Unusual poetry.

Japanese poetry has always been a mystery to me. Once in the Internet I came across an unusual poem called "Tomino's Hell". There is a legend that this poem will bring tragedy and death, if it is read aloud.

Apparently the story of a young boy’s damnation for unnamed acts, “Tomino’s Hell” was published, I discovered, in a 1919 collection of poetry by Saijō Yaso titled Sakin or Gold Dust. The poet was a university professor and lived in France for a time, studying at the Sorbonne.

His work is heavily influenced by French poets, especially symbolists like Arthur Rimbaud, Stéphane Mallarmé and Paul Valéry (with whom he became friends). Though Saijō’s later work was ostensibly for children, it was filled with strange symbols and wordplay that could be quite unsettling.

I’ve not actually read the thing aloud, so I can’t speak to whether the curse is real. I’ll leave that to your own discretion.

Tomino’s Hell

" His older sister vomited blood, his younger sister vomited fire,

And the cute Tomino vomited glass beads.

Tomino fell into Hell alone,

Hell is wrapped in darkness and even the flowers don't bloom.

Is the person with the whip Tomino's older sister,

I wonder whose blood is on it?

Hit, hit, without hitting,

Infinite Hell's one road.

Would you lead him to the dark Hell,

To the sheep of gold, to the bush warbler.

Fit as much as you can into the leather sack,

For the preparation of the journey in the familiar Hell.

Spring is coming even in the forest and the stream,

Even in the seven valley streams of the dark Hell.

The bush warbler in the birdcage, the sheep in the wagon,

Tears in the eyes of cute Tomino.

Cry, bush warbler, toward the raining forest

He shouts that he misses his little sister.

The crying echo reverberates throughout Hell,

The fox penoy blooms.

Circling around Hell's seven mountains and seven streams,

The lonely journey of cute Tomino.

If they're in Hell bring them to me,

The needle of the graves.

I won't pierce with the red needle,

In the milestones of little Tomino. "

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