Six Poems For a Round of Renshi

Woodcut by Gu Zhijan


Six Poems For a Round of Renshi

Kumamoto, Japan, 2010

Let us offer up a song, may the gods
of these fields bear witness
The gods look down, the farmers
plant their fields and are glad
– HIROMI ITO, from a local folk song

1
TWO TANKAS

the future rising
as does my name red mountain
summit high above

the earth below in darkness
hole the fathers called sheol

.

soon to be with you
on Aso not Death Mountain
in the other poem [Shiyo, d. 1703]

beneath which looms the shadow
of a visionary fish [S. Tanikawa]


2
LINES AFTER SHUNATARO TANIKAWA

The language of those who hate me
The language of those who will love me

so that he starts again
until the mud
through which he walks

covers his body
starts again but robs him
of his breath

3
LINES AFTER HIROMI ITO

I must have been born to play,
I must have been born to frolic,

yet in his emptiness, his voidness
he is a real man only
when he murders

so in love with death
he leaves me desperate

the more I look into his eyes
I see a dead bull gutted
but a living man


4
LINES AFTER HIROMI ITO

I left my infant child in my lasciviousness
and slept with many men

—how does she know the time then?
—by fits & starts
—and if the time starts running?
—she runs behind it
—then try to pin her down
& hear her squeal
—a word caught in your throat
is still a word

5
LINES AFTER WAKAKO KAKU

passing through
will sweep all illness away, they say
will change one into infinite blue—
the body whole

840 million thoughts
the sutra says [Jōdō Bosatsu Sutra]
come every night
& overwhelm the sleeper
looking for a place
to hide
for which he writes
his death poem
as a perfect circle [Shisui, d. 1769]

6
LINES AFTER WAKAKO KAKU

We put logic to rest
We celebrate the outrageous
The last song remaining
is our offering
to the world

people speak at me
& I don’t understand
except my name & yours
& little words like koko & asoko
& those that aren’t words at all
but sounds remembered
first as sounds
the small nouns
crying faith (he wrote) [G. Oppen]
what poets always knew
what still astounds

Kumamoto, Japan
March 2010


Jerome Rothenberg

Posted over on his site Poems & Poetics