Inagaki Taruho
A range of stories from '1001 Second Stories' (1923)

Translation from Japanese by Jeffrey Angles
[NB: Inagaki Taruho (1900–1977) was a real modernist dandy who started writing wild, experimental, whimsical stories in the 1920s that blur the boundaries of prose and poetry. Although Taruho did not write what one traditionally thinks about when one imagines “poetry,” his short-short stories are sometimes classified as poetry. His most famous collection is called 1001 Second Stories, which is a collection of funny, little contes that describe the surreal hijinks one might find in the earliest animation that was, not coincidentally, being produced right around the same time. (JA)]
The Man in the Moon
I was listening to the strains of a guitar leaking through a yellow window in a painting of a night landscape when I heard a spring pop loose in a clock and a huge automatized diorama of Mr. Moon began to rise in the distance
It stopped about one meter above the ground and a man wearing an opera hat jumped nimbly down Whoa! As I was watching he lit a cigarette and started down the street-lined street I followed him The trees cast such interesting silhouettes on the street that all of my attention was taken up by the shadows when I realized the man walking right of me had vanished I pricked up my ears but I didn’t hear anything remotely resembling the sound of someone’s footsteps I came back to the place where I had started and discovered that the moon had at some point risen high in the sky and the pinwheels were flitting as they spun in the quiet nighttime breeze
Eavesdropping in the Shadows of a Warehouse One Night
“Mr. Moon’s out tonight”
“That guy’s made of tin”
“What? Made of tin you say?”
“Well mister I guarantee he’s nickel-plated at the very least”
(That was all I overheard)
Une mémoire
A gentle spring moon was hanging in the middle of the sky The forests and hills and rivers were misty and blue and off the distance the backbone of a rocky mountain glittered faintly
The moonlight rained silently down upon the entire scene From far, far off in the distance came the sounds of a flute Ton-koro-piii-piii It seemed so forlorn so filled with nostalgia The sound was so faint that it was hard to know if one was really hearing it or not I pricked up my ears It seemed someone was singing The voice seemed full of blame full of grief but I had no idea what it was saying
Ton-koro-piii … piii … .
The notes of the flute made the moonlight come raining down all the more
And then from somewhere I heard a voice whisper “It was probably on a night like this …”
Surprised I asked back “Huh? What are you talking about?”
But there was no response For a while the moonlight simply continued to rain down as if nothing had happened
But then I heard the whisper again coming from nowhere in particular This time it sounded a little peeved as if it were giving up as if it were sad
“It was probably on a night like this …”
Flustered I piped up again “Huh? What happened?”
But the voice made no attempt to answer
Silence
I noticed a rock by my shoe and picked it up but before I could hurl it into the distance I let it fall from my hand as if I were overcome with disappointment
Under the blue moonlit sky the mountains hills and forests were as misty as a dream
Ton-koro-pii … pii …
Un énigme
——onamoonliteveningabutterflyturnedintoadragonfly
——Huh?
——didthedragonflyblowitsnose?
——What’s that again?
——didyoucatchafishintissuepaper?
——What? What’re you saying?
——thereisvalueinnotunderstanding
Une chanson d’enfants
Full of Mr. Moon
Full of the light of Mr. Moon
So full so full of the light of Mr. Moon …
C’est rien d’autre que ça
According to Mr. A it’s really quite serious How should I put it? It’s really quite astounding That’s it in a nutshell
The Time I Cut Off a Black Cat’s Tail
One evening I caught a black cat and cut its tail off with sheers Snip! It turned into a puff of yellow smoke and overhead I heard a voice cry out in pain! I opened the window and saw a comet missing its tail escape
The Time I Stopped the Rain with a Bullet
When I opened the window it was still raining I put the bullets in my pistol took aim at the center of the pitch-black sky and pulled the trigger I heard a scream and immediately the Stars and Stripes unfurled overhead and began to flutter
Moonlight Moonshiners
One night not long before dawn I heard some voices on the balcony I peeked through the keyhole and saw two or three dark shadows turning some sort of machine Earlier I had noticed an article in the newspaper about a gang who snuck onto people’s balconies in the middle of the night when the moon was high and used a certain secret contraption recently invented in London to make moonshine out of moonlight I put my automatic pistol against the keyhole and shot POW, POW, POW, POW, POW … The bullets struck the roofs and the road below the balcony and I heard the sound of breaking glass
I opened the door thinking I would jump out onto the balcony when something rushed in like a gust of wind beside me It blew me off my feet When I regained my composure and went onto the balcony there was no one there A single bottle was perched at the edge of the roof so I picked it up and held it to the light There was something that looked like water inside I tried shaking it and the cork popped off all on its own POP! The sound resonated through the still night air A great deal of vapor rose from the mouth of the bottle and right before my eyes it melted away to become part of the moonlight …
I kept watching until everything in the bottle was gone And that was all other than the fact that the moon seemed a bit paler than usual
The Time I Lost Myself
Last night when I hopped off the streetcar in front of the Metropolitan I dropped myself
I still remember lighting my cigarette in front of a movie poster jumping onto the streetcar as it turned the corner watching the twinkling lamps and the crowds from the window and inhaling the perfume of the lady seated across the aisle All of these things and more are still clear in my memory but when I hopped off the streetcar I realized I was no longer there
Did You Really Make it to the Moon?
A’s question:
Did you really make it to the moon?
B’s answer:
What? Are you crazy?
The Men Who Raised the Moon
Late one evening I was leaning on a bench in the park when I heard some voices in the trees behind me
“You’re late”
“Let’s do this as quick as we can”
I heard the clank-clank of a pulley and a reddish moon rose in the east
“OK!”
And with that the moon stopped I heard the sound of gears turning and the moon began to slowly move I dashed into the trees but the only thing on the sandy path was the falling moonlight and the only sound was that of the treetops stirring in the nighttime breeze
The Moonman
The moon had risen over a nightscape worthy of a Hofmannsthal poem when a man popped out of the moon and started walking around the hills the ponds and the tree-lined boulevards before going back into the moon which had traced a large arc overhead as it descended Right then I heard a slam! I had also just come back from a stroll and shut the door behind me and that was when I realized the moonman was really me
The Black Comet Club
No one was sure who had suggested establishing it or when but within two or three months it had become a terrific club and although nothing specific really went wrong after two or three more months it had disbanded
Upon further investigation it was revealed that the club was the work of a black comet that had passed through the vicinity of earth right at the same time As the comet approached the club grew and as the comet retreated the club died away And that is why it came to be known as THE BLACK COMET CLUB
The Time My Friend Turned into Mr. Moon
One night I was taking a walk with a friend and badmouthing Mr. Moon My friend was entirely silent so I asked “Say don’t you agree with me?”
I turned sideways to look at him and saw that he was Mr. Moon I took to my heels to get away but Mr. Moon chased after me He pushed me down as I was turning a corner then he tripped over me and left while I lay flat as a board on the asphalt
I was still lying there when Professor Keine quickly asserted this theory about my late-night misfortunes
“Whatever you might say about this one must conclude that the moon was triangular The reason is simple after he tripped and left he left behind these marks”
Before continuing the professor pointed out a series of marks left by sharp corners that had dug into the asphalt
“The triangle was spinning at an incredible speed so fast he probably appeared round to you”
As the professor explained this to the people around me he lifted me off the sidewalk but it wasn’t me at all only the cardboard cut-out of a human being
The Person who Spoke as if He Had Seen It Firsthand
“Do you think that the moon the stars and all those other things really exist?” A certain person asked me one night
I nodded “Sure I do”
“You’ve been tricked the heavens are really black cardboard and the moon and stars are just tin knick-knacks someone has pasted up there”
I asked “Then how do you account for their movement?”
“You see that’s the trick it’s all mechanical”
Having said that he burst into peals of laughter and I realized that no one was there “My goodness!” I thought As I looked up I saw a rope ladder sliding up into the starry heavens
Le braquer
One evening I was crossing an intersection when Mr. Moon abruptly shoved a pistol into my side
When I put my hands in the air Mr. Moon fished around in the bottom of my pocket pulled out a gold coin and went on his way Earlier in the evening I had seen that same gold coin stuck to the top of a tower on the roof of a department store and I had gone to great pains to get up there and pull it off Of course, the gold coin was none other than Mr. Moon himself
La cérémonie de mariage
The yellow moon had risen into the highest branches of the fir tree when a constant stream of automobiles and horse-drawn carriages started circling the lawn then stopped at the front entrance which had been decorated with garlands of flowers
In the grand hall brightly illuminated by gas lamps a waiter wearing a gold-threaded embroidered jacket was bustling about Meanwhile slender shoes decorated with white ribbons and enameled shoes that had been shined until they sparkled moved over the linoleum which was as reflective as a mirror
Eventually a silver bell rang and from the shade of a palm tree appeared a young duke and his doll-like bride
A man in black read some sacred verses
The young duke took his bride’s hand and
POOF!
She disappeared
And a shriveled up rubber balloon fell to the floor
The Man Who Looked Just Like Me
One evening when the stars and crescent moon were suspended in the sky with string I walked down a narrow road lined with poplar trees until I reached the end There I found the perfectly square house of someone who looked just like me
It was a dead ringer for my house Thinking how strange it was I tried the front door I went up to the second story like I owned the place and sat back in a chair There I found someone else there reading a book with his back to me
“Bon soir!” My loud greeting surprised him He stood up and turned around to look and lo and behold we were one and the same person
Why I Sobered Up
One night I was walking along singing a song when I fell into a well
HELP! HELP! I cried out Someone lowered a rope to me and I crawled out of the mouth of the bottle of brandy I’d just finished drinking and that had been dangling from my hand
The Black Box
One evening the pale moonlight was flowing down through the city streets when a gentleman burst into Sherlock Holmes’ office to see him
“I want you to open this” he said
He held a small but strong black box covered with seemingly significant jewels in the shape of an arabesque Holmes pulled out a ring of keys and tried them one by one but none of them fit Holmes took out a second ring of keys but to no avail What do you think he did next? Take out another set of keys or use some other tool? I don’t really know but in any case around 1:30 in the morning the little box sprung open
“What the heck? It’s empty” said Holmes
The gentlemen responded “That’s right nothing in it at all”
How Three Saturns Were Formed
Rumor had it that Saturn had gone to drink at the bar on the corner so I went to go look but only found a plain old human being Let me explain how that guy turned into Saturn It was because he had a habit of talking big and running circles around people with his stories I told him the guy who had blown things out of proportion and was talking circles around people was the real Saturn He was the one who made up the story that Saturn would be coming But then the man at the bar responded You’re the one who is Saturn since you tried to make a joke by talking circles around such a boring story and blowing the whole thing out of proportion
Why Did He Take Up Smoking?
One young man said “Mr. Moon is triangular”
To which a boy asked “What do you mean?”
“If you blow a smoke ring like this and look through it Mr. Moon is unmistakably shaped like a triangle” With this answer the young man took a long drag on the cigarette in his fingertips and — puff, puff — blew a couple of smoke rings from his mouth The pale bluish light of the moon flowed down into them There was no one else in the room to disturb them They flipped the switch to turn off the lamp on the table and the young man blew several more white fluffy rings into the air The pale moonlight headed in their direction disappeared into the rings as if it was being sucked in Meanwhile the young man looked through the rings at the moon then he blew another so he could look again He kept this up and before long the moon began to look more and more triangular to him According to the young man’s logic it didn’t really matter much if the moon looked like a triangle or not Blowing smoke rings toward the moonlight in a darkened room and the moon being a triangle were one and the same thing Did the boy actually believe this could happen in real life or even in theory? I don’t really have the answer because I’m not the young man in question — but in any case the young man smoked five cigarettes one after the other so that he could blow smoke rings to show the boy but the all of those experiments ended in failure The next day the young man put a small cardboard box inside his pocket and went to a deserted place so he could practice blowing smoke rings Three months went by with the moon coming out every night but by that time the boy had become a smoker who carried a silver cigarette case where ever he went Finally the boy understood I heard about it directly from his own lips No doubt he was able to blow perfect smoke rings by that point But how did that affect the way that he saw the moon? I haven’t heard anything about that aspect of the story I don’t really have to ask though The real question for both me and the young man was “Why did he pick up smoking?” After all, we’re the type of people who are naturally curious about such things and nothing else
Poems and poetics