A Café by the Sea by Yosuke Tanaka, Translated by Mitsuhiko Kubo


 
 

In July
Jaggedness around me gets worse
Somewhat being cynical
Somewhat being negative
How I cannot resist
Regretting
Days like this

From the subway station
Got on a metropolitan bus
And then got on another metropolitan bus
And got off
The metropolitan bus
Until the day
We

Although jugged
And don’t greet each other

Live
Hoping
Somewhat
To visit a café
by the sea

 
 
 

Yosuke Tanaka (b. 1969), the author of two poetry collections, A Day When the Mountains Are Visible (Shichōsha, 1999, in Japanese) and Sweet Ultramarine Dreams (Michitani, 2008, in Japanese), works by day at The University of Tokyo as a molecular cell biologist. In 1989, early in his poetry career, he was chosen as “annual poet of Eureka,” and that same year he launched a poetry magazine Kisaki. He also contributes as an Honorary Editor of the upcoming Japanese poetry issue of Jung Journal: Culture & Psyche (2016, in press).

 

Mitsuhiko Kubo currently serves as a pastor at Immanuel General Mission Wakayama Christ Church in Wakayama, Japan. He is a graduate of Wesley Biblical Seminary (Master of Divinity) in Jackson, Mississippi. He translated some works of Miduki Misumi, Yosuke Tanaka, and others.