Tatsuhiko Ishii
Two poems translated from the Japanese by Hiroaki Sato
Romance of Moon and Riot Police
After García Lorca
Los caballos negros son.
Las herraduras son negras.
Sobre las capas relucen
manchas de tinta y de cera.
—Federico García Lorca, Romance de la Guardia Civil Española
In body odor a whiff of book burning——. Forming ranks and keeping silent, those
men.
Policeman’s blood can be an aphrodisiac and a poisonous liqueur. On the night
when the moon rises late
His irises so lucid as to be cruel. The new face of late a street vendor of late a
Cupid with bow and arrow
The tribe tabooing full-moon nights——. Younger brother is a gigolo, big brother
the nation’s dog
Wind from the full moon? What strikes the beardless cheeks of the members of
the riot police at attention
Even the moonlight darkens a bit——. Contemptuous of the ones hiding behind
their silver-gray shields
Believe as they are forced to, that the throngs of citizens pressing close under the
moon are just pigs
The blood and sweat flowing on policemen’s foreheads lodge——. The moonlight
growing clearer
The monologue that calls forth a rebellion. ——The poet the Power snuffed out
was my true mate!
The authorities’ heart being “nonexistent” flies toward the red-shining moon, a
Molotov cocktail
Treetop Flowers
After Li Shangyin
spring sun at the end of sky
end of sky sun slants over
oriole calls like cries
tears moisten the tallest flowers
—Li Shangyin, “The End of Sky”
(translated by Jeffrey Yang)
Bush warbler’s voices are faraway as I awake in a dream of a sea of regrets, calm
on the calm
Streaks of tears unmistakable——. On one cheek of the fireman I held in my arms
all night as we slept
With a watering can I should pour on a smiling flower. Before morning the
morning light
At daybreak the flower makes waves——. Will spring pay a visit, even in Ultima
Thule
Tearfully I will say to the pale moonlight. Only you who are here and are alive are
the spring
What we ought to do is love. One morning, in an east wind, unstintingly a
youthful flower scatters
To the prisoner in a fort in a wetland sent from an ice-free port, a secret
missive——. Solus Rex’s
Very best measure. To pick all the flowers there are and to let all the stars there
are fall
The flower high and blooming on an upper twig also falls. Faster than sharing the
pillow we’ve shared
All the flowers called flowers scatter. The naked mariner spreads the sails of his
boat to the island of love