Public Questioning, Easy, Easy

By Masaki Suruga,2006

（Translation into English : Yukiko Akagawa）

 

 

 

Just writing.

I'm just writing.
Have never called myself a poet,
So I'm happy.

Still fussy about the word,
Poem.

Callous youth,
I'm happy I didn't call me
A poet
To challenge you.

Seeing my work on the web,
They demand why they don't find it at bookshops
Pressing me asking, are they unworthy to have?

I would have got lost at such a time
Had I called myself a poet.
But I knew
I only knew
How humans are.
So, I could slip away
From every maliciousness,

So gentle
Disguising interest
Or admiration.
So, I can say to them

Listen,
Poets are
Like this man,
Like that man.

I show their anthologies asking,
You enjoy it?
These are the collections of poems
That you can find at any bookshop.
They are the post-war Nipponese poets laureate.

As I know,
I only know,
How humans are,
I enjoy
Seeing you snapping shut the book
Looking uninterested.

Listen,
I say further.

Don't shut the book like that.
They ARE so-called poets.
I don't know why,
But a number of Japanese
Applaud them like a religion.
Like a single idea of a dunce,
Poets mean these people.
If you enjoy them,

You are lucky,
Easy, at least,
Because any bookshop
Has their poems
Ready and steady

A noir, E blanc, I rouge, U vert, O bleu : voyelles,
Je dirai que jour vos naissances latentes :*

Muttering the words I learned long time ago,
Like a spell,
I wouldn't unfold, after all,
The Japanese poems, watery and soggy.
I'm still fussy about the word,
Poem

So,
Merciless youth,
How do you define a poem?

It's time for me
To demand you.

How do you define a poem?
You are blessed
If free of the watery wet poetry.

How do you define a poem?
Emotions,

Obsolete avant-garde,
Daily life that stinks,
Japanese sentimentalism,
Cheap stories,
Word play.

Throwing them all away
I ask you from beyond them.

How do you define a poem?

Most of your poems
Will not be poems to me perhaps.

How do you define a poem?

Time for me
To stand on the side
Of demanding an answer.

Me,
Who has never called himself
A poet.

 

 

 

* The beginning of "Vowels" by Arthur Rimbaud
A noir (A is black), E blanc (B is white), I rouge (I is red),
U vert (U is green), O bleu (O is blue) : voyelles (Vowels),
Je dirai (I tell you) quelque jour (someday)
vos naissances latentes (your secret origin...);