Naked Writing
by Yoshimasu Gozo
(Like P. Klee, one must slowly carry fire from the heart to the hand…)
a dressmaker (……’s Nui-san, seamstress, ……), her goddess’s, yamamba,,
––––tatami mats and straw matting, be(came) sheets, the sheets,
a crimson boat, ……(her eyes, ……), dyed amber, an awning boat
(篷船 péng chúan)
ash gray (잿빛・회색 : [tòetp’it : チェッピッ]),
thorny, starfish (astèria. FEMININE NOUN)ノ,,
Pit! Chep’pit!
(Summer of 2009, on a certain day in a certain month, at Shinjōノ, station’s rental carノ, a Toyota Vitz (metallic silver), spun round, by its GPS navigator, of Mamurogawa (真室川), of Ōishida (大石田),, so fast, place names (blood names, ……) they, disappear!, ……so it’s said, the old folks, were mum/bling, ……spun round, wandering lost, time was real time, ……to the Mogami River where no one is, is the Mogami River where no one is, …… repeating wordlessly in the days when I tried to sing, twisted like the wick of a wordless song, the curving 口 (mouth) of the Mogami River, the river’s words, …… . Not lonely, not quiet. The hidden homestead for a corpse in its currents, ……I thought, whisp,her (左left 左left 矢arrow 苦suffering) …… a voice, hair (air), could be herd, coming but, rather “over their” saying nothing, it was the mouth of deep words, …… . “A mouth that says nothing, ……” and a Vitz (metallic silver), I met with all this, in summer of 2009, on a certain day in a certain month…… . U But for fifty years, sixty years, it has been traipsing after my heart, …... . Perhaps the Sagae was U shaped,,,
Perhaps the Sagae was [u] shaped,,,
Pit! Chep’pit!
Instinct, incomparably beauteous sigh
lent, not silence,
the waves of Tokoyo, the Eternal Land, sometimes,
(I can’t hear……) clear my throat,
(balbettio, hemming and hawing man. MASCULINE NOUN), …… his gig(antic,)
sospiro sigh. MASCULINE NOUN, ……therefore,,, he is
(Until I named it “Naked Writing,” the narrow path of this “Essay / Narrative,” came walking……Yes, the narrow path, the autumn air, the first rain to herald winter, ……Ah, so-la (sky) it is ! la, 塊 (clump) of attention…… Yes, this, yes, this, things’s, dependencies, damn ‘em, ……, an atom of anatomy of you dependents, mino (straw raincoat) or kasa (umbrella) or voice or words, …… the seamstress’s things her variouses, all together “Rah! Rah!”, it was the narrow path (lane) we were walking it was, the 果 (end) in 裸 (naked), its geta, there was a time when it became Paul Klee’s 👁, our 👁 somehow, prehistoric 牛糞 (cow dung), underneath it, it looks like a vacant lot (空地),, p, lay, ce, ……from which you might bashfully cast your eyes downward,, we made it to that place, man. Geta, ……, hawk, serving time, …… . Buddha, barely started to walk, …… . To the next town, …… . one could say, hmph, …… . All the way to the next town over, Muscatine, Iowa on the Mississippi, walk(by car)ing forty years, not yet, ……ssissippi, …… the first late autumn rains of it’s i, it can be, it can’t be, escaped, …… P.’s, annotative head jots, also (all so), escape (SCAPE), no way, ……no way. For forty years, just like this, just walkin’, man. From Ōizumi Fumiyo, the morning of February 2, 2009, Monday, …… A new edition of “A Quiet Place,” a fax arrived, Afterword, due by the twenty-fifth, the most surprising part may have been their calling it “A Quiet America,” ……. si or shi, Shimokitazawa, 死人 (si, bi, to : the dead)’s, because it’s the land of the urushi swamp, Mr. Saku’s “Suicide by Hanging from the Ceiling” [tenjō ishi] of Shimokitazawa’s, i, shi, ……to notice this was Nakagami’s or Ryuta’s god-given nature, but, I, today, am surprised at the me that could be surprised at something like this,,. “A Quiet Place” original edition page 60 line 3, …… What is this 👁 surprised at a place like that! “……This place called Watts with its mysterious tower. Italian-born Simon Rodia (1879-1965) for thirty-three years, using shells, cans, metal scraps and such, erected a tower with his bare hands, ……” Eh!!!
Eh!!! Coca Cola, Pepsi, tower of shells!
In this way, oh 髭 (goatee, ……) of Nguyễn Cao Kỳ, Machu Picchu,,
(“Suspending a Harmonium in this Circle” and, “A Quiet Place” bore an epigram…… thirty-one years ago, …… thirty-one years have passed, with that mistymouthed, “shell” or “Charms from Mt. Osore” or “Apparent Self-asphyxiation, ……” too, life, …… . The warm thread of life’s “when we touched one of its ends, the other end swayed……” (Chekhov/Awadzu Norio––“On St. Peter’s Denial,” Anthology II) on page 138, he writes, “Rembrandt inspired Bach. If you touch one end of a chain, the other end sways.” ……Yes,, yes, 점말 [kure:クレ] Klee might not understand, however (ever), that’s right, he might understand, however, this,, “mooring rope kanashimo,” that’s right. When I’m washed away to Sado Island, the voice of “Naked Writing,” Zeami’s writing, “Ah, so intriguing, the sea at Sado,,”ノ, yes, that voice, February 18, 2010, toward the Driver’s License Renewal Center in Kandabashi, listening to the mum bling (mumbling) of Kanda’s muddy boat’s prow’s captain of boat of filth impurity and danger, ……, they say, the mooring rope, THAT chain, drags and clanks, so, so, と, ……those goddamn genes too, a bully’s, like a 鬼瓦 (gargoyle), that he got rowdy, that was CERTAIN, …… . this area, something like leaves of old newspaper, piling up in a vast rotting heap, my heart’s 泥 (dirt),, …… YOU, thief [泥棒], YOU, thief, YOU, thief,,,,,
rope (밧줄 .줄 [pat’ʒul : パッチュル]), hand (손 [son : ソン]),, reaching, and, 唖a, 離ri, 唖a (aria, FEMININE NOUN)を,,.
triste, sadness, in a dream, a tree splint, where to,
Masamune, oh, Hakuchō!
That
fragrance,
water (물 [mul : ムル]) embroideryノ、乃、
ノ、fragrance ((香気)가나다 hyangiga nada = かおる: to give scent) , kapchagi (갑자기.느닷없시)
a dressmaker (……, ’s Nui-san, seamstress, ……), her goddess’s, yamamba,,
Yoshida Kazuko-san of TONDABAYASHI, I wonder if she sketches wavy lines on that TON, of bamboo joints, like an HB pencil, ……
(So, Iwata Shinji-san, d,id an “NHK Special,” ……Tondabayashi’s own Yoshida Kazuko-san, 84 years old, began to learn, ……
Jii (波線 (wavy lines), knowing almost nothing of them, oh, Kafka, Tondabayashi’s own Yoshida Kazuko-san now, ring finger (pinky?), s’port,ing, ……used it as a supporting crutch, ……This scenery, I (like a poisonous insect, ……)my, ノ,: ––––umlaut. That’s right, Germanic boat, the galley’s sound’s, ink pot, ……, chamber pot, ……)
shit (cacca. . ITAL. FEMININE NOUN ……), ––––, ring finger (pinky?)を,, where to,,,
Fried - rich
Nietzs, che
he,,
Venezi, i, a
, a, no’s
(Gone, do, la, ’s) song,, nii, ne, jii,,.
So, so as though it (attach––––붙이다.덧붙이다 [putò‘ida : puchida)’ed
Ring finger (pinky?) を,, where to,
Tondabayashi’s own Yoshida Kazuko-san,, well,, shii, jii,,,
put,, chida,, (attach––––붙이다.덧붙이다 [putò‘ida : puchida] eh,,, ツ,,
(February 13, 2010, morning, 6:40, IN Kasumi, WITH Sato Masayoshi-san, last Year of the Rat (2009, December) 31st, at three o’clock, just at year end, I was trying to get out to meet him, just when, just then, ……, sudden new,s came, he died,,,ノ, wind blowing,, wind blowing in the form of an unseen hat. That “that gesture and that smile at picking up the unseen hat, ……” was a memory for this lifetime, ––––. A bamboo rake, if only I could’ve bought a new one, at the Kasumi Branch Office in Hachiōji, …… He must have fought around HERE, ……surely, here (HERE) was the battlefield, Takeda’s and Hōjō’s, which one of those struggling young people, one of their profiles suddenly thrown into relief, …… . And, without noticing it, we, at the fragrant snowbell (白雲木) in the garden, we lingered as though we’d talk to it, is that, a cloud? A spider? At that, you could say we began to notice…… . In that beautified garden, that, ……, or that,!!! Incomparably beauteous coat of fur, like an HB pencil, alone, see, a quiet raccoon=狸,,,, as I quietly flipped the pages of the Korean dictionary,, noguri (raccoon tanuki [狸]) ① 너구리 [noguri:ノグリ]). Isn’t it this cloud, this wind, Masayoshi-san, Kazuko-san, Shimokawa-san, the winds’, ’s, the noise the cLOUDs make, …… noguri, no, guri, ……let’s go walking. Knowing no limits, ……that was IT, …… noguri, noguri, to those, THOSE quietly upturned eyes, I, limitless’s, s’s, SNAIL’s, ’s’s, do(or door, 戸, 扉, ......문・출입문 [mun: ムン] ヲ, tail, I was remembering it, surely…… .
I will arise and go now (W.B. Yeats)
Noguri, noguri, “Refreshed now, arise and let us go walking”
Instinct, incomparably beauteous sigh
lent, not silence,
the waves of Tokoyo, the Perpetual Country, sometimes,
(I can’t hear……) clear my throat
(balbettio, hemming and hawing man. MASCULINE NOUN)
(And also, beyond this, never again, ……so they say butT,, from here on out, never have to go out walking again, like I’m some young Yosa Buson on his journey north, ……I declare, Shōin was like that too, and Arthur Rimbaud, ……, from then on, relaxing now, briskly, ……as though embodying a “Me, I don’t have a CLUE, MAN……” just like that, get the hell away, end it,, rela,xing now,, in those days, never once in my life, I never whistled, man, wish I could hear one let peal like the wind, even if I couldn’t hear it, somehow come to hear it, yeah, yeah,, yeah yeah,, の,, yeah, yeah, ……
Sa,, ノ, 乃,, sa, sa,, ––––
Sa,, ノ, 乃,, sa, sa,, ––––
noguri, noguri, refreshed now, arise and let us go walking
noguri, noguri
–––– Translated by Jordan A. Y. Smith
Note: Published in the volume originally as "Naked Memo." Later published in Forrest Gander (ed.), Alice Iris Red Horse: Selected Poems by Yoshimasu Gozo (New Directions, 2016).