Hair engraved in stone.
Sound engraved in stone.
The eye engraved in stone opens to eternity.
THE PRIMITIVENESS OF A CUP (KOPPU NO GENSHISEI)
Along a luminous riverbank
where flowers of Daphne blossom,
a blond boy runs
passing by an angel who holds an apple and a saber.
His fingers firmly grasping
a fish named red-belly
just above its eyes of milky light—
a golden dream curves.
CEYLON (SĒRON)
Natives are all inside the houses.
In the hot sun I walked alone.
A lizard on a drainage tile.
Shining eggplants.
Burning violets.
The hot sand on a violet leaf
pours onto the back of my hand.
Ceylon’s ancient past.
A MAN READING HOMER (HOMEROSU O YOMU OTOKO)
Silently, dawn and dusk
like two sides of a gold coin
reached his throat every day
through a tamarind tree.
Around that time, he was lodging
at a dye house on the second floor and reading Homer.
Around that time, he had a coral pipe
with a picture of a pansy.
All the Gallics laughed (Your pipe is like a girl’s letter, or a Byzantine romance novel—ouuu aeee . . .).
Yet its phosphorescent smoke travels around a cockscomb, around the goddess’s nose and hips.
Translated by Hosea Hirata
NO TRAVELER RETURNS (TABIBITO KAERAZU)
No Traveler Returns (Tabibito kaerazu) is a long linked poem and is cited by many as Nishiwaki’s masterpiece. Although it was not published until 1947, it is placed here as the summation of his mature creative work. The following is the opening sequence; the entire work contains 168 individual sections.
1
O Traveler, await.
Before thou wettest thy tongue
in this faint springwater,
O think, traveler of life.
Thou art also merely a water spirit
that oozed out from the chinks of a rock.
Neither does this thinking water
flow into eternity.
At a certain moment in eternity
it will dry out.
Ah! jays are too noisy!
Sometimes out of this water
comes the phantasmal man
with flowers in his hand.
‘Tis only a dream
to seek life eternal.
To abandon thy longings
into the stream of life ever-flowing
and finally to wish
to fall off the precipice of eternity
and disappear. . . .
O ’tis merely an illusion.
Thus says this phantom water sprite
who comes out of the water to towns and villages
when water plants reach for
the shadows of floating clouds.
2
On the window,
a dim light—
how desolate,
the human world.
3
Desolate, the world of nature.
Desolate, our sleep.
4
A hardened garden.
5
Sorrel.
6
Plum resin.
Oil of life.
Oil of love.
The pointed tip of a bitter old tree.
On a summer evening,
projecting my soul
onto the lotus pen,
onto the sky of shimmering stars,
I write a sorrowful letter.
The thought of eternity lingers.
7
Sticking her head
out of the window of a house
adorned with autumn bellflowers,
a frowning lady
ponders something.
How lonely, the one who lives
at the deep end of the alley
where zelkova leaves fall.
8
That whisper,
the darkness of a honey nest.
How lamentable,
the realm of women.
9
It is already December
Along a path that curves around
the foot of Nagoe Mountains,
upon the edge of a pale protruding rock,
a sea fern gray green
trembles.
A dandelion bud.
A thistle bud.
Buried in sand, the roots of a spearflower
that barely hold its few small red berries,
tremble among fallen leaves and moss.
In this stillness of mountains
I pay reverence to the early setting sun.
10
Late December
I wander into the woods of fallen leaves.
On bare branches already I see leaf buds
of many shapes and colors.
No one in the capital knows about this.
On a vine entwined around a bare tree,
billions of years’ longings ripen;
there, numerous nutlets are growing,
there, a seed more ancient than human life is buried.
In this little nutlet, dimly
lurks the ultimate beauty,
ultimate loneliness perceptible to humans,
trembling faintly.
Is this trembling poem
The true poetry?
This nutlet must be poetry.
Even the story of the lark singing at a castle isn’t poetry.
11
I just cannot remember
how to write “rose.”
How lonely,
this window
through which I stick out
my sorrowful head
at pitiful dawn whenever
I try to write “rose” and
have to look it up.
12
At night
when flowers bloom
on floating weeds,
I put a boat on the water.
A cloud covers the moon.
Translated by Hosea Hirata
KITASONO KATSUE
Kitasono Katsue (1902–1978), always a flamboyant figure, was, like Nishiwaki Junzaburō, interested in surrealism, Dada, and the experiments of the futurists. It was Kitasono who helped create the vocabulary and syntax that allowed a generation of Japanese poets to join in such international movements. His long friendship by correspondence with Ezra Pound provides a glimpse into the creative mentality of both poets.
COLLECTION OF WHITE POEMS (HAKUSHOKU SHISHŪ, 1927)
1
white residence
white table
pink noble lady
white distant view
blue sky
2
bright port
white steamship
red flag
white hotel
decolorized boy
flowers and food
3
glove holding parasol
white outfit
candy
white porcelain and white socks
French language
4
flat red disk
white dancer doll
lady’s white shoes
red curtain
5
flower and mirror
white room
white conch
silver boy
cherry
6
pink toys
world map
saber
balloon
7
cup and water
one white carnation
white table
cup and water
8
red hat
black jacket
white socks
black shoes
modern noble lady’s equipment
<
br /> 1 2 3 10
white hat
red jacket
white socks
white shoes
9
white tableware
flower
spoon
spring, 3 P.M.
white
white
red
10
prism architecture
white animal
space
11
wet paint
blue flag
apple and noble lady
white landscape
hands off
VIN DU MASQUE (1928)
the Queen of imagination who wears the sun’s hat is the imagined sun’s Queen
the King is watching a movie theater
the King should ride an airship
climbing glass chimney glass airship climbs
the Kiiiiing of eternity
the Queeeen of eternity
but, oh wandering mailman I wonder where you carried your love letters and mother
King of eternity worship on sand dune throne the Queen of eternity worship here worshiped Queen of eternity has trombone hips and a circular head
she is the Queen of sadness
WORDS (KOTOBA, 1932)
in summer let’s buy blue lampshades
to see your and our lovely fingers
in the star city is an angel with seashell fingernails
a selfish, shabby angel
that’s you
in the shade of waves of acacia leaves
a true manicure is performed
but
ah, touch the nails and you’ll get scarred
this was also a simple, pencil-sketched angel
TWO POEMS (1938)
These poems were written in English and published in the London journal Townsman.
I
Under the umbrella of concrete, yesterday, we laughed at tomato for its carelessness.
Their thoughts have gone rotten by a bucket, and they talk of rope necktie.
A shot is cabbage in the sky over the office.
Dear friend, now is all right the heel.
Today a duck they dug out in a brush of philosophismus
My laugh is nearer to the condition of dachshund-like cylinder than the cucumber-shaped idea of Aquinas.
I put on gloves emerald green and start with a book Membranologie under my arm.
Is there a shop to sell clear bags?
Tomorrow beside a bucket a necktie I shall wear for the sake of General clothed in vegetable costume.
A weary city is likened to a brush.
Begone! a wandering head.
Begone! in a fling like an explosive, over the rock through a Geissler’s brass pipe.
II
In leaden slippers I laugh at the fountain of night, and scorn a solitary swan.
A parasol of glass she spreads and wanders along the lane the cosmos flowering.
Over the cypress tree I image, to myself, a hotel marked with two golf clubs crossed;
And move my camera on the sand of night.
In the street, there shining the spindle-shaped amalgam stairs, the telephone bell is ringing on the desk.
In Congo by a barber a parrot is trained and sold at Kabinda.
Then by cheerful young sailors her head is replaced by a leaden one:
Just a glimpse of it a watchmaker catches under coconut trees, where is seen a dome tightly closed,
On the table I toss the gloves of antelope, and the gloomy fellows I ignore.
A typewriter packed in a raincoat of oilskin is dead and gone on the Le Temps.
She, spreading the parasol of glass, pursues a nightingale, in the space between the Le Temps and the cosmos flowers.
Or the new age is born.
Under the hydroplane, “Hamburger Fleugzeugbau Ha 139,” a duck throws into confusion the battle flue.
Among the cosmos flowers vibrate machine guns.
By the drain a young washerman blows up.
O the clearer, the better is the sky over the street.
Flash on the concrete a bright wire and shovel.
ALMOST MIDWINTER (SHŌKAN, 1942)
winter rain
shines on
slight moss
like on damask
I put on deer
armor
and sit in a
narrow hallway
with the passing days
thoughts are light
bright
and futile
one bitter drop
contained
as in a Chinese bowl
cold and futile there is nothing
there is nothing
I should know by now
also, no books
and no visitors
KITASONO’S FIRST LETTER TO EZRA POUND (APRIL 26, 1936)
Dear Sir,
You will please excuse me that I take the liberty of writing you. For a long time, since Imagism movement, we have always expected you as a leader on new literature. Especially your profound appreciation in the Chinese literature and the Japanese literature has greatly pleased us.
Last year, we established “VOU Club” and have continued our lively strife for the newest art. Now the existence of our group has come to be attentively watched by the younger generations of this country.
We started from Dada and passed surrealism. And at present we are connected with no “-ism” of Europe. Under the close influence of contemporary architecture and technology, we are making progress in our theory on art and are forming a characteristic form of ourselves.
“VOU Club” consists of poets, artists, composers, architects, and technologists. The members are now twenty-one, two-thirds of them being poets.
I send you two copies of our review VOU under separate cover. I shall be very much obliged if you will kindly make some ideas of our group by them.
Hoping you will receive this letter as soon as possible.
I remain,
Yours truly,
Katue Kitasono
Translated by John Solt
NAKANO SHIGEHARU
Nakano Shigeharu (1902–1979) was a central figure in the development of a politically conscious literature, and he remains highly respected for his stories, poetry, and literary criticism. By no means a proletarian figure (he attended Tokyo University and was a friend of Hori Tatsuo), Nakano’s deep interest in Marxism led him to compose critiques chronicling his vision of the ills of contemporary Japanese society.
The Columbia Anthology of Modern Japanese Literature: From Restoration to Occupation, 1868-1945: vol. 1 (Modern Asian Literature Series) Page 91
