Prime Number Magazine
is a publication of
Press 53
PO Box 30314,
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7
Prime Number Magazine is a publication of Press 53, PO Box 30314, Winston-Salem, NC 27130
An Artist’s Apology to His Daughter
You may feel uncomfortable,
looking at those paintings
of nude women
your father has painted.
He did look at the women
as intensely
as he could, trying to reproduce
the gentle curves of their rich breasts.
He counted the threads of a model’s hair
hanging on her nape.
He could feel the heartbeat
of the woman in front,
as he moved his brush on the canvas.
Perhaps he loved these women
more strongly than he loved your mother.
Here they are, painted for ages to come,
exposing their naked bodies
to the sun.
From Eternal Grandeur and Other Poems, 1994 *
Under the Evening Sky of Rome
Did I reach out for your hand first?
Or did you slip your hand into mine?
Our hands seemed
to have eagerly longed
to touch each other.
I didn’t want to let your hand go,
so I kept holding it
as we walked along the bumpy sidewalk
of Rome,
feeling
the warmth
and softness
of your hand
with all my heart.
And I could feel your hand
softly responsive
to the amorous squeeze
of my hand.
From Eternal Grandeur and Other Poems, 1994 *
A Poem Just for You
I call up every single word
in my vocabulary,
measuring up
one usable word
against another
in search of the best possible word.
I also examine
every single working rule
of my grammar
to arrange the choicest words
into a poem
in the most powerful way.
Sitting at my typewriter,
setting my body upright
with my feet comfortably apart,
I exert all the force and power
of my fingertips and hands
hitting hard
the keys
of the faithful machine . . .
to write
a poem
just for you . . .
From Eternal Grandeur and Other Poems, 1994 *
A Morning Song
When I go to bed
I always put a notebook
at my bedside
so that
I may depict
your beauty
when I see you
in my dream.
Groping in the dark,
I scribble
and scratch
word by word
recording my joy
of seeing you.
In the morning
I see strange loops
and crooked lines
like wanton tracks
of creeping earthworms
on the open pages
of the notebook.
As I sit
at my typewriter
deciphering the illegible scrawls
loop by irregular loop
line by crooked line
your smiling face
begins to appear
right in front of my eyes.
From Eternal Grandeur and Other Poems, 1994 *
when my children and i
when my children and i
came down the mountain trail
after rambling in the hot island summer sun
i took them
to the stream
at the foot of the mountain
that flowed cool
under the thick bowers of bamboo trees
yes, i took them
to the mountain stream
to let them drink
the cool, clear water
that our unknown ancestors have drunk
down the countless ages
here on this remote small island
From By the Lakeshore and Other Poems, 1977.*
*reprinted with permission of the author Naoshi Koriyama is the author of the following books:
Poetry
Coral Reefs, The Hokuseido Press, Tokyo, 1957.
Plum Tree in Japan and Other Poems, The Hokuseido Press, Tokyo, 1959.
Songs from Sagamihara, The Hokuseido Press, Tokyo, 1967.
By the Lakeshore and Other Poems, The Hokuseido Press, Tokyo, 1977.
Time and Space and Other Poems, The Hokuseido Press, Tokyo, 1985.
Selected Poems 1954–1985, The Hokuseido Press, Tokyo, 1989.
Eternal Grandeur and Other Poems, The Hokuseido Press, Tokyo, 1994.
Collected Poems, The Hokuseido Press, Tokyo, 1996.
Poems about The Iraq War and Other Poems, Eiko-Sha, Tokyo, 2004.
Translations
We Wrote These Poems: A Collection of Poems by Mentally Retarded Children, Hokuseido
Press, Tokyo, 1982.
Like Underground Water: The Poetry of Mid-Twentieth Century Japan, cotranslated
with Edward Lueders, Copper Canyon Press, 1995.
Black Flower in the Sky: Poems of a Korean Bridegroom in Hiroshima by Chong Ki-
Sheok, cotranslated with Elizabeth Floyd, Katydid Press, 2000.
Beautiful Amami Island Folk Songs, The Hokuseido Press, Tokyo, 2001.
Non-Fiction
Another Bridge over the Pacific: A Man from an Island and His American Wife, Vantage
Press, 1993.
Issue 7, April-June 2011
Buy Like Underground Water from your local independent bookstore.
