Fuyuhiko: Five Short Poems

Painting by Marcia Baldwin


DAY OF SNOW

How painful drawing breath inside this bamboo reed:
Is anything still happening outside its narrow walls,
and if so, where?

THE HORSE

Its belly holds a harbor full of guns.

THE LURID W.C.

A crescent moon is hanging in the willow branches.
A beautiful young man emerges from the W.C.
His face in profile painted white with lime.

A PAIR OF CLAWS

Scars on stone.

RUSH-HOUR

Punching tickets at the gate:
Our fingers bleed instead.

Kitagawa Fuyuhiko

Posted over on Poems and Poetics
Translated from the the Japanese by Jerome Rothenberg