Poem – My Love

itty-bitty,
teensy-weensy,
teeny-tiny,
itsy-bitsy.

that’s how
my love has been,
always.

itty-bitty,
teensy-weensy,
teeny-tiny,
itsy-bitsy.

Poem – Funeral

men in black,
women also.
I’ve seen them a couple of times
since I was a kid,
and some more
till I die.

Poem – Winter Garden

Winter garden

The moon thinned to a thread

Insects singing

Poem – Wrapping Dumplings

Wrapping dumplings in

Bamboo leaves, with one finger

She tides her hair

Poem – Wrapping The Rice Cakes

Wrapping the rice cakes

With one hand 

She fingers back her hair

Poem – What Fish Feel

What fish feel

Birds feel, I don’t know

The year ending

Poem – Year’s End

Year’s end, all

Comers of this

Floating world, swept

Poem – First Winter Rain

First winter rain 

Even the monkey

Seems to want a rain coat.

On New Year’s Day – Natsume Soseki

On New Year’s Day

I long to meet my parents

As they were before my birth.

The Lamp Once Out – Natsume Soseki

The Lamp Once Out

Cool stars enter

The window frame.

Watch Birth and Death – Natsume Soseki

Watch birth and death 

The lotus has already 

Opened its flower.

A Sake Barrel – Ihara Saikaku

A sake barrel,
Born without hands, makes merry —

Cherry blossom time. 

Shinkokinshu – Fujiwara Shunzei

As evening falls, 
From along the moors the autumn wind 

Blows chill into the heart; 

And the quails raise their plaintive cry 

In the deep grass of Fukakusa village. 

At Night – Yone Noguchi

At night the Universe grows lean, sober-
faced, of intoxication,

The shadow of the half-sphere curtains

down closely against my world, like a 

doorless cage, and the stillness chained by

wrinkled darkness strains throughout the Uni-

verse to be free. 

Listen, frogs in the pond, (the world is a pond itself)

cry out for the light, for the truth!

The curtains rattle ghostlily along, bloodily biting

my soul, the winds knocking on my cabin door

with their shadowy hands. 

Windy Fall – Kobayashi Issa

At my daughter’s grave, Thirty days

After her death

Windy fall

These are the scarlet flowers

She liked to pick 

With my Father – Kobayashi Issa

With my father 

I would watch dawn

Over green fields

That Pretty Girl – Kobayashi Issa

That pretty girl

Munching and rustling

The wrapped up rice cake.

Pissing in the Snow – Kobayashi Issa

Pissing in the snow

Outside my door

It makes a very straight hole.

How Much – Kobayashi Issa

How much

Are you enjoying yourself

Tiger moth ?

In Spring Rain – Kobayashi Issa

In spring rain 

A pretty girl

Yawning

A Cuckoo Sings – Kobayashi Issa

A cuckoo sings

To me to the mountain 

To me to the mountain 

A Bath When You are Born – Kobayashi Issa

A bath when you are born

A bath when  you die

How stupid

Chewing Gum – Hiroshi Satow

smelling like a crazy rose, 
are you chewing a gum, 

or are you a chewing gum? 

once you kiss me, 

you’re too sticky, 

don’t ever let me; 

while you hug me, 

you’re so velvety, 

and so slippery, 

yet so sticky, 

like you chewing a gum, 

or you a chewing gum. 

Cherry Tree – Hiroshi Satow

walking with my head down, 
coming across a puddle, 

now I find a cherry tree

in full blossom. 

Cherry Flower – Hiroshi Satow

Once it was in full bloom, 
Now it is scattering its petals.

One is here, 

One is there. 

Candle – Hiroshi Satow

you look pale, 
alone in the dark staggering; 

so does my life.
and you’ll be extinguished, 

transient but not meaningless; 

so do I wish my life would be. 

Belt – Hiroshi Satow

twining around her waist, 
making her sigh, 

oh, 

wanna be her belt. 

My Arm for a Pillow – Yosa Buson

My arm for a pillow,
I really like myself
under the hazy moon.

This Autumn will End – Akiko Yosano

This autumn will end.
Nothing can last forever.
Fate controls our lives.
Fondle my breasts
With your strong hands.

River of Stars – Akiko Yosano

Left on the beach
Full of water
A worn out boat
Reflects the white sky —
Of early autumn.

Swifter than hail
Lighter than a feather,
A vague sorrow
Crossed my mind.

Feeling you nearby,
how could I not come
to walk beneath
this evening moon rising
over flowering fields.

It was only
the thin thread of a cloud,
almost transparent,
leading me along the way
like an ancient sacred song.

I say his poem,
propped against this frozen wall,
in the late evening,
as bitter autumn rain
continues to fall.
What I count on
is a white birch
that stands
where no human language
is ever heard.

A bird comes
delicately as a little girl
to bathe
in the shade of my tree
in an autumn puddle.

Even at nineteen,
I had come to realize
that violets fade,
spring waters soon run dry,
this life too is transient

He stood by the door,
calling through the evening
the name of my
sister who died last year
and how I pitied him!

Labor Pain – Akiko Yosano

I am sick today,
sick in my body,
eyes wide open, silent,
I lie on the bed of childbirth.

Why do I, so used to the nearness of death,
to pain and blood and screaming,
now uncontrollably tremble with dread?

A nice young doctor tried to comfort me,
and talked about the joy of giving birth.
Since I know better than he about this matter,
what good purpose can his prattle serve?

Knowledge is not reality.
Experience belongs to the past.
Let those who lack immediacy be silent.
Let observers be content to observe.

I am all alone,
totally, utterly, entirely on my own,
gnawing my lips, holding my body rigid,
waiting on inexorable fate.

There is only one truth.
I shall give birth to a child,
truth driving outward from my inwardness.
Neither good nor bad; real, no sham about it.

With the first labor pains,
suddenly the sun goes pale.
The indifferent world goes strangely calm.
I am alone.
It is alone I am.

Press my Breasts – Akiko Yosano

Press my breasts,
Part the veil of mystery,
A flower blooms there,
Crimson and fragrant.

Hokku Poems in Four Seasons – Yosa Buson

Spring

The year’s first poem done,
with smug self confidence
a haikai poet.

Longer has become the daytime;
a pheasant is fluttering
down onto the bridge.

Yearning for the Bygones

Lengthening days,
accumulating, and recalling
the days of distant past.

Slowly passing days,
with an echo heard here in a
corner of Kyoto.

The white elbow
of a priest, dozing,
in the dusk of spring.

Into a nobleman,
a fox has changed himself
early evening of spring.

The light on a candle stand
is transferred to another candle
spring twilight.

A short nap,
then awakening
this spring day has darkened.

Who is it for,
this pillow on the floor,
in the twilight of spring?

The big gateway’s heavy doors,
standing in the dusk of spring.

Hazy moonlight —
someone is standing
among the pear trees.

Blossoms on the pear tree,
lighten by the moonlight, and there
a woman is reading a letter.

Springtime rain — almost dark,
and yet today still lingers.

Springtime rain —
a little shell on a small beach,
enough to moisten it.

Springtime rain is falling,
as a child’s rag ball is soaking
wet on the house roof.

@Summer

Within the quietness
of a lull in visitors’ absence,
appears the peony flower!

Peony having scattered, two
or three petals lie on one another.

The rain of May —
facing toward the big river, houses,
just two of them.

At a Place Called Kaya in Tanba

A summer river being crossed,
how pleasing,
with sandals in my hands!

The mountain stonecutter’s chisel;
being cooled in the clear water.

Grasses wet in the rain,
just after the festival cart passed by.

To my eyes how delightful
the fan of my beloved is,
in complete white.

A flying cuckoo,
over the Heian capital,
goes diagonally across the city.

Evening breeze —
water is slapping against
the legs of a blue heron.

An old well —
jumping at a mosquito,
the fish’s sound is dark.

Young bamboo trees —
at Hashimoto, the courtesan,
is she still there or not?

After having been fallen,
its image still stands —
the peony flower.

Stepping on the Eastern Slope

Wild roses in bloom —
so like a pathway in,
or toward, my home village.

With sorrow while coming upon the hill
–flowering wild roses.

Summer night ending so soon,
with on the river shallows still remains
the moon in a sliver.

@Autumn

It penetrates into me;
stepping on the comb of my gone wife,
in the bedroom.

More than last year,
I now feel solitude;
this autumn twilight.

This being alone may even be a kind of happy
— in the autumn dusk.

Moon in the sky’s top,
clearly passes through this
poor town street.

This feeling of sadness —
a fishing string being blown by the autumn wind.

@Winter

Let myself go to bed;
New Year’s Day is only a matter
for tomorrow.

Camphor tree roots are quietly getting wet,
in the winter rainy air.

A handsaw is sounding,
as if from a poor one,
at midnight in this winter.

Old man’s love affair;
in trying to forget it,
a winter rainfall.

In an old pond,
a straw sandal is sinking
— it is sleeting.

The Sturdy Men – Yamabe no Akahito

The sturdy men
Leave for the hunt;
The maidens
Trail the hems of scarlet skirts
Across the clean swept beach.

To my Good Friend – Yamabe no Akahito

To my good friend
Would I show, I thought,
The plum blossoms,
Now lost to sight
Amid the falling snow.

To the Fields in Springtime – Yamabe no Akahito

To the fields in springtime
Picking violets
Did I come
So welcoming the fields
A single night I slept there.

When I Went Out – Yamabe no Akahito

When I went out
In the Spring meadows
To gather violets,
I enjoyed myself
So much that I stayed all night.

I am a Wanderer – Matsuo Basho

I’m a wanderer
so let that be my name –
the first winter rain

Poem – I Like to Wash

I like to wash,
the dust of this world
In the droplets of dew.

Husking Rice – Matsuo Basho

husking rice
a child squints up
to view the moon

A Man Infirm – Matsuo Basho

A man, infirm 

With age, slowly sucks 

A fish bone.

A Cuckoo Cries – Matsuo Basho

a cuckoo cries 

and through a thicket of bamboo 

the late moon shines

A Field of Cotton – Matsuo Basho

A field of cotton– 

as if the moon 

had flowered. 

A Cool Fall Night – Matsuo Basho

At a hermitage: 
A cool fall night– 

getting dinner, we peeled 

eggplants, cucumbers. 

A Cold Rain Starting – Matsuo Basho

A cold rain starting 

And no hat — 

So?

A Cicada Shell – Matsuo Basho

A cicada shell; 

it sang itself 

utterly away. 

A Caterpillar – Matsuo Basho

A caterpillar, 

this deep in fall– 

still not a butterfly. 

A Bee – Matsuo Basho

A bee 

staggers out 

of the peony. 

A Ball of Snow – Matsuo Basho

you make the fire 

and I’ll show you something wonderful: 

a big ball of snow!