Supplements

Vitamins A, B, C, D, E, F, G
Lipoic acid and malic acid, picolinic acid and pyruvic acid
Coenzymes and chondrotins, selenium and andrographis
Anthocyanin, alpha-carotine, isoflavone, gingko extract
A whole bowlful of supplements
Instead of the morning meal
Vitamins H, I, J, K, L, M, N
Potassium and calcium, magnesium and germanium
Glucosamine and glycogen, taurine and turmeric
Cat’s claw, chitosan, eye drops made of maple, melatonin
A second bowlful of supplements
And still nothing for my skin
Placenta, pueraria, collagen, squalane
And then there’s those menstrual cramps
Progesterone, pasque flower, chasteberry, evening primrose
And if they’ll rev me up there’s the men’s meds
Zinc, selenium, arginine, ginseng and viagara too!
Hōhokekyo
Hōhokekyo
Kekyo kekyo kekyo kekyo, hohohōhokekyo
I feel like I’m flying
Looking down on the whole world
I feel nauseous
This won’t work, relax.  For relaxation try
Carotine and resitine, teanine and valerian
And let me throw in something to prevent senility
I gulp down gingko extract once again
Polyphenol is now out of date but
One can cover the old-fashioned supplements with
Acerola, chlorella, ebios, biofermin

Vitamins O, P, Q, R, S, T, U
Flavonoids and grape seeds, marigolds and oligopeptides
A thirtieth bowlful of supplements
Vitamins V, W and X, Y, Z
A thirty-first bowlful of supplements
And still I can go on
Still there are the things written only in kanji
Luohanguo, lidanyan, licorice, cordyceps
Wheat germ oil, flax oil, egg yolk oil
Lactic acid bacilli, natto bacilli, colon bacilli
Folic acid, nucleic acid, medium-chain fatty acids, monounsaturated fatty acids
Pills to fight crotch itch and athlete’s foot, pills to lift a man into seventh heaven, pills of potassium cyanide and quince and aconite
Ointment to make a shiny head grow hair in a flash, powder to make a body grow ghostly thin, beans for off-the-cuff word play……

I will not get caught
I will not get caught no matter how long it takes
I am a slippery, smooth pill
Sliding slickly down the throat
The supplement is I
α, β, γ, δ
Hiragana, katakana, kanji, romanization
Alliteration at the beginning, rhymes at the end
The words tangle together
The words tangle turning
So rhythmic they bring tears to the eyes
A heavy rhythm within a light-hearted one
Here within this poem

*

Did it dissolve?
Is the mystery solved?

What you have swallowed is language itself.

Translation by Jeffrey Angles

Note: Throughout the poem, Arai tends to associate names of supplements that have lots of alliteration in the Japanese, but the translations do not always line up quite as neatly as the Japanese.  For instance, in the second line she lines up lipoic acid (riposan) next to malic acid (ringosan), both of which start and end with the same sounds.  Hōhokekyo and kekyo are onomatopoeias that represent the sound of a nightingale singing.  The names of the supplements are written in combination of the two syllabaries of Japanese, the katakana syllabary used for borrowed words and plant names, as well as the hiragana syllabary used for indigenous worlds.  In the second stanza, she lists supplements that are written in long strings of kanji (Sino-Chinese characters).  These have been included in italics to give a sense of how different they look from the rest of the poem.  As the kanji compounds grow more complex, they degenerate into amusing nonsense.  In fact, the last six names are medicines that Arai made up.