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1.
A woman is like a samisen-
Practise to make her stings vibrate
Better a lonely hangata
Than the penis of an oaf!
TRADITIONAL SAYINGS
2.JOY
Visitor this evening
We run up the long corridor
Clicking of clogs.
Only one man,
Only one person to be loved.
I go back to my room,
Retreat, honour,
Lacquered pillow,
Silence.
I hear the watchman's rattle,
Laughter in the next room.
GEISHA SONGS
3.JONQUIL
Her perfume mixes with my plum blossom;
we pledge ourselves
A caress like two or three stalks of Yao grass
She makes love like a graceful river nymph
This feeling night after night, the sapphire
sea, azure sky.
IKKYU
4.BINDWEED
Every morning
You flower with new colours
And garland the well bucket,
Your petals are eyes
Blinded with dew.
You are delightful
Flower long, flower differently,
Emerald cup.
IKKYU
5.PREDICTION
Deep in the boudoir, how much poetic feeling.
A song before the wind-blown flowers, the purity of this fragrant banquet.
Making love on the bed, a feeling of the river and the sea.
To spend the rest of our lives like mandarin ducks, at ease on the water.
IKKYU
6.MAPLE LEAVES
Do you know why the Autumn moon
Spreads her desirable brightness
On the hill?
It is so that we two may count the leaves
of the maple
Falling one by one.
IKKYU
7.PREDICTION
A hole in the paper wall
Who has been so guilty?
Through it I hear the breaking of a samisen string,
Meaning bad luck.
Yet the prediction-seller says
That mine is excellent.
IKKYU
8.NIGHTINGALE TO PLUM TREE
How the Nightingales sing to the plum trees
And the frogs splash in the water.
That is love.
The call of people and of things is everywhere.
Dark Clouds,
Fishing boats,
At the will of the tide,
At the will of the wind.
9.Rinzai's disciples don't understand Zen,
The truth was passed down to this blind donkey.
Making love for three lifetimes, ten eons;
One night's autumn breeze a thousand centuries.
IKKYU
10.Gaze at Chu's pavilion and then climb up to it.
At midnight on the precious bed, between dreams of sad longing
Her flower opens beneath the plum tree's branch
A graceful nymph between her thighs.
IKKYU
11.BED
Under the unnecessarily large
Mosquito curtain
My little heart
Is fiercer than a nightlight.
GEISHA SONG
12.Dream-wandering in the garden of beautiful Mori,
A plum blossom in the bed, faith at the heart of the flower.
My mouth is filled with the pure fragrance of that shallow stream
Dusk and the shades of the moon as we make our new song.
13.UNSTABLE LOVE
Love is unstable. I dream of a drifting
Barque. My body is limited.
My thought is infinite.
Things do not go as I would have them.
I see him in the dream of a light sleep
Or resting on one arm in place of a pillow.
Audible are the bells of Mii.
14.
Sometimes rivers and oceans, sometimes
mountains
I am an unworldly hermit, apart from
fame and profit
Night after night, like mandarin ducks,
under the covers on a Zen bed
That feeling, talking intimately,
totally relaxed.
15.FAITH
I am the ordinary cherry tree
Whose flower is single.
It blossoms in the plain.
I am not one of those double
cherry trees!
GEISHA SONG
16.TWO FAN GAME
Two thrown fans
Have fallen across each other
It is a good sign.
I see two mortals close in each
other's arms
Like two leaves fallen together.
Will he be a fine chrysanthemum?
I will put him in a vase
And look at him
He will be plum blossom
Having both scent and colour.
17.HIDING PLACE
No more grieving.
I hide myself in my happiness
As a firefly
Hides in a moon ray.
18.SURUNGI LAKE
Dew from the lotuses
Of Surungi Lake
Goes up in a light fume.
My hope becomes lighter than air
And disappears.
Yet a voice is saying: 'Who knows?'
Soon he may marry you.
GEISHA SONG
19.SURUNGI LAKE
Whispers, bashfulness and a pledge
We sing of love make promises for
thee lives to come
We may fall to the way of beasts while
still alive
But I shall surpass in passion the horned
ABBOT OF KUEI
20.FAITH
Blind Mori night after night sings with me
Under the covers, like mandarin ducks, new
intimate talk
Making promises to be together till the
dawning of Maitreya's salvation
At the home of this old buddha all is spring.
IKKYU
21.GETTING OUT OF BED
He rises and goes. There are
Rather dark clouds.
Shall I be noisy cricket
Or firefly burning in silence.
Dumb grief or tearful parting?
And when I think we might
Never have met,
Been utter strangers
22.kawai kawai
(My dear, my dear)
The firefly singing not
Burns in silence;
She suffers more
Than the loud insect who says:
'Kawai, kawai!'
Why have I given all my soul
To a man without sincerity?
I regret it. I rather regret it.
23.
Talk in the reed hut reaches the Shou-yang Palace. Butterflies elegantly sport, Their excitement never spent.
On the bed, a plum blossom; outside the window, the moon.
Singing souls, night after night, entwined in the spring breeze.
IKKYU
24.RETURN
I know she is light and faithless,
But she has come back half repentant
And very pale and very sad.
A butterfly needs somewhere to rest
At evening.
GEISHA SONG
25.DEEP LIGHT
I have no wish for
A frivolous or coquettish existence,
I want the deep life of love.
I have set up the double screen
Against a wind balm-ed with the plum trees.
Come to me and I will love you
In the tender light of a veiled moon,
I will love you, far from the plum trees.
Yet afterwards in bed
I know I shall sulk and weep;
Frogs in the garden pool
All night, all night
GEISHA SONG
26.BLACKNESS
The night is black
And I am excited about you.
My love climbs in me, and you ask
That I should climb to the higher room.
Things are hidden in a black night.
Even the dream is black
On the black-lacquered pillow
Even our talk is hidden.
GEISHA SONG
27.SOUTH-EAST QUARTER
Light affairs become frivolous
At Fukagawa
My body is frivolous.
At thin uncoloured chord on the samisen.
In intimate Nakatcho Street
Affairs are private,
And the news of our love
Spreads gallantly,
The way of the South-East.
Two lovers are in the little room
And the screen has double hinges.
We pretend worldly fidelity,
Painting moles on each other.
Perhaps
We shall know in heaven.
GEISHA SONG
28.
My hand, would that it resembled Mori's hand My faithful lady's the mistress of Love's caress When I am ill she heals my precious stalk And brings joy to my circle of followers.
IKKYU
29.SPRING NIGHT
This dream of a Spring Night
Grows complicated
The smell of his body lies on the air.
The cloudy sky and my ringed eyes
Are veiled.
Are we not a couple
Made of flower and butterfly?
30.BEFORE MY BIRDS
I moan for love
Before my birds.
They also are in a cage.
My small complaints
Are sorry like mouse cries.
The birds hop forward to tease me
And I like it
Being so shut in.
The sake is cold
Because my torment
Makes me inefficient.
There is such a thing as great grief,
Such a thing as
Being shut in.
GEISHA SONGS
31.HIS PRETTY GESTURE
Because of his pretty gesture
I have fallen completely in love with him.
My letter written in common character
Will be worth more than a verbal message.
But I may not hold him yet.
I am going to drink sake all night
Without bothering to warm it.
I lie down on the floor
Just where I am, and sleep.
I wake with a start
To hear the night watch crying:
'Fire, take care of fire'.
GEISHA SONGS
32.MYOSOTIS
If I clasp my hands, my sleeve:
Dew and perfume and colour.
His picture remains in absence
Myosotis, memory.
If he flowered on a branch
I would plant him,
And love him every
Lonely hour.
GEISHA SONGS
33.CATS
With no care for duty or people
Or strange looks at the opinion
of other cats,
One striped and the other white
Go on the edge of the roof
Or climb to ridge of it.
Driven by the need of love
Which is stronger than death.
Driven by the need of love
Which is stronger than death.
One day the wind of Autumn shall come
And they will not know each other.
My soul, I envy the love of cats.
GEISHA SONGS
34.
The device of the two copper plums
With silver in them
Slowly and very slowly
Satisfies.
Just as all finishes
Dew falls on my finishes
Dew falls on my clenched hand.
I would rather the bean flowered yellow
And he were here!
