small poems Yuko Otomo
Ugly duck l ing p r e sse
Spring Snow (Ce-Pha-Lo-Phore) a house cat is watching spring snow through a glass window on the wall a headless man is running thinking, carrying his far-sighted forest brain at my feet an ancient grain is swimming in a pool of melancholy and there is not so much day time left
4 | Spring Snow
Even Loop Poem snow was even on the roof even color the surface must be perfectly even even as even so
5 | Even Loop Poem
Trading —you took my belt it was 50 cents (you know) —you took my life (&) it was nothing
6 | Trading
Winter Storm looking at the bottom of my feet I felt a dead-serious alienation from myself I could not believe that they are my feet, my toes last night a howling wind washed ashore did it?
7 | Winter Storm
Attitude of Mind in summer we love wind in winter we hate it wind never changes
8 | Attitude of Mind
Spring Song when winter flowers bend their heads with a touch of spring in the air one desperate man crushes his smiles and says hello dog hello women hello friends
9 | Spring Song
Spring we wear floral patterns & pretend that we are birds who says a chair does not talk to the sky? mysteries in Gorky still reject my words
10 | Spring
General Botany all you need is air water & (slight) light night & day all around love?
Well—
11 | General Botany
Garden (for Isamu Noguchi) a boy is born of a swimmer & a poet he hears nature’s voice in a perfectly split ripened peach & dictates sounds of a brook a dead bird cannot scare him for he sees all
12 | Garden (for Isamu Noguchi)
Miyabi my thoughts escape to nowhere as I stand on this shore— no peach flowers, but roses to recite somebody else’s old poem
13 | Miyabi
Darling far behind your distant profile hands stretch to sway to grow & to grow for light unexpectedly wind passes & trembles your lashes “O, is this a trade-wind in my blood?� you murmur & nod
14 | Darling
A Pebble on a Beach (to) have & (or) (to) have not when you whistle a pain goes to your elbow
15 | A Pebble on a Beach
Shoes pressing myself on a pomegranate-colored wall I imagined that I was nothing when the wall almost swallowed me I felt my feet and their bareness startled me
16 | Shoes
In a Summer Square Ezra Pound makes no noise in an Italian Square Buckminster Fuller is much more talkative than you imagine he would be
17 | In a Summer Square
A Frank O’Hara on the 5th Ave. on a day like this, only an unhappy truck driver will look at me
18 | A Frank O’Hara
Hunger today I saw some people eating pretzels three merrily chattering women blocked our way we do not particularly feel sorry for missing things
19 | Hunger
Pornography waiting for a poet of whom someone said once worked in Wall St. to start we suck lemon rind I don’t know (but) your fingernails look small tonight whether it is essential or not, nobody has to bang the floor to tell me how the glass breaks
20 | Pornography
Untitled stone angels a bucket of wax another bucket of wax I don’t need to sit in a gazebo
21 | Untitled
The Well to fall or to rise, darkness & the speed wrap your face around with a dreaming smile
22 | The Well
Autumn Leaves “do you like it?” “I love it! “ a man keeps drumming on a wooden drawer
23 | Autumn Leaves
Tuning I do not particularly enjoy listening to music while surrounded by so-called political art a musician takes his clarinet out & plays one flat note at least for a moment I feel as if I were on a green hill
24 | Tuning
Culture (for Steve) you’re getting meaner these days maybe you should stop going to MoMA a little while
25 | Culture (for Steve)
At the Gallery mud masks drift wood I’ve forgotten how to write a suicide note I wish you wouldn’t ask who I am
26 | At the Gallery
Marcel Duchamp he was a dandy he was a cigar-holding gentle-man
27 | Marcel Duchamp
Duchampian Reconstruction of My Personality learn to be idle & not to feel guilty about it
28 | Duchampian Reconstruction of My Personality
Idol since my father was not such a gentle-man when he was young I did not idolize him, but I effortlessly learned of a man
29 | Idol
Meeting Godard to meet our hero in flesh to hear his voice speaking to us we are all like newborns he smiles & we smile
30 | Meeting Godard
Mondrian/Flowers (after Steve) a painter must have lent his ears to a breath of flowers
31 | Mondrian/Flowers (after Steve)
Medardo Rosso a hollowed plaster cast is a cave, where soul breathes the eternal our skin is wax, & it melts when darkness & sorrow get too hot to bear
32 | Medaro Rosso
Muse they use Nietzsche for beer Beethoven for shoes soon, they will use you, Steve, for a cooking pot
33 | Muse
Aesop’s Fable there is a dog looks like a fox. he loves to mirror himself on the wall people adore him for his indifference to them
34 | Aesop’s Fable
Reason I have a sincere yearning for an empty space— it could be a room or a field there, I will lay down on my back to look at darkness behind an ever-expanding sky in that position I will think that I was not yet born
35 | Reason
A Speed Rail I don’t know what it means to be a butcher’s apprentice nor to be a chimney sweeper a magic to learn & eyes to follow to the river
36 | A Speed Rail
SMALL POEMS Yuko Otomo
second edition, 2010 The first edition of Small Poems (2005) was printed and bound at Ugly Duckling Presse in an edition of 250, the first 50 of which were numbered and signed by the author. This second edition was printed and bound at The Press Room in Albany, NY. The covers for this edition were letterpressed at the Ugly Duckling Presse workshop at the Old American Can Factory, Brooklyn, NY, using the first-edition polymer plates supplied by Soho Letterpress. Design by Garth Graeper and Anna Moschovakis, and Matvei Yankelevich. Typeset in Futura. Of the 500 copies in the second edition, the first 50 are signed and numbered, and include an original drawing by the author.
ten doll ars ISBN# 1-933254-11- 4 UGLY DUCKLING PRESSE w w w.uglyducklingpresse.org