One day I picked up a charming wee bilingual edition of poems by Michio Mado in the Oxfam on Byres Road. When I got home I OCR’d the Japanese text and played around with it in Google Translate to make new versions of the poems, which became the inspiration and material for the poems below.

Apple

Put
one apple
here.

Full
of just
this apple!

There is
one apple
here.

O!
That
is great.
 

Leaves of Grass

hey
sun
drop
tooth
the bitterness
of leaves
 

Sleep

Would all the small windows
of my body
be quiet –
blind descend accordingly.

Would world events
and all kinds of life
be quiet –
blind descend accordingly.

Also one dream
and all other dreams
be quiet –
blind descend accordingly.
 

Field Mustard and Butterfly

field mustard
field mustard
the world
I wish

butterfly
butterfly
field mustard
wish
 

First Star of Evening

A star is somehow
among the wide sky

or there are no
stars anymore –

none to touch
my eyelashes,

none to touch
my cheek.

Wonder the half-star.
Empty the sky.