20 TANKA Poetry
Masato Hori

1

May
When I close my eyes
I remember the past time
With the image of red flowers of Azalea on borders
Spreading here and there

2

Days passing
I changed myself
Now I don't look for signs in a station
I am hovering in the transfer station
Like a 3 dimensional Labyrinth

3

A man is crying
Smell of Macdonald hamburger
Subway train carrying both
One night

4

She says
Eat fast
If not they will decay
Sushi is Fast food invented in Edo period
The roads of Edo are full of sea food from Tokyo bay

5

Millions of food in a supermarket
They are waiting
While
They are sitting in pale blue artificial light

6

TV programs
Every day
Every time
Surely
You can see someone eating and drinking

7

In a convenience store
Various packed lunches and dinners are sitting silently
For someone who they don't know

8

I was surprised at the man next to me in a Ramen restaurant
He ate Ramen in his order
Laver
Slices of roast pork
Menma
Welsh onion
And noodle
Just like eating a course dinner

9

Desire
Enlarged in the display
Desire
Spread in the Kaleidoscope
Desire
Made by Japanese blood

10

She has her opinion
New Japanese style sweets influenced by occidental style
They are never good
She always buys YOUKAN

11

My old Red Brick Street
With typical stores
No more
TOUFU-store
Butcher, Fish-store
Fruit and Vegetable store
Gone

12

You were looking for something
On the stepladder in the kitchen
I saw you for the first time in the morning

13

They discuss philosophy of FU in the kitchen
Seisyounagon would write down this scene
And also
Each of them is Seisyounagon in the early afternoon

14

Various thoughts
Not only tastes
Penetrated into
White things
TOUFU
Rice
Turnip
Radish

15

He makes a monologue about NATTOU eating lonely
I want to ask him
Why do you make this monologue?

16

Summer has come
I dream the scene of slopes and strait of Onomichi city in Setonaikai
Onomichi is standing on opposite side of a mirror

17

In her Kingdom
The citizen live on
Fermented sticky food
NAMA-FU
And Whisky bonbon

18

Tokyo is the city you cannot find the sea
But
You come back
And
Your eyes reflect the message from the seaside

19

I am overlooking huge Green
Huge void of Tokyo, Roland Barthes says
Marunouchi, Inside of the Circle Center of Tokyo
I visit Ink painting, SUIBOKUGA exposition

20

Rainy day
On my way home
I found a handkerchief on the platform
And
I get on the underground
Of the opposite direction

Translated and adapted from Japanese by
Maki Nomura and Manuel Reyes