The Collected Poems of Chika Sagawa

by Chika Sagawa

  Their clothing spreads in the liquid.

  Madam with the monocle tears off her last piece of bread and hurls it at them.

  MY PICTURE

  The villagers were surprised because the phone rang suddenly.

  So does this mean that we must relocate.

  The village mayor removed his blue jacket in a panic.

  Yes, mother’s allowance chart was indeed correct.

  So long, blue village! The summer chased after them once again, like a river.

  The rooster with the red chapeau disembarked at a deserted station.

  RUSTY KNIFE

  Pale blue dusk scales the window.

  A lamp dangles from the sky like the neck of a woman.

  Murky dark air permeates the room—spreads out a single blanket.

  The books, ink, and rusty knife seem to be gradually stealing the life out of me.

  While everything sneered,

  Night was already in my hands.

  BLACK AIR

  In the distance, dusk cuts the tongue of the sun.

  Underwater, the cities of the sky quit their laughing.

  All shadows drop from the trees and gang up on me. Forests and windows go pale, like a woman. Night has spread completely. The omnibus takes a flame aboard and traverses the park.

  At that point my emotions dance about the city

  Until they have driven out the grief.

  IT IS SNOWING

  Upstairs from us, a grand ball!

  Devious angels dance in disorder, and out of their steps fall shards of deathly white snow.

  Death is among the holly leaves. Crawling quietly in the attic. Gnawing at my finger. Anxiously. And then at midnight—it falls at the storefront of the glass shop, exposing its stark white back.

  Old love and time are buried, and the earth devours them.

  GREEN FLAMES

  I first see them loudly approaching descending numerous green stairs pass by look away cram into a small space while gradually hardening into a mound their movement makes waves of light furrow through the wheat field a thick overflowing fluid makes it impossible to stir the woodlands larch with short hair snail that paints carefully a spider spins electric wires like a mist everything rotates from green to deeper green they are inside the milk bottle on the kitchen table are reflected crouching with their faces flattened sliding around an apple they seem to crumble as they block off shafts of light in the street a blind girl plays by ducking under the shadows of the sun’s rings.

  I hurry to shut the window danger has come right up to me a fire blazes outside the beautifully burning green flames spread high, circling the outskirts of the earth and in the end they dwindle, disappear as a single thin line of the horizon

  My weight takes leave of me takes me back to the depths of oblivion people are crazy here there is no point in feeling sorrow nor in speaking their eyes are dyed green believing grows uncertain and looking enrages me

  Who blindfolds me from behind? Shove me into sleep.

  DEPARTURE

  Night’s mouth opens, forests and clock towers are spit out.

  The sun stands up and runs down the street of blue glass.

  The city is cut into slivers of music by cars and skirts,

  Then dive into the display window.

  The fruit stand smells of morning.

  Even there the sun multiplies in blue.

  People throw rings at the sky.

  In order to capture the suns.

  BLUE HORSE

  A horse came tearing down the mountain and went mad. From that day on she eats blue food. Summer dyes the women’s eyes and sleeves blue, then whirls merrily in the town square.

  The customers on the terrace smoke so many cigarettes that the tinny sky scribbles rings like the ladies’ hair. I am thinking of throwing away my sad memories like a handkerchief. If only I could forget the love and regret and the patent leather shoes!

  I was spared from having to jump from the second floor.

  The sea rises to heaven.

  VISIBILITY THROUGH GREEN

  Visibility through a single acacia leaf

  May angels who discard their clothes there legs dirtied green faint smiles that chase me memories glimmer before her as the neck of a swan

  Now where has the truth gone

  Bird music congealed by evening mist pictures of trees printed on the walls of the sky a green wind gently flicks them off Pleasure is on the other side of death calling from the other side of the earth Like watching the sun, grown heavy, dropping towards the blue sky

  Run! My heart

  To her side as a sphere

  And then in a teacup

  —Layers of love they make us miserable the furrows of milk waver and my dreams rise up

  BEARD OF DEATH

  A chef clutches the blue sky. Four fingerprints are left,

  —Gradually a chicken bleeds. Even here the sun is crushed.

  Blue-suited wardens of the sky who come inquiring.

  I hear daylight run by.

  In prison they keep watch over a dream longer than life.

  Trying to reach the outside world that is like the back of an embroidery, I become a moth that slams into the window.

  If for a single day the long tendril of death would loosen its hold, this miracle would make us jump with joy.

  Death strips my shell.

  SEASONAL MONOCLE

  Yellow-ripe and sick, autumn is the Arabian script staggering on the window.

  All time goes to and fro here,

  Transporting their vanity and music.

  Clouds are burning such things as rooster thoughts and amaranth.

  Fingers play the air above the keyboard.

  Music rings towards a wail and wanders off.

  Another faded day remains,

  A crowd of death lays stagnant.

  BLUE SPHERE

  Two black men are holding hammers.

  They violently tear at the door here and on the other edge.

  Morning is there; this way their cities can be lined up.

  The painter spreads gold on everything.

  On the shutters and walls.

  The apple orchard is lush with golden apples.

  Her blond hair sways there.

  In the corner of the yard a sunflower turns, turns, turns and rolls its way into the room, becoming a large sphere and sparkling.

  The sun is more warm bread than can be carried, and along with their homes, we ride the horizon in our attempt to travel around the world.

  FRAGMENT

  The blue officer corps wearing military caps of cloud stands in line.

  From a bottomless pit they lop off the neck of night.

  Sky and trees layer atop one another and seem to be fighting.

  The antenna traverses above, running.

  Are the flower petals floating in space?

  At noon, two suns run up the arena.

  The rusty red emotions of summer will soon sever our love.

  GLASS WINGS

  On the street corner, the sun destroys the love, held between glass wings, that people had carefully passed along.

  The sky stands facing the window, darkening with every turn of the ventilator.

  The leaves are in the sky, drawing a single line, as the rooftops lean in.

  Trains crawl along the bulging street, the sailor’s collar rotating between blue creases in the sky.

  This finely dressed summer procession passes by and crumbles into the flask.

  The fruits of our hearts rain happy shadows.

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  A fence dirtied by dust continues,

  Leaves turn from red to yellow.

  Recollections accumulate upon the path of memory. As if spreading white linen.

  Seasons hold four keys, slip off the stairs. The entrance is shut again.

  The green tree is hollow. When hit, it sounds.

  While night sneaks out.

  That day,

  I am sad like the skin of the boy in the sky.

  Eternity cuts between us.

  I lose countless images to that other side.

  ILLUSORY HOME

  A chef clutches the blue sky. Four fingerprints are left; gradually the chicken bleeds. Even here the sun is crushed.

  Wardens of the sky who come inquiring. I see daylight take off running.

  An empty white house where no one lives.

  The long dreams of people encircled this house many times, then wilted like flower petals.

  Death deliberately clings to my finger. Peeling off the shell of night, one layer at a time.

  This house connects a brilliant road to the distant memory of a distant world.

  OCEAN OF MEMORY

  Hair disheveled, chest splayed out, a madwoman is drifting.

  A crowd of white words breaks upon the crepuscular ocean.

  A torn accordion,

  White horse, and black horse storm across over it, frothing.

  BLUE ROAD

  The sky, as if after tears.

  A tent spread across the land.

  The road opens, white, for lovers to pass.

  A dye factory!

  Dawn stains the skin a rose color.

  A flower bouquet atop the cobalt manteau.

  Violet eyes sparkle in the dusk,

  Crows in mourning attire gather round.

  O, when touched, the wall of night crumbles apart.

  At any rate, the colors slowly fade each time I cry.

  PORTRAIT OF WINTER

  The land in the Northern provinces now feels dreary and lethargic. The cities and mountains are all buried in snow with no intention of awakening—slowly, very slowly, they gradually fall deeper into their slumber in this dull, quiet light. The land and sky are blotted out with gray, and the cloudy skies go on for days on end. When the sun is buried in the clouds, a weak light seemingly emitted by the snow itself—a strangely cold, diminished light whose brilliance has faded—creeps in through the window and pours onto a single book atop the desk. It quivers, making spotted shadows here and there. Always impatient, never settling in one spot, it appears to be pulling up the printed letters. All the shadows seem anxious, as if they might disappear in some indistinct manner. Snow accumulates along the slanted roof, and the house lies beyond the gates made of snow. In this naked forest, not a single leaf from the long-forgotten roadside trees makes a move to welcome us. Like a row of brooms, the dead branches stretch higher and higher.

  (Azalea, apple, and peaches burst into blossom as if burning up out of the surface of the earth, floating vibrantly into the air) (Kerria flowers line the hedge, and the finely clipped velvet leaves are dyed green by the larch trees) From beneath the thick, dingy layers of snow, who would remember the fact that such things once colored the ground with a gorgeousness dazzling the eyes? These things are kept like a forever-lost memory from a distant world. And in the end they draw rings around only themselves, with assumptions habituated over the decades. Going over the hill I start aging, without even noticing the blinking advertising towers or the overturned green city. And then the pure white snow falls over it. Does the ground know how much effort it takes to awaken, once buried in snow? Everything stops moving—the eyes open just slightly in the dark, then close again. The birds with their wings spread apart, the river ceases to flow. It was like a single long day. Because it was a joy just to discover the clouds moving. The snow falls all day long. Falling straight down from tree to rooftop, or blown along from roof to roof—if one starts snowing, it spreads from one to the next, as if copying each other. The sky spreads low over the ground, rising and falling in tune with some distant ocean. It seems that when the trees supporting the sky can no longer bear the weight of it, that is when the snow falls. It snows so much that no matter how far you push through it, it is impossible to see very far, and such is the kind of snow day where everything disappears, passersby and mountains alike.

  Even if at times the sun peeks out through a breach in the sky, the light it casts slowly follows the dead thicket of trees, turning them over like the wind, gradually deepening their color. The road was white like the hallway in my dream. It seems the walls on either side will crumble with every touch. The rows of trees are leaning like shadows. And that figure on the path could possibly be my father. He did not turn around when I called out. In the dark, the snowy road floats up in white—those who go there are not permitted to return. The snow quickly erases the footsteps of many people. Death was nearby. Hiding in the shadows without anyone noticing, and waving its white hand. Death left deep footprints as it passed by. Where are they buried, the bodies of the gentle people. Our lost happiness is hidden somewhere too. This is why the snow-covered ground in the morning is so beautiful. I hear the sound of shoveling, as if digging up our dreams.

  Or was it just the wind. I awaken to a sound like a banging on the door. I draw the curtains, and the glass has a white pattern, and snow falls heavily on the other side.

  WHITE AND BLACK

  The white arrow races by. A bird of night is shot down, dives into my pupil.

  Incessantly obstructs the sleep of figs.

  Silence prefers to pause in the room.

  They were candlestick shadows, a pot of torn-off primula, mahogany chairs. Time and flames entangle, and I watch over them planing the perimeter of the window.

  O, the black-faced man comes again today in the rain,

  Slaps around the garden in my heart, and runs off.

  O rain that comes wearing boots,

  Must you trample the earth all the night through.

  RIBBON OF MAY

  The air roared with laughter outside my window

  And in the shadow of its colorful tongue

  Leaves are blowing in clumps

  I am unable to think

  Is there someone there

  I reach a hand into the darkness

  Only to find a long wind of hair

  MYSTERY

  Golden delicious tumbling on the golf course. As if trying not to touch the earth’s crust, they dive in spinning. Space starts running in their direction, or the wind gangs up to make a racket. Blue of the cross-section. Hands like the surfacing veins of a leaf. People’s hopes will collect like dirt on the side of the road, the way in the past their dreams circled the perimeter of night. Shadows distort, the grass dries up. Two flower petals form a butterfly. They bloom towards morning, filling in the blank earth. We are allowed no predictions for the sake of one day. Just like the trees. And the sky served as window-dressing for everything. When I draw back the curtain a thick fluid gushes forth like water.

  Look, the men are getting dizzy again.

  OPAL

  Pausing in front of the entrance

  And peering into the window,

  Looking back repeatedly,

  The twilight going home.

  A sluggish waltz is played by the river.

  The sound of clogs beats upon the wall.

  Damp air flows past my cheek

  And a cloud crosses the puddle.

  My vision is about to come to a halt.

  DREAM

  Reality that disintegrates only in the naked light of day. All ash trees are white bones. She is unable to explain with her back to the clear window. Only her ring replicates its reflection many times over. Go
rgeous stained glass windows. The vanities of time. They will detour around the house and choose a street well-trodden. Dark perspiring leaf. The wind above it is crippled and cannot move. Rejecting the illusion of darkness, I come to understand. The faithlessness of people. Outside, the salty air stirs up the spirits.

  IN WHITE

  Flickering above the grass like a flame

  An amethyst button sparkles

  And you descend slowly

  The turtle dove lends its ear to a lost voice.

  A mesh of sunbeams cuts through the treetops.

  Green terrace and dried flower petals.

  I remember to wind my clock.

  GREEN

  From the morning balcony rushing in like a wave

  Flooding all over the place

  I nearly drown upon a mountain path

  And choke, many times bracing myself from falling forward

  In my vision, the city opens and closes, spinning like a dream

  And in their pursuit, they collapse with tremendous force