Kazuko Shiraishi - The Tale of a Certain Fairy

used an excerpt earlier for my sig: this is the complete poem.
from Let Those Who Appear, 2002
i posted it earlier on The Crossed Keys, so have included a bonus track for those of you who've read it.


THE TALE OF A CERTAIN FAIRY

A man - has a strange - clairvoyance - that finds a fairy
He lives in the woods - with his wife and seven cats - always
Simmering - something that can't be put into words
A delicious soup - no way to tell how it was mixed
There - many dead - become ghosts
Sobbing laughing with the sleepwalking souls of the living - sometimes
You can hear the song of the bubbling - coming from the soup
Where did you find - a joke - that good?
Where did you gather - the mushrooms? - quick, tell me!
If you don't - I'm not going to tell you the secret - of the game of chess

How is it that the man came to find a fairy - for that matter
It's as though a tape of the memory of history - was erased on purpose...

No one has ever gone near the swamp deep in the woods
Cats - sometimes - hear - the sound of
The fairies - continuing to wash the aprons of the dead fairies - on a day like that
The wife - takes a pleasant nap
The man takes out his eyeballs - and polishes them more carefully than usual



FROM THE PRECIOUS TEARS OF THE DONKEY

One day - I asked the donkey - where are
Your tears - she did not tell me
I went out - to Malacca
To meet the spirit of Malacca - but the moon shines
Fish and birds do not answer - sleep deeply
No one - knows where the spirit is
I too - sleep deeply
At dawn - a carpenter bird sings - Malacca - Malacca
If I were a tree, I would answer
Malacca's soul lives inside my seed
Because Malacca is the name of a tree
You don't have to know that
It doesn't necessarily have to be a tree
Moon or - bird or fish would be fine
Malacca's sand - is wet with the tears - of a thin sea shell

I like from the precious tears of the donkey. And I get the feeling there's a lot of deep meaning in it I'm too tired to think about....

I don't understand the donkey tears one, what is it talking about?

Either it's lost in translation, or it meant nothing to begin with. Or I'm just less of a fan of the abstract than I realized.

Quote:

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One day - I asked the donkey - where are
Your tears

I went out
To meet the spirit of Malacca

No one - knows where the spirit is

Malacca is the name of a tree
You don't have to know that
It doesn't necessarily have to be a tree

Malacca's sand - is wet with the tears - of a thin sea shell

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well...i think the spirit of malacca, and the [donkey's] tears are in the sea [shell], also that this sums the natural world's message and loss up, but i can't put my finger on it either.

her poetry is definitely surreal; her first book was titled The Town that Rains Eggs.
from this book's intro: "the strong voice that speaks out for those who are oppressed extends to all living things, condemning man's cruelty to animals and even insects, as well as of the disastrous effect of the encroachment of civilization on the environment."

i am pretty sure it wasn't lost in translation; her first seven years were spent in vancouver, b.c., and she's been a guest lecturer at the intn'l writing program at univ. of iowa. she spoke english at the reading in s.f., and i'm pretty sure she's multi-lingual. don't know re: her fluency.
my guess is that she trusted others to translate the japanese into english more than she did herself, but that's debatable, and i'm not positive on that.

she uses donkeys in other poems from this same book:

THE DONKEY SPECULATES (also in "regarding the future...the donkey")

Shoud she call...or not
Even though she wants to call...the donkey...wonders
As if she had become a nation
The line might be tapped
It's dangerous...to leak information...and
She thinks of the cute...mountain girl Heidi
Surrounded by sheep...mountain sheep...running through the green fields
Heidi...of the sweet...lips
Isn't she...too unsuspicious...too innocent...passionate...tossing
An ideal ball...to this side of the telephone
The donkey...like a housewife knitting...speculates
On this and that adding stitches...changing stitches


*i use ellipses because the comp doesn't accept her spaces - they are the size of a short word where ellipses appear between words/phrases
btw, em, i finally understand what you mean re: posts per page.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by amuse

btw, em, i finally understand what you mean re: posts per page.

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Oh, cool. :)

I didn't write that other post to be b****y, btw. I had the intent of discussing it, but instead found myself mystified, and for some reason I posted the fact. I'm too dizzy to think tonight.