Yoshimoto Taka’aki, Five War poems translated by Manuel Yang

    Notebook of Struggle

    If you’re seduced by a notebook of struggle, then you
    Speak too
    If the notebook pays for
    The day when the
    Ones defeated in struggle left with dark faces that
    Smiled in relief,
    Their dedication in a brief moment rewarded with sad estrangement, then you
    Get paid too
    While you couldn’t do anything
    For those who were truly hungry
    Your grudge for being chased
    To the streets by the scheme of suspicious fighters
    If the struggle is a notebook of struggle, then you
    Be silent
    Because bravery was always hard and resembled a groan
    Until spring circulates to
    Your lonely encampment

    Once
    During spring which came many times, you
    Lost the heart of girl who
    Tried weighing an irreducibly happy love on a small scale
    You lost
    A fighter who had fused in all his strength
    Like a clock that correctly marks
    The steps
    In your soul towards the future
    Although you were a fighter of disobedience
    Now on your right hand a European dictionary
    The exploding soul is not hidden
    Now on the left hand the loneliness of a dark Japan
    Tomorrow’s climate and today’s provisions and
    The seeds of nameless disputes are
    Pushed in
    Although you’re a comrade of disobedience
    You open the canon fire of the soul
    Against fighters who have survived and got caught up with peace

    You
    Hate obedience, put up an opposition, isolate yourself
    Spitting against the fearful faces
    Of people who are scared on their own by the day of victory
    Not kind words but
    Blood red invectives like ingot iron, you too
    Will become old and fade



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