21. Sayeth the Voter

21. Sayeth the Voter

Why can’t we get by without the broken ballets      You ask          [ost-rak-ismos]
‘Cause  when you’ve spent your life watching from the cheap seats
You’ll take any chance to rewrite the lines for the lead 
‘Cause     Even their expulsions     executions      they who deign
to reign over the rest of us     are decided by the roll of a die
Besides     even if we realise we messed up      So what   
It’s not really our responsibility         ‘Cause like it or not   
We do what they tell us         each and every day
Just give us this much         and we’ll call it quits
History will be the  judge     or whatever it is they say (you might say)     so what    
For likes of us     when we’re dead we’ll dead and forgotten  
We won’t feel a thing    no pain     not even an itch
 

21. Said by the Voter

Earthen fragment ballot [ostrakismos] cannot be quit      Why? [you/someone/they] ask?
Well     Because those for whom taking the audience seat is not enough
Can change the plot for the lead/main actor on the stage
Because they/themselves      the important, rabble-reigning-over characters’
Explusions and      death sentences too     are determined by the roll of the die/dice
What’s more     even if you/we/they understand later it was a mistake
It is okay to take no responsibility for anything     Because [in] the quotidian/every day/usual/normality
That comes [nuance of word choice: whether we like it or not]      those blokes do just as they are told
Just let us/them [i.e. the voters] do that much      and we’ll call it even
The final judgement is history      or so they [the hotshots] say however
[We’re talking about] us, who after/upon dying, who will be completely/ utterly forgotten
If we don’t experience even pain     we won’t even feel an itch
 

Original Poem by

Mutsuo Takahashi

Translated by

Jeffrey Angles with The Poetry Translation Workshop Language

Japanese

Country

Japan