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  • Two Tokyos
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Two Tokyos

Shuntarō Tanikawa

Withdrawing all his postal savings
and putting on his only suit,
he packed a bag with old newspapers
and went to a hotel with a foreign name.
He slept in a fluffy bed (alone).
In the morning he ate oatmeal and melon,
in the afternoon he took three showers,
at night he took a sightseeing bus
with a man from Peru.
TOKYO was noisy.
TOKYO was huge.
TOKYO was fancy.
He wanted to send a picture postcard somewhere,
but there was nowhere to send one.
So he wrote to himself,
addressing it to his rooming house
saying, “Tokyo has everything.”

When he returned to his rooming house
the post card was glittering on his bed.


Shuntarō Tanikawa

from The Selected Poems of Shuntarō Tanikawa, translated by Harold Wright (London: W. W. Norton & Co, 2001)

translated by Harold Wright

Reproduced by kind permission of the poet and translator.

Tags:

cities Despair & Loneliness holidays Japan post and mail tourism

About this poem

This poem, representing Japan, is part of The Written World – our collaboration with BBC radio to broadcast a poem from every single nation competing in London 2012.

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