OCTAVIO PAZ modern haiku 36.1
January 21, 2012 § 2 Comments
A DAY IN THE CITY OF LAKES
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The white palace
white on the black lake
lingam and yoni
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As the goddess does the god
night has encircled me
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The cool veranda
You are boundless, boundless
but surveyable
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The stars they’re inhuman
This hour though is ours
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Falling I rise
Burning I grow wet
Do you have only one body?
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Birds skimming the water
Dawn comes to my eyelids
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Filled with thoughts
immense as death itself
the marble looms over you
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Palaces run aground
their whiteness is adrift
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Women and children
roam through the street
fruit scattered about
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Flashy rags or lightening?
A procession on the plain
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Cold and jingling
on their wrists and ankles
bands of silver
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In a rented suit a guy
goes to his wedding
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Clean and draped to dry
among the stones clothes
you watch in silence
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On the island monkeys
with red asses are screaming
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Sun dim in the heat
Hanging from the wall
a wasp’s nest
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My face is also the sun
of blackened thoughts
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Flies and blood
fill the courtyard of Kali
A young goat flits about
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Eating from the same plate
gods and men and beasts
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Over the pale god
the black goddess
dances headless
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Heat and the hour splits open
These rotting mangoes
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Your face a lake
smooth, without thoughts
Out splashes a trout
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Afternoon’s gone
Lights kindle over the water
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A rippling in
the golden plain and a grotto
Your clothes nearby
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Over your body in the shade
I am like a lamp
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A scale made of
living bodies bound together
over the void
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The water sustains us
The sky overwhelms us
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I open my eyes
How many trees were born
just last night
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What I’ve seen and wanted to say
the white sun blots out
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El Dia en Udaipur translated by Chris Gordon
HIROAKI SATO ant ant ant ant ant four
November 9, 2011 § Leave a comment
Wartime
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February when people often die has come again
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Kubota Mantarô
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For my child leaving I pick moonlit eggplants and cook them
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Takeshita Shizunojo
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In the midst of layered spring haze a murderous intent
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Ugaki Matome
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The black cat too is painfully summer-thin in my house
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Mitsuhashi Takajo
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“Cease with destruction” “Cease with destruction” my heart freezes
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Kubota Mantarô
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In the pitch-dark room I remain leaning on a papered door
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Takeshita Shizunojo
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I fold only cranes with my child in the autumn shower
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Fubasami Fusae
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Under a two-day moon the Divine State has gotten small
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Watanabe Suiha
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All of them the writings my husband left in this seed bag
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Takeshita Shizunojo
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Survived: I sowed buckwheat and now it has flowered
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Hayashibara Raisei
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Hiroaki Sato, Translator
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TOMIZAWA KAKIO by HIROAKI SATO ant ant ant ant ant five
October 13, 2011 § Leave a comment
Scenery In Green Flames
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Cold thunder a single fish slaps heaven
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To cross the strait something vermillion stirs
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Soughing out of my lung a blue butterfly’s wings
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The day honey overflows in bee hives its heaviness
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The shadow merely the migrant birds above the salt lake
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The light turned off oh the heaviness of mercury
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When the snow falls the snow falls quietly nude
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The night the snow accumulates I become a deep-sea fish
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In the evening wind both horse and woman are in the wind
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Night the moon falls I live in the shadow of leaves
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Night the rain smolders I remain closed with petals
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Camellias fall oh this lukewarm midday fire
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Day of pollen the birds do not have breasts I see
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Chickens mate and the sun’s letting mud drip
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Swaying geese come scenery in green flames
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I turn into a snake a drop of water taking a walk
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A butterfly glistening glistening and I darken
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Away in the yellow wind they strip a house duck naked
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Right in the middle of autumn wind a blue shell hole
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Torn clouds here on earth are 15-centimeter howitzers
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Autumn deep clanking our canteens we eat
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Dead ahead clouds glittering forced to cross a river
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There getting wet rain-red is a hand grenade
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Night bandage smudges with blood geese fly honking
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The trench’s belly blood-red in undulating rains
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In the blue sky I hammer a nail that makes a piercing sound
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Deep in my ears I hide a single red machine gun
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Gluing themselves to my retina are mud and muck
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Deep in my chest a gray gun carriage overturns
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I close my eyes and in the void a black horse prances
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FUJIKI KIYOKO by HIROAKI SATO ant ant ant ant ant six
September 30, 2011 § 2 Comments
As If She Were Machinery
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In deep autumn I go on traveling unenlightened
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The scent of perfume so lively sudden loneliness
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The quiet sound of a falling mosquito resounds in my body
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Ears of wheat reveal the depth and shallows of the sea
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The day my black hair’s heavy and cold we part
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A spring evening I ride a car with an ordinary man
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Katydids my perspective gradually narrows
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A girl’s limbs are thin and wise air-conditioned
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Having got used to the depth of war I love a dog
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Summer deep I sleep the day with my own smell
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Fingerprints of desolation everywhere clouds white
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The trifoliate orange is sharp the lady’s elegant
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Oppressed by the sea in twilight I await a train
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Covered by the sounds of insects lies a brain
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Lonely spring a wife lives as if she were machinery
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The night I give up and sew the needle shines
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A white moon turns to gold above the young leaves
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Through my temples a locomotive dashes dark
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Here’s life the fruit juice amber transparent
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Early autumn’s good my veins transparent arteries pulse
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Rainy season desolate I find myself with peanut shells
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At a katydid I feel as if noon day were sinking
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With dusk slow to fall gruel’s cooking at my feet
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Knotweed growing thin falls into the typhoon zone
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A spring evening is wound down toward the apple skin
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Coming away from parting I drink hard cold water
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White noon no white letter comes knocking
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Only a horsefly’s voice annoying my ears I make unlined clothes
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Having lived single-mindedly I’ve lost my goal
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JORGE LUIS BORGES diecisiete haiku (1981)
March 4, 2011 § Leave a comment
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Afternoon. The mountain.
What they told me.
Already it’s gone.
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The broad evening.
Nothing more than
a vague fragrance.
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The dream that faded
just before dawn.
Was it real or not?
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The strings grow still.
Their sound gives way
To my thoughts.
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No comfort from
the almonds in the orchard.
They make me think of you.
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Dimmer, dimmer.
My books, pictures, even keys.
Just like my future.
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Since that one day
I’ve been unable to move
the pieces on the board.
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In the desert
dawn presents herself.
Someone will see it.
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The indolent sword
rings with its former battles.
My dream is otherwise.
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He’s passed on,
but his chin doesn’t realize.
Each hair still growing.
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My hand.
At times it brought about
Your horseman’s capture.
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Under the balcony
the mirror shows no more
than the moon.
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Under the moon
the shadow that reaches out
finds itself alone.
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A hint, this light
that extinguishes itself,
or a firefly?
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The new moon.
She as well sees
by some other light.
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Barely a trill.
The nightengale’s forgotten
how to console you.
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My old hand.
The traditional forms
bring it a forgetfulness.
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Translated by Chris Gordon
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