Excerpts from Bathhouse by Ishii Tatsuhiko

The following tanka are excerpted from Bathhouse by Ishii Tatsuhiko and appear in Partings at Dawn : An Anthology of Japanese Gay Literature. Translated by Hiroaki Sato.


Martyr's pomegranate like wounds you say and the bar also turns into a catacomb

Looking for father or for whom? Reflected upside down in a glass constellation

The young ones though male paint eyebrows dazzlingly green the night has deepened

Ask the false moon no less how much is the value of the boy with a pigeon chest

Since I wandered into twilight town my body filled with sleepiness has been dark

All those dreams drowned in wine cups this body too had days it was an innocent child

Satiated and yet starved, starved and yet . . . tonight what kind of pleasure shall I buy

Probably this is madness nay I grow ever more transparent tonight this sanity

Mediterranean nudes! I don't want to boast, no, but we are such an elegant tribe

Pull them a little closer and lift them a young man's eyebrows (oh ocean!) so beautiful

Having exchanged a modicum of money for a key (to my palm this key feels like ice)

Bronze automatic door every soul goes in there in silence (as if wishing to die)

They turn to look, again, they turn to look, as they pass in the hall, souls, so, lonesome!

(Love is just like wrestling) the way they love each other they appear ever so noble

(The throat is another sexual organ) at a faint sound of gargling I prick up my ear

The Kingdom is in this steam now, a man rising from the bath a wandering knight

Smelling like some apocalyptic event in the dark lies the body of a man half asleep

Cursed sleep what the man has on his shoulder is the <head> of someone unknown to him

This body grown thin with no reason these days increasing among the dead the number of friends

A man is a single duct (blocked by the arm of an angel burning like fire)

A man runs pelted by a rain of fire (ah) my heart resembles him more than anything else

Hold tight a young man's innocent nude body . . . else tightly tie it up with a rope

What kind of bird is a cuckoo? On silent tv a video showing a man being dissected

I shall be too late! I chase a shadow that runs away through the midst of my soul

A man possesses (as a means of having himself saved?) a dew-drenched sinful soul

I dreamed of falling unstoppably toward the bottom of a grave my skull covered with mud

The ear is an oyster in a deep sea. It gets sucked by gleaming teeth and scarlet tongue

Snow-white bedsheets and tablecloth all the countless lives and deaths that fell into this throat

1st Int'l Erotic Tanka Contest

FIRST INTERNATIONAL EROTIC TANKA CONTEST
Deadline Postmark: Dec. 31st 2008

Eligibility: Open to everyone MUST BE AT LEAST 21 YEARS OLD
TO ENTER


Subject matter: Erotic, sensual/physical tanka. Tanka that expresses
love in all its manifestations. Please NO pornography!!

Prizes: First Place $100 Second Place $50 and Third Place $25
Prize monies maybe reduced if there are insufficient funds due to
number of entries.

Entry Fee: $1 per tanka No limit on number of tanka submitted.
Checks, money orders, made payable to Pamela A. Babusci, or cash.
Foreign entries CASH ONLY, U.S. MONIES.

Rules: Submit tanka on 3x5 index cards. One card with just the tanka on it and
the second card with your tanka and your name, address, telephone number, and
e-mail address on the front upper left of the card. Entries MUST be typewritten
or printed legibly. Entries that cannot be read be will destroyed.
Enclose an SASE, with sufficient postage (or 2 IRCs for international entries)
if you desire contest results.
ONLY unpublished tanka will be accepted. NO tanka
that is being considered for publication or entered
into tanka contests elsewhere. NO tanka that has been
published on-line or in on-line tanka workshops should be entered.
TANKA IN ENGLISH ONLY.

Judge: Pamela A. Babusci, international award-winning tanka poet.

Note: The contest will be judged blindly. Karen Shiffler will receive all entries
and send ONLY the blind entries to the judge.

Send entries to: First International Erotic Tanka Contest, Karen Shiffler, 1464 Lake Road Webster, NY 14580 USA.

Questions: E-mail moongate44@gmail.com; subject line: Questions: Erotic Tanka Contest.