Tag astrology

* sharing toys with Takuboku Ishikawa

José Angel Araguz 1 Comment

Tanka are my sad toys.

Takuboku Ishikawa

Takuboku Ishikawa (1886 – 1912) said the above statement at the end of an essay, explaining how he approached the form with the intimacy of a diary.  They were “sad” because he wrote them while unhappy – they were “toys” because they were useless to society.

This outlook is better understood within the context of Ishikawa’s short life which was burdened with illness and poverty as well as a frustrated ambition to be a novelist.  He felt his gift for tanka was useless and felt his novels and essays were of more value.  This misplaced ambition opened up in him the possibility to really give himself to his tanka.  Despite his outlook, he is known to have said that on “unhappy days…[there is] no greater satisfaction than to write tanka.” *

* luchadores, yo *

* these were my sad toys *

Since landing in Cincinnati, I have been busy revising poems and putting together a new manuscript.  In working through this notebook from two years ago I came across my notes from first reading Ishikawa’s work.  His ability to channel restlessness and desperation into short lyrics moves me to this day.

There is also that spirit, that high, of going on a good writing jag .  Ishikawa had a famous three day writing spree where he only stopped to walk through graveyards.

The  poems I wrote after reading him delve a bit into the past – into childhood – back when I would play with the toys above – little luchadores I would keep in a box under the kitchen sink.  His directness with the line – which can be grasped in the lyrics below – helped me wrestle past myself towards a clearer line.

*

excerpts from “Sad Toys” – Takuboku Ishikawa

like a stone
that rolls down a hill,
I have come to this day.

*

Fallen leaves of late autumn, destined to decay!
Following them in sympathy, I hurried to start my journey.

*

Not knowing where the wind has gone that blew it from its twig,
This stray leaf, bewildered and lost, has fallen on my sleeve.

*

her black pupils
absorbing only the light of this world
remain in my eyes

*

as boys born in mountains
yearn for mountains,
I think of you when in sorrow

*

waiting til I was dead drunk,
she whispered to me
those many sad things!

*

these poor thin hands
without power
to grasp and grasp hard!

*

bristling over the way
my moustache droops,
so like the man’s I now hate!

*

Happy drooping!

Jose

* I found some useful information on Ishikawa for this post here.

* cemeteries, thrift stores & Hayden Carruth

José Angel Araguz Leave a comment
*wonder why they call it Vine Street...*

*wonder why they call it Vine Street…*

This vine-riddled chap of a chapel can be found at the Vine Street Hill Cemetery – founded in 1849 – which we drove by yesterday on our way to a thrift store.  (We were hunting for a funky tablecloth and were not disappointed.)

In general, cemeteries are pretty charged places for people, myself included.  They are the great plots of our lives.  Ahem.

All seriously bad jokes aside, I am comforted by cemeteries because there is one that I have yet to walk through – the one where my father is buried – the location of which I have never been told.  I just know it’s out there.   A walk through a cemetery for me is a connection to all hallowed ground, here and elsewhere.  It is a space where life is put down and remembered.

Kinda like thrift stores.  A walk through a thrift store is a walk through former lives, former use and purpose.  Somebody argued over this mug, somebody turned restlessly in these sheets.  Somebody really needed/needs this black velvet painting of Elvis.

I know someone who took her grandson to a thrift store and together with him came across a tin of ashes.

Needed/needs.  There is the door you walk through in life.

*

The poem below by Hayden Carruth has stuck with me for some years now.  I want to call it light-hearted, but I think it’s more life-hearted.  The ending in particular moves me still to look at the world a little closer.

*

Graves – Hayden Carruth

Both of us had been close
to Joel, and at Joel’s death,
my friend had gone to the wake
and the memorial service
and more recently he had
visited Joel’s grave, there
at the back of the grassy
cemetery among the trees,
“a quiet, gentle place,” he said,
“befitting Joel.”  And I said,
“What’s the point of going
to look at graves?”  I went
into one of my celebrated
tirades.  “People go to look
at the grave of Keats or Hart
Crane, they go travelling just to
do it, what a waste of time.
What to do they find there?  Hell,
I wouldn’t go look at the grave
of Shakespeare if it was just
down the street.  I wouldn’t
look at — ”  And I stopped.  I
was about to say the grave of God
until I realized I’m looking at it
all the time….

***

Happy looking!

Jose

* photo found here.