This is a collected/selected set of poems by the Japanese poet Kazuko Shiraisha. This is the first of its kind, regarding this specific poet, and because of these limitations, this collection is less good than it could be.
Two specific issues arise here: one, translated works are already fraught with potential issues, and poetry especially. Two, a selected/collected poetry collection often places ill-suited poems side by side as opposed to one written in a given space of time or related set of themes.
So this collection has two kinds of poems: shorter poems that often take on animals themes and images, and longer poems that are more often romantic/erotic in theme and form.
The longer poems are the stronger by far.
Here’s an example of one of the shorter poems:
Flea
I am a bloodsucker.
I am the world’s number one son of a bitch.
I take revenge for hopeless love.
A beautiful girl is irritated,
Makes a face, outs, scratches
And finds me.
So I decide to kill her.
I deliberately reach out
My sharp polished mails to her.
Then my pleasure begins to come.
Keeping out of sight at the risk of my life,
I suck her blood and run away.
I am a sadistic flea.
So while I like the connections and reversal of the John Donne poem, there definitely seems something lacking in the translation. The longest poems have more time and more words to develop the images in more interesting ways. With the smaller poems, the margin of error is significantly smaller, and I found them more lacking in general.
(Photo: https://www.amazon.com/Seasons-Sacred-Lust-Kazuko-Shiraishi/dp/0811206874/ref=sr_1_fkmrnull_1?keywords=seasons+of+sacred+lust&qid=1555344084&s=gateway&sr=8-1-fkmrnull)