in my crowded note-book that lies blanched
This can’t be hubris, hubris never lasts this long. But what, then, is it? Whatever I say, I immediately think that I know better, and then I try to humiliate myself. If I was split in two, one half could go into politics, the other into academia: I would find ways to get them into debates, ex cathedra and on television. Back home, I would zip them together again and clean out their wallets for our joint account. But as things are, only ideas are arguing, not men, and that is worse than useless: I consume wine for two and double my hangovers. The worst thing about it is that every victory is a painful defeat.
on the sparse weathered table. Hardened sepia-stained lines that once approximated to a flock of metaphors, now rearrange themselves into a congregation of phrases, a lineation of new line-breaks: stops that defy even the physics of refraction, thoughts that now re-surface
A poor person may be happy not because he is poor but because he sometimes forgets that he is poor. A rich person is happy whenever he remembers that he is rich.
and resurrect just as passion and reverence did within the folds of The Prophet. 2. It is still mid-afternoon, the blue blaze makes the pages of my book flip over gently in the invisible wind of silence. The heat penetrating the glass focuses even more fiercely smoking out redolent similes, questioning the whole point, the nib of writing itself. Underneath the permanent scar of jet-black fluid and heat is pulp, half-dead. Beneath the persistent hoarsedrone of metal-scratching is bleached pulp, half-alive, its cotton laid sheets carefully encoded with the magic arc of a gold-tip. Words appear, and more words. And under them all, I discover much later, a small spring insect that lay mummified, quietly crushed below
KAI NIEMINEN Kai Neiminen is a poet and translator specialising in Japanese literature. Since 1978 he has published 15 books of poetry, and 30 translations from Japanese (poems, novels, short stories, plays). He currently lives near the Baltic Sea, 75 kilometres east of Helsinki. The following selection is taken from Serious Poems (Vakavia runoja [1997]) (Minneapolis: Rain Taxi, 2000) translated by Anselm Hollo.
Kai Neiminen
Serious Poems These are serious matters. Truly serious. I stay up nights, thinking about them. Sometimes I think that if only I had the call to be a preacher, I would leave everything and go out to preach. But, lacking both gift and calling ... Poets are wrong about poetry, readers are wrong about poetry. Critics are right about poetry: it’s just idle prattle from past decades. Critics are wrong about criticism, artists are wrong about criticism. Secretaries of State are right about criticism: there’s no need to give a shit. Politicians are wrong about politics, the media are wrong about politics. All of us are right about politics: it’s the wrong actions taken at the wrong time.
the weight of words, its innocence and juice trapped under oppression of ambition and intellect, baptised and bloodied.
Economists are wrong about the economy, consumers are wrong about the economy. The rich are right about the economy, that’s one secret they’ll never reveal to us. Farmers are wrong about agriculture, labourers are wrong about agriculture. Cows are right about agriculture: eat what’s in front of you, let them milk you dry.
3. It is mid-afternoon, and I too lie, dead-
Good evening, you men of our forests, you unemployed, shaky, grown-old-while- stillyoung lumberjack studs bored senseless in your suburban housing! If you are still alive, we would like to cheer you up by reminding you that the wind still blows through those pines, and more are being planted. Thank you for getting out of prosperity’s way, into disability, into the files, some of you into the grave. Now you can brew some good strong coffee and watch a nice documentary on Channel Two about plans to preserve the Amazon rain forest.
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For Sei Shonagon Things of which there is never enough: Alcohol. Women. Except that if there is enough alcohol, no women are necessary. Even when there is enough alcohol, or women, there is never enough time. Time is always in short supply. And when it runs out altogether, it is simply forever. After tucking me in she sat down on the edge of the bed and read from the famous fairytale teller’s book “The Great Narratives Have Come to an End.” It was such fun, I recognized every character. And what’s best, it never seems to end. Power is not a metaphysical entity. Neither is Evil. That is why Power and Evil do not walk hand in hand. Power manifests itself in concrete actions. Evil, too, manifests itself in concrete actions. Actions are, as often as not, simple and understandable. Goodness is a more complicated matter. It is not a metaphysical entity either but it does not necessarily manifest itself in concrete actions. Quite frequently it manifests itself in inaction. But who can tell whether a good person has intentionally left something undone, or whether the doing of it never even occurred to him or her? Perhaps Goodness does not exist and there is only avoidance of Evil. Unruliness, on the other hand, clearly does not exist: Unruliness arises from the absence of the rules of Power. And that is why Goodness and Unruliness may very well walk hand in hand.
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still, blanched, bloodied.
The End of History Penumbra The sun came back out from behind the deep-folded rain clouds after many days of ruffled uncertain light. It emerged robed in tethered linen, just the way I held the sky in my hand like a piece of crumpled paper. Bands of deep blue didn’t seem to interfere with the whites, and the cotton patches which were so transient, moved at the slightest hint of breeze. I released the paper from my fist, tried to iron out the creases, but couldn’t. The folds had created a new terrain, just as the clouds in the sky never repeat the same pattern over, ever.
Well, history’s finished, said Uncle Erik. Oh dear, it’s finished is it, said Mother, what shall we do now? Well, I thought I’d go to town tomorrow, said Erik, I just might buy a new one. Don’t bother, said Father, we’ll make one ourselves. A man who’s good with his hands knows how to make a history for himself. I suppose, said Mother, that might be less expensive. And I suppose it’ll do, for our own use. As soon as they see how equitably the market economy functions, the people feel much better: Someone who was a multimillionaire a year ago has now lost it all. Nevertheless, thanks to a built-in grace, he does not have to give up anything. We don’t demand from others what we demand from ourselves. We don’t demand anything from ourselves, but from others we demand what they demand from us, against our will. There has to be some justice, after all, and a tooth for a tooth.
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