Poetry Book
Published the first poetry collection “Tokyo White Night Flight” featuring 14 poems.
This poetry collection is a portrait of contemporary Tokyo, depicting beauty and emptiness, longing and dependence, the desire for transformation, the pain of consumer society, and a faint yearning for salvation beyond it.
Publisher: Unagi Room
Living in a city overflowing with stimulation while continuing to question life itself. What runs through this collection feels almost like a prayer. The sense of loss and loneliness that emerges throughout the book seems to refuse to be easily filled by others, even within Tokyo, a city overflowing with things. Loss remains loss, and loneliness remains loneliness, standing lightly without forcibly closing the gaps. The speaker, looking down over such a city from above, at times chooses to remain transparent and avoid contact, and at other times chooses to distance themselves from the meaning of life and give something up.
Contribution: Anela Yazawa, Poet
I depicted the body of a single person living in the city of Tokyo. The loofah hat carries both a self-perception of being unnecessary and a dry desire for transformation. The disposable chopsticks spreading from the head are like a halo, enduring loneliness while still trying to emit light. Within an excessive city, the emaciated body nevertheless looks straight toward life.
Cover Art: Yudai Nakaya, Artist
[Poems]
01 City of Swans
02 Tokyo White Night Flight
03 Beams of Light
04 Abstract
05 Straight Lines and Windows | Honorable Mention, Hakushu Poetry Dedication
06 Beautiful World
07 Metamorphosis
08 Endings and Beginnings | Poem Provided for Artwork
09 Shirotae
10 Spring Melancholy | Presented at a Poetry Reading and Discussion
11 Lenticular | Poem Provided for Grand Prize-Winning Artwork
12 Spectral Transparency | Selected, Gifu Prefecture Literary Festival
13 Fermata | Selected, Sanpuku Literary Prize
14 The Principle | Final Round, JILA Recitation Competition
[Contributions]
On the Collection: Anela Yazawa, Poet
On the Cover Art: Yudai Nakaya, Artist
Poetry
City of Swans2025
The swans struck the water,
and shook the morning of a vacant town.
She wrapped the night that lagged behind within the folds of her curtains,
and though her pace was hurried,
she nodded, whispering it’s alright.
By the afternoon of that very day,
the year’s first snow began to settle,
and the roofs, as softly as a drawing breath,
offered their own quiet nod.
Tokyo White Night Flight2025
Flaying the eyelids, pointing at the darkness,
A blunt needle weaves the heartbeat.
Outside the window, white flowers rot,
Yet their fragrance alone sharpens this solitude.
Plucking the dripping sounds gathered in the lungs,
The beginning is always this—nearly drowning.
A faint breath, then a command to begone.
When the gray blessing vaguely spreads its decorative plumes,
Where temporarily names it a “White Night”,
scooping up (Me), who failed the flight.
The truth, reshaped by the trembling of the tongue,
entangles itself in infidelity, fainting while still a chrysalis.
The warmth equally stolen away,
and the crimson bones fed on lowliness,
shaved and rewritten over and over.
– are like this very poem
Even a happiness like this
Pulses with delete, delete, my dear.
Like a season that allowed its intrusion,
I gently submerged the self that is different from yesterday.
Like a season that allowed its intrusion,
I gently submerged the self that is different from yesterday.
Beams of Light2025
Rather be dull than transparent.
Rather be clouded than radiant.
Without turbidity, one cannot know pure water,
without lostness, a poem is never born.
Abstract2025
2:00 AM.
On the surface of a snow-crystal, a person is burning.
Like a bee that stung the heart of this world.
Straight Lines and Windows2025
The corner of a land-bag
punctuates the early morning,
While at freezing point, all the birds cease their cries at once.
On a desk covered in ruts,
A metronome pecks at a goldfish.
The windows that stretch out straight are still far away.
A heart that taps out dots and dashes,
Lips that make the world throb with their trembling.
Existence is an indivisible decimal point,
And body temperature is a nightlight illuminating doubt.
The courage, matching the amount of freshly squeezed milk,
I let rot with my own heat.
There is no “why,”
For that is life.
Roused by the first cry of birth, accepting the funeral portrait.
For that is life.
The first line was white.
A white and straight line, rushing toward freedom.
The windows are still far away.
I dilute my own existence once again.
Beautiful World2025
On days we cannot meet,
I doused myself with water in the kitchen,
And rounded the fragments of your name.
On days I want to meet,
Returned, address unknown.
I stared blankly at the sealed letter.
Metamorphosis2025
The afternoon they removed the kalaxin from the Petri dish,
The metamorphosis metastasized, turning into a pattern.
The cross-section of my being grows weary in deep blue,
A handful of days becoming a sin,
And I will likely cry out, gasping for breath.
Endings and Beginnings2025
In conflict, there is a point.
In peace, there is a line.
In conflict, there is heat.
In peace, there is nothingness.
In conflict, there is a voice.
In peace, there is silence.
In conflict, there is a beginning.
In peace, there is an end.
When we build, destroy, and build again
— art is born.
Shirotae2025
The Shirotae morning, exhaling regret,
erects a damp pulse,
returning dim images back to the surroundings.
The pure, mute bulb,
at the depths where consciousness trembles,
still searches for a name it has never been called.
Spring Melancholy2025
A fairytale,
A tremor,
A stealth,
A bloom—
And once again, you have visited me.
Braiding a modest shade,
Tempting even the moon,
Drawing in your scent.
The swaying chaos,
The agonizing contrast
Without a touch, gently,
Will dilute them for me.
I have seen you withered before.
And I, too, will show you myself withering.
Dancing along the trajectory
The butterflies and I,
From your eyes, do we look like
Meandering plots of land
Will this existence, scorched by your gaze,
One day be reflected alongside hope
At your arrival,
My heart leaps.
By your arrival,
I had been saved.
Lenticular2025
What John Langdon Down saw at the very end
Was it a tranquil light, or a burst of froth?
A dead-end hope.
The saints go marching in.
No need for change.
Give us everything.
Demons out, fortunes out.
Man begins it, and man fails to end it.
Dreaming of Ohka in one’s sleep.
And borrowing clothes for it—borrowed clothes.
Let’s meet again someday.
In a world unwanted,
In a world beautiful.
Shrouded in silence.
Nature, Lord, mimicry, sacrifice.
Spectral Transparency2025
Simply, easily, I just want to be recognized.
Yet, like a molecule,
I want to be transparent.
Earnestly, desperately, I just want to be understood.
Yet, like a photon,
I want to pass right through.
Unable to bear the friction, nor withstand the impact.
The nerves I gathered so carefully
Are crumbling, scattering into pieces.
A fraction of those shards
Pierces my heart,
And the freedom enclosed by discipline
Simply, utterly stagnates.
Even so, I can still hear it:
“I want to be transparent.”
This impossible desire, after all,
Is me; it is the spectrum.
I am transparent.
Fermata2025
The mirage becomes night dew
And asks who it is.
A frozen piano,
Even loneliness.
The light is a viola,
Its altered chord.
In a sunken bed,
The tempo is off,
Reflecting each other’s sound.
The Principle2025
The scorched sky before the dawn
Robs me of my impatience and my voice.
I want to bury the echo that grasps the fatal light,
And the transplantable haters.
Pouring rain into the catheter of illusions,
I want to forgive the feverish concrete.
Until the shadows stretching into the waiting room
Return to a rightful pulse,
You must never look away.
In the end, I want to decline the outcome.
Even if the equivalence of dissection is peace,
We will surely only receive it
By our own measures, after all.
Colors melt into the ultramarine,
Finally, the principle.
No wonder we are arranged so similarly.
No wonder we cannot touch, even when we try.
Relying on the light, we swam through the unborn,
I want to forgive us, covered in our own egos.
Humming along to the heartbeat,
Tracing the memory.
Restoration is no longer needed,
And we are surely not alone.
Translation: Yuto Kurosaka