
And breaking through—
Tearing through—

We want to seize the soul ahead on our path.
At the edge of a boundless world
We utter true birth cries
We want to somersault eyes brimming with primal force

Distant Homeland ――November

The clock once more traced black dotted lines

It continued on and on

My dream drifted aimlessly

Silently gazing at the sky,

I wandered through that long low-lying town

From between the ridges of shop roofs,

A cold sea-colored sky

Formed a single line and peered through

The avenue of trees had before one knew it

Completely shed their leaves

Spread their jet-black desolate branches in all directions

I sighed through every corner of my heart

And from the white winter sky where even the sun's whereabouts were unknown

I inhaled distant distant air

I inhaled distant, distant air that permeates every limb.

Winter Dusk ――November

The wind sweeping through does not cease.

In the dark dusk at the edge of town.

Gas gushes out.

Over the parched suburban lawn, mist begins to drift.

From the second floor of a certain solitary house
the piano's melody began to dance with liquid resonance.
The dusk's cold that seeped into the streets!
O piano tones that pierce to the core!
I began making preparations for a winter journey where black forests abound,
I started contemplating my winter voyage provisions.

PROMENADE. ――November 25th

I was now holding back the waves.
At the bottom of those waves lay submerged a town of pale bluish lamplight.
I walked alone now
beneath willow trees along the path.
The uneven yielding paved path -
to the extent a tone danced through my chest -
the rustling willow branches fading from corner to corner of my heart,
like night wind stroking my excited face.
Only my bustling footsteps grew dim,
parting into pale bluish glass lamplight then back into darkness.
My trembling empty hands -
already gripping that soft hand tight -
had captured that heart resoundingly.

Friendship ――November

While smoking Golden Bat,
I recalled the warehouse district at dusk.

I recalled the warehouse district at dusk.
Crimson-edged and gilded broken clouds
The sky was ablaze with light.
A cluster of rooftop moss, stained the same hue, glistened.

The warehouses along the river stood lined in a row,
The canal water had sunk deep.
That water never flowed,
Never stagnated,
Baring its breast openly,
Casting a chill lament.
For two months after that,
I lashed my heart with mortal intensity.
Amidst the assailing raw chill,
I ceaselessly crafted dreams of ice.
The bird in the shadows flapped its wings,
I crafted painful prison dreams.
Now at last my flesh
Was afflicted with malignant fever.
Never parting from my skin, the flesh of another—
I ceaselessly trembled with longing.

The ceaselessly clawing-up voice weeping with longing
I pressed my ear to skin and listened.
There existed true love there.
It never flows.
It never stagnates.
baring its breast openly,
There was love where malignant heats touched each other.

Child of the Sun ――December 12

Ⅰ

I might never be able to call this beautiful in my lifetime.
The things I love—I might end up unable to say I love them.
The things I should be grateful for—I might end up unable to say I’m grateful for them.
And so my life might end.

Ⅱ

Ah, but I saw it, I saw!
The beautiful light in the sky
Ah! Birth! A birth cry!
Stones stir.
Trees utter words.
The death-masked moon blushes crimson
Becoming sun becoming sun
My eyes grow wide and round.

Birds sing.
The tree speaks.
It dispels the darkness.
The world renews itself.

Ⅲ

Ah, behold!

Light swelled steadily; power mounted inexorably.

Swaying as it ascended,

Teetering on the brink of falling yet never falling,

The sun climbed through the sky,

Gradually quickening its breath,

Gathering momentum as it rose.

Ⅳ

Ah, within this lies my beloved child!
Ah, within this lies my beloved child!
What do you stare at so intently?
What do you cower from in fear?
Nature forever churns in motion.
Nature endlessly flows onward.
Yet there dwells the true him.
You must not weep against its tide.
Bare your tear-streaked face and march onward.
Advance even through sorrow's weeping.
Transform dread to delight and make your heart dance!
Press onward while loving nature profoundly, profoundly.

Press onward with ever-increasing courage!
You are a child of the sun.
Even when winter comes, never cower.
Science is a fine thing; civilization is a fine thing.
Nature remains ever generous,
always sharing cheerfully.
Nature cherishes humankind,
impartially sharing with all and sundry.
Never boast of conquering nature or such nonsense!
Through such words does humanity fall into corruption!
I bite my own tongue!
For ages unending have I dwelled within this terrifying dream.

I am tracing through sad and painful places.

Ⅴ

My beloved child,
Child of the Sun, solitary one,
Humanity has all fallen into corruption,
Sinking roots of dark lament into the earth,
And spreading their branches and leaves ever higher.
They live twisted and contorted to the core,
Tormented by terrifying dreams,
Striking the bell of hell.

Ⅵ

It takes that much love to quench the darkness.

That much pure water of love must gush forth.

The dark inferno must be purified.

The faster it emerges, the better.

The more violently it bursts forth, the better.

That harsh blazing light—extinguish it!

With your power, from your very life—

Radiate a fierce white light!

Ⅶ

That is the power of Life.

That is the power of your love.

Shine boundlessly no matter how far you go

The world is never dark.
It is simply that people's light is insufficient.
You are a Child of the Sun.
You are a Child of Nature.
And a Child of Civilization.
You are the child Nature wants to raise as its own flesh and blood.
You are a hidden child.

To Those Who Love Nature

Nature gives strength without end.

So profound that tasting cannot exhaust its flavor

It gives deep life.

Feel true power.

Shed true tears

Reach the very depths of truth

Live by true life.

Beyond that, I have nothing more to say to you.

Silence.

Silence.

Sun Worship

O coming poets, O coming orators!

Walt Whitman

Taishō 2 Works

Bohemian's Song – July 8

The storm has passed

The flood had passed.

All that flowed was the river's muddy water.

The willow trees on the embankment
Are dripping clear drops.

Sand murmured squelch squelch with each step.

The great river sloshed and flowed, soaking up to the base of the embankment,

Sloshing against both banks, soaking them,

The great river flowed.

O flock of swallows flying high in this sky!

O flock of swallows heading to who knows where!

When I saw you all, I felt an intimate yearning.

When I heard the sound of their chitter-chatter mingling as they went,

I can't help but burst into laughter.

I am a Bohemian.

But there is love rooted in life's depths.

The endless horizon is my love.

The waves crumble white with the remnants of yesterday’s storm.

The waves at the river mouth are

The reed thickets in that deserted area,

A joyful place where beloved ones sleep.

I find a dwelling place there.

O river mouth!
May you become an endlessly stretching sand plain!
O sea visible beyond!
Become an endlessly vast, ceaseless turbulence!
In that unseen realm ahead,
I skipped forward with little dancing steps
Along storm-swept embankments untrodden by any soul
Drowning in the demurely alluring scenery
To resonant sloshes ringing clear—

Listening to the sound of water

Storm – July 19

No one felt

This Bohemian’s heart

While feeling an exquisite hunger,

I walk on.

In the raging dawn storm

I feel tears.

Because the surrounding forest rages madly.

Because it roars without heed

Because it was being blown wildly from west and east.

I was this tearful power

Feeling it to the brim,

I walked onward.

While feeling an exquisite hunger,

I walked on.

A Song Dedicated to the Woman I Make My Own – July 21

I am in love with you.
I don't know why.
I feel drawn to you.
You are a fool.

You are blind.

But you have a pure soul.

You yourself don't realize it.

Thus you shall perish.

Not nurturing what should be more fully alive,

Like grass around a grave

The flower will someday wilt.

The stem hardens

Like an old woman's breasts

You will bear hardened fruit and meet your end.

I despise you thus.

From this beautiful soul visible to my eye,

I foresee the entirety of your future life.

And thereby I ponder the two paths of this irreplaceable life.

My love thus forbids you to live in want.

I crave more things that must blaze.

I dwell so deeply within your melting flesh

Burning with carnal love.

To you who thus move me

I feel a primal tug.

Though I know not your heart—

You pour profundity into me.

Every act of mine bears your seal.

There is a branding iron.

Because we spent these years back to back,

You likely don't realize how deeply you've permeated me,

Where else could such depth exist?

Could I endure burying this carelessly?

The world lies thus flattened.

In the vast plain, a single sun
glowing white in isolation.
That alone existed.
There was no sound.
My heart that longed for you
could not endure such silence.
Even when I slept, the blood in my body circulated.
Even were I to die, that blood would stagnate.
All was blood.
I could not bear this blood's utter inaction.
The blood went on and on and on
spasmodically coursing through the vessels.
Collide collide collide endlessly
it coursed onward.
Ah, this blood! This blood!

O purest of pure things
I hurl myself against you
I intend to make this blood love's fertilizer
Ah the golden cross lurking in my chest
Thus within your breast clarity takes form

Ah, I feel the cross.

It dwells within your chest.

Gathering a thousand beautiful children's souls,

the subtle light and breath that nurture them with your breast milk—

They live within your chest.

Where exists one who perceives you so profoundly?

Though you scour the three realms,

Where finds saint such insight as this?

Tremble before divine wrath!

O you—

Obey humanity's deep roots

Obey primordial humankind's roots

From primal humans to those yet unborn—

Drink deep this groundwater rooted in mankind's core

Thus are you blessed

All your knotted hearts grow damp

And thus may draw deep from nature's beauty to discern its essence.

Ah, I who should grasp your hand—
I who will capture your heart—
I wish only with your fingertips
Grasp the soul of your entire being
I wish to enter the deepest depths of your heart
And thus I smile.
A smile of unfathomable depth

I thus enter into every fiber of your being,
Touching the soul within your solitary seed,
Shall merge myself into your primal unity.
The vital force of life-seeds I create
Is sown within your bashfully radiant flesh.

For the first time, scent, sound, and color—
A flower of soaring cadence is born.
Ah, be shy!
Be shy!
Stay far from this burning fire of my love!
Detest and fear that towering flame tinged with soot even more!
I—when you return to your innocent heart and sleep—
I grasp you with utmost naturalness
Without a shred of hesitation or trepidation,
I will show you as the jewel in my hand
I will create that fate before my very eyes and show it.
Until then, I shall keep you entrusted as belonging to others.

I shall keep you entrusted with those of now.

Even until then, my sensing heart—

Will never fail to open your inner depths.

I shall surely grasp those depths and make them mine.

Though in my heart I think so,

Gradually I grow stout.

I stretch ever onward.

While tenaciously sensing the human soul,

I will carry out a man's work.

Ah, LOVE—August 9th
Ah, LOVE—

You—
You constrict me
It's an agonizing hoop.
An agonizing band.
You dwell among people now.
You've become ingrained to their core.
Even so, I—
My thoughts of you never cease.
You know I love you, don't you?
But you'll never grasp this suffering.
This feeling lies beyond your reach.
You think time has erased it—
Yet my Love remains unextinguished.
Then I charge through void's expanse.
Such is will's torment.

And I am stretching out my hand,
stretching out and trying to grasp the daytime star.
Ah, where is that star shining?
All that meets the eye is an endless stretch of white sky -
A sky of utter blankness.
Your shadow is nowhere
in this vague expanse.

hurling my entire body into it,
I relentlessly produce all that I can produce.

Producing, producing, I fling forth creation relentlessly.

You—

You must temporarily become another's possession.

I temporarily grieve over that fate,

but

I do not yield in the slightest.

In the process of putting forth all that I can produce,

I will seize you someday

I will make you my possession.

And I will transform you into a beautiful being.

Only by becoming mine can you truly live as a woman.

Just be young.

Oh you—

If you grow old, it ends.

Be young, be young.

If you lower your guard even slightly in this life,

you’ll be made to age at once.

That alone proves how truly flawed this existence is.

And humans are weak.

I remain ever young.

My resistance to corruption stands strong.

With relentless youthful force, transform those poisons

into vigorous life-filled essences—

reshape them all.

Ah, stay young!

Stay young.

To the Laborers – August 9

On your behalf—this song

I hurl

You all at the foundation—

like driving stakes into

On your behalf—this song

I hurl

Ah, labor!

Labor!

Everything strains taut,

slackens

To this strength-drained life

The power to breathe soul resides in your arms.

Ah, sing!

Rejoice!

Our mission—

You all—we—

We strike this earth with pickaxes

What lies beneath this vastness none can say

flat and ordinary

great planar bedrock

dig out from there

refine

The mission to create good things lies with us.

We are such noble beings.
Our nobility lies in being bare-handed.
It is to keep forging good things with our bare hands, relentlessly.
What is that good thing?
It is to create cities.
It is to create a great metropolis where power moves dynamically.

White, radiant smoke; countless smokestacks filling the sky with steam.

Morning clouds

We create a metropolis of great factories,

dynamic and

efficient in its power,

We create a metropolis of grand symphony and thunderous resonance.

This glorious mission

This magnificent mission belongs solely to us and you all.

I am always fantasizing about such things.

And I believe this fantasy belongs to all people.

I believe it is a truly poignant and inescapable fantasy.

Ah, strive!

My friends,
My brothers,
Labor joyfully with all your might!
No humans are as noble as you all and we.
Should we perish, the world would plunge into darkness.
Only leaf-devouring caterpillars would remain.
Give thanks for this noble mission of ours.
Ah, my steadfast and honest brothers!
Stride forth across this great planar bedrock.
March proudly, swinging your arms wide!

Song of Voyage —August 10

O martyrs,
Martyrs,
I swam, not knowing how,
swimming.
I was cast into the sea.
Flailing my arms and thrashing my legs,
I struggled.
I was an infant.
I could not even match a single seagull.
Afraid of dying, I just kept flailing about,
keeping my body afloat.
O you who exert your strength,
Those who exert strength,
I had somehow come to be able to swim over time.

Before long, I found a log drifting with the current.
I swam relying on it.
I encountered many people like myself and shook hands with them.
They were fellow castaways like me.
They all had come through similar ordeals.
We joined forces and built a raft.
We gathered the logs each had brought and built a raft.
Then we set our oars against the eternal tide.

We hoisted the sail.

Though the waves were rough,
even if it was a tempest,
we sang a song of going to the farthest reaches we could reach.
O vanquished ones!
O vanquished ones!
We saw many drowning people in the distance.
We had no choice but to pass them by.
Before our eyes there always existed a great enemy -
a scorching wind that did nothing but pant, billowing through the air,
Great Whirlwind -
O enemy who knew not where you emerged from nor where you went,
we would fight on against it.
We would advance over the undulating waves from mountain to mountain.

O eyeless, earless iceberg
O tide that eternally flees showing your back!
We press through a world of wordless terror,
leaning ever forward into the void.
O vanquished ones!
Wretchedness!
O you sinking into fathomless waves!
Though our hearts rebel at abandoning you to press onward—
before us looms a terrible foe.
Dragged backward by clinging attachments still—
we lean forward into the void's advance.
Ah! The weak—those who falter—we must cast them off forever!
To scatter through realms where meeting comes nevermore!

O those who have managed to climb onto the raft, may you ascend!
We set our oars,
We hoist the sail
Turn the rudder!
That helmsman’s role—we, the few, will take it on.
Our sidelight is but a single one,
Our sidelight is affixed to the bow.
Our sidelight's radiance is dim,
Our sidelight lights the path ahead.
The oil in the oil jar is our tears.
Deep tears.
Is illuminating the darkness of night.
Thus we press on against the wind that blows ever fiercer through eternity.
Where the darkness will settle remains unknown,

Thus we pressed on.

Ah, shaken and tossed with no moment's rest

Upon our raft

O stars shining through endless nights

O storm raging without cease

O great waves swirling in your vortex!

O your roaring voice!

Night yielded to day.

The fury never abated.

Ah, behold within that maelstrom!

O Sun

O heat that fills and swells my blood!

A brazen disc ablaze in the sky,

O scorching wind blowing beneath it,

A scorching wind that withers all living things away

At times hail pelts,

Blizzard raging and scattering

Icebergs adrift

The black funeral bird cries out.

O Arctic

Ah, my raft journeys on through this maelstrom.

Ah, my raft journeys on through this maelstrom.

Those on land knew not.
Those far off, each drowning apart—they knew not.
Those unseen knew not—yet
Ah, my raft journeyed on through this maelstrom.
Ah, my raft journeyed on through this maelstrom.
Feeling the burgeoning power of struggle,
Heave-ho! Heave-ho! Heave-ho! we pressed onward,
Someday we would freely navigate this rebellious ocean,
All storms,
Heat

Cast off all misery

Frozen bonds, slumber, death—cast them all aside.
A single ship of extraordinary intensity,
Feeling the power to create.

Sun Worship ― August 11th

Ah, O sun!
I love you
You are alone,
You transcend all things
loving all things
You are perpetually solitary
You ceaselessly rotate
You expand and contract
And you advance onward
Infinitely being born and infinitely running onward

Your orbital path

Empty though you are,
You in that place of nothingness,
Run as though it were real.
You do not dangle in vain.
Ceaselessly from within,
From the core,
Spinning round and round, releasing power, you surge onward indeed.

Ah, radiating dazzling light,
Traversing through void after void,
O You,
Undaunted,
Giving without reserve,
Burning ever onward,
O Great Voyager,
You are alone,
And yet love all people.
Ever at creation's vanguard,
Into every dark shadow,
You cast your light forward.

Ah, you alone are solitary.
You exist in pure solitude.
I worship you,
Pioneering destiny before all things,
Always alone,
You know no bounds,
O you,
You know no end to your path.

O you,
Ah, dwelling within such fate,
Undaunted, unspent, ceaselessly advancing you—

O unrelenting you,

O you who blaze forth from within, from within, in all your entirety!

Unaided by any support,

Floating through air by your emitted power,

O you who advance into infinity,

When I think of you,

Strength wells up.

Storm rages,

Rain falls relentlessly,

Yet even when sunk in misery's depths,

Strength wells up.

Thus I worship you.

I feel your power suffusing above the storm.

I feel power to battle through this storm and advance.

I feel power that shall overwhelm this storm and advance.

Ah, leading all things,
O you who ever advance ahead without grasping at anything,
You who spring onward without deeming solitude solitude,
O solitary you,
O you who become light from within and radiate through every fiber,
I worship you and praise you,
I will cut down all that dares obstruct the love between you and me,
I stride over,
I advance toward you.

Ah, all you people!
Ah, you many brothers with soul!
Worship him!
Praise him!
Let us advance together, joining our strength!
Worship him!
Praise him!
Let us trample through all hardships and sufferings and advance!
Cut off all hindrances—
the true form of the great Him
and the totality—
Let us advance hand in hand to where we can live together!

I am the Child of the Sun ― August 11
I am the Child of the Sun.
I am the Child of the Sun not yet fully aflame.
Now the fuse has been lit.
I am beginning to smolder.

Ah, this smoke turns to flame

I am ceaselessly assailed by these vivid, radiant illusions.

A blazing plain of white radiance.
The radiant heart of an illuminated metropolis.
A mountain range where pure white snow glows bashfully upon its peaks.

I am assailed by these illusions,
Now I am smoldering.
I am spewing black, suffocating, heavy smoke.
Ah, world where light exists!
Ah, luminous sky!

Ah, luminous humanity!
O you who are all eyes,
O you carved whole from ivory,
O wise and hale people overflowing with strength!
Though I first cried out in dark waters—a sodden, suffocating place—

I am the Child of the Sun.
I am the Child of the Sun who ceaselessly yearns to burn.

Ah, my vague dreams — August 16
Ah, nature that awakened my vague dreams!
O nature that breathed life into me!
O you who were my pilot,
Now you have vanished from sight,

leaving me alone

Now I take the helm.
I hoist the sails.
I grab the coal-tossing shovel.

I ceaselessly dream of you while
The voice you cried out
The voice I once cried out
Once more intent on crying out, I set sail upon the sea.

Song of Yearning for Light ― August 16

I am dark.

I am poor.

I am damp.

I am utterly alone.

I have reached a dead end.

I could not bear to look even for a moment.

I seek brightness

To seek wisdom

Thus it was that I existed.

From the heart lurking in the depths of all that

Now I have cried out.

Thus, I shall never cease seeking light.

I am the Child of Light.

A Song Dedicated to Japan's Literary Figures ― August 16

Ⅰ

The term "poet-novelist" is truly a detestable one.

And you are far too much like poet-novelists.

I shake hands with you all as fellow human beings.

I am idling through daily life.

I am a lump of wood.

This lump of wood harbors an absurdly grand hope.

If that is acceptable, I will shake hands with you all at any time.

Ⅱ

I am a stubborn mule.

I possess nothing particularly new or anything at all.

I am a stubborn mule of angular bones.

I want to make that stubborn mule into the world’s greatest saint.

This is the absurdly grand hope of mine that I just proclaimed.

I want very much to become a saint.

I may be your hated one now,

I may be your despised one now,

I want to become the world's greatest saint in the end.

Ah, because I am a stubborn mule,
Because everything goes awry,

I possess the qualifications to become such a saint.

In that regard, I am now the one most prone to lag behind others, but later I will become the most advanced human.

Or rather, all difficult things shall come to me and unravel.

The Imperfection of Life

Stumbling

Disaster

Injury

Things Stretched Thin Toward Teetering Collapse

Perishing

Withered Vine

Limp Things

All were instilled with certain life

Sensing vibrant life

Gaining resilience

Thriving through upheaval's rebound

The world had until then been dominated by dark things.

Shakespeare's Hamlet, Macbeth, Othello, Romeo and Juliet

Wordsworth, Edgar Poe, Verlaine

Arthur Rimbaud who from darkness revealed the shimmer of beautiful jewels
The bewitching Jean Moréas
The dead-ended, agonizing Flaubert
The maddened Maupassant
Garshin
Andreyev, Chekhov, Sologub
The devil's celebrant, Baudelaire of the death-mask
Hedda, Hjalmar, Gregers, Oswald, the pain and misery of real life where tears refuse to fall.
Breaking through the shell of darkness that you all have so thoroughly enveloped,

It was we who opened our eyes to radiance.

A child bursting through earth’s crust,

A child leaping forth,

A luminous child ceaselessly yearning for dawn’s glow,

Thus do I become creation’s supreme saint,

The infant devouring sunlight’s plenitude,

He stood revealed as Child of Sun,

And thus did he grow.

Thus does this stubborn self absorb the most light,
and become a saint.

Ⅲ

A self such as this rejects every last one of your creations; because you all love rootless darkness, because I do not thrust myself forward more emphatically, because you cling to fixed notions, because even after all this time it’s the same Reflexion. Each of you fixates on what you most desire—because you do not throw yourselves into it with fervor, because your fervor is shallow.

That’s why they remain eternally distant from me. Even if I wish to see them now, we remain eternally apart.

No moment comes when hands clasp.

Even when grasped, no strength flows in.

We remain eternally apart.

I do not mind being alone in the slightest.

Isolation is something I am prepared for.

There are few people who love others and desire to be with them as much as I do,

There are few people as prone to distance themselves from others as I am.

But I am always clasping hands with all people.

I like people.

I clasp hands with them behind our backs.

They may not think so, but we are clasping hands.

For now, that is all I can do.

Because I cannot do otherwise, I want to step into the light and clasp hands openly.

I drag what's buried in darkness into the light.

And I am a child of light who can lay them bare—beautifully and powerfully.

But what I do now glares harshly,

It may be detestable, but

Like neurotic patients detesting brightness,

The things I do may be detested, but

I will press on with radical treatment, regardless.

I will charge forth recklessly.

I will press on ruthlessly and mercilessly.

Whether people gather or collapse, I will press on without concern and carry through with everything.

Do not think I have come to bring peace to the earth.

It is to make people turn against their fathers, women against their mothers, and brides against their mothers-in-law.

It is for this sake.

That is why I am always utterly alone—

I will never surrender—

Through not making you all friends, I will never surrender.

My friends emerge from roadside fishermen, delinquent youths, and drifters.

They come to follow me of their own accord.
They shall become eternal humans.

“O you all!”
Though I am the same human as you all,
I must despise you all in this manner.
I must ignore you all.

The great difference between myself and you all is
I shall make the stone that craftsmen discarded into the cornerstone of the house.
I shall bring forth the lamp of truth from beneath the bushel.

I shall remove all obstacles and lay bare its light.
I shall mercilessly shatter the house built on sand.
I shall build a new house from rock.
Therefore, I shall part forever with you all who do not even know what kind of house it is.

I myself do not know what manner of house this shall be,

The surrounding castle walls stand massive and unyielding,

It is my hope to make them harder than chalkstone, more lustrous than burnished copper.

I do not know the roof,

I do not know the bell tower,

Though I do not know the spire,

The foundation work lies partially completed.

It flows like water,

Yet stands stronger than concrete.

The pillars may sway,

But let steel frames test against them—their very cores would snap and crumble.

Ah, a castle!

A castle.

A white unyielding beautiful castle.

Like a worm burrowing into this castle's foundation,

I live profoundly.

To intensify fragility that would crumble if pressed

I dig a hole.

And into it pack something containing eternal life.

Though small as dust,

Though scattering if blown,

something with strength matching Atlas bearing Earth,

something that draws straight from the world's center without deviation

That is where I place it.
Thus strength exists.
There exists a strength that shall never wane.

IV

I wanted you all to consider this.

Divers laboring on the seabed to raise a sunken ship.

They held hammers as they fitted planks into the vessel's breach,
drove in rivets,
thereby severing the water's passage between interior and exterior,
pumped out the flooded compartments,
and floated the ship up to the water's surface.

Ah! Thus did the ship emerge into daylight's bright realm—unforeseen.

Their rivet-driving hands,
though those breach-plugging hands moved slow and clumsy—

Unable to endure this sluggishness and ineptitude,
If any should feel anger rising,
Become divers together with me!
Let all such people across the world become divers!
Abandon your lofty perches and empty chatter—seize the hammer!

Become laborers!
Know that each single rivet I drive with my hand hastens the ship's surfacing by even an instant.
Though at this very moment we do not comprehend how or in what manner it will surface,
Know that what I do constitutes why the ship surfaces.
Ah, become sailors!

All people

Life that had lain on the ocean floor for thousands of years

Wrestled in darkness, wept and grieved,

Suffered in vain

Life that was being buried from darkness to darkness

Thus now it waits for humanity's power to surface upon an unknowable sea

Under blue skies brimming with light

It yearns for human hands that would make it leap

Ⅴ

I am now gripping this hammer and toiling.

I want to become a saint.

The striking hammer is continuously struck, never missing its mark.

I want to become a saint.

Striking forever without ever growing weary.

I want to become a saint.

I am again boring a hole in his stone.

I want to become a hard-headed, strong-toothed insect.

To the insect that never ceases voracious devouring

I want to thus devour and destroy all things.

And I want to keep emitting powerful things.

I want to become such a saint.

To the saint who carries on undaunted by a mountain of labor

Ah, I am an earthworm.

I am the world's largest earthworm.

This very earthworm now advances toward this very hope.

Ah, for the sake of love hidden in the depths

For the sake of life weeping secretly in the depths

For the sake of abandoned souls

To the world's most backward parts

I am thrusting one foot into.

Song of the Selfish One — August 16

I was called a crybug as a child,
I was a child who rarely cried.
Even when people died, I never cried.
Just when I once realized I was too much of a fool,
I forgot everything and wept.
My voice and tears erupted all at once.
That was around the age of twenty.

If I had not known the taste of tears at that time,
I would have passed my whole life never truly learning to weep.
The more I collide with wickedness, the more strength surges forth.
The more defeats accumulate, the more strength surges forth.
I am that child ceaselessly pursuing just this light.
I am light's child ceaselessly giving chase.
Stumble—and straightaway rise.
Then stand upright again and press onward.
There may be moments when tears pool in these eyes.
Yet I cannot indulge in weeping.
An impatient spirit who won't wallow an instant longer in such mires.

Let those who call me cold-hearted do as they will.

Fire on the mountaintop — September

O Fire on the Mountaintop

O Erupting Asama

O Gray Storm

O Mountain Forest that bends the treetops as if flowing

O Ceaselessly Flowing Voice

You ceaselessly erupt.

You roar

You flash lightning.

When I suddenly stopped at the crossroads of Tokyo's quiet streets
When the streetcars departed in all directions
I sighed as I thought of you
I yearned
Ah where does such fierce power reside in you?
Erupt!
You!
People walked through the streets
At the tobacco shop's storefront three or four people had gathered
O erupt!
You!
O gray storm blow forth!
O I extol the storm!
The city roofs under the great thunderstorm
I liked how they lay quietly blue
I loved how light glinted from darkness

O cowering humans!
O humans holding your breath!

An invisible force
It looms before our eyes.

Like a great tide surging through the darkness,

It was baring itself in broad daylight.

O sky!

White with dust.

Within this, a storm lurked.

An eruption lurked.

The secrets of the entire world remain perpetually concealed.

I strode grandly down that broad avenue.

I walked with heavy, thudding steps.

And I felt a song quivering up from the depths of my being.

I felt a vigorous yet truly subtle song.

Ah, beyond the plains — September 1st

Ah, beyond the plains
The night had not yet broken.
Stars murmured in the mist.
Water vapor coldly moistened the undergrowth.
My life was drenched yet never thirsted
My battle flag drooped over my shoulder.
The trumpet continued its midnight dreaming
The soldiers slept like grass rising and falling in the gloom.
In the midst of this, my soul awakened
I saw the enemy formed into a line.
I gazed at the distant sleeping horizon's edge.
Amidst the rustling leaves, I awakened alone.
There was one eye that remained eternally awake.

It sees the enemy.
In the midst of sleeping allies and enemies,
Alone I awaken and see it.

Song of White Maggots ――October 2nd

“Je suis le fils de cette race

Dont les cerveauxplusque les dents

Sont solides etsont ardents

Etsont voraces.

Je suis lefils de cette race

Tenace,

Qui veut, après avoir voulu,

“Encore, encore etencore plus.”

“Ma race.”――Verhaelen.

Ah, no matter how

No matter what.

You are life's maggots.

What white maggots you are!

A head harder than gleaming steel helmets,

Two jutting teeth that crush all things.

Ah, you are the very one who—

You shine beneath the beautiful sun,

You lay bare under heaven's light,

You transform the world's spectacle.

I am a child of battle born for that purpose.
I am a child of valiant struggle, born with such a strong head and protruding teeth to seize my prey.

Song of Men ――November 17th

When people across the world wore pained expressions,

An intense sense of shame arose within me.

I could not remain like this

I could not remain like this

Nietzsche compared the Übermensch to ordinary people

He laughed at ordinary people as monkeys

When I saw all humanity looking like monkeys

An intense sense of shame arises.

I cannot remain like this
I cannot remain like this.
I was supposed to be born human.
I was certainly supposed to be born as a human.
Whether it be me, you, or him
Oh, even him—