NEW JAPANESE TRANSLATIONS OF REXROTH
“One might say that he
became a female poet
in his last years.”
—Sam Hamill, “The Poetry of Kenneth Rexroth,”
A Poet’s Work: The Other Side of Poetry, Seattle:
Broken Moon Press, 1990
***
I loathe the twin seas
Of being and not being
Straight—I long for
The boy untouched
By the changing tides.
—Anonymous, Manyóshú
***
Your tit-ring tingles
You pout as usual—
You take off your kimono
Your don’t hurry—
You’re the Prince.
—Anonymous, Manyóshú
***
On Komochi Mountain—
From the time your new
Moustache sprouts until
It curls upward into the
Clouds—I want to sleep
With you—so what do
You think of that?
—Anonymous, Manyóshú
***
We ditch the Palace—
To make love out there
Where the Inami Moor
Fills the fields with—
Smeared moonlight.
—Anonymous, Manyóshú
***
I don’t care if
Everybody knows—
All I want to do is
Pull and pull the
Rainbow out of you.
—Anonymous, Manyóshú
***
In the moonlit valley
I can feel bamboo grow—
Sliding upward through
Your smooth foreskin.
—Kakinomoto No Hitomaro
***
When my boyfriend’s gone—
It’s like the ground beneath
The date palm trees—
Full of rotten pits.
—Kakinomoto No Hitomaro
***
We wiggle
Like eels in a pool—
When my lover and I
Make love each night.
—Kakinomoto No Hitomaro
***
This morning I won’t
Comb my hair—
It combed the pubes
Of my lover last night.
—Kakinomoto No Hitomaro
***
My knuckles turn white
My heart’s all knotty—
Because of you I’ll never
Untangle myself.
—Kakinomoto No Hitomaro
***
“We live in an age in
which the poetry of
mature erotic love
is out of fashion.”
—Sam Hamill, “The Poetry of Kenneth Rexroth,”
A Poet’s Work: The Other Side of Poetry, Seattle:
Broken Moon Press, 1990
***
I wait at homeIn your room
By your empty bed—
Gazing at your
Black kimono.
—Kakinomoto No Hitomaro
***
I waited for you
By the lake forever—
Until I heard somewhere
In the night a frog
Suddenly go Kaplunk—
Deep inside my heart
—Kakinomoto No Hitomaro
***
When I squeezed
Your left fig on the
Path up the slope of
Mount Hikite—
I felt as if surely
I was dying.
—Kakinomoto No Hitomaro
***
Wound-up tight like a top
You’re ready to spin out—
Unwinding yourself into
Exquisitely complete
Abandon—there’s nothing
I can do except hold tight.
—Mikato Shami
***
Everybody tells you
Your hair is too long—
I leave it alone because
I am the Prince and you
Are my disheveled Page.
—Lady Sono No Omi Ikuha
***
Better to have run
Into an old whore—
On Nob Hill than to
Wake up and reach out—
For your hands not there.
—Otomo No Yakamochi
***
When I see the slim—
Faint new moon against
The evening sky, I think
Of the raised eyebrows
Of a boy I once knew.
—Otomo No Yakamochi
***
To love a young man—
Who doesn’t love you
Is like going to a
Temple and kissing the
Tight asshole of a sullen
Young nonbeliever.
—Lady Kasa
***
I wish I were close—
As close as I could get
To the wet kimono of
That drowned boy who got
Washed up by the sea.
—Lady Kasa
***
He was like the swaying
Kelp in the surf waiting—
For somebody to gather
His seaweed pubes and
Cold blue lips to shore.
—Lady Kasa
***
That night I dreamed—
The drowned boy swam
And swam as far out to
Sea as he could—trying
To forget his lost lover.
—Lady Kasa
***
All the roads—
I took trying to find you
Just a glimpse would be
Enough but coyly you
Wouldn’t let me see it.
—Lady Kasa
***
Knowing the Pillow
Talked while I slept—
I slept without one to
Keep love fresh without
Too much pillow talk.
—Lady Ise
***
When we make love—
I want to see him
Overcome with blushes—
Like an embarrassed
Rosebush—ashamed of
Himself—and what we do.
—Lady Ise
***
Your young love—
Is like the jet-black ink
Of a Calligrapher—
Sucked up by the
Parched parchment of
My imperial stationary.
—Prince Fujiwara No Motoyoshi
***
I can’t stand to be
Without you all the time—
Even if you drown in
Tokyo Bay—
Take me down deep
With you forever.
—Prince Fujiwara No Motoyoshi
***
The waves crawl
Over the beach of
The Bay of Sumi—
Even at night
The waves curl
Around your curls.
—Prince Fujiwara No Motoyoshi
***
Yoshima River—
Flows between Ino
Mountain and your
Bulging bellybutton—
All the world’s an illusion
When I tongue your
Pink Mt. Fuji asshole.
—Prince Fujiwara No Motoyoshi
***
When my Yang—
Is far away and my
Yin hides from me—
Both the cold winter
Night and blue moon
Above cry out to be
One again.
—Prince Fujiwara No Motoyoshi
***
“There is a sweetness,
a depth of love, in the
later poems that is
probably a result of
Rexroth’s “feminization”—
It is surprising to think
Of it...”
—Sam Hamill, “The Poetry of Kenneth Rexroth,”
A Poet’s Work: The Other Side of Poetry, Seattle:
Broken Moon Press, 1990
***
Yes, I’m still doing it—
Falling in love and how
They gossip about me—
How awful it is that
I fall in love without
Even knowing why?
—Mibu No Tadami
***
Funny how disordered
The tangled ferns of
Michinoka cloth seem—
But not as disordered
As my mind around you.
—Mina Moo No Táoru
***
Love always seems—
Over after being with
You—leaving me like
A Phantom—your face
Covering itself with a
Veil so nobody sees
The real you.
—Mina Moo No Táoru
***
I try to hide it—
But my face always
Blushes around you—
So then you ask me
Who am I thinking of?
—Taira No Kanemori
***
Even during a
Summer typhoon—
Your pearls cling to
My cheek like a sticky
Broken necklace.
—Taira No Kanemori
***
Thinking of the days
And nights before—
I met you back when
I thought I had no—
Troubles at all.
—Fujiwara No Atsutada
***
Sometimes I pass by—
Some place we once
Loved to visit—that’s
When the midnight
Moon stops—clouding
Over with darkness.
—Lady Murasaki Shikibu
***
How many blue moons
Does it take and take
And take again—to forget
The one I used to love?
—Daini no Sanmi
***
A bed full of books—
A cat, a pillow that
Talks, the only thing
Missing—a boy who
Says nothing and
Nothing some more.
—Kakinomoto no Hitomaro
***
From Mt. Rainier—
Over the pumice plains
The wind blows over
The Enumclaw Plateau.
How can I ever drive
To the Carbon River
And Genius Falls without
Feeling that wind blowing
Through my empty heart?
—Daini Sanmi
***
It’s already too late—
Tonight for our meeting
But I’m not melancholy—
Standing on the dock
By the rotting cabana—
Listening to the seagulls
Flying low over the lake
The clouds scudding by?
—Ise Tayá
***
The pillow knows who—
To tell and tell again,
All there is to tell and
Then some more—
But only I know what
To whisper in his ear—
Even though he tells
Me not to ask or tell…
—Lady Izumi Shikibu
***
The pillow talks—
The pillow talk is just
Simply awful—it’s not
Shy about telling dirt
But then the more we
Do—the more there
Is to gossip about!!!
—Lady Izumi Shikibu
***
The azaleas are pink—
Their bloom doesn’t last
Very long, they blush like
The boy whose pink turns
Crimson, when I kiss him.
—Lady Izumi Shikibu
***
Japanese boyz come & go—
Thirty years go by and how
Many spider webs cover the
Path overgrown with louche
Memories, clinging to my
Face as I get the mail.
—Lady Izumi Shikibu
***
I forget already now—
I barely remember their
Names, as if there was
Was surely only One Name
And his Name is Love.
—Lady Izumi Shikibu
***
How many chanting sutra—
Later listening to the young
Monk’s gong—my life as a
Poet reverberating during
The intervals between the
Boyz of Tokyo and Kyoto.
—Lady Izumi Shikibu