NIJO Cenka

Vacuum Voice

In the vacuum of space,

there is no need to read the air.

If each of us carries our own oxygen tank,

breathing is easier

than it is on Earth.

But in the vacuum,

sound does not carry.

No matter how much the vocal cords tremble,

if there is no atmosphere to transmit that vibration,

a voice is powerless.

If so-

how can I call out

to your distant back, carrying your own tank?

That’s it-

turn it into a signal.

This trembling.

　*read the air : from Japanese “kuki o yomu” (空気を読む), meaning to sense unspoken social cues.

Tim Taylor

Breath

It is almost nothing:

invisible, except when frigid air

or cold, smooth glass

transforms its moisture into mist;

its sound too faint to hear

unless the body needs more of it

than the lungs can claim.

It has no taste, no smell:

whatever chance aromas it may wear

are not its own. We feel 

only a passing breeze across the lips,

a rhythmic swelling 

and contraction of the chest,

so gentle, so familiar we forget

that it is happening. How strange 

that our entire life depends

upon a thing so insubstantial

that we might suppose 

it wasn’t there at all. 

Yasushi Ikeda

Stage

The darkest shadow has an air of ghost

He believes he was a king

He claims he was assassinated

He wants his son to be a detective

His son has an air of ghost

He questions whether to be or to go

He acts as a detective 

He laughs at his girlfriend and kills her father

She has an air of ghost

She likes to sing in a river

She dreams of living in a convent 

He and she have an air of ghost

Whoever understands them has an air of ghost

This pale cool air is a funny fragile fragrance 

Of utterly immature actors on this cosmic stage.

Yuko Minamikawa Adams

Eiffel Tower

I’m weaving an Eiffel Tower

like weaving a fishing net.

It’ll be as tall as me.

The string is made of cotton

and it’ll not stand up.

When it’s completed

it’ll lie flat on a floor.

I may sometimes wish

it could rise into the sky.

When I feel that way

I will put on my tower

and stand up

in my invisible room.

Yasushi Ikeda

---ESSAY---

Tart or thunderbolt or ...

Some may say a poem is a small tart of never ever experienced taste made with languages. I would rather say it is like a sudden thunderbolt in the blue sky. This is nothing other than the Japanese (Chinese?) proverb "青天の霹靂"(seiten no hekireki) meaning something unexpected appears all of a sudden in a striking and fascinating way. This thunderbolt may come from the sea of dream. Then this flash and thundering have some existential root. And I imagine this thunderbolt may not have the shape of lightning in the sky. It may well be a pebble or a fragment of glass giving out superb shine of a jewel. 

A poet stands on the shore of the sea of dream, wanders and finds something small and beautiful and enigmatic. He or she picks it up and watch carefully. This is the pivotal deed of poetry. A magic tart is sure to delight tongues and eyes and noses. A thunderbolt cannot help surprising eyes and ears and hearts. A tiny enchanting drift on the spiritual shore will have the potential to describe a tremendous amount of secrets kept unseen in the world. A twig of a thunderbolt drifting along the border of day(consciousness) and night(unconsciousness) is omniscient.

Yasushi Ikeda

Student

A student plays the paper piano

Penniless and inexperienced

Anxious and frenzied

Chaotic but proud

There is no sound

But surely music is here

Paper piano is piano itself

Anyone can play it

No one can play it

The sacred instrument creates

Murmuring bubbles gold and silver

Flying soon to vanish

When you play the paper piano

Something thoroughly pure comes

Take out your piano from your pocket

Put your fingers softly on it

And here comes from the world bottom

Faint rhythm and rhyme

Muses' glimmering dream

Every song and music hides

deep in itself

You

A student playing the paper piano

Turfalko

Veins of rain...

Veins of rain

on the glass

autumn colors

under the gray

sky

through the landscape

we explore

motionless

other worlds

other leaves

other memories

always traveling

we cross

alone

and nothing

we need

through existence

through the flow of time

we move

unpossessingly

sunlit and peaceful

the exit

we greet

Turfalko

Music is our spice...

Music is our spice

music is lucid dreams

pure awareness

sounds

silence

atmospheric travels

through consciousness

drawn waves

on the sand

new mindsets

emerge

from depth

noises bloom

music softens

fractal motions

in the loom

entwined threads

of minds

tones mutiny

rhythms revolt

wordlessly

voices appeal

Tim Taylor

Leaves



Born of the sunlight,


cracking bud coccoons


they stretch and fill their veins like butterflies.


Tethered to the tree that bore them,


they do not take wing


but they can dance, ecstatic


in the first wild gusts of spring.


They revel in their newness, playing


with the wind a whispered symphony in green.


They must make the most of these times


for, unlike the tree, they soon grow old.


Autumn gives them one last flourish,


painting them in red and brown and gold


but soon the wind that was their friend


will tear them from their homes


and then, at last


the leaves will learn to fly

NIJO Cenka

Pangaea’s Dining Table

 

Do you remember the children of Pangaea?

Every morning they sat around a large table,

laughing without a single worry.

They didn’t need to speak—

their hearts were always one,

just as the land they lived on had once been one.

 

Long ago, that land broke apart

and drifted away to distant places across a wide sea.

Still, no one truly believed it.

(For if that were the case,

how could they share their meals,

warm themselves in the sun,

or sing their songs together?)

But the children never spoke such questions aloud.

When hearts are always one,

what one child does not know

is something no one knows.