Ignorant Poem by Shuntaro Tanikawa

My toes seem terribly far away
The five digits, like five complete strangers,
sit close together, coldly indifferent

There is a phone by the bed, and it's connected to the world
but there is no one with whom I wish to speak
Ever since I can remember my life has been nothing but one errand after another
yet neither mother nor father taught me how to make small-talk in this world

Forty years spent writing, relying only on line breaks
When asked "who the hell are you?" it feels the most reassuring to say I am a poet-
How strange that is, too

When I abandoned my girl, was I a poet
Eating my favorite baked sweet potato, am I a poet
Is this man with thinning hair a poet
There are hoards of such middle-aged men, though they are not poets

Chasing pretty butterfly words, I am nothing
but a child ignorant of the world
The spirit at three
remains so naive, not even noticing how it has hurt others,
and heads toward one hundred

Poetry
is absurd