Writers Poets of Japan
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Takashi Arima
Bend your legs
Keep thigh, touching thigh
Rest your chin on your knees
arms wrapped underneath
Face tilted slightly
Eyes looking the other way
I wander what is being spoken
by lips half open
If one could flee oneself
under these circumstances
with an attitude like this
then put the question to the knees
gently rubbing
the lengthy line of the skin
Translated from the original in Japanese
by Tadao Hikikata
and John Michael Kuzel
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Version française du poème de Takashi
par Jacques Lalloz
Ramène à toi tes jambes
et joins-les bien
Tu y poses à présent le menton
et les entoure de tes bras
Dans ce visage à demi incliné
dont le regard se fixe ailleurs
Que peuvent annoncer
ces lèvres entrouvertes ?
Si ce faisant tu pouvais
comme tu es à présent
t'évader d'ici
Questionne ces genoux
Promène lentement les doigts
au long de tes jambes étirées.
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Koichi Yakushigawa
Rakan at Hojo
Following along the Chugoku-kaido
the way leads to the spae of off-limit.
Rakan-ji temple
exists there
as if it is in a hollow space.
Priest is singing
incantation to Buddha.
Stone Rakans
gather up here
to hear the incantation
resounding over the place.
Did they come here to hear
the priest's singing
over from the other country?
Did they come here to stand still?
Are you stone pillars
or stone Rakans?
Faces on square stone pillars
with thin eyes
seem to float over
water of thought,
seem to reject
all questions.
Awful
you are!
RAKAN = The general name for the Buddha's highest disciples.
CHUGO-KAIDOU = The name of one of the network of road.
HOJO = Name of a local town in the central district of Japan.
119
Now, the original of Koichi's poem, in Japanese :
120
121
Original drawing by Setsuko Ichikawa
122
Petal
The flower is pregnant with the sun.
She is gasping for peace.
She is praying for quietude.
The sun in her swelling
to burst into the world
tearing the pink petals
too frail to resist the sun.
The fine point trembling,
the delicate vein frightened,
if the sun violates her into pieces.
The sun in the flowers
is not the sun of life
but the sun of strife.
123
Kiyoko Ogawa
Between two Stools
Last night only those who create gathered.
Today mainly those who criticise assembled.
Pursuing art and academism at the same time.
Danger of drowning myself in dire dilettantism.
When I pour all my energy equally into both,
my frail body screams and collapses.
Convalescing, I repeat the same process
without learning from experience.
Stigmatic is my schizophrenic depersonalisation,
refusing to abandon deranged narcissism.
Falling between two stools is an easy prey.
Shuttling between two spheres is my eager pray.
From NO SOUND : 2005
Kiyoko reading at the XI CIELE-ICWEL (2009)
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