---
title: Poems on the theme of <em>Genshiken</em>
description: Waka/haiku on _Genshiken_, clubs, and Comiket; allusions to Fujiwara no Teika and Shōtetsu.
created: 2011-07-24
modified: 2014-02-23
status: finished
confidence: fiction
css-extension: dropcaps-not reader-mode toc-not index
...

<div class="poem">
Go, tell the others \
on campus, in the clubroom, \
that at Comiket--- \
despite all blistering suns--- \
the flowers of dreams yet bloom.

In just this one day, \
I experienced so much! \
So how is it, then, \
That the weeks and months before \
remain dim and forgotten?

This day in the line, \
fighting and laughing with friends, \
the world forgotten, \
I must not later forget \
when I am sorting all my goods.

Sure that none would \
ever read his book again \
he still wrote those notes, \
sure that those thoughts were worth thought \
and would find a home some day.

When I look upon \
the bales of abandoned books, \
I am saddened: by \
an enthusiastic pen, \
drawing for so many nights.

Where the otaku \
have all vanished from the stairs \
and its rope linings, \
now stars pass the long night and \
papers rustle in the breeze.

They argue harshly--- \
but then, does ink hate paper? \
or paper the ink?

Do not be misled! \
Their books are camouflage for \
the red strings of fate \
that they have shyly forged \
over the years, side by side.

And with what shall I \
compare us? / A boy walking \
through the warm spring night, \
as he leaves his friends, knowing \
just how few partings remain.

---

Loneliness---unknown \
until a chill pine wind blows; \
I shiver alone.
</div>