Inuo Taguchi: “Morning Discussion”
Posted: December 8, 2011 Filed under: English, Inuo Taguchi, Japanese Comments Off on Inuo Taguchi: “Morning Discussion”_____
Inuo Taguchi
MORNING DISCUSSION
I had a strange dream.
An airplane –
it doesn’t fall straight down
but crashes horizontally.
“Don’t ask me how.
It happened in my dream.”
Now, in this ‘modern’ world
it’s common for vertical things to change into horizontal.
So it’s nothing to make a fuss about
that a plane should crash horizontally.
“Why are you making such a big deal out of it?
Nonsense is commonsense nowadays.”
Don’t worry. If you tip over you glass, wine will spill out.
If you let go of a knife, it’ll fall straight down.
Our world, as ever,
obeys divine providence.
What doesn’t obey it is your dream and –
“No, don’t turn on the television.
It’s never told us good stories. It never will.”
I am listening to the morning discussion half-heartedly,
for I only want to think about poetry.
But my thoughts suddenly turn to the grasslands of
Kharakhorum.
There, too, are things that should be floating in air
floating in air?
There, too, is what should be falling falling?
Do things never crash horizontally?
Is what should be landing landing
and what should be ascending ascending?
Suddenly I feel like confirming it
and begin to be restless.
The soul begins slowly spiraling.
A kitchen kettle
begins honking like a horn.
*
from: Hush-a-bye
(2004)
Translation from Japanese:
William I. Elliott and Kazuo Kawamura
The original Japanese poem is featured below.
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Inuo Taguchi was born in 1967 in Tokyo, Japan. His pen-
name, Inuo, means Dog-Man. He began to write poetry
in his early twenties and his first book came out in 1995.
He has been described as having a “self-less voice” as a poet,
meaning he is off to the side, even out of the “story”
– and often his poems are little stories.
At festivals he reads his poems aloud – usually barefoot.
His poems have been translated into Turkish – among a bunch
of languages.
He muses: “I feel that poetry must strive to open giant
air holes in human consciousness.”
Zócalo Poets 