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
Close
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
Sponsors
