The Poetry of Tadami Yamada (English edit. -2）

Popular Balladish Saturday

Somehow

Melancholic Saturday

It's not suitable for Mozart

much less Bach

You know, coffee-shop master!

Make me another bitter coffee

After sipping it I'll go out

to pick up popular ballads

in the evening street

So, make me bitter coffee please

Somehow

Melancholic Saturday

It's just my heart

not rain, but looks like rain

You know, coffe-shop master!

Listen to my bitter memory

which I can't abondon, want to shed tears

but I can't, an old tale of my love

Although you are laughing

Make me another bitter coffee please

Somehow

Melancholic Saturday

It's not suitable for Armani

much less roses

You know, coffee-shop master!

I must be going now, I'll stop my story

because of becoming to grumble

Tomorrow, I'm sure, it'll rain

Although you are laughing

that girl with you once

She's fair as May rose, isn't she?

                                 (May 17,  2009)

CHAMBER

Day light was thickly covered with curtains

Absented chairs were four and five and six,

turned away, tumbled down, appeared cobmwebby;

Ah! this room was always locked on inside but no key

Did you ever hear birds singing? ---Might not

Did you ever see flowers blooming? ---Might not

Myself, to wear black clothes like an alchemist, the old,

strolling with a sigh, only thought on

making a stone to change into gold.

As no any lights, to pull out not only my arms and

my thighs but my ribs and my skull

I burnt them instead of candlelight

When these my bones lighted as will-o'-wisps,

huge shadows opened wings as ominous birds.

That was an appalling and fearfull scene

I covered my face with the black skirt, and

ran about to make my escape from shadows of myself.

Ah! how should I put it? My pale lips leaked a groan

Sleeping was not like a sleeping, ---however

I dreamed of unnoticed violence and murder

as making myself capricious pose in a chair.

A stone in my hand changing a murderous weapon

which I beat beat someone down by. And when

beat more, the bloody face suddenly changed into myself

That the first face, ---who was it?

I could not forget that eyes of which.

Last broken face of myself looked up me in powerless

That the first face, ---who was it?

Thinking the meaning of the dream

I gazed at the locked door in darkness

The following day, I saw the handle of door turning

The caller who was worm for a phantom,

did not give me any fear for the actual.

I saw the forehead, and its deep scar

to be covered with fresh blood.

O! the evidence of my crime in the dream

It was the secret to put my brow over the other

And then, My dailies that was no ward to talk to

were cleverly stolen. ---However,

what did it mean to be stolen?

Inside of curtains of my windows

it was raising dust as if my fool giggled

I hurriedly ran up to the handle of door

which the one had got out from.

But the inside had not any handle of door.

'Nothing it would be to happen hereafter!'

---Such my irrationally stolen dailies.

My teeth like a vampire glittered, snarled at the air

I should like to have to suck blood of that brow!

It was repeated every day and night

Smelling of blood, flying, piteous pleasures.

If I said 'Those days were just good!'

it might be an old man, but to look back

with nostalgia to the past being never to return

I drew a distressing sigh as thin as a thread

'Nothing it would be to happen hereafter!'

Absented chairs were five and six in the chamber

                                                  (May 6,  2009)

SPRING SKETCHES

A plum tree being attached an old bamboo stick aslant is its the old.

Wind rages through everyday, I'm bitter against spring for coming late.

It is just today that can be called spring! The wind is nice.

The scent of plums lingered in the air, I walk slowly naturally.

Ask me about spring, I've greeted spring many times already.

Ask me about spring, I'll talk about visages that had disappeared like haze.

A dog getting drenched in the cold spring rain lost his way, go on to walk.

The garden was quite ruined and abandoned. The spring snow mottled on there.

A flake of spring snow is the visiter's shoulder.

Close the gate. The day is drawing to an end. It's spring cold.

I passed by a girl having a pot of safflon in her arms.

A spring bird is walking ahead of my steps, like an usher.

My shoes are shiny, and tread lightly my own shadow with spring sunshine.

Things are beginning to sprout mellowly mellowly in secret.

The east wind is blowing, I'll write a short letter!

The snake comes out from his own nest hole in spring. This infernal world!

A spring egg in my palms, I feel it's warmth, it's life!

I slipped on the road with slushy, felt the sole of the foot erotically.

The spring storm blew the big tree which has lived through a thousand years.

After watching sinful man the god-tree died in the spring storm.

Shining warm wind, I polish window panes.

Clams cry in a pool after an ebb tide.

Picking up wild little flowers, I transplanted them in my garden.

Spring glass! It feels soft and tenderly old man's wrinkles.

To throw myself down on the spring glass, I dream the altitude of the sky.

Peach, japanese magnolia, cherry blossomes are in bloom, and azalea too.

                                               (Mar. 22.  2010)

OCTOBER

When I went through a woods of larch tree out

It was just setting sun dyeing the clouds gold

A broken wings butterfly was fluttering about

in her last moments; Ah October !

One year passed as I nursed my old sick mother

She is calling my name while her dreaming

I stop my hands to cut her hair, leave her silvery hair

In my garden a nut of camellia falls, A faint sound !

Standing a visitor by the window in autumn rain

Stewing white gourd melon in the kitchen

I've its vague smell while talking with the visitor

A stone wall tumble down quiet, towards evening !

Decadence of the skin of ripen persimmon

which has lost its shape to be exposed to rain

My pet cat's eyes become clear with blue

A wheelchair alone in the porch, like to be abandoned !

When I went deep into my memories;

My castle of youth crumbled to pieces

I found the land lying waste without to care of,

brushed aside a thicket, Ah only red snake gourd !

October like a river whirls around here

Let me see the universe, I'm dust, the moon clear

Migrantory wild geese are flying over the dark sea

                                                  (Oct. 17,  2010)

A Matter Written on a Postcard

Though I recollect it

there is only a square hole there

Since I intended to forget it, I've really forgot it

I have received a postcard

which was blank, no the name of the sender;

only my name and my address were written on

Perhaps anyone knows nothing about self's birth, and

have been thrown out into this world immediately,

and, however, only death is seen in the future surely

I try counting aloud from one to one hundred.

I've not gone out for the cherry blossoms viewing,

but it's my life if I do seventy times of the flower viewing.

I look,

I listen,

I describe, and

I draw pictures ---this world

                                                  (Dec. 10,  2010)