Iremono ga nai

入れものがない両手で受ける
(尾崎放哉 1885-1926)

iremono ga nai ryote de ukeru
(Ozaki Hosai 1885-1926)

no bowl,
I receive with
two hands


Now here's a man who's certainly moved away from the traditional haiku. It's difficult to know even how to break it up into three parts, because although haiku always appear in English in three lines, in Japanese they appear in just one line across or down the page. The most obvious way to break it would be in the middle to form a 7-7 pattern 'iremono ga nai / ryote de ukeru', which makes it look like the broken-off second half of a tanka, when haiku are said to have developed from the first half of the tanka. Scroll down to 'Origin and evolution' on the Wikipedia haiku page if you want to know more.

'Iremono' translates literally as something you put something in, or less literally as 'container' or 'case', so I've interpreted a bit by using 'bowl'. It's a little mysterious what Ozaki is receiving though. On this Japanese site, there's an interview with a woman who knew Ozaki (though more for being the alcoholic rector of a hermitage than a poet) when she was 12, and he was living out the last few months of his life on the island of Shodoshima. He sometimes visited her uncle, and she often spent time at her uncle's house. She says that what he received were steamed potatoes, and they wouldn't give him a bowl because he had a bad cough, and they were worried that he might spread TB. As with potatoes, it might be as well to take this story with a pinch of salt, but if true it's interesting.

Alternate searches:

'ryoute de ukeru'