I shout the first line of my poem
I write the first line
A carving knife stands up madly in the morning
These are my rights!
The glow of morning or a woman’s breasts are not always beautiful
Beauty is not always first
All music is a lie!
Ah! First of all, let’s close all the petals and fall down to the earth!
This morning, September 24, 1966
I wrote a letter to my dearest friend
About original sin
About the perfect crime and the method of destroying intelligence
Ah!
What a drop of water rolling on my pale pink palm!
The woman’s breasts are reflected in a coffee saucer!
Oh! I can’t fall down!
Though I ran rapidly over the edge of the sword, the world has not disappeared!
From: https://www.poetryinternational.org/pi/poem/28601/poem_english/0/0/Gozo-Yoshimasu/MAD-IN-THE-MORNING
Date: 1966 (original in Japanese); 2017 (translation in English)
By: Gōzō Yoshimasu (1939- )
Translated by: Y Yoshida (24 September 2021)
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