by Chika Sagawa
I try to turn the corner. Who would ever try to put down roots in such a dank region. Forget the murmuring of the stars. The flower petals overhead that fall in time with the pistons that stitch the flank of night are shimmering. A single man with a kerchief around his neck huddles under the eaves, peeking out at the sky as if he had just recently descended to earth. His strangely ancient expression and muddy veins are transparent. A monologue spills out from between his teeth—I have to hurry home, it’s time to go home.
LARKS OF THE FLOWER GARDEN
Scene I
Figures of love
Vividly drawn on the city pavement.
Lilac flowers in the lobby of the sky
Opened the dark day inside the eyes
Into black and white.
Scene II
The voices of girls singing in chorus from the Easter lily
Are first to tear through the season.
When the oats headed for the colonies
Sprout atop the freight ship
The penguin shakes its apron
From the shadows of the clouds of the dining table.
Shells
Butterflies
Oh!
WIND IS BLOWING
Swaying as if in the wake of
A gaily laughing procession
Through the dark garden,
To whom do these trees try to speak.
Drying out my daydreams
Like a distant voice,
Invisible footsteps
Trample on my shadow
On the ice.
Outside, the afternoon
Was violently extinguished.
The seagull twisted its bill
To gather warm words
From the swarms of waves,
And escaped into the lantern.
The people wait for spring,
In search of lost time.
They will wish for the seagull
To once again return to their eyes.
SEASONS
One clear day
Along the mountain pass
The horse felt like having a smoke.
A nightingale is singing
While sewing the clouds stitch by stitch.
It struck a sad note
Of a happiness that passed by without having come to it.
The deep green mountains fell silent
And blocked the path.
Out of sadness, he gave a single high-pitched neigh.
His mane, long like dead grass, burned
And the same scream could be heard from elsewhere.
Now the horse felt the presence of something warm nearby.
And saw the distant years and months dissipate in an instant.
PROSE
NOTABLE POEMS FROM THE SECOND YEAR OF PUBLICATIONS IN SHII NO KI
Of the poems published in Shii no ki in 1933, the following two I found to be the most remarkable.
- “Morning Pipe” by Ema Shōko
A fresh poem.
- “One who is alone” by Yamanaka Fumiko
I found it to be a very strong work.
WHILE WAITING FOR CHRISTMAS
★
Clever ladies always press their lips up to the window of the cake shop, gazing at the decorated sweets and exclaiming, Oh! How beautiful!—but they have not once claimed to want to eat them. ’Tis the season for tea and sweets again. Yellows and reds, or perhaps whites and purples—look how they fill in both sides of the street so beautifully, like blooming flowers.
Speaking of flowers, which do you prefer? In order to keep you from drowning in the endless colors that surround you. For an evening party, I definitely recommend these fragrant orchids. Fake flowers on the chest are so passé. Now where can I find a sassy young woman who would jump out of a restaurant with a black beret angled down her forehead, a tiny tiny yellow chrysanthemum pressed under it? That fresh flower that goes so well with this season, that dress in that moment, now that’s what you should consider your personal emblem. Don’t you just love the charm of tossing a wilted crumpled red flower out the car window late at night? Okay goodbye.
WINTER DIARY
December [—]
It’s been a while since I’ve seen either the mountains or the ocean. I wish I could go to the mountains. When the wind blows, I feel like abandoning everything and going home. I think I can hear the tides of the pitch black northern ocean. Or am I just hearing the sound of trains—no, it is the tide.
I now long for the piles of seashells I used to own. The ones I collected in an empty cigar box, over a long time. Red ones, shiny ones, round ones, pointy ones—though I’ve already given them all away.
I can’t stand this intense nostalgia I feel for the ocean—like I could just slip back a few years in time. The tide that sounds like the rising and falling of the earth itself. White, cresting waves pushing forward, the residual dampness as they recede, the roughening, the endless banging sound, the spray gathering like a heavy mist, filling up the beach. The ocean that goes crazy in the corner of a city buried in snow, immobile like the dead. As if I might just pack up my things and head home tomorrow, to the home that sounds of the ocean—I walk along the city like this, remembering the ocean.
I’ve had enough of walking these crowded streets. The pavement filled with fur coats, overcoats, display windows and peals of laughter, it’s all a bit too glamorous for me. I finally finished proofreading Esprit. I think it will be an interesting journal. I wonder if it will sell. Scraps of paper and dead brown leaves are all tossed about by the wind, and indeed it is getting to be that time now, for the city to grow just a little bit dingy.
December [—]
I warmed my cold hands by the electric lamp. And realized they were very pretty. My red fingers with bloated blood vessels under pale skin. As I opened and closed them, they bloomed beautifully like the fused corolla of a flower. I thought I should take good care of them.
I am always admiring and longing for the flowers of others—in other people’s gardens, in flower shops.
I stay up late reading biographies of Western musicians. All these great people. It’s fascinating, like reading fairy tales.
CHAMBER MUSIC
★
The pavement is frozen solid and the winter streets feel rather dull, but these women find joy in drawing vibrant figures of love as if gliding across an ice rink.
When you are avec your lover, do you walk on his left or his right side. In either case, the more you believe in him, the more you should walk on the display window side. When you’re bored, and also when you’re not, there is nothing more sensible than that. But when you’re all alone, walk as quickly as possible. Thoroughly inspecting those display windows is such a silly waste of time.
When it’s cold out, there is something so seemingly pleasant about that steamy interior, particularly that of a restaurant or café. Although these places are usually rife with toxic conversation and negative energy. Those must be the times when you feel a little pang of hunger. When you do, prepare to return right away to your suburban home. And when you grow tired of staring out at the suburban scenery as you’re jostled on the bus or train, and the people seated across from you all seem as boring as robots, please feel free to take a peek at this journal called Esprit. Under that dim, economical light of the lamp, may it sparkle before you like a fresh, elegant, or effective jewel. May it act at times like a lighthearted friend, or adorn like a flower each and every joyful life of the ladies and gentlemen, in the hopes that it will become a fountain of knowledge that does not need to be concocted.
O fickle friends! Having tired of sports, movies, and even the games of love, if you had any intention to follow the urban fashions that shift l
ike the eyes of a cat, I do suggest giving this handy, portable little travel guide a try.
CRYSTAL NIGHT
Abe-san writes poetry on glass. Under the sun, they should become sparkling, fairytale-like fragments. And then they bloom one at a time into transparent flower petals, so as to decorate the Grecian night. When these controlled, jewel-like flower petals shimmer in the breast of night, they are so dazzling that I close my eyes. Then, in the darkness behind my eyelids, I see a beautiful arrangement of shadows.
It might cut my fingers to touch them.
Sometimes I try to scratch up the glass, but my finger only skids across the surface.
The misfortune in Abe-san’s poetry is, in fact, that it is not printed with lead type upon paper.
The secret within this multifaceted glass is indeed the dawn where 19th-century poems get crushed in the palm of the hand.
HAD THEY BEEN THE EYES OF FISH
Whenever I get bored I look at paintings. It is there that I see people’s hearts in various flower petal shapes, or discolored into sad yellows and purples, all of it on display. A horse wearing glasses comes tearing down the barren, pitch black mountain. It’s all very amusing because I have never before seen a living heart nor dead skin. What gorgeous poetry! And here I was only trying to draw words like insect crawlings on a dry scrap of paper. Beautiful spots of color fill in the parts that are the wind and the ocean. The dreams of the artist are completely stained with pigment, still vividly wet. I had dismissed them as mere scribblings, but seeing those internal organs torn to shreds and shimmering, I shudder with pleasure. Leaping rhythms, undulating air. There is something attractive about this diverse life painting on the wall, rotating in front of my eyes.
A painter is a master of lines and colors with which to freely embody an image of a moment in a real space. His alchemy succeeded in destroying all mundane notions. Quite boldly he constructs the images thoroughly analyzed by the light of the sun and the internal spirit. There were times when he gave shape to that which had not even occurred to people. Or, shattering that which we had grown familiar with and bored of, assigning them new labels with new values. I believe that the work of a painter is very similar to that of a poet. I know this because looking at paintings wears me out. Though I doubt there are many poems that are written with the same attention to the effect of color- or motif-based composition, the mood engendered by shadows, and lines determining their point of contact with space within a composition. I suspect that most poems are written with whatever random thought occurs to the poet. In some cases that’s fine, although poems like that are already ruined. They are banal and have a short life span.
When painting a single apple, I do not think we should attribute the concept of roundness or redness to the object. Because the very arbitrarily defined common knowledge regarding this single sphere called an apple has no application whatsoever in terms of paintings. Even if someone declared that it was red and round, that would merely reflect a very small aspect of it, and it’s still possible that its backside might be rotten, blue and swollen, or that it might have a jagged cross-section. We should be able to regard the inclusivity of this thing called apple, from every perspective and from many different angles. That is to say, it is important to grant objects a more three-dimensional observation. Perhaps the way poetry finds expression is by taking materials that had once been reflected into reality and returning them to the realm of thought.
Until now I had been obsessed with the intersection of diagonals on a single plane. I had often failed to notice the lines passing over the space paralleling these diagonals, or the perpendicular lines dropping down into these diagonals. I wonder how much of the space is occupied not by black or white, but by a hazy vagueness that is neither black nor white. And what a joy it would be to open up the windows of a room with such mesh-like complexity. I feel the need to pry it open for myself.
At the exhibit I saw many completed paintings. Yes they might be quite accomplished, but these kinds of paintings are just not interesting. They represent a kind of completion within a single territory, or the halting of a movement—they are none other than the communication of an impasse. I was actually more attracted to the works that failed. That tumult seems indicative of potential. I also felt that there were many works that were influenced by film. For example, the distinction between silhouettes, and the light and darkness of black and white. There were van Goghs, and paintings with two suns, too.
I was so tired I could no longer feel my feet on the ground, but when I stepped outside, the brilliant young green stung my eyes.
MY NIGHTTIME
I’ve fallen into the habit of staying up late again. I sneak my brother’s cigarette case out of the room next door, and when I smoke his Golden Bats I feel awake, not at all sleepy. It’s not that they taste good or anything, but I’ve come to take pleasure in letting my thoughts wander as I smoke. I wonder how I’ve come to like the nighttime so much. The air feels clammy and seems to bear down upon the doors and window frames. The things that sparkled during the day disappear completely, and I begin to hear something pounding the earth. Perhaps it is the sound of the conversations and footsteps of the many people walking the streets, left over from the day along with a slight dampness. At some point the day got extinguished—that’s all there is to it, but what a big difference it makes. A silent repose continues, as if everything has died. All things melt into the darkness of night, and stitches of time pass by close to my ears. If I sit very still there, I grow light as if I have shed my clothes—all my efforts, theories, resistances, and pretensions give way and I should become a good, honest person. I can tolerate anybody cracking the whip on me. If I am told to cry, I can wail like no other. I pull out these dusty little stones I’ve collected over a long period of time, and play with them. There are pumice stones from the Izu islands that give off a white powder, as well as obsidian, agate fragments, fossils with leaf veins, and sharp arrowheads that were used long ago by the Ainu people for bear hunting—all piled up in this little box. When I rub them with my sleeve, they give off a strange, clear light. It seems as if there is a mystical night coagulated inside each stone.
And then I think about the colors of leaves, the darkness of oceans, and of people sleeping. I realize that the most frightful things of this world as well as the most heinous things of the world take place within this vast darkness. On the other side of night, these things are already happening. And I alone keep watch over them.
KINUMAKI-SAN AND HIS POETRY COLLECTION, PEDAL ORGAN
Kinumaki-san, he blinks a lot when he speaks. That’s when I start preparing myself for what he is about to say. And then he’ll say something very funny in a not-so-funny way, which is really very funny. Once I learned the foxtrot while spinning a record with my finger because the springs on the gramophone were broken. Everyone from back then must have forgotten how we danced on the tatami mats, peeling back the carpeting. These old memories return to me, upon receiving Pedal Organ by Kinumaki-san. Such old-school musical accompaniment. I haven’t seen you in a while—I wonder if you are well. Kinumaki-san is quite the dandy; he dangles an expensive tie around his neck as if it were nothing. He carries his walking stick like it bores him, and that somehow becomes him too. For Kinumaki-san, his tie and his hat may just as well be part of his body, like his hands and feet. It’s as if his poetry, too, carries the body odor of its owner, just like his gloves and handkerchiefs.
Some of the poems in Pedal Organ are quite unruly, I must say. In them I hear meaningless, nonsensical music as if a fine lady just plunked herself down on the keys of a piano. Although I am mistrustful, I am attracted nonetheless to this carefree mode. I am in the habit of taking at face value anything I see with my eyes, so I am puzzled by the sight of the many muses leaping out of the bellows, as they are played by skillful feet. It is delightful that poetry can have so much fun while wearing normal clothes.
But I wonder if Kinum
aki-san is really a cunning one. He never hits you from the front, but hides his sentiments further and further back, peeking through and smirking from between those five fingers.
My favorite poem from Pedal Organ is called “Apple Orchard Chronicle.”
ON BUCOLIC COMEDIES BY EDITH SITWELL
Reading the Bon Shoten edition of the poetry collection Bucolic Comedies by Edith Sitwell, I am strangely reminded of a portrait of her I once saw. Her folded hands sporting a large ring, her wide triangular forehead, and dark, swaying shadow that appears to be lit by candlelight. Just like her outward appearance that creates an uncomfortable, sweaty feeling—like if you were not careful you might get washed away into some unknown depth—likewise I feel from these seventeen poems in Bucolic Comedies by this female British poet not a sentimental sweetness, but instead a kind of intense voluminousness. And then again, though it lacks the transparency of a van Gogh painted on a sheet of glass, it is nonetheless possible to hear in it a duet between the brightness of nature borne from the sun, and the undulations of the human heart. The beauty in Sitwell’s poems are not forgeries gold-plated in moonlight, but rather an authentic kind of beauty that is tenacious like steel.
In a poem called “Père Amelot,” she writes that the moon is “Like an Augustan coin.” The image of jangling coins being fished up to the tops of poplars on a windy night is interesting. Compared to most other pastoral lyrics, it might seem that in her world of poetry the comb of a rooster, the gooseberry thorns, and the little stars are all merely actors in the theater of nature, but in fact, these objects of nature, filtered of reality, form beautiful silhouettes.