Pathway to Japanese Literature

A Landscape of Mourning

When one turns to look behind,

A parent.

Behind a parent is that parent’s parent.

Behind that parent’s parent is yet another parent’s parent,

Parents’ parents’ parents—nothing but,

stretching into the depths of antiquity.

Looking ahead,

Ahead was a child.

Ahead of a child was that child.

Ahead of that child’s child was that child’s child’s child, as if to say,

Child’s child’s child’s child’s child—nothing but,

as if disappearing into the far reaches of the sky

stretched toward the far reaches of the future.

In such a landscape

the divine baton lay fallen.

A blood-stained Earth lay fallen.

The world was manifold.

People were eating rice.

A beast sharing my name—

the beast called Baku

was said to eat dreams.

Sheep ate paper as well.

Bedbugs came to suck blood.

And among people—

there were people who came to eat others and people who went out to eat others.

Then again, in Ryukyu—

there was a tree called the *umā* tree.

As a tree, it lacked grace, but it was a poet-like tree,

always standing in graveyards,

where it would come and break down weeping.

It was said to grow through sorrowful voices and tears.

There was also a peculiar tree called the *umā* tree.

Tatami mat

On the tatami mat where there had been nothing,

Various things appeared.

As if the many-formed characters of this world

calling out poetry at the top of their voices

as if they had appeared on blank paper

Raising voices strained to the point of bleeding,

Calling and calling for married life.

I who had taken on the role appeared.

A woman who had become a wife appeared.

A paulownia wardrobe appeared.

A kettle and

a brazier and

A mirror stand appeared.

A pot and

Tableware

They appeared.

Charcoal.

I went to the charcoal shop to buy charcoal.

The old charcoal seller said there was no charcoal.
When I said, “Even a little is fine—please give me some,”

"If there were any, I'd give it to you—but there's none at all," he said.

However, in reality—freshly emerged from within the charcoal—

black limbs and

a black face.

Even if that weren't the case, that was beside the point,

Even if I tried to find some way—

He said there was nothing to be done.

He's a hopeless old man.

As if to obstruct winter itself,
he did nothing but repeat “no” over and over,
planting himself squarely in the path of the era.

black limbs and

A black face.

Memories

That beard like withered grass.
That twisted way of life.
When I think about it, this poem closely resembles me.
Vagrant that I was:
bookstore packer;
vagrant that I was:
brazier attendant;
vagrant that I was:
moxibustion practitioner;
vagrant that I was:
sewage worker—
mocking the nose of this world
and muddying its heart—
poetry
endured day after day.

When I think about it, this poem closely resembles me.
Eventually, where had it managed to find this from?
Poetry has come to encompass married life.

Ah,
When I think about it, there are poems that resemble me through and through.
Like aching grains of rice glimmering then vanishing with each mouthful,
On poetry’s lips they glimmer then vanish.

O wife born in Ibaraki,

O husband born in Okinawa,

Marriage

When poetry sees me,

Poetry kept singing “Marriage, marriage.”

Thinking back, when it came to me back then—

I had come to intensely want to get married.

So to speak,

When drenched by rain,
When blown by the wind,
Even if there were various circumstances in this world—times when I wanted to die and so on—

When I was present there,
I could not forget about marriage.
Poetry was always vibrant,

It came clinging to everywhere I was,
Poetry kept crying “Marriage, marriage”.

I finally got married, but
Poetry has stopped singing altogether.
Now there’s something different from poetry—
sometimes clawing at my chest,
squatting behind the chest of drawers,

Money...
I burst into tears over money.

Tomobiki Day

After all, it's my marriage.

Did I get married? Did I not?

Did I get married? Did I not?

Nodding "Is that so? Is that so?" while—

There were eyes that had bloomed like sunflowers.

After all, it's my marriage.

Did the dowry come plentifully?

There were also thick lips that had opened there.

After all—it’s my marriage.

When it finally came to not being able to eat—did I marry intending to leave then?

There is now a face that has come to peer in.

After all, it's my marriage.

They say you can eat as long as a woman clings close by—or so went the saying.

There were also those who turned away and sniffed.

After all, it's my marriage.

Did it bloom through feast and famine?

Bloomed wildly here and there

Clamor clamor clamor clamor

Clamorous...
They are this world’s blossoms of needless dread.
God Who Dreams

If I were to be reborn—
A novelist who kept saying he wanted to become a sculptor.
If I were to be reborn—
A love that would even masquerade as genitalia

If I were to be reborn—

a stomach that says it wants to become rice

If I were to be reborn—

Become the Nazis or become the Soviets—which will it be?—that Spain.

If I were to be reborn—
What I become is my own business, but—
If I were to be reborn, is it my own choice what I become?
Having gnawed through a corner of some era, a culture unknown to God appeared:
golden Soviets,
golden Nazis,
golden rice,
golden sculptor,
golden genitalia.

Ah

When did these civilizations ever—

Did they invent a new body mechanism capable of rebirth?

God trembled with nostalgia and rose up.
He propped his cheek on his hand atop the Earth.
Countless assumptions fluttered about.
Countless machines crawled and slithered around, throbbing with the sound of blood.

Upbound Train

If this becomes so then it must become so—things like that.

If this becomes so then it inevitably follows—that’s how it went.

If it doesn’t become like this then this is a lie—things like that.

The older brother was still as argumentative as ever,
As if the past were right there.
He had been a nostalgically argumentative brother.
The argumentative one kept calling out repeatedly.

Saburō

The argumentative one was calling Saburō.

I had forgotten, year after year, that I was Saburō.

Before I knew it, the argumentative one was at it again—

Baku

He was calling Baku.

I felt as if there were two of me.

When called Baku, I would become a poet

When called Saburō, I became a younger brother.
The journey shed its nostalgia thereabouts,
wrapped itself in snow's mottled pattern,
and was eventually jostled back along the path it had come from.

Bullet marks

In one room on the second floor of an apartment,
in the shadows, there was a woman—a single creature of her kind.

Her owner was a high-nosed gentleman with an ashen complexion, his glasses and ring gleaming.

The high-nosed gentleman came from Kabutochō.

His day was

carrying night to that house over there,
he brought daytime into this second floor and kept the woman subdued all day long.
Their room remained merely a room while the two were there.
In broad daylight, they locked the door and kept up appearances.
Greengrocer calling!
Whenever they came
Rice seller calling!

Whenever they came, he would unlock it.

Each time he unlocked it, he stuck his nose out only to immediately pull it back in and lock it again.

It was quite an absurd room, though.

One day when he had been keeping up appearances,

Outside, the smell of gunpowder was causing a commotion.

The high-nosed gentleman unlocked the door and went out to look, but soon left as he was.

Before long, sounds arose in the room and scrambled about the place.

A smoldering century and

a smoldering sky.

Mr. Hanataka isn’t coming back.

A sorrowful apartment jutted up there.

A solitary hole gaped open in the apartment’s flank.
Dishes and furoshiki bundles spilled through it.
A chest of drawers and a woman protruded from its maw.

On Paper

When war reared up,

like a bird taking flight—

Hinomaru wings spread wide, and from there they all took flight.

A single poet was on paper.

Whenever he looked up at the flock of Hinomaru flying by,

Da-da—

“Da-da,” he shouted.

Underdeveloped short legs, a sunken stomach, a head that wouldn’t lift.

Gazing at the flock of chirping weapons,

Da-da—

“Da-da,” he shouted.

Da-da—

He shouted “Da-da,” but—

When would he ever be able to say “war”?

Cumbersome body

Faltering ideology.

It's as if I'm in a desert.

Scratching a throat parched for ink, I writhe upon hot sand.

That one large, lisping creature.

Da-da

shouting "Da-da" and then

Gazing at the flock of weapons taking flight

Whenever he looks up at the flock of Hinomaru flying by

Da-da

"Da-da," he is shouting.

Fair Weather

When I asked what your father’s business was,

She said, “He takes them along.”

“I was thinking he might be a Mr. Police Officer when—”

“He takes them along, but my dad isn’t a laborer,” she said.

He took them along but wasn’t a laborer.

"So he wasn't even a police officer?"
When I asked what on earth his business really was,
she said he took many laborers along.
But her father was standing beside the railway tracks,
the work the laborers did—
"He was just watching," she said.
When I said he must be their supervisor,

“Writhing in distress,” she said.
“You went and told my dad—”
“To get me work.”
When she stayed quiet,

"Talk," he said, snatching away the conversation that was about to take place. Immediately, she confronted him.

Since jobs were things one would naturally always want, my stomach stayed perpetually empty—
A woman like a man
This business of making someone into a lover or something—it was the first time since I was born.
“What the hell are you?” I’d yell at you,
“It’s about you—what the hell?” I’d say,
“What the hell—for a woman!” then—
“For a bum like you, what the hell?” she shot back.

Rags lie sleeping.

Stray dogs, stray cats, old clogs and their ilk—

Alternating and replacing each other

depths of night

From the midday sky, fluttering down,

Rags lie sleeping.

depths of night

The more one looked, the more they spread and flattened out,
embracing the Earth.

Rags lie sleeping.

The snore gleamed.

Clamorous light

Blinding snore

Eventually eyes opened all around.

Pebbles, paper scraps, cigarette butts—
even the gentlemen of gods and buddhas rose up.

Rags lie sleeping: depths of night

The sky filled with flowers of this transient world.

White flowers consisting only of large rice grains

Katō Kiyomasa

Spurting blood

And lo, the Year of the Tiger arrived.

To speak of tigers—

Rather than recalling Ueno Zoo, tiger skins, or even tigers themselves—

What first came to mind was that man: Katō Kiyomasa.

He, in those days,
through tiger hunting completely proved his manhood.

Ever since,
He carved out a niche in history,
There inscribed his own name.
He would venture wherever tigers roamed and lead a life etched in history.
He acted as though he were the tigers' zookeeper,
He always stood by the cage with a look of anticipation,
Bestowing vigor upon the tigers and such, he was beloved by the boys.

Now, this happened this year.

That day, I was also at the zoo.

I was peering through the gaps between the boys’ heads, mesmerized by the hulking civilizations of flesh tumbling about there.

Eventually, when the boys withdrew,

There stood none other than that Katō Kiyomasa.

He tapped my shoulder, pressed his palm against his own crown, then deliberately parted his lips.

"I’m finished," he declared.

“This year, the tigers have become a problem,” he said.

This was, unexpectedly, a phrase that broke free from his mannerism and carried an even loftier historical resonance.

Even so,

But even so, I thought:

From the distant reaches of history—having journeyed all this way out of longing for himself and longing for tigers, even to this zoo—did the visage of our times finally cast its reflection upon this antiquated figure?

When confronted by tigers,

Katō Kiyomasa was troubled,

"That would trouble the tiger-hunting boys," I said. Then he looked around and let out a mournful cry.

As if summoning the past, he called out the names of unfamiliar tigers.

Sutarin

Mussorīni

Hittorā

At that moment,

Inside the cage,

They narrowed their eyes, only their ear holes remaining open.

The Nose’s Conclusion

One day
I saw the nose in restless turmoil.
The nose kept expanding and contracting its wings, tormented by the back-and-forth breathing.
The breath was fevered.
The nasal walls ached from their back-and-forth motion.
The nose finally flared up in fury.
Its gestures and expressions grew more violent, sniffing loudly as if sounding a cold.

I took a break from poetry.
I blew my nose over and over again.
As I spent my days observing the state of my nose, day broke.

Ah

Though it was a nose meant for breathing, every time it caught a cold and disturbed the surrounding civilization, there it kicked up a divine presence.

The nose was covered in blood.
In the center of the face, it persisted stubbornly.

Another day
I lamented civilization.
No matter how much of a poet a poet may be—one who still cannot live without eating—

It was an uncultured civilization.

So even someone like me wasn't merely a poet but also doubled as a night soil collector.

Day after day, I bathed in excrement.
In days past too, I drenched in excrement.

Poetry gazed at the days of excrement and sweated like rising heat haze.

Ah

Even in such filthy living, this human called I thrashed about, surviving—

In Soviet Russia too,

In Nazi Germany too,

and even up to tanks, the Kamikaze-go, and André Gide
Everywhere in civilization, humans were floundering,
It was already too late to say it stank.
The nose adopted a plausibly dignified bearing.
Cloaked in the tradition of physiology
Once again, it had risen up in the center of the face.
samurai class
Is back-and-forth all you’re good for?

It had just left—or so it should have—
when it comes wearing its seasonal face.
If that face belonged to spring or summer, I might endure it—
but this winter I loathe so fiercely I’d strip a season from the year—
comes munching leaves, glaring my way all the while.

Winter crossed Ryōgoku Bridge and came.
Its coming alone would still have been tolerable, but...

It came flailing its hands,
testicle-shaking,
completely naked.
Nakedness was still tolerable.
That glutton—

What’s with that seasonal face it’s putting on as it comes?

First,

This was a vacant room in the Ryōgoku Building.

Occasionally when I ate there would be a meal; occasionally when I looked there would be a dream.

From one

up to ten

Borrowed things only—
wrists and ankles that had long forgotten blood’s stain, this neck and such—
they existed yes but were mine.

Cat
Was kicked and sent flying,

soared into the sky,
surpassing people,
surpassing treetops,
surpassing even the moon,
even reaching the seat of God,
a light-bodied beast that never falls,
disregarded all notions of height from its very roots,
and landed on earth to walk on four legs.

Moving

Rather than writing poetry, they say to first eat your meals.

That’s how the world works.

It doesn’t suit my nature—this having devoured everything.

Whether I received food and ate it or snatched it and ate it, it all comes down to having devoured everything.

Tell me to die all you want—far from dying, I’ve wasted even dying itself by devouring it; that’s how it stands here.

Here lies the reality I’ve just devoured.

In this present moment where I've finally devoured Mr. Satō of Ryōgoku—who should have been shining like a grain of rice in the hollowed-out, exposed depths of reality—there's nothing left.

The land was exactly as you saw it.

Even when I tried to eat, nothing remained—telegraph poles and trash cans stood like accusations, leaving this hollowed-out expanse.

This needed no saying.

If hunger comes for rice, eat rice. When rice ends, eat hunger. When hunger palls—naturally.

Behold me.

The one moving is me.

Even as it pales yet wears a human face—while dragging this flesh that devours the world—to live as long as stones and history and time and space is what I am.

Behold the weather.

That’s what the weather is about.

Behold the sea.
Land’s neighbor is the sea.
I sit by the sea and eat.

While pinching off and eating that living boatman on the deck, I occasionally bared my large mouth toward the society of the sea.

“O fish”

“Don’t be startled.”

Even though this unusual visitor was so corpulent,
In the age of land, it was famous—the so-called poem that had become inedible, you know.

Speculation

Aircraft clawing their way up science’s highest peaks

Ships ripping through the sea’s belly

Creatures called humans who claim to live

Yet—

Aren’t there any humans who just keep living? I wondered

The moment I think they’re alive and watch—they shrivel up and die before my eyes

Aren’t there ships that sail on forever?

No sooner do they depart than they come crawling back to port

Aren’t there planes that never stop flying?

Machines you think might touch heaven—only to plummet back down

As if—
Like a moth cowering from the wind,
Bathing in gold dust,
It folds its wings.
Retreating into its torso,
Trembling violently—
Is this what passes for civilization? All these things that might be called civilized, floundering about without a moment to dream or yearn, not even time to tend to rice or breathe?

Ah,

Such uncultured civilizations were swarming all too real.
They all sadly grew old and shabby,
bathing in the sweltering divine breath,
clinging solely to Earth's scalp.

Intent

If this were a hypothetical tale—this me,

If I had come because I wanted to see your household’s daughter—
“Auntie—you—what would you say?”
If, because of that, I were to come all the way—

“If you were to say that I come to Hatagaoka—”

“What further would you say?”

If this were a hypothetical tale—this story—

“If a hypothetical tale were merely hypothetical.”

“If it were true—Auntie, you—what would you say?”

That girl who bloomed beautifully

The girl who bloomed so beautifully

Without facing reality, would I be leisurely drinking tea like this?

Reunion

While declaring I’d quit being a poet, here I was writing nothing but poetry—as if to say...

Had it finally come?

Unemployment came.
Then heartbreak arrived.
What was sent was just a kiss—where had it disappeared to?—as if the woman’s figure had vanished.

Then came yet another.
Had it come again—this address unknown?
The season—what a season.

This was autumn.

A full assembly of vintage figures.

Each and every one wore a grand face as if it were all temporary, but...

Had they come believing themselves to be the me of old?

Surrounding me,

unfortunate wretches—laughing as if happy.

Zabuton.

On the earth there was a floor.

On the floor there was a tatami mat.

On the tatami mat lay the zabuton cushion, and atop that sat what they called the raku.

Could there be nothing atop the raku?

Being urged—“Please have a seat”—

The loneliness of sitting on the raku!
As if gazing down from afar upon the world of earth,
a world I can’t get used to living in is so lonely.

Umbrella

Is that person beautiful like that every day?

I thought so—and with that, I took another step forward.

Does that person have a husband?

At that moment, I saw.

A sky clouding over.

“But friend—even if the sky clouds over, don’t mind it. Even if it turns to rain, don’t start crying.”

Even I intend to live as a man—so if you're a man who intends to live, you should do so all the more—cheer up!

But to that person,

Who was it that introduced me?

Mathematics

As I sat down thinking it was a cheap eatery, the young man beside me turned this way. The young man offered me sake and said:

“Are you an anarchist?”

“Who knows!”
As soon as I said that,

“Are you a communist?”

“Who knows!”
“When I said that,”

“What now?”

What is this?!
When I said that,

I turned away.

Is this young man also human?!
As if even I must be something—even if you ask me “What is it?”—since I was already born.

It’s me.

If you think it’s a lie,

Go ahead and see.

Since it's me, give me food.

Since it's me, give me life.

Since it's me, I'm moving about saying "Give me, give me!"—can't you see that?!
Because I'm moving here,
Can't you see I'm living as if my whole existence revolves solely around the moment I eat?!

Because I’m alive.

Can’t you see this me facing the earth as if food gets stuck in my throat whenever I reflect?!

If even then the human says it’s a lie,

“Young man—”

“Go on, try considering it.”

“Even if I say it’s because I’m me, I don’t have the time to die just to prove I’m me.”

Even if I say it's me,

If you say it's a lie,
Think of it as god.
Have done with it.
While I devour humanity
In that brief moment where the Earth exists—

My poetry

Looking at my poetry,

The woman said.

“You seem terribly fond of this Earth.”

“So I am.”

When gazing at my poetry,

As many as five or six Earths come tumbling down.

And thus to the woman,

I said

“Even if the world can make do with one Earth,

“With just one Earth,”

My world is too vast.

Existence

We keep saying "I, I."

Is that "I" me?

Am I that "I"?

If I am me—if I am me—then am I even me?

The me that is me—

Am I a me who can only be me?

In my mind, that is—

The likes of me—

If you ask me, it'll just get tedious.

For that is what it is.

I’m someone who’d be obvious if you just looked, but—

To see me—even that—

Another revolution.

I felt like ordering someone to patrol society's perimeter.

The self that failed to consume

What have I failed to eat?!
I have devoured my parents and siblings.

I have devoured the woman.
They have swallowed me whole.
Since I’m someone who wants to live anyway, I’ll survive no matter what I devour—
No matter what I devour, is it never enough?

Now I turn my back to the sky.
I live in the physical world.
I gnaw at the mud-caked Earth.
If even devouring the Earth isn’t enough, then at that time—
I taste things like wind and years.
I intend to remain alone in the universe.

The cause of mannerism

The child’s parents

If they are to bear children, they must do so with full resolve—

a contrived mechanism that delivers a single declarative statement: “We will bear children!”

The parents' children
If one didn't want to be born,
a contrived mechanism that conveyed a single opinion as if to say, "No, thank you."
Such contrived mechanisms were lacking upon the Earth.

Upon closer inspection,

The area with its airplanes and Marxist arrangements was certainly ostentatious, but...
It reeked of human culture.
The lack of restraint—
Because intercourse hadn’t become a contrived mechanism letting words pass between parent and child,
the Earth remained mired in stagnation.

There, you see?
Since they are born, they live;
Since they live, they give birth;

Inorganic matter.

I think—
That the two of them kissed.

In a way that says, “Would you give me your daughter?”
I want to propose a marriage arrangement, I say—
as if the woman were retorting, “For a vagrant like you...”
Yet I keep thinking
about this desire to stop being a vagrant

I want to arrange the marriage proposal and have it settled, then immediately be on my way—
I say I want to manage a normal life somehow, but—
"Then you’ll become a laughingstock," as if the woman had said.
However—am I thinking again?

Anyway, this fact that I want to at least get the marriage proposal settled—

That's why I say even after talking this much you still don't grasp my heart—

as if the woman had said "Goodbye"

During all that time being in love

I had no idea.

This me being astonished by every reality,

Music

Even though they tell me not to engage with that,
Because I engage with it,
They’ll have no time left to speak to me.
"So they probably say it’s because I fell for that," but...
That’s why they come to hate someone like you.
So there you go—they’re probably saying it’s because you fell for that, but...

Whenever it rains,

Rain falls.

Whenever I speak, what falls is

Nothing but that man’s words.

So I resolve to say no more and try keeping my mouth shut, but—
The harder I strain, the more sounds come pressing in.
What sounds?
Even if someone burns with jealousy, this essential self of mine—
Things may well be love—yet all I hear rings with that truth alone.

“Conversation”

“What about your homeland?”
“What about your homeland?” the woman said.

Well—where exactly was my homeland? In any case, I lit a cigarette—but that country of mine, steeped in associations of tattoos and snakeskin lutes, sporting customs like some patterned design!

All the way south.

“What did all the way south even mean?”
the woman said.

That place—just shy of the southern tip of the Japanese archipelago all the way south—steeped in that melancholy bearing where women balance pigs on their heads or walk barefoot… that homeland of mine!

The South

“The South—what was that?”
“The South—what was that?” the woman said.

The South was the South—that land of eternal summer dwelling in indigo-dark seas, where agave and coral trees and pandanus and papayas clung together swathed in white seasons! But was that my homeland—where society’s ready-made notions took root, arguing whether this wasn’t Japan at all or if Japanese could even be understood there!

*subtrops*

“*subtrops!*”
“*subtrops!*” she spat.

“This is the subtropics—my woman! Can’t you see the subtropics right before your eyes?!”
I thought Japanese like me—those who speak the language, born in the subtropics—were precisely us! But that homeland of mine—did society’s prejudices stare at it as if it were just synonyms for chieftains, “natives,” karate, awamori?!

That neighborhood directly under the equator—

Sunday

The tip of my nose was swollen pale red—was my blood impure?!
If my nose were to collapse, I thought I’d have no choice but to die—but I had a woman.

The woman was gazing at the scenery over there; she said she hated bearing children most of all, and that what she loved most was Western-style clothing—but I requested of her: “Even if my nose falls off, let’s walk together.”

However, the woman stopped.

I too had stopped—but was there only a nose towering here? A massive nose, swollen with sorrow, blocking the way there.

Ah.

What a Sunday this must be.

Already dusk had fallen.

On this side of the nose, the realm of love lights lingering attachments.

Greeting

“Goodbye,” I said.

“Where are you going back to tonight?” said the woman. I too, thinking *So I’m the one who’s going back, huh?*, stepped outdoors.

On either side of me glowed the flushed faces of the town that had just fallen asleep. The town’s slumbering breath rippled in circular waves at my footsteps, swaying. My feet walked across the open notebook of a police officer. They stumbled over a detective and staggered—even when tripping on a stone, they staggered all the same. As I rode my feet, a familiar wall approached. The entrance approached.

When my feet hesitated, I leaned my upper body over them and pressed my lips to the door’s crack.

“Sorry to trouble you, but could you put me up?”

Was it because the shout stood beyond Earth?!
Or because I carried an hour unbound by convention?!
Without needing to look or answer—as if it had already decided it was me—the door silently opened; the door silently closed.

Now then—had I really returned? I entered—ah, this room. I sat—this tatami mat. I lay down—this futon. I slept—this slumber. No matter where I looked, wasn't there not a single thing that was mine?

It was a certain morning.

“Good morning,” the woman said.

“Where did you come from?” someone said to me.

Could this truly be my lover? Here I was—summoning that night and this night, those countless silent dwellings I’d built upon this earth—turning to look back at all those friendships.

“I come from everywhere.”

Cape

“It’s not Misao,” the woman had said.

“It’s not ‘misao’ in hiragana either—you write it in katakana as ‘Misawo’,” the woman had said.

Was it me who rewrote the addressed name from Ms. Misao to Ms. Misawo?

Was it when just the two of us were warming ourselves by the brazier?

Hands touched hands, and there I was gazing at that love which had become like a cape jutting out there—or was it?

Or what was it again?

At twenty-seven already, with this bearded face,

I did hold the woman’s hand—but that was the end of it, wasn’t it?

toy

a round object remaining in the palm

breast-shaped

Round warmth.

And then there was another one.

"This is certainly mine."

On that skin

Pressed

Fingerprint.

First impression.

Her eyes were like those of a fish.

Her shoulders were slightly stiff. Her speech resembled a man’s by half. She herself remarked that her way of walking was like a man’s.

But listen, girl—
Even if she were a man, who cares?
Isn't the metallic ring of her character's tone just right?
Isn't there a sensual allure to her movements?
Thinking this way, feeling the weather against my skin, I returned.

I brace both hands behind me, supporting my torso.
I stretch out my legs on the sunny part of the veranda.
A fly lands on the instep.
Fly.
On the fly’s back, the girl’s face perches.

Stone.

Season after season passed by without stopping.

Thinking someone might come, I watched—

pretending as if they might come,

as if to say I was here instead.

At the street corner, there’s no one.

Covered in futility, I sit,
Is this really living? I wonder—and yet,
Season after season passes by without stopping.
As if I’ve lived too long—

Is it really me who’s always here whenever I look?
The reality I wear.

Looking back,

I have been a vagrant since those days.

Position of living
If they thought I was dead—
Were you alive? they'd say
If they even saw my face they'd say—but
The world judges so quickly.

Even though I live and live, I just won’t die—

If I die, that’s the end—even if the Earth crumbles.
To the extent that I wish to remain dead forever—
That, even while enduring long contemplation,
As long as I am breathing, I am alive.

Light.

“Not a penny,” he said.
“Even if you’re healthy now, I won’t lend to you anymore,” he said.
And so my thoughts—
I probably came here meaning to borrow.
When I borrow, I probably start acting like it’s something I’ve been given.

Once I receive something, I'll likely come back intending to borrow again.
And so my body -
From every angle, am I healthy?
As shame cloaks me, everything turns dazzling.
Even with eyelids shut tight, still it dazzles.

After the Dream

While eating rice, my eyes opened. Morning converged at the tip of my nose. The weight of my face flattened the grass. Last night’s discarded legs, hands, torso lay scattered. The earth where I slept had sunk under fatigue’s weight. Rake-like, I gathered these body parts into one place. After bundling myself together, I tried to rise but staggered. Each stagger shook me, and there morning began to unravel.

As if glimpsing this scene through a crack, I was eating rice—or so I thought to myself.

Tickled by dreams and entangled in physiological functions—within life itself, I was absent. As if I had died long ago, I wandered across the days and months.

“How have you been lately?”
“Ah, these days?!”
“Lately I’ve been famished again.”

“So lend it to me.”

“There isn’t any,” a voice said.

Because I ask too often—even if there were any, there probably aren’t.

I cast my eyes at the train atop the railroad overpass. The eyes catch on the tip of a telegraph pole. They fall onto the heads of passersby. This area’s gotten lively too, but—the eyes land back on me. Is it because they’re easy to eat? Here I am walking around, eating nothing but soft, emotion-like things.

Becoming like a deaf person, as I was reading the landscape I inhabited with my eyes, someone was tapping my shoulder.

"You'd gotten good at going hungry, hadn't you?"

Night.

I had rented a room.
I had told everyone to come visit me.
Everyone had said they would come eventually.
No matter how many days pass, will that “eventually” ever arrive?
I too end up thinking there couldn’t possibly be anyone coming to visit me.
Am I not human?
Has poverty molded humanity into becoming me?

Unable to perceive anything beyond gravity, am I living like kin to inanimate objects?

In the midnight when most lives were resting
As I felt myself,
I gazed at the sun shining from below.
I gazed at the inverted glow of the distant midday townscape.
I gazed at the round Earth.

Disintegration

One might say I have a habit of visiting people while associating them with food.

Though it's true, I am not a noble person.

When it comes to associating with me, the wisest course is not to associate at all.

Because I am subjective, I am more famished than anyone.

The appetite expressed on various dining tables sprouts as a passion like withered trees.

Blearily, my eyelids remain open.

My ideology seems to want to die.

My physique seems to want to live.

I am thrusting my face into the rain-soaked space of afternoon.

I thrust my body into the mud and stand there motionless.

It’s not that my ideology doesn’t require anything at all.

For women and morsels of rice, it’s a physique with a gaping maw.

Is it an idiot, an imbecile, a pervert—a withered physique not even worth the character for “cold”?

It is a physique in which every ounce of spirit has vanished and dried up like alcohol.

What am I supposed to say?

Will I become building materials too, alongside these pieces of lumber?
Standing at the summit of the Earth surrounded by blue sky
They are hand-me-downs.
Clothing, food, housing—they're all hand-me-downs.

They were quite the assortment of hand-me-downs someone had managed to scrape together.

By the way,

The thing called a wife isn't even a hand-me-down.

Wrapped in secondhand clothing, food, and shelter, even if I'd become like a bagworm,

The things I want—I too truly wanted them.

Straight through the ground, piercing toward Earth's core like a vertical line,

My posture was aimed at a lone woman.

I am seized by a gravitational passion.

Seized, my chest feels ready to burst, my limbs surge with strength—

Because I kept shouting “Wife! Wife!”, my lips tore off and went flying.

Were I to take a wife—

I want to grab my wife’s ankle and heave that lump of body weight onto my shoulder.

Alongside locomotives, trains, buildings, chimneys—the city’s frameworks—wiping sweat over and over, I want to make one full revolution through life.

Standing at the summit of the Earth encircled by blue sky,
in the blink of an eye I became a married man, moving with more speed and clarity than a soldier's decorum.

“This is my wife,” I ended up declaring.
With this entire body—I want to become fully a man.
What a lively life.

Because there was no one there,

Famished—I tried uttering the word aloud.
The rhythm of that voice resonated like breathing, which was amusing—
I lay down and laughed at the recollection.

However, I

Having mocked my earnest self, I pitied myself.

I flattered Daifuku-ya's shop boy with forced charm and ate daifuku.

Even if I—

Even if friends glared at me or drenched me in scorn—so long as there was a grain of rice to eat—it didn't matter if it came from the mayor or postmaster; I wanted to announce my full stomach to every "-director" bearing that title.

My mind buzzed with rice grains.

Where my head faced lay a nostalgia like overcast skies—so violently thick I wanted to declare it clear weather.

Even over there, around this time—
Growing thin from smoking and coughing—I suppose Father must be busy too.
Even my sister must be of age by now.
She must be preoccupied with thoughts about a young man's affairs.
Though separated by distance,

It was mutual.

Everyone’s lives were so lively.

A Letter to My Sister

What a sister she is.

"Big Brother will surely succeed," I believe—or something like that.

"Where in Tokyo is Big Brother now?" I wonder—or something like that.

Within that message I sent through someone else...

While sensing my sister’s eyes,

I, too, tried to write a letter for the first time in six or seven years.

This Big Brother—

Should I try to succeed, or should I just think about getting married instead?

Such things I cannot write.

In Tokyo, Big Brother wears a face like a dog’s, longing for something.

Such things I could not write.

Big Brother is of no fixed address.

Such things I increasingly cannot write.

I became unable to write anything realistic,
as if cornered—I had become completely unable to move.
With every ounce of my strength and desperate resolve,
MINAGENKIKA
is what I finally managed to write.

Tired Diary

Rainy weather

Sunny weather

Cloudy weather

Under most skies I had submerged myself,

perhaps because I walked the streets expecting to find something,

until I had become hunchbacked.

One day

I did not say it.

“Friend, shall we try to fully savor our hunger?”
Then it was that he said to me.
“Western clothes suit you,” he said.
“I also think so,” I answered.

When morning came,
I had awakened on a rock.
While drying my head, dampened by the sea breeze, in the sun—while thinking about hunger and filial piety—
Like a seabird,
As I turned my mouth toward the sea,

Beneath my chin, I heard the sound of the shore.

Untitled

Of course there was a reason—there had been—but putting that aside,

Since people seemed to have taken a dislike to me, I would obediently let myself be disliked.

Even while letting myself be disliked by them—and feeling somewhat ashamed because of it—

In the end, I resolved to go on living.

I became a stoker.

There were vise benches. There were iron pipes.

There were bellows; there was a Centon; there was a screw-cutting machine.

It was a workplace where weights were piled upon weights.

At last—was I truly going to live?!

When I heft an iron pipe, inside me there's a spine that crackles.
When I strain myself, tears flow.
Is it perhaps because I cut threads into iron pipes with the Viber?
As if the law of inertia lurked within my psyche,
I find myself wanting to cut threads into absolutely everything.
I find myself wanting to try carrying anything that catches my eye at least once.

Finally, have I ended up carrying even my own body weight?
I want to grab the night and pull it close.
I want to hurl my body weight into that sleep.

Night Scene

As for that vagrant's sleeping posture,
when I thought he was clinging to Earth itself—
my ankle began to ache.
I looked, and there hung the Earth.
In the manner of living

Whenever I grew tired from walking,

I crawled into the gap between night sky and land and slept.
I slept buried in grass.

I slept without regard for where I was.

I had slept—but
Had I truly slept at all?!
These days I can't sleep.
Even when I spread out earth, I can't sleep.
Beneath the night sky, I can't sleep.

When shaken awake, I can't sleep.
Is this way of living only meant for summer?!
Just when I think I've fallen asleep, the cold air mocks me awake.

In autumn, I can’t sleep remaining a vagrant.

The Gist

Even if told, "Be thorough!"

If I were to be thorough...

I don't want thoroughness as a vagrant.

Even if told, "I'm broke and desperate"—

I'm desperate without money.

Even if they plead they're worse off than me

If they're worse off than me,

That logic itself becomes the trouble.

In short, this man—

How far will he hound me?

If you keep staring at me instead of listening—

Just you wait.

Because they start demanding money

It’s too much.

If I stumble, I want to stay fallen.
Even the conversations I must have—I want to speak them only as my throat allows.
And
Whether it's a friend I haven't seen in ages or one I just met recently—anyone at all,

Whenever I meet someone,
I want to say goodbye first and have it done with.

On some days,

After eating, I want to stare blankly without even wiping my mouth.

Everything.

I want to settle for just thinking, cover myself head to toe with a futon, and sink down.

Put differently,

I want to cover myself with the sky, spread out the sea beside me, sit life or something beneath me, wrap my arms around my knees, rest my chin on them, and hunch my back.

Mirror

Confronting him in the mirror
If there’s any leftover food, I want to say ‘Give me a bite’—but here I am,

“Shave your beard,” he said.

“Cleanliness is cleanliness, but…”
“This cleanliness is maddening.”
“I—” I started to say,
“I’ll shave my beard too”—but here I am, having said that.
I want to say what I want to say—
I ended up drinking the water from the bucket with a ladle.

Cannibal
I bit.
I bit Father.

I bit people.
I bit my friends.

I bit a close friend.

The close friend will sever ties.

Friends will refuse meetings.

People vanished.
Father must have been sitting dimly in the distance.
Beyond the town’s rooftiles—
gazing at traveler’s melancholy under an overcast sky.

Lying on withered grass,

I

I ruminate on the bite marks of human connection.

Self-Portrait

“Here, you esteemed ones gathered here.”

While I had been thinking for some time about the positions of you esteemed ones,

I became aware of my own figure, deep in thought.

Me?

This may truly seem self-conceited,

but it is that I am poor.

Deadlock.

I couldn't sleep.

I sat cross-legged on the soil.

On Earth's surface protruded nothing but myself.

However you consider it - when left utterly solitary like this -

In my thigh-shadow

I felt something like a tall tree faintly brightening.

There, a glimmer of vitality begins to flare up within.

Vitality flared up,

I grew intensely nostalgic for an outlet for my strength.

Woman—I wanted to tell you not to make such a serious face.

As I sat with my head bared in the darkness,

My health grew heavy,

I came to feel the Earth tilting gradually.

Rain and Barber Shop

The raindrops burst like bean husks.
The clippers’ sound was as colorless as water.
Heads turned green like vegetables.
Like a baby goat,
There was also a geisha with a slender chin.
What a downpour this must be.
The cleanly lot grew impatient.
It was Kawaribanko’s yawn.

Germination

It was a night as hollow as an empty house.

If only someone were there.

as if to say, 'Is this here?'

If there were someone who would show me their little finger

My chest was filled with the confidence to immediately retort, "There isn't any!" With eyes sharpened like a crab's, I spent the entire night dreaming of the little finger's synonym.

That woman who was pointing at a green onion in the public market
That woman when I chased after her and looked at her sidelong
Women and women—
Or while recalling women
I am dreaming
This time—no, this very time—the moment I find a woman
Kneeling there, I want to offer up a single word
O lady—
A conscience like lips
Just because I kept saying 'I'll die, I'll die'
It’s precisely such men—those who can’t manage to die completely—that there are nothing but
Even to me—
Because you keep saying things so glibly

I want to die.

Your eyes are dim like a Buddhist altar.

Saying “Contempt! Contempt!” I do nothing but block your gaze.

I am sad because I have almost no time to love you.

It was from when I watched your fingers pinch dirt from your apron pocket.

I can only feel sad wondering if my conscience might indeed be shaped like lips.

So,

Even as I keep saying “I love you, I love you”

It’s sad how sincerely I utter these lies.

Roundtable Discussion

1

One evening

No, every night.

That girl
Because she had eyes that seemed to adore the man opposite,
I was left in a daze.

2

The man opposite was said to be an actor.

As for me on this side, I was apparently a poet.

Which one loved the girl?

There was no other way to put it—I was the poet.

The actor’s overstaying made him unsightly—it was that simple.

When I thought about it, the poet had been overstaying too.

When it came to which of us could truly love the girl—

I started running

I intended to grab the girl by the neck and yank her away.

3

The girl has a small wart on her left eyelid.

On her way back from the bath, when she casually touched that wart with her finger, blood came out, the girl said.

That was a love story.

Love stories come in all sorts.

Ah, this girl!
If you were to become my wife,
you'd turn into not a wife but a household manager—
that much you'd grasp right away once you became a wife.
You'd grow accustomed to it in no time.

4

According to yesterday's story,
it seems the girl has a fiancé.
Given that it's not me,
could that actor be the one?

While I was dazed,
beneath my jaw,
the night kept flowing again and again.

5

On my knees lay a soiled resume.
Kuniko was the name of that girl.
Kuniko had been a café waitress.

Before that—

Mitsuko had been an elementary school teacher.

Before that—

Taeko, too, had been an elementary school teacher.

had been—but

Only what had been now floats before my eyes.

Marginalia

Long ago

Concerning you who were my lover

Concerning the fact that you sleep with that person

Today as well, I find myself thinking—

That Taiwan which, even just having thought of it, seemed sweltering.

Now, even to think of it—

unbearably sweltering—

Cash.

Someone

Someone had been going around declaring women are fools.

What absolute nonsense.

I’m dead against it.

I oppose it with both hands raised high.

Even if I were sponging off someone, that’s one thing I’d oppose till my last breath.

So.

Woman,

So, woman,

Sneak around to my side.

Won't you become my wife?

Spring Melancholy

Auntie

Auntie’s husband has it made.

Morning—

I want to have sleep-deprived eyes like the old man’s.

I want to do the kind of things the old man does to Auntie.

Like a moth

I want to make the thudding sound of heavy wingbeats.

Old man's
Auntie,
Auntie's
No matter what you say, the old man's got it made.

The Church's Virgin

Does abstinence make desire pool in the chest?
As if desire were clogged to the brim of my throat—
It seemed agonizing.
"I am Maria."
Yet she prayed every day.
By divine grace, she kept praying for this and that.
What prayers was she offering?
Something rose around her—
As rumors swirled—

They said a certain man and a certain woman had been doing that at some place.
Of course they said—did that woman have any chastity left?
Brooding over Maria—impregnated by the wind—
The wind blew her way too.

If I were to grab a woman,

If I were to grab a woman,

climbing up to high places like the roof of the Marunouchi Building or the tops of chimneys

I want to shout at the top of my lungs.
Grabbed her!
Grabbed her!
Grabbed her—then want to shout "Ah!"
Swing the woman I’ve grabbed until she’s dead.
I want to hurl her right at the city’s flank.

It seems that even I can grab a woman.

Just that much—

It's an ordinary thing, but—

Marriage Proposal Advertisement

I want to get married as soon as possible.

If only I get married,
I suppose I'll want to live twice as hard as anyone else.
In this way, I too think that I am an interesting man.
Wanting to live interestingly with an interesting man,
Wanting to make me your husband,
Isn't there a woman around here who's turned sentimental?
Won't you come quickly, oh woman?
As if staring at wind that can't be seen—
I don't know which woman you might be among them,
but you—
I wait here in desolate anticipation.

Stake

A gecko perched atop the stake.
It prodded the sky with its small triangular head.
A blue sky swelled warmly.

I stand as if I sprouted from the earth

I stood alongside the stake.
The bastard who had climbed up to my summit—
a tiny season—a sad spring—
pretended he had come to see the gecko.

There, it writhed its body like smoke.

Sky

When he lay on the grass,

Beneath him, the sky lay deep.

Wind.

Clouds.

Sun

The world where the famous beings dwelt

The sky is blue and deep.

When looking down,

The body feels like it’s about to plummet—terrifying.

I am like the roots of plants

I end up wanting to burrow into the ground.

Walking Sketch

In the midst of downy thickets,

A crouching man and woman,

A man and woman on benches,

Here and there—men and women everywhere—

What an age,

What an age when men and women flourished!

“Friend,”

“We are—”
“You are still a man,”

“I, too, am unfortunately a man.”

Clear sky

That man
laughed with a creak like a door swinging open—
“Come over to my place to play.”

he had said.

I, too, kept thinking and thinking
He had been gathering Tokyo dialect phrases.
“Where’s your place?”
He took a liking to that slightly nasal pronunciation.
phrases like komatsuchatta and chatta
even taking on the feeling of something left behind
Gazing up at the cloudless sky
For a while, he lingered in the city of shining words.

Zoo

Night crows clambering up from the harbor gazed upon the dusk.

Sitting on the veranda,

fools who smiled at gecko chirps while staring up at eaves.

As if noticing even the sky's mood,

ordinary fools contemplated life's distant vistas.

Sitting cross-legged like suspended plumb weights,

livestock-like people stared at alcohol-moistened lips faintly glistening.

Was I wandering through my homeland?

While shaking off the grubby nostalgia clinging to me,

I was approaching the zoo exit.

The Beggar’s Tale

Households’
Every time he peered into the doorways of houses as he walked—
O Beggar—
many benefactors multiplied in the town.
He dangled nothing but benefactors—
it became a traffic obstruction.

The narrow town became impossible to live in.

One day

The harbor sky's
Gazing at the departure flags,
the beggar sighed and said:
"I,"
he declared, "am an idler."

Afterword

The first edition of this poetry collection, *Yamaguchi Baku Poetry Collection*, was published by Yamagabō in December 1940 (Shōwa 15).

I published *Shihen no Sono* with Murasaki Shuppanbu in August of Shōwa 13 (1938), making *The Collected Poems of Yamaguchi Baku* my second poetry collection; however, this volume fully incorporated *Shihen no Sono* within it.

The poems collected in *Shihen no Sono* comprised fifty-nine pieces from Taishō 12 (1923) to Shōwa 13 (1938), to which twelve new pieces from subsequent years up to Shōwa 15 (1940) were added, resulting in the seventy-one works compiled as *The Collected Poems of Yamaguchi Baku*.

It was said that this collection would soon see another printing if only paper could be obtained, but under those wartime conditions, paper ultimately became too scarce to procure, and the reprint plans were left to fizzle out as they were.

In Shōwa 23 (1948), after the defeat in the war, there was talk from Yagumo Shoten about compiling works following *The Collected Poems of Yamaguchi Baku* into a single volume, but at the time I still had no inclination for that and instead hoped for a reprint of *The Collected Poems of Yamaguchi Baku*. This was because I learned—sometimes through letters, sometimes through others’ accounts, or even from visitors’ remarks—that people were searching for this collection; all of them had apparently scoured used bookstores to no avail, and I myself had also been seeking it out whenever possible. The reason it couldn’t be found was likely due to having been reduced to ashes in wartime destruction; thus it was decided Yagumo Shoten would reprint it. But no sooner had the manuscript gone to press than the printing plates met with destruction at the print shop; then Yagumo Shoten’s dissolution caused the reprint plans to simply fizzle out, leaving only galley proofs to return to my hands, where they have remained untouched to this day.

Then recently, young people from my hometown again proposed a reprint, and Messrs. Kunioki Akihide and Yamakawa Iwami were engaged in various discussions with exceptional goodwill when—though abrupt—I sought understanding from both men, after which it was separately decided to publish a definitive edition through Genshobō.
This was made possible through the efforts of both Mr. Satō Kōichi and Mr. Naruse Yasushi of Genshobō; while expressing my gratitude to them, I wish to record here the names of three individuals—Messrs. Yamakawa and Kunioki, along with Mr. Aida Tsunao, who went to considerable trouble—as a token of appreciation.

Furthermore, in the first edition, elements such as the work numbers and old calendar era names in the table of contents, the design of the main title page and collection case, and the selection of portrait photographs had been arranged through the goodwill of poet and close friend of Yamaboshi-bō at the time, Mr. Hirada Uchikichi; however, these were omitted in producing the definitive edition. Additionally, due to the author's own insufficient proofreading, there were typographical errors, and while endeavoring to correct these, I noted the removal of punctuation marks in accordance with my longstanding practice of avoiding them in poetry. I express my gratitude to my esteemed friend Mr. Mitsunaga Tetsuo, who kindly undertook the proofreading of this definitive edition amidst his busy schedule.

1958.7.8

Yamaguchi Baku

Note

p. 34—Lines 2 and 3 were originally a single line.

p. 129—The third and fourth lines from the end were originally a single line.
p. 137—The third and fourth lines from the end were originally a single line.

p. 138—The third line from the end: “はつきり” was originally “明つきり”.

p. 144—Removed from the beginning of lines 2 and 3.

p. 152—The “おとなしく” in line 2 was originally “温しく”.
p. 153—The “韛” in line 1 was originally “吹鼓”.
p. 178—The “いいえ” in line 2 was originally “否え”.
p. 202—Removed from the beginning of line 3.

p. 203—Removed from the beginning of line 2.

In addition, it should be noted that the iteration mark (ゝ) was changed to a comma (、), and the characters 蟲 and 喰 were revised to 虫 and 食, respectively.

The arrangement of the poems follows the first edition, ordered from the volume’s end to its beginning in the order of their composition.