#takako lento

[no-w-here-i-am]

I AM ME, MYSELF I know who I am I am here now but I may be gone in an instant even if I am no longer here I am me, myself but in truth I do not have to be me I am a plant at least a little I may be a fish more or less I am also an ore with a dull sheen though I don’t know its name and of course I am almost you Because I cannot disappear after being forgotten I am a rhythm in a refrain I am a subtle wave and a particle having arrived, if I may be so conceited, riding on your heart’s beating rhythm from the light years of distance I know who I am so I know who you are even if I don’t know your name even if there is no census record I am crowding out into you Feeling happy being wet in rain feeling at home with the starry sky cackling at crude jokes I am me beyond the tautology of  'I am me'

Shuntaro Tanikawa From: Watashi (I Myself) From: The Art of Being Alone: Poems 1952–2009 Translation: 2011, Takako Lento

Japanese original + video click here

[eatingpoetry]

The Thin Line

You are always by yourself In your eyes where I have never seen tears there’s something like a bitter gleam I like it In your sightless imagination this world is a wilderness for hunting where you are a hunter in winter always trying to close in on a single heart You do not trust words In your footprints as you have massacred every heart I see a deep yearning for fear I cannot stand it Along the thin line you walk the smell of blood sticks even to the snow However far I move away from it I can tell You pull the trigger! I die inside your words By Ryuichi Tamura Translated by Takako Lento

[dreamer434]

Grendel's Mother by Nagase Kiyoko translated by Takako Lento

In the depths of her ancient cavern at the far edge of a cyan marsh (or at the bottom of a gloomy city where electric poles cast shadows) Grendel’s Mother, with her bronze hair, holds her children tightly in her arms Her ancient monster’s eyes stare at the entrance like a spider Her powerful motherhood like a helmet gives them sanctuary Her children will become great monsters of the North in due time (or they will grow up to be ones who steadily lap up the tears of multitudes in silence) Even among their gruesome victims each, alone, will step toward the sublime will not melt away even amid evil and wrath, and will not roar in pain except in Mother’s arms! Moonlight like fresh ore rises from the profound depths of night flares in cyan over the ancient marsh (or over the roof tiles in the city) Grendel’s Mother is now hiding in the heart of the cavern.

[penamerican]

“Let us celebrate Horai / the legendary mountain / this spring of my old age”

[baisao]

In a shop named “Afternoon Tea” drinking a hot cup of chai a thought came to me: Meanings grow like mold on people’s minds Weren’t words less verbal in ancient times? Weren’t they just there, not tormented by meanings, like a chipped tea cup?

Music, different from murmuring background music softly sings in the depths of me

Tanikawa Shuntarō tr. Takako Lento