god of toilet

by kana uemura


from the time I was in 3rd grade
i lived with my grandma, i dont know why.
my parent's house was next door but
i lived with my grandma

i helped out everyday
played board game too.
but i just couldn't like cleaning the toilet
and my grandma said this to me

"there's a really, really beautiful
goddess in the toilet
that's why if you clean the toilet everyday
you will become a beautiful lady, just like the goddess."

from that day on i began
to make the toilet shine bright.
to become a beautiful lady,
i polished it everyday

when we went out shopping
we had roasted duck together
when my grandma forgot to record a comedy show on tv
i cried and blamed her.

"there's a really, really beautiful
goddess in the toilet
that's why if you clean the toilet everyday
you will become a beautiful lady, just like the goddess"

when i grew up a bit
i couldn't get along with grandma
i did not get along with my family as well
i had no place i belonged.

even on days off, i did not return home
and hanged out with my boyfriend
the board game and the roasted duck
have disappeared from the two of us.

i wonder why, people hurt one another
and lose the things that are so precious
leaving behind my grandma who always stood by me
i left home all alone

after two years of moving to tokyo
my grandma was hospitalized
i went to see my grandma
who had lost a lot of weight and had become so thin

feigning, i entered the room with a "grandma, i'm home!"
just like i used to
but even though we spoke just a little bit
she sent me out with a "go home now"

the next morning grandma
quietly passed away.
it was just as if... as if
she was just waiting for me to come.
even though she raised me properly
even though i'm yet to repay her
even though i wasn't a good grandchild
she waited for me.

"there's a really, really beautiful
goddess in the toilet."
i wonder, if these words my grandma gave me
are making me into a beautiful lady.

"there's a really, really beautiful
goddess in the toilet
that's why if you clean the toilet everyday
you will become a beautiful lady, just like the goddess"

my dream was to one day become
a good natured wife
so even today, alone,
im making my toilet shine bright.


grandma
grandma
arigato
grandma
really really
arigato

Funeral Blues

by W.H. Auden

Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,
Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,
Silence the pianos and with muffled drum
Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.

Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead
Scribbling on the sky the message He is Dead.
Put crepe bows round the white necks of the public doves,
Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves.

He was my North, my South, my East and West,
My working
week and my Sunday rest,
My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;
I thought that love would last forever: I was wrong.

The stars are not wanted now; put out every one,
Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun,
Pour away the ocean and sweep up the woods;
For nothing now can ever come to any good.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b_a-eXIoyYA

I Have Nothing

by Cui Jian

how many times have i asked you
"when are you running away with me?"
but you always mocked at me
and said that there's
nothing to my name

i want to own you, and let you
own my freedom
but you always mocked at me
and said that there's
nothing to my name

oh, when are you running away with me
oh, when are you running away with me

the ground is moving below my feet
the rivers are flowing beside me
but you always mocked at me
and said that there's
nothing to my name

why cant you stop criticizing me
why cant i stop loving you
please dont tell me that i'm destined to
have nothing at all

oh, when are you running away with me
oh, when are you running away with me

im telling you i've wasted long enough
i'm telling you my last wish
i'm just gonna grab your hand right now
and you'll have to follow me
wherever i go

at this moment, your hands are shaking
and your tears are rolling
are you now telling me that
you really love me,
who has nothing at all?

Love Letter

by Jun Shibata

calling my name, as if confirming
i can still hear your voice

i, who will turn into ash in the morning light,
replied softly to the moving cigarette ember

once again, i may have fallen in love
with a man with saddened eyes
with so many things lost and destroyed,
i wished to be filled to the brim even just for a moment.

someday when you're dead and gone
i will be fine
i have been alone for a long time
ever since i fell in love with you

should i be the one to go first
nothing will change for you
you can go on living without looking back.

it's not my style, but i believe in fate
i am looking for someone all the time

a free being who will not belong to anyone
just not found. it isn't me either.

if two shadows just for keeping company
mean something,
it will probably, probably make a difference
more than never having met at all.

someday when you've disappeared
i will be fine
the reason why i do not ask you anything
is to not love you more than now

should i be the one to go first
nothing will end for you
you can go on living without looking back.

someday when you're dead and gone
i will be fine
i have a feeling we will meet again
because you were somewhat like me.

should i be the one to go first
nothing will change for you
you can go on living without looking back
walking on... layering on...

flowing...
living on.

Graduation (Sotsugyou)

by Yutaka Ozaki

in the shade of the school building, on the grass, below the transparent sky
i was experiencing the real and the surreal.
the bell rung so i sat in my usual seat
thinking of what to follow and what not to follow.
my heart is murmering. what i now have
seemed so meaningless, and i was confused.

roaming the streets after school, we are in the wind.
walked on desolate, with solitude in the eye.
in a cafe saturated with laughter and sighs,
we competed for the highest score at the pinball machine
my soul is bored. with a little stimulus
we chatted on exagerating about anything.

oh oh oh oh

i thought "fuck with being good with good manners".
went around breaking school windows at night.
continued to rebel and struggled on. wished to be free quickly.

in the struggles with grownups i couldn't trust,
forgiving one another, what did we understand of each other?
i was fed up but carried on.
one thing i was certain of...
the graduation from this domination!

we would get all excited about somebody's brawl
we all wanted to know how strong we were.
believing ernestly that the power was the only thing necessary
convinced ourselves that to follow was to lose.
we feined strength even to our friends
even if that ended up hurting somebody.

soon everyone fell in love, getting obsessed with
words of love and ideal love.
people say, be calculative in life
but we believed strongly in the straightforwardness of loving someone
what is important?... we were confused in differentiating between love
and what we must do in order to live.

oh oh oh oh

i thought "fuck with being good with good manners".
went around breaking school windows at night.
continued to rebel and struggled on. wished to be free quickly.

in the struggles with grownups i couldn't trust,
forgiving one another, what did we understand of each other?
i was fed up but carried on.
one thing i was certain of...
the graduation from this domination!

what the hell can we understand from graduating?
what will remain, apart from memories?
if everyone is a tied up hapless lamb,
teacher, are you a spokesman for the hapless grownups?
where should our anger be directed at?
what will tie me down from hereafter?
how many more times should i graduate myself
to arrive at the real me?

oh oh oh

without anybody noticing the freedom that is fixed,
our days of struggle are coming to an end.
the graduation from this domination.
the graduation from the struggles.

Cosmos

by Momoe Yamaguchi


Pale pink cosmos are swaying
In the autumn sun
My mother, who is easily moved to tears these days,
Coughs once in the garden

She opens an album sitting on the porch
And goes on and on about my childhood
Over and over again
In a small voice as if talking to herself

On a tranquil day like this warm Autumn day
Her kindness seeps in right through me
She smiles and says to me who is getting married tomorrow
“Don’t you worry for time will turn
Your hard times into stories you can laugh at”

Going down the memory lane
There never was a day I was alone
I bite my lips as now I realize
How selfish I have been

I pack for tomorrow with her help
And it was fun for a while
But suddenly bursting into tears
My mother says to me “Take care of yourself” again and again

With the words “Arigato” engraved in my heart
I will live my life.
On a tranquil day like this warm Autumn day
Let me be your child
A little longer

hairpin

spinning stainless steel
so fastly
your rotten flesh peeling off inward
your inner throat

does not stick on
for so fastly like baton
like church choir, round and round
descending

dear maria, it

is painful, see
the bitter juice of my eyeballs run
over dry river bed shallow for years
untouched

the reflection of a gurgling
staircase to hell with sting
of a light from the pin
furthering

this isn't your aspirin, the pain the pain
of droplets of melted straw drawn out
with your coloured agony
such inept coherency

has driven you to swallow
this stripped sun. hold on fastly now
to the railing, or you will fall
hard.

requiem to lazarus

old man.
nobody likes you.
for you have taken what they'd put their prices on
individually.
you water those leaves
simply as a decoration placed
in front of the estab-lish-ment.
you make phone calls
and even talk
into the machine, after all these years
proving to me that you're a-
live
not just a jesus-worshipper.

you dared to make love to a teenager.
i do not know what i should call you
but i know
from what i hear
that people call you dirty.

i respect you.
no end.

Do not go gentle into that good night

- Dylan Thomas


Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
and learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

on a stained bed

on a stained bed for hours on end
occasionally gliding in our bathrobes into the kitchen the bath
and you'd come emerging through the doorway
across my half-opened eye silky
with the mugs in your hands carelessly made
to last for the day.

in the evening you have to go
and id inevitably mourn, in rapid disguise,
and make several calls abroad
so you would stay for a few more hours.

many years from now, you'd flip through the folds of your brain
and see me standing there as i do
hand over mouth
so we'd know it was real.