God of War

矢口以文

Sapporo Jan. 2005

Yaguchi Yorifumi reads "Senso no Kami"

--Yaguchi Yorifumi, Tenkoku no Enkai, Eihousha (Nihon Menonaito Bunshou Kyoukai), 2004

Yaguchi Yorifumi reads "God of War"

from The Poetry of Yorifumi Yaguchi: a Japanese Voice in English, ed. Wilbur J. Birky, Good Books 2006

Jesus, by Yaguchi Yorifumi

Fukuzumi

The Mennonite guest house Fukuzumi in Sapporo is a comfortable lodging with a dozen guest rooms and a spacious lounge. Mr. and Mrs. Asai are the gracious hosts.

I first visited Sapporo in 1967, then travelled to Furano and on to Obihiro, Kushiro and Nakashibetsu. We returned to Sapporo by third-class overnight train. The sleepers had six bunks per compartment. I climbed the wooden ladder to the top bunk and fell asleep to the rocking motion of the train, like that of a small ship in choppy water.

Nomura's jellyfish

エチゼンクラゲ

トワイライトエクスプレス

Night train,
Bring my baby back to me,
Night train,
Bring my baby back to me,
I'm as blue
I'm as blue, I'm as blue as I can be.

I'm goin' down to the station
And I swear I'll be a-waitin'
On the night train
I've been so all alone
But now my baby's comin' home
On the night train
So come along with me
And see how happy I will be
To meet the night train.

No more will I be blue
Bcaause I know just what to do
I'll meet the night train
My girl is coming back
And I'll be standing at the track
To see the night train

(Eddie Jefferson lyrics)

THE CHANGE: Kyoto-Tokyo Express

...

In my train seat I renounce
my power, so that I do
live I will die

Over for now the Vomit, cut
up & pincers in the skull, the
fear of bones, the grasp
against man & woman & babe.

Let the dragon of Death
come forth from his
picture in the whirling
white clouds' darkness

And suck dream brains &
claim these lambs for his
meat, and let him feed
and be other than I

Till my turn comes and I
enter that maw and change
to a blind rock covered
with misty ferns that
I am not all now

but a universe of skin and breath
& changing thought and
burning hand & softened
heart in the old bed of
my skin From this single
birth reborn so that I am
to be so --

My own Identity now nameless
neither man nor dragon or
God

but the dreaming Me full
of physical rays' tender
red moons in my belly &
Stars in my eyes circling

And the Sun the Sun the
Sun my visible father
making my body visible
thru my eyes!


--Allen Ginsberg
7/18/63

o tokyo you`re so fab

O Tokyo, get over yourself!
you`re so fab!
the hyperdigital precision of a robotic Venusian zone probe

you make New York look like
a chuffing steam engine
you make Philly look
positively quaint and obsolete

O Tokyo, get over yourself!
you`re so fab!

you make Seoul look like
a demure Asian girl, traditional, submissive --
she doesn`t quite yet realize how utterly cool
she is

O Tokyo, you`re so fab!
Nyuu Yooku yori ooki na ringo!
Ambitious Japan! challenging the change!
challenging the future to a deathless match
of sumo

O Tokyo, get over yourself!
you make the twentieth century look like
like so twenty seconds ago

--Ross Bender