Tada Chimako / 多田 智満子 – Ⅱ
Labyrinth
I travel through city streets where right turns are prohibited
Turning endlessly to the left
Heading toward the center of the labyrinth
Led by blinking stoplights
Turning left and left again
(For this is the direction of death)
Where was I? Was I in a huge hospital
Dissociating the joints of language
As I turned left and left again
Clutching at bandages that unfurl
Into great, white margins
Or at spools of string
That someone had conferred unto me?
Where was I? Was I in a sacred sanctuary
Where a single body reclined
In a roundabout misunderstanding
Upon a sterilized altar
Waiting for the scalpel
Covered only by a patch
Big enough for an eye?
Kill her or revive her?…
(Were these voices talking about me?)
Is it permitted for those
Who have once grasped the knife
To return, turning back time
So they turn right then right again?
Round and round we go
(But it is too late for the world
The circulatory system is already
Ridden with disease)
迷宮
右折禁止の街を たえず左へ曲がってゆく
迷宮の中心にむかって
左へ左へ (それは死の方角だ)
目くばせする信号にみちびかれ
それは巨大な病院であったろうか
言語の関節をはずしながら
左へ左へと曲解する
茫大な余白をくり出す繃帯 あるいは
授けられた糸巻をしっかりとかかえて
それは神殿であったろうか
迂遠な誤解の中心に横たわり
メスをたつひとつのからだ
消毒された祭壇の上
全身に眼帯をほどこされて
殺すのか 蘇らせるのか
(あれはもしやわたし自身であったか)
時を巻きもどしながら右へ右へ
もどることはゆるされているか
ひとたび刃を握りしめた者
めぐりめぐって
(しかし世界はもうどうしようもなく
循環器系統を病んでいる)
I travel through city streets where right turns are prohibited
Turning endlessly to the left
Heading toward the center of the labyrinth
Led by blinking stoplights
Turning left and left again
(For this is the direction of death)
Where was I? Was I in a huge hospital
Dissociating the joints of language
As I turned left and left again
Clutching at bandages that unfurl
Into great, white margins
Or at spools of string
That someone had conferred unto me?
Where was I? Was I in a sacred sanctuary
Where a single body reclined
In a roundabout misunderstanding
Upon a sterilized altar
Waiting for the scalpel
Covered only by a patch
Big enough for an eye?
Kill her or revive her?…
(Were these voices talking about me?)
Is it permitted for those
Who have once grasped the knife
To return, turning back time
So they turn right then right again?
Round and round we go
(But it is too late for the world
The circulatory system is already
Ridden with disease)
迷宮
右折禁止の街を たえず左へ曲がってゆく
迷宮の中心にむかって
左へ左へ (それは死の方角だ)
目くばせする信号にみちびかれ
それは巨大な病院であったろうか
言語の関節をはずしながら
左へ左へと曲解する
茫大な余白をくり出す繃帯 あるいは
授けられた糸巻をしっかりとかかえて
それは神殿であったろうか
迂遠な誤解の中心に横たわり
メスをたつひとつのからだ
消毒された祭壇の上
全身に眼帯をほどこされて
殺すのか 蘇らせるのか
(あれはもしやわたし自身であったか)
時を巻きもどしながら右へ右へ
もどることはゆるされているか
ひとたび刃を握りしめた者
めぐりめぐって
(しかし世界はもうどうしようもなく
循環器系統を病んでいる)