Does
Honkomagome mean
Realkomagome?

That would make
plain Komagome a fraud

Honkomagome lies between
Komagome (North) and
Hongo (South)

Oh, that’s why it’s called Honkomagome But then

shouldn’t it be KomagomeHon
or even
KomaHongo?

Just because I’ve moved to Realkomagome
doesn’t guarantee I’m not a fraud

Maybe the Realme
is doing handstands
in the back alleys of KomagomeHon

I haven’t seen any hardware stores
and I can’t find any corner shops
in the Honkomagome neighborhood

I can’t boil udon or spaghetti
and the floor around the kitchen sink
remains bare

There are Finland Cafes ¹
and dance studios
but apparently not enough foresight for pots or kitchen mats

“Man shall not live by bread alone”?
Leave the physical minutiae of daily life
to Sugamo?

…and actually,
there aren’t any seedy joints either…

A towel’s
frayed edges
flutter in the breeze

each strand
twisting
in its own way

Could have been
someplace other than
Honkomagome

like bleeding Yangon
suffocating Hong Kong
or by Anne’s windowside
in her diary forever sealed

Towel
patterned with red and white apples
The frayed edge fluttering in the breeze

is the outermost limit of Honkomagome today

There is nothing I need to say
about Honkomagome
because everything I say
will inevitably be about Honkomagome

I find two plastic bags
in my coat pocket
The wrinkly, crumpled, translucent objects
emanate a certain sublime beauty

…see,
no matter what I say
I end up saying the same single thing

If I were to talk exhaustively about this one thing
words, from Honkomagome,
would probably run out and cease to exist

Even then
in Tabata, conversations would be about
loan overpayment refunds and delicious snow crabs

On the bathtub cover
lies a lonesome withered leaf
How did it get in here?

This too would only happen
in Honkomagome

The right response to a Honkomagome, please
is not to offer a toothbrush
Nonetheless
it is impossible to offer Honkomagome itself

The land is not Honkomagome
Maps are only maps
Honkomagome as an abstract concept
Honkomagome, the signified as a signifier

In front of Park Villas Honkomagome
The manager (young woman) sweeps the street
A driver naps in a kei car² parked on the corner
Toothbrushes line the Dōzaka branch Welcia drugstore

What even is Honkomagome?
And the I that exists here?

The sounds of children playing are heard
in the kitchen (South) in the bedroom (West)
from the bathroom window (North)
and yet the playing children are not visible

Shinmei Park lies east

From the window in the hospital room of my father’s deathbed
I could see a kindergarten
Small blue dots noiselessly scampered about

The children have gone quiet
Now what is visible?

There is a giant birdcage in the park

Baby birds come in the morning
in several small flocks

Quiet in the early afternoon
a lonesome dead leaf
might be floating in midair

Later in the afternoon
birds with matching feathers come
to play baseball

that is, on weekdays

On Sundays the territorial lines crumble
and birds of all kinds swarm
Each flying around freely
A miracle they don’t collide

More like elementary particles that constitute matter
than an unruly rabble

When I was a child, in the forest
I stuffed a small plastic insect cage with
a swallowtail butterfly
a few tamamushi beetles
and many cicadas

In the evening, when my mother told me off
I opened the cage and
the cicadas flew out at full speed
with the tamamushi beetles trailing slowly behind
but the butterfly, with its tattered wings
had been left lying in the back of the cage

My mother died young at forty-five
both her wings eaten away by cancer

Night comes
Shinmei Park quiets still In the corner of the giant cage a peacock apparition

The mailmen come
and ring the doorbell
(always once)
Run up the stairs
slip an envelope through the small opening
Stamp here, please

I’ve lived my whole life thinking
if I were reborn
I’d want to be a mailman
somewhere like the snow-hazed town of Hanamaki

With light speedy footsteps
they go down the dark stairs
and ride off on their red moped
leaving a fist-sized worth of exhaust fumes

(They are employees of the Hongo Post Office)

In the end everybody
will leave Honkomagome

The history of Honkomagome
is surprisingly short

At most 5 seconds long, sometimes
1/30th of a second

Instead
history repeats as many times as it wants

You might think
then it’s always The Present
But it’s not really

At the bottom of the crevice
between this now
and that now
gathers a thin layer of dust

a cricket chirps
bathed in the LED sign
of an Origin Bento³

The history of Honkomagome begins and ends there

How silly,
the little thing is using the crosswalk
though it’s just a cat
remarks the Fukunoyu⁴ landlady

The pitch-black stray
floats on a pure white stripe
In the next moment, it disappears into the abyss
and pops out again

Existence and absence do a little tango

The pavement after rain is much darker
than the pavement being rained on
Is everywhere else in the world like this?

For Honkomagome, stripped of movement and border crossings
Chiyoda Ward⁵ and a black hole are essentially the same thing

The solitude of Honkomagome
is somehow different from the solitude
of the Yanaka・Nezu・Sendagi neighborhood collectively called Yanesen

Vastly different from the solitude of upscale Shoto
or Paris

On the solitude of Honkomagome Honkomagome itself has no words to offer

That’s solitude, no?

But Honkomagome believes
somewhere in this world
there has to be a solitude that is identical

There, someone is also
screwing a screwdriver with a screw—

By reminding itself of this fact
the solitude of Honkomagome resists dilution
and intensifies even more

On either side of Hongo street
run Hakusan street
and Shinobazu street

Hongo street stretches along mountain ridges
Hakusan street and Shinobazu street
descend into ravines

When one walks
from Hongo street to Hakusan street or Shinobazu street
man (and beast) go high to low

From Hakusan street or Shinobazu street
to Hongo street
one goes low to high

Repeated thousands or millions of times
eventually Hongo street
Hakusan street and Shinobazu street will have peeled off

High to low
and
low to high

Only the purity of highlows will remain
People will discover thereafter
why Dōzaka is called Moving Hill

Trees and bees
have known for awhile

Over Honkomagome
a cold front, flowing

Under Honkomagome
the Pacific Plate, flowing

Into Honkomagome, nightfall, flowing
the lit rooms of Komagome Hospital flicker in the dark

With the piercing echo of electronic sounds
a flat-lined brainwave, flowing

Through the radio waves of Honkomagome
a trendy song, flowing

From the wombs of Hon-kamagome
premature fetuses, flowing

Along the Kitasenju bus route
merry laughter, flowing

On their backs in tandem
around the window on the second floor, flowing

Shooting stars, currencies
Washlet toilets, flowing

Ears cleansed by infinite flow
Skins scrubbed and smoothed

Into dark and lustery
Honkomagome

the call from a roasted sweet potato truck, flowing⁶

A herd of deer gallop
the hills that were once called Honkomagome

Deformed wings have partially grown in
like a sprouted seedling
on the back of one deer

The end continues

The area of Honkomagome:
1.292km2

Current population:
27,576 people

Area per person:
46.85m2

Area of the Warsaw Ghetto:
3.3km2

Peak population:
445,000 people

Area per person:
7.55m2

From the street gazing up at the sky
the Orion constellation twinkles
My hands
cannot reach it
I can only look on

The scent of daphne wafts
from somewhere
concealed entranced
I close my eyes

Under the walkway bridge
Chłodna⁷ street and Hongo street
get entangled
passing through time and space

Life is
a beautiful ghetto
a path fenced-in
by barbed wires called eternity

Turning back just before the Umschlagplatz⁸
I end my day

The owner of Uonuma Liquor shop
has plodded away for decades
teaching himself Esperanto

Secretly
planning his own
linguistic defection, it seems

A solo trip to the utopia of a common tongue
abandoning his wife and children

On the store wall
a peeling poster for
the Japan Innovation Party

Why is he unhappy
with his life in Honkomagome?

On the dawn of his successful defection
he will celebrate
with a treasured Macallan ‘18
From the back of the liquor store
Gôjon!⁹

I wake in the middle of the night
and continue lying in bed
only to notice

I am silently stunned
by my own breathing

If you take a slow, deep breath
breath, instead of breath,
become waves

The coast where tides come in and out
out and in
mind and body entwine
on the thread-thin edge of water

Ueno must be at the bottom of the ocean by now…

On love
Honkomagome has very little to say
On love, Honkomagome
would rather stay silent

Honkomagome
has as much love for
the serene Komahon Elementary School building at night
as the building overflowing with children’s squeals during the day

Even to a place
that just exists like Honkomagome
love generously gives
flower petals
rain showers
insect noises
people’s
beckoning voices

But Honkomagome cannot accept this love
With no castle walls or high fences
it is constantly exposed and washed over like
a lone island in a tidal current

Now and again for no reason
Honkomagome thinks, I want to turn over
Turn over abruptly
and mount myself on top of Hakusan!

Lit by the white glow of an LED balloon light
surrendering itself to the drill of a concrete destroyer
in complete passivity, having no power
to influence others is Honkomagome

For Honkomagome in this position
What is love? What is its worth?
In the middle of Honkomagome,
Honkomagome repeatedly asks itself

While crossing east to west
at the intersection between Shinobazu street and Dōzaka, I think—
I am either in Honkomagome
or I am not
These are the only two options

Suddenly everything becomes pointless

While eating the Rich Uji Matcha Ice Cream
I bought at the FamilyMart on 2nd Street
Honkomagome enters me

Not timidly or forcefully
or lithely and with perfect timing
By the time I noticed

there, already
staying put doing nothing in particular
there, around the pit of my stomach

I am planning on getting out of here before long
Does it expect to make a home
inside me for the rest of my life?

I guzzle some tea
and force a burp, but Honkomagome
is unbothered

and weaves a partition in me
To each their own
I give up and brush my teeth

Not a place, nor a subject
Honkomagome as an infinite predicate spiral…

Honkomagome is not unlike
the stage of an elementary school play

The floor is illuminated by a spotlight
Mise-en-scene trees stretch their branches

With a single apple on his head
a second grader stands motionless

fighting the urge to pee
In the wings

specks of dust glimmer
and demonstrate irregular movement by floating in the air

As three villagers with no speaking lines
zone out and look on

By tomorrow
everything will be put away as if nothing happened

Stage empty
sinking into the silent darkness of spring vacation

The faint stain and odor
that has seeped into the floor stage-right
is Honkomagome

On a white piece of paper
a line is drawn from left to right

On top of the line
a small circle is drawn

Further on top
a bigger circle is drawn

I draw
the Honkomagome landscape
while pondering fear

By an invisible axe
an invisible tree
is cut down

By an invisible gun
an invisible bird
is shot down

In Limbo
a.k.a. Honkomagome

By an invisible demon
an invisible child
is devoured

Today
a passenger ship
departs from Honkomagome again

With no steam whistle or ribbon
Aloof
Carrying a huge
hollowness

A baby stares
from the seat of a moped
zooms down the sidewalk

On the thin surface
bolstered by depth

bangs and
a basket of green onions
are blown by the same wind

There are lizards
in Honkomagome

There are sewage drains
in Honkomagome

What connects
the two seemingly unrelated objects?

(Hint: A lizard can go into a sewage drain
but a sewage drain can’t go into a lizard)

Eleven Verses Declaimed by Honkomagome

Wanting to unplug / all the bathtubs / in one go

Feeling futile / of my own being / that can’t peel a banana

Confused by / the human concept of mistakes / while gingko leaves scatter

Watching over / humanity without even / the joy of getting drunk

Mount Fuji Hawk Eggplant¹⁰ / Happy New Year to all / Fuck You Japan

Thinking of Kabul / a distant land / in late October

My lovely / electric toothbrush / has yet to stop vibrating

Mozart sounds / all the more decadent / while sucking blood

Me without / bottomless evil / also has no Buddha

O dustballs! / I am a lodging on a journey / from absence to existence

Through me endless suffering / a seven-minute walk / from the train station

Death
exists inside Honkomagome
Death
exists outside Honkomagome

Honkomagome cannot
picture
its own death

Maybe a giant meteor
impact? A Mount Fuji
eruption?
Or an administrative name change?

Is it because death is fundamentally incomprehensible
or because Honkomagome still hasn’t grasped
the subject of its own mortality?
Even that is unclear

but this is no hindrance to Honkomagome’s life

A bird falls from the sky
making a dry sound
against the ground

What do
humans think
faced by their eventual death?

Transparent ripples make water rings
around the bird
In the woven intersections where infinite rings collide
Honkomagome floats

juice
tofu
shiitake
bacon
ham
soba sauce…

somebody is chanting
an incantation

juice
tofu
shiitake
bacon
ham
soba sauce…

intonation and rhythm
lull Honkomagome to sleep

juice
tofu
shiitake
bacon
ham
soba sauce…

Honkomagome snaps out of the spell
for a moment unsure of where it is

just now, I thought I was
walking to the supermarket in me……

Then everything comes back
Honkomagome is once again inserted into its corner of the earth but

juicetofu
shiitakebaconham
sobasauce…

the incantation can still faintly be heard
Not from inside or outside but somewhere far off

as if it’s somebody else’s problem
Yo, you forgot the pork belly

thinks Honkomagome

Honkomagome’s coda
imperceptible to human ear, but audible through voices of plants wildlife
stone sky and water

Honkomagome’s coda being located near the center of Nippon
hides its face from behind

After the lights turn off on the second floor of Komagome Cafe
After the hot water of Fukunoyu has drained completely
As if in rhythm with the red light flickering in front of Honkomagome Elementary intersection

Honkomagome’s coda
mixing absolutely everything has ended
with not one thing has begun

Honkomagome’s coda
sprawled out on the exceedingly flat prairie
of the last reverberating Big Bang waveform

Honkomagome’s coda
Now, still

---

NOTES: Non-bolded endnotes are author’s footnotes that appear in Japanese. Bolded endnotes are additions by the translator.

¹ Finland themed coffee shop. An instance of Japan’s strange fascination with anything Scandinavian. Other examples include: Moomin, Marimekko, Japandi interior design, the film Kamome Diner, etc.

² Kei car or “light automobile”, a vehicle category in Japan popular for their smaller size. Similar to the tiny cars driven and carelessly parked on the street corners of Rome.

³ Chain deli specializing in Bento box and ready-made side dishes. Its pink glow is sometimes the only source of light in the late-night streets of Tokyo.

⁴ Bathhouse in Honkomagome where local grannies gather.

⁵ Chiyoda Ward is the political and financial center of Tokyo, housing the Imperial Palace, National Museum of Modern Art, Yasukuni Shrine, and the central financial district. All of these things may be important to humans but are virtually irrelevant to Honkomagome.

⁶ Similar to an ice cream truck but for sweet potatoes roasted over coal. A winter delicacy.

⁷ Chłodna street went through the center of the Warsaw Ghetto, splitting the ghetto into two. The street itself belonged to the Aryan part of the city meaning those imprisoned in the ghetto could not use it. Instead, they had to use a wooden footbridge to go between the east and west side.

⁸ Umschlagplatz was a collection point for freight trains located in the north of the Warsaw Ghetto. Many of the ghetto inhabitants were deported from this point to Nazi extermination camps where they were murdered.

⁹ Esperanto word for “cheers”.

¹⁰ Honkomagome is referencing the phrase, 一富士二鷹三茄子 (One Mount Fuji, Two hawks, Three eggplant), which originates in Honkomagome. If they appear in the first dream of the new year, then your year will be lucky! Mount Fuji is a nod to the Komagome Fuji Shrine. Hawk refers to the hawk conservancy in Honkomagome that was popular during the Edo-period. Eggplant is a local produce of the area.