that day + ... , poems by masako takiguchi ( japan) / translated by shonosuke ishii

TENGGARA - 2 - 1968
Dept. of English - Univ. of Malay
Kuala Lumpur- Maylaysia.


                                                
                         masako takiguchi' s poems 
                                      translated by Shonosuke Ishii


                                                                 THAT DAY

              In memory of Miss Michiko Kamba, killed walking among the group of students
                 demonstrating against the U.S.-Japan Security Treaty .

That day
Her big eye
 " Anyway I've got to go, mother,
But I won't be gone long "
She hated to live on secretly and quietly
Under the roorf that bends
With heavy dark days piling upon it,
She hated to die in such a house
That day
Michiko Kamba
Joined a big group of people
And walked at its head
That day, In the confusion, someone struck her dowm with his gun
Someone trampled her under his cruel boots,
The soft body of that young girl.
Feigning ignorance,
A voice shouted, "Keep quiet" again and again,
To smother up slyly what had been done,
The 15th of June, 1960 ---
That day
Michiko Kamba was killed,
The young girl must have wished
To have a spacious future to spend
In attemting at various things.


                                                  THE MAN

The man knows well
that between the slender nad straightened legs
Of the woman
In spring
In summer
In autumn
In winter
In different ways in different seasons
There blooms a flower.

The man like a clairvoyant
Teel of it frankly
In a load and powerful voice
Making the woman blush to the roots of her hair.

The man longs heartily
For his love to die early
To be able to convince himself of the fact
That she is his.

On a beautiful day in winter
He suddenly comes to her
And says from behind
"Die as soon possible;
Won't fail to carry your coffin".

The man is in haste;
He will ripen the green apricot,
He will tear open the bud of the rose.

He is convinced that if his hand
Touches the woman she will fall a ripened fruit;
He believes this as he believes in Jehovah,
And his palm i always wet
With his dark and greasy desire.


                                              THE WHISTLE

Not knowing who I am,
Not knowing what I have in mind,
The wavy air of the whistle
Flows before me alluring,
The sound that comes from the profile
Has the coolness
Of oxygen
And thge dried up net of my body
Recovers the flexibility of its limbs.
Not knowing I myself am aimng at something,
The whistle tries to catch me.
I snap it back,
And in front of me
The whistle dances by,
With its sound like earrings
Gripping my heart,
Have no realation between,
And it's cleanly pretty all the more.

MASAKO TAKIGUCHI

(TENGGARA  2 - April 1968 -  p. 13-15)