Poem
Kiyoko Nagase
To Fit My Feet
No shoes fit my feet.Shoes that would snugly fit me
may be hanging among the stars.
First of all I dislike shoes.
Isn’t it simply crude to make things shaped like feet
and put your feet in them?
That’s also slavish.
I prefer something more airy and winged.
I would choose something more moist and amicable
Can’t people think that way at all?
Once all women, as a matter of course, wore big bulging hair-dos
There were times they would be too embarrassed to be seen
unless they wore dresses that touched the floor.
At night, I look for shoes in the starry smoothness
I fail to find a shoe-shaped constellation
then my billowing skirt touches the dawn in the East.
But once the day breaks I am standing on the grass.
My soles are more beautiful than most shoes.
Besides my soles are always hungry
they always bleed on gravel.
© Translation: 2009, Takako Lento
私の足に
私の足に
From: Sanjyoh no shisha
Publisher: Nihon Miraiha, 1954
Publisher: Nihon Miraiha, 1954
Poems
Poems of Kiyoko Nagase
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To Fit My Feet
No shoes fit my feet.Shoes that would snugly fit me
may be hanging among the stars.
First of all I dislike shoes.
Isn’t it simply crude to make things shaped like feet
and put your feet in them?
That’s also slavish.
I prefer something more airy and winged.
I would choose something more moist and amicable
Can’t people think that way at all?
Once all women, as a matter of course, wore big bulging hair-dos
There were times they would be too embarrassed to be seen
unless they wore dresses that touched the floor.
At night, I look for shoes in the starry smoothness
I fail to find a shoe-shaped constellation
then my billowing skirt touches the dawn in the East.
But once the day breaks I am standing on the grass.
My soles are more beautiful than most shoes.
Besides my soles are always hungry
they always bleed on gravel.
© 2009, Takako Lento
From: Sanjyoh no shisha
From: Sanjyoh no shisha
To Fit My Feet
No shoes fit my feet.Shoes that would snugly fit me
may be hanging among the stars.
First of all I dislike shoes.
Isn’t it simply crude to make things shaped like feet
and put your feet in them?
That’s also slavish.
I prefer something more airy and winged.
I would choose something more moist and amicable
Can’t people think that way at all?
Once all women, as a matter of course, wore big bulging hair-dos
There were times they would be too embarrassed to be seen
unless they wore dresses that touched the floor.
At night, I look for shoes in the starry smoothness
I fail to find a shoe-shaped constellation
then my billowing skirt touches the dawn in the East.
But once the day breaks I am standing on the grass.
My soles are more beautiful than most shoes.
Besides my soles are always hungry
they always bleed on gravel.
© 2009, Takako Lento
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