Hiroshi Kawasaki
(Japan, 1930–2004)
Born in Tokyo, Hiroshi Kawasaki published countless numbers of poems, essays, stories, radio plays and documentaries over the half a century until his death in 2004. His poems are usually plain, unpretentious narratives, and echo his longing for nature, especially the sea, and for living in harmony with nature. His essays, on the other hand, explore the richness of the contemporary Japanese language and collect unique words in regional dialects, or colloquial (and often humorous) curses. His radio plays, which he started writing in his mid-twenties under the strong influence of Dylan Thomas’s Under Milkwood, demonstrate both characteristics of his verses and prose.
In 1953, he co-founded a poetry magazine ‘Kai’ [oar or paddle] together with Noriko Ibaragi. Kai fast developed into one of the most influential poetry collectives, including such poets as Shuntaro Tanikawa and Makoto Ooka as its members. The magazine presented, as a new trend in post-war Japanese poetry, the kind of verse which was dubbed by Makoto Ooka “Carnival of Sensitivities”; it attracted a wide range of general audiences without losing its experimental edge. At the same time, Kai members launched a series of Ren-shi (linked poetry) collaborations, using the traditional Renga practice in contemporary free-style verse.
The earlier poems of Hiroshi Kawasaki showed his romantic longing to be one with nature and to live a pure and simple life – in an almost mythical or idyllic paradise – as the titles of the poems selected here such as ‘Morning’, ‘Life’, ‘Tree’, and ‘The Bird’ indicate.
I get out of the ocean.
On the beach I pick up a fish as large as myself and sling it across my shoulder.
I hoist its slimy weight into place.
Still alive, it sometimes twists and turns
and make me stagger.
A young girl with erected nipples comes towards me.
I put the fish down.
I remove the straw wrapping from around my penis.
Domingo
Me levanto en la mañana
desmonto de la pared mi arma de caza
de un escopetazo vuelo la taza de café
que está sobre la mesa, y
lánguidamente bostezo.
Me meto en el océano
me recuesto en las olas,
pero los dedos ignorantes de mis pies
y mi rostro se elevan sobre la
superficie
Entonces
mi asustadiza espalda se pregunta:
“¿Debería quedarme dormida?”,
en tanto mis muslos no saben qué hacer
de su vida.
Sólo mis manos,
nada olvidadizas,
chapotean con prudencia un poco.
Salgo del océano,
en la playa me encuentro un pez de mi mismo tamaño
lo cargo sobre mis hombros,
Lo llevo de vuelta a su sitio, no pesa nada.
Todavía vivo, de vez en vez se retuerce
haciendo que tambalee.
Una jovencita de erectos pezones se me acerca,
dejo el pez en el suelo,
quito de mi pene la paja que lo envuelve
El pájaro
Quiero cantarle al pájaro
de forma esencial
cantar primero a su pico
a sus alas
a su cuerpo
a sus patas
a su cola
a sus ojos
Y eso es todo lo que canto
Pues con eso basta
para que el pájaro
levante vuelo
Una pared plomiza
Las palabras dicen
en palabras desear
no haber nacido
palabras.
Desearían haber sido
una empinada pared plomiza.
Y, tras decir esto,
las palabras suspiran
un suspiro que
no es una palabra
Traducción Pablo Adolfo Gustavo Ferro
IX
He oído hablar de mariposas que dejaban de respirar
mientras sorbían néctar, pegadas a la flor.
O contemplad a la cigarra: desprovista de vida,
apurados los cantos,
es izada por las hormigas, que unen la vida con lo venidero
¡Qué finales tan felices!
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