Showing posts with label Japanese. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Japanese. Show all posts

Thursday, December 3, 2009

The Love Poems of Marichiko



The Love Poems of Marichiko were originally published as if they had been written by a young Japanese woman and Rexroth had merely translated them. In reality there was no such person as Marichiko — the poems were all written by Rexroth himself, projecting himself into a feminine persona, during the same period that he was translating several volumes of Chinese and Japanese women poets. more.



I waited all night.
By midnight I was on fire.
In the dawn, hoping
To find a dream of you,
I laid my weary head
On my folded arms,
But the songs of the waking
Birds tormented me.


Making love with you
Is like drinking sea water.
The more I drink
The thirstier I become,
Until nothing can slake my thirst
But to drink the entire sea.


Your tongue thrums and moves
Into me, and I become
Hollow and blaze with
Whirling light, like the inside
Of a vast expanding pearl.


You wake me,

Part my thighs, and kiss me.

I give you the dew

Of the first morning of the world.