A selection of Japanese poetry

谷川俊太郎 – Tanikawa Shuntarō (1931-2024)

(From) Tokyo Ballade, and then (2011)

Memory Remix 7

Sentimentality will thaw frozen time
The degree of freshness depends upon the mind of the observer
History passes over individual moments in silence
Poetry that does not question the facts brings those moments back to life
Amid a silence with no voice and no music
There are hidden all kinds of sounds and silence.
From a scene which has lost color
A hesitant meaning is born

Oblivion or memory—which is more palatable?
People find their roots in all the trivia of everyday life
Without being aware of it they live in the particulars of an epic poem
All the while remixing memories

凍りついた時間を感傷が解凍する
鮮度は見る者の心に任される
歴史は一瞬を黙殺するが
事実を問わぬ詩がそれを生き返らせる
声も楽の音もない沈黙のうちに
あらゆる騒音と静寂がひそんでいる
色を失った光景から
たどたどしい意味が生まれる

忘却と記憶とどちらが美味だろう
人はみな日常の些事に根を下ろしていて
気づかずに叙事詩の細部を生きている
思い出をリミックスしながら

(From) 東京バラード、それから (2011)

小池昌代 – Koike Masayo (b. 1959)

(From) Kolkata (2010)

Rickshaw: Rickshaws rolling along the streets of Kolkata

The sound of wheels scratching along the ground
Shake rattle and roll: Gori    gorara    gorurururu
Reverberates in my bones as I ride the rickshaw
As I recall it     the bones reverberate     the bones remember     the land of India
The dead singing
Shake rattle and roll: Gori    gorara    gorurururu
Meiji hurtling     through the streets of India
The Taishō     early Shōwa eras     hurtling by

Form is none other than emptiness,
Emptiness is none other than form.
Form—it is, in fact, emptiness,
Emptiness it is, in fact, form.

Girls returning home from school     in uniform 
Serious faces    in their rickshaws
Heavy box pleats swaying     the skirts of
Hair braided     brown skinned     Indian girls 
Marrying who they like     or marrying someone chosen by their parents
Whichever     it’s exactly the same
Let’s come back to     my home 
Back to the world of houses where     there were old-fashioned three-sided mirrors
Three generations reflected in the mirrors

They are not mere things that appear or disappear
Nor are they things impure or pure
Nor do they merely increase or decrease.

I return     to the early modern era
Riding the rattling rickshaw
Checked Indian cotton is wrapped round the neck     of the rickshaw driver
Let me off     in this alley

Gone
Gone across 
You who have gone across, across to the other shore

The burden who is I
Take from me

地面をこする車輪の音
五離(ごり)　五羅羅(ごらら)　五縷縷縷々(ごるるるる) 
乗ってるわたしの骨に響く
思い出すとき　骨が響く　骨が記憶する　印度の大地
死者の歌声
五離(ごり)　五羅羅(ごらら)　五縷縷縷々(ごるるるる)
印度の街を　明治が走る
走る　大正　昭和の初期が
色不異空(しきふーいーく 
空不異色(くーふーいーしき 
色即是空(しきそくぜーくー 
空即是空(くそくぜーしき

制服の　学校帰りのお嬢さんが
生真面目な顔で乗っている
三編みの　褐色の肌の　印度の処女の
スカートの　深いプリーツが揺れ
好きな人と結婚するの　親の決めた人と結婚するの
どちらでも　おなじこと
わたしの家へ　帰りましょう
古い三面鏡のある　家の世界へ
鏡のなかに映る三世

不生不滅(ふーくーふーめつ
不垢付浄(ふーふーじょー 
不増減 (ふーぞうーふーげん

ごりごりと帰っていく　前近代へ
リクシャーに乗って
運転手の首に巻きつけられてある　格子柄の印度綿
あの路地で　おろしてください

羯諦(ぎゃーてー
羯諦(ぎゃーてー
波羅羯諦(はーらーぎゃーてー

わたしという荷物を
わたしから　おろしてください


(From)コルカタ(2010)

四元康裕 – Yotsumoto Yasuhiro (b. 1959)

(From) Novels (2017)

“Jisei no kenkyū” (A Study of Tenses)

When time commences its flow in stories
Time outside stories ceases

Time in stories is capable of expansion and contraction
Consuming page after page on detail small and large

After descriptions of the taste of sun-drenched raspberries
“The cacophony of tastes was experienced in an instant”

Having bluntly stated this 
In just one-line centuries of time were traced backwards

Time in stories goes back and forth
Dreams of weasel-tracks dwells in a forest of words

Gazing upwards through the branch-spaces between sin and regret
The dappled patterns of the past and future

Ruling time in stories
Is the theory of relativity in the palace of the Dragon-King

Finishing the last page
Tarō stands frozen

From transient eternity time waves wash against
The shores of Hades

A brand-new spacesuit
Enfolding a wrinkled, white-domed heart

物語のなかで時が流れ始めると
物語の外の時間は止まる

物語の時は伸縮自在
何十ページも費やして微に入り細に入り

陽に灼けた木苺の味覚について描写した後 
「これらすべてが一瞬のうちに味わわれた」

と、言い放ってみるかと思えば
僅か一行で数世紀の歳月を遡ったり

物語の時は行きつ戻りつ
言葉の森に棲む夢の鼬のけもの道

罪と悔いとの枝間から
見上げる過去と未来の斑模様

物語の時を支配するのは
竜宮城の相対性理論

最後のページを読み終えて
太郎は立ち竦む

仮初めの永遠から時間の波が打ち寄せてくる
黄泉の浜辺で

真新しい宇宙服に
皺だらけ白髪だらけの心を包んで

(From) 小説 (2017)

杉本真維子 – Sugimoto Maiko (b. 1973)

FUKUSHIMA, Don’t Be So Conceited!

No hometown, I have no fatherland
One thread stands out from the broken carpet
Fukushima, Don’t Be So Conceited!

The hands caressing the loose bundles are dirty
The parliament of threads secretly
Maneuvers, spreads
Beneath the chairs of the orderly people

(Even if it’s awkward let me confess
My parents are
Criminals so I’m terrified of myself, I can’t help it!

Is it a despicable, stupid thread?
Or is it that compulsory word “ties”? 
That forces life
And illiteracy and violence in the silent vigil of poverty
To raise their levels?
Your one thread is easily evened out
But, the living thread that 
Devours fake weathered eyes says this:

Staring with the whites of eyes
Even if one turns one’s back, you face
The darkness of protection forced upon you by the muscles of the dead
You who have died
How can you be
Weak?
Fluttering,
National flags knitted with crisscrossing threads 
Threads cheering stretch horizontally to the sky
Don’t Be So Conceited!, Don’t Be So Conceited!
FUKUSHIMA
Don’t Be So Conceited!
Me

故郷なし、わたくしは祖国なし、
潰れた絨毯から一本たつ
FUKUSHIMA、 イバルナ、

ばらけた束を、撫でる手が汚い 
糸の会議はひそやかに 
身ぎれいな人間の椅子のした 
敷かれ、うごめく 

(迷惑でも告白くれよ
親がさ、
犯罪者だからおれはおれがこわくってしょうがねえんだ

さもしい、愚かな糸か、
無学と殴打と貧寒の黙禱に 
いのちに、

底上げを　押しつける「絆」の文字か
おまえの一本などかるく均される
けれど、風化するあの瞳の
紛いを喰って、生きる糸はいう

白目のぶぶんで見つめ抜く
背を向けても正面に回る
死の筋肉でねじふせる庇護のくらさ
そんな死者のあなたがどうして
弱い者の
はずがあろうか 

はためく、
国旗を縦横に編んだ
糸の声援が水平に空にのびる
イバルナ、イバルナ、
FUKUSHIMA、

イバルナ、
わたくし

(From) 皆神山 (2023)

前川佐美雄 – Maekawa Samio (1903-1990)

Selected Tanka from 白鳳 (1941)

Hakuhō (White Phoenix)


夕暮れは野に膝まづくけだもののいつか神となりて我のごとしも

In twilight
In a field 
The beast genuflects
In due course becomes a god
Like unto me


脚をきり手をきり頸(くび)きり胴のまま限りなし暗き冬に堕(お)ちゆく

Slicing off legs
Slicing off hands, head
My torso alone
Falls into the endless 
Dark of winter

Selected Tanka from 積日(1947)

Sekijitsu (Many Days)


何に心を遣らはばよけむ葛の花のくれなるただれ黒みゆく野に

What should my heart
Strive for?
Arrowroot flowers:
Crimson corrupted on fields
Beginning to darken


ぬけがらの身をやすらへて夜ゐるにおくれ蛍が水づたふかな

Resting the husk 
Of my body
Through the night
Fireflies out of season
Follow the path of water


いつしかに天のはら冷えてをりをりはわれにかなしき鳥かげわたる

Unnoticed
The heavenly steppes grow chill
Sometimes
A sad bird-shadow 
Ranges within me


Selected Tanka from 搜神 (1964)

Sōjin (In Pursuit of God)


切り炭の切りぐちきよく美しく火となりし時に恍惚とせり

Cut ends
Cut charcoal
Clean and lovely
When they turn into flame
I am in ecstasy


紅梅にみぞれ雪降りてゐたりしが苑のなか丹頂の鶴にも降れる

On red plum blossoms
Snow and sleet fall
Fall and on 
The red-headed crane in the garden 
They also fall


琅玕のみちに霞のたばしればわれ途まどひて拾はむとせり

On a glittering jewelled
Road, hail is
Flying about
Bewildered I
Seek to grasp it


生きてるにか不意にわが身体きて飛び出で暗く鳴きけり

Was it proof that I am alive?
Abruptly
My body
Split into two, leaping into the air
Cawing black