Features
The Don Magazine Features is an archive of writing drawn from across the magazine’s issues — a place to dip in and spend some time. Take a look at the fiction, poetry, essays, and interviews that have defined Don so far. You might revisit a favorite piece or come across something you missed the first time.
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Instructions
When I die, steal my bones
and give some to Ophelia
so she can weave them
through her hands
like ashy-fragile pansies.
HAIKU WORD
What is the WORD on haiku? What should it be outside Japan? Season words? 5-7-5 syllables? Free verse? How about punctuation? There isn’t any in Japanese haiku – but there are kireji (‘cutting words’), which only really translate as punctuation marks – that means there’s more than 17 syllables if you insist on 5-7-5 and use punctuation.
The Law 法
In the beginning was the Thought
The Thought did not become flesh
but became the Word
and in violence made its dwelling among us
初めに念があった
念は肉ではなく
言（こと）となった
暴力に因って（よって）わたしたちの間に宿られた
The Writing on The Wall
I pound my fists against the wall and a guttural scream rips from my core. My fingers splay out and scratch down the wall. A choked sob escapes me as I drag myself down—tears and flecks of drywall fall under my nails.
À l’unisson
Mes mots sont sous tes yeux,
Ces mots sont sous tes mains.
Je peins les mots qui s’absentent,
Tu écris ce que je pense.
There’s word
there is word
and meaning
some words
more meanings
Bird/Gate or 鳥(居)
I am living here
perched above you.
Please love me,
though I am only a small sparrow
who dreamed of being a raven
who would quarrel with temple cats
but never win.
In Other Words
advantages of not
knowing too many words
in an order that never
The Tibetan Mirror
If light, or desire
Can truly be trapped
In mere layers of glass
I saw it in that reflection.
Drawn from a fire in Lhasa
Salvaged in the Bangkok rain
Catching a silent Kyoto winter moon.
A borrowed story louder than my own
I stared far beyond the person it reflected
And declared “This is not who I am
But who I shall be”.
This morning
I was bit by a lion.
Speed Dating 合コン
A packed bar
Gorgeous young men
I grab my drink and take my seat
For a dating event,
noone’s talking
Let me just adjust my mask
I'm nervous today.
Dishes rattle in the cupboard,
a glass breaks,
a plate chips.
I pick up the pieces
cut my hand
blood drips
Rivers Of Blood 血の川
An earthquake took place one day. The earth had seen what was to come, and it trembled in terror. Had it but taken a slow, deep breath instead! We don't need all that excess to push us to evil.
ある日、地震が発生した。起きてくることが見えてしまって、震えた。すでに悪を抱える我々には、大きさはどうだってよい。
Strawberry Stand
I wanted to burn down that strawberry stand
Walking back from a long workday of yoroshiku onegaishimasu, I halted—
21 meters away from my apartment
ビワ (biwa)
the breath she pulls out of me
as i try on
this red
kimono
A bushfire in the ocean
I soak up that feeling—
pooling black oil
stinging my fingertips.
it coerces me to stay:
a bit of black tar
in my lungs
feels safer
than a smokehouse
burning through every organ
if I leave.
Sangria
Red is the color of my shame, through the ill-taught embarrassment that was bottle-fed to my infant body. Of course, it could never come from the breast. Who teaches a child to feel shame in their body? The visceral reaction I had no words for, through the red heat of my ears, my stomach, causing burning pins and needles from my spine. I began to cower.
Impression-rêve
J'ai rêvé de toi…
Tout près, inaccessible,
Apparition, songe ravivé,
Je ne veux te quitter.
Pourtant, tu restes éloignée,
Tranquille tu ne saurais te lier.
Impression ?
The Dairy Queene (Or Perhaps The Lack Thereof) The Sixth Booke
In Which Our Hero—The Narrator of Our Tale—Upon Ingesting a Mysterious Potion Imagines Himself to Be in an Inhospitable Landscape Devoid of Any Civilized Amenities; A Vision so Disturbing That It Causes Him to Lose All Sense of Decorum and Engage in a Most Untoward and Undignified Altercation with You, Dear Reader (And For This Most Unfortunate Event We—The Author and His Characters—May Only Humbly Entreat You to Forgive Us).
Kasai City 河西市
朱赤に塗ってある米蔵
その隣の八百屋に入り
畑で鍛えられたお兄さんから
トマトを買ってしまう
友達は花を
A silo, carrying burgundy rooves from the 80's
We enter the greengrocer's next door
It doesn't take much for the man with the tight body
to convince me to buy his tomatoes
My friend gets his flowers