TARO HOKKYO TRANSLATES MY TANKA INTO JAPANESE

 Tanka: Ram Krishna Singh

 

 

I can't know her

from the body, skin or curve

the perfume cheats

like the sacred hymns chanted

in hope, and there's no answer

 

 香水にごまかされて

身体、肌、その曲線

彼女を知ることができない

神聖な賛美歌を歌うように

希望に満ちて答えはない

 

 

her lips

crimson with paan*

stings my heart:

smell of saffron and cardamom

melts in my haiku

                                                        (*betel)

 キンマで赤く染まった

彼女の唇が

私の心を刺す

サフランとカルダモンの香り

俳句の中に溶けてゆく

 

 

seashore:

she lies on her back

eyes closed

feels foam on the waves

butterfly too

 

 

海辺に　

仰向けに寝て

目をつむる

波うちぎわの泡を感じる

蝶も

 

 

 

a walking woman

pregnant from the back raising

hand for her man's  hand

a little away holding

the cell phone to his ear

 

歩く女

妊娠している女が後ろで

男に手をあげる

彼は少し離れたところで

携帯電話を耳に当ててる

 

 

 

 

sitting by the road

she plays the harlot for bread

men sin, she suffers

from police raid to VD

they gift with morbid morals

 

 

 道端に座っている

彼女はパンのために遊女を演じる

男の罪、彼女の苦しみ

警察の手入れからVDまで

彼らは病的なモラルの贈り物をする

 

 

young and married

her body a burden:

can't help herself

reduced to a donkey

suffering morality

 

 

若くして結婚した

彼女の身体は重荷だ

どうしようもなく

ロバ扱いだ

苦しみのモラル

 

 

 

each syllable

allergic pollen and dust

her autumn tongue

one more song to prick with

new variant, new wound

 

 

 一音一音

アレルギーの花粉と埃

彼女の秋の舌

新しい変種　新しい傷を

刺すためのもう一つの歌

 

 

no firsts in hunger

they all push one another

for a pail of rice 

to cook without fire, roof and

utensils lost in landslide

 

 

 初めての飢餓ではない

土砂崩れで失った

火と屋根と道具

のない料理する

一俵の米のために

押し合いへし合いだ

 

 

no temple

this body degenerates

memory fades

stinking remains

can't forget all

 

寺もなく

この身は堕ちて

記憶が薄れて

悪臭を放つ残骸

すべて忘れることができない

 

 

 

 

thoughtless mind

weeds and refuse buried

empty heart 

illusion of self thrown out

yet the guest doesn't visit

 

 

 無思慮な心

雑草とゴミを埋めた

空っぽの心

捨てられた自己の幻影

それでも訪ねてくる者はいない

 

 

from Shiva's temple

high decibel puja noise

wrath of the goddess

she prays for long power cut

for her short meditation

 

 

 シヴァの神殿から

とても高いプージャの雑音

女神の怒り

彼女は長い停電を祈る

短い瞑想のために

 

 

 

his son views letters

on the billboard a sparrow

awaits green light

for the road to be free

to peck at the fallen grains

 

 

 彼の息子は文字を見た

看板の上の雀は

青信号を待つ

道が自由であるのを

落ちている穀物を啄むのに

 

 

before they proceed

to work station with laptop

tension of meeting

fear of takeover, bank loan

and night's bitterness in bed

 

 

 

作業する前に

ノートパソコンを持って仕事場に

会議の緊張感

買収や融資の不安

そして夜のベッドでの苦い思い出

 

puff by puff

smoke away their tension

two programmers

on the roadside mixed smell

of sweat and talcum powder

 

 

 一服一服

煙草で緊張を遠ざける

二人のプログラマー

道端で汗と天花粉の

匂いが交わる

 

 

 

can't tackle big beasts

and the sheeple that snigger

candle procession:

read silent tears on the cheeks

of the mother of the lynched

 

 

 巨獣に挑むことはできない

そして鼻で笑う羊たち

蝋燭の列

リンチされた母親の頬に

静かな涙を読む

 

--R.K.Singh

 

 --Trans. TARO HOKKYO, a Japanese Haiku and Tanka poet, who lives in Kobe, Japan.

 

 The Translator's Note:

訳者書評 R.K.シンさんの詩はおそらく一般の読者には美しくは思えないだろう。なぜなら彼は美しく着飾る詩句を用いないからだ。彼の詩は徹底的なリアリズムの手法である。彼の詩は一切の無駄な言葉を使わず、一瞬の光景の中に人間の本質を描写するのだ。

 

 Translator's Review:   R.K. Singh's poems probably do not seem beautiful to the average reader. This is because he does not use beautifully dressed poems. His poems are thoroughly realistic. His poems do not use superfluous words at all, but describe the essence of human nature in a momentary scene.

 

Bio-note:

 

Ram Krishna Singh, also known as R.K.Singh, has been writing  for over four decades now . Born (31 December 1950), brought up and educated in Varanasi, he has been professionally concerned with teaching and research in the areas of English language teaching, especially for Science and Technology, and Indian English Poetry practices. Till the end of 2015,  Professor of English  at IIT-ISM in Dhanbad, Dr Singh has published 52 books, including  poetry collections God Too Awaits Light (2017), Growing Within/Desăvârşire lăuntrică  (English/Romanian, 2017), There’s No Paradise and Other Selected Poems Tanka & Haiku (2019), Tainted With Prayers/Contaminado con oraciones (English/Spanish, 2019), Silencio: Blanca desconfianza: Silence: White distrust (Spanish edition, Kindle, Spanish/English, 2021), A Lone Sparrow (English/Arabic, 2021), Against the Waves: Selected Poems (2021),  Changing Seasons: Selected Tanka and Haiku (English/Arabic, 2021),  Covid-19 And Surge of Silence/Kovid-19 Hem Sessízlík Tolkȋnȋ (English/Tatar, 2021) , and   白濁: SILENCE: A WHITE DISTRUST (English/Japanese, Kindle Edition/Paperback, 2022).   His haiku and tanka have been internationally read, appreciated and translated into several languages. 

 

His awards and honors include Ritsumeikan University Peace Museum Award, Kyoto, 1999, Certificate of Honor and Nyuusen Prize, Kumamoto, 2000 and 2008, Life time Achievement Award of the International Poets Academy, Chennai, 2009, Prize of Corea Literature, South Korea, 2013, Aichi Prefecture Board of Education Award, Japan, 2015, Naji Naaman’s Literary Prize, Lebanon, 2015, nomination for Pushcart Prize, 2013,

2014, and Citation of Brightest Honour, International Sufi Centre: Sufi World, Bangalore, September 2020.

 

More at: https://pennyspoetry.wikia.com/wiki/R.K._Singh. email: profrksingh@gmail.com.

 

About the Translator:

Taro Hokkyo, born in 1963 in Osaka,is a Japanese poet, living in Kobe. Active as a haiku and tanka practitioner on the social media, he has won Rekitei Shinei Award, 1998 and Arab Golden Planet Award, 2021. He declined the Russia Telekov Reading Prize in 2022.  Though he is not a professional translator, Taro Hokkyo has attempted the rendering of R K Singh's tanka as free form short poems.