Go to: Selected Poems of Kitasono Katue or Glimpses of Avant Garde Japan

 


 

from
WHITE ALBUM (Shiru no arubamu, 1929
by Kitasono Katue

 


 

SUR UN PAROISSIEN

deranged in the century of ash-colored roses     hollow, paranoid cat

dream dynasty

crystal garden, gorgeous princess awakens suspended like a skylark

my universe is moon, mirror and clouds

hollow mermaid boisterous in sky

on lonely tree, lonely prayer

trembling of clouds

this storm contorting on mountain peak's tip
crushes depressed slaves                 awakens immense dance of lakes

 


 


 
SEMIOTIC THEORY

*

white tableware
flower
spoon
spring, 3 p.m.
white
white
red

*

prism architecture
white animal
space

*

blue flag
apple and noblelady
white landscape

*

flowers and musical instruments
white window
wind

*

shell and wreath
slippered young girl
a portrait of a canary's ripening steamship

*

hothouse's boy
distant moon
white flower
white

*

cosmetics and fireworks
doll's blue window
white socks
esthetics
white esthetics

*

silver cubist doll
silver cubist doll
flower and mirror
statics

*

white architecture
far suburban sky
far

*

sky
sea
rooftop garden
cigarette smoking boy, decolorized boy
alone
space

*

magic-making noblelady's magic-making silver boy
magic-making noblelady's magic-making silver boy
reflected in red mirror
reflected in red mirror
white hands and eyebrows and flowers
I
space

*

blue sky
can't see anything
can't see anything
white residence

*

white distant view
faint pink flag
hopelessness

*

decolorized boy
distant sky
hyacinth
window
white landscape

*

it is happy lifestyle and me
it is happy ideas and me
it is transparent pleasures and me
it is transparent manners and me
it is fresh appetite and me
it is fresh love and me

memories of blue past
all dumped in ink bottle

*

mechanics is dark
plants are heavy

*

white tableware
bouquet and book of poems
white
white
yellow

*

white residence
white
pink noblelady
white distant view
blue sky

*

trumpet aristocrats all wear red bandannas

*

evening formalwear
evening formalwear
evening formalwear
evening formalwear
evening formalwear
boring

 


 


 
POÉSIE

billions of ladies with billions of tongues have billions of peacocks
billions of ladies with billions of peacocks are calm as billions of
                                                                                                       peacocks

                ABOVE THE SAND DUNE
                THE MOON'S OPERA

 


 


 
DOLL, PISTOL AND BALLOON

           SCENE 1

blue room
                   one small, square window
old woman sits in center chair
a sound
               suddenly
                                one red balloon climbs skyward
old woman
                    laughs in deep, soft voice
it darkens
                   yellow flame burns outside the window
                                                                                          soon extinguishes
a cornet cries out
                                 magnesium shines
suddenly
                  an extremely human (phony) cat's meow
                                                                                             soon stops
stillness
stillness
stillness
                suddenly
sound of glass shattering

 

           SCENE 2

white, triangular room
                                          woman is hung upside down
boy comes crawling
                                    suddenly cries
clings to woman
                              screams
"Maria, Maria"
                            one gunshot
rings out
                  crowd's intense footbeats
                                                                soon stops
room turns purple
                                  boy shouts out
"nihilism"
                     it darkens
                                         crowd's footbeats
                                                                        flute
magnesium shines
                                   stillness
room brightens
two old women
                           bite hanging woman's head
sometimes glance at each other's face
                                              expressionless, they laugh with shrill voices
hanging woman suddenly falls
old woman
                     screams out
                                            in sharp, thin, long voice
                                                                                           it darkens
center
            blue flame burns
                                            old woman laughs
"hihi hihihihihi"
                               blue flame extinguishes
magnesium shines
                                   one gunshot rings out
stillness
stillness

 


 


 
SEPARATISTS

                          1

my imagination like the ocean
your imagination like the sky
                your wreath like the moon
                my wreath like the moon

                          2

melon ripening noblelady's melon
apple ripening noblelady's apple
                blue fish reflected in mirror as blue fish
                white flower reflected in mirror as white flower
                purple dove reflected in mirror as purple dove

                          3

playing guitar in the hothouse
playing guitar in the hothouse

                          4

you are like a little bird
                goodbye little bird
                I'm already headed home

                          5

spiderish thing
lizardish thing

                          6

aquatic animal's aquatic movements
celestial animal's celestial movements
                                                                       insect species
                                                                       bird species
                                                                       fish species

                          7

coffee shop gathers people, night spectacle of coffee feeding

                          8

theory of physics
theory of physics
theory of physics

                          9

because it's a blue ocean the ocean is blue
because it's blue grass the grass is blue
because it's a blue sky the sky is blue
      spacious limitless one pane of stained glass and your red, tiny
      Chinese shoes and heavenly white goose down couch and a small,
      silver cross and crimson striped agate necklace and round
      window with harbor view in white room looking at this - my
      heart and my black pistol and summer - resembling that
      summer's sentimental romance or something, the white clouds
      move on

                          10

dove's life stretches in wreath within wreath
dove's life stretches in wreath within wreath
wreath's wide wreath
wreath's wide wreath
enough of this -
wreath's head

 


 


 
from MAGIC

Click here to open pdf file

 


 


 
DESSIN DU POÉTE

Opening a thick, oval window, a Latin round-body
pronounces the following. Acts. Signals.
*   It is said, "How could a self be rational which isn't even
     conscious of itself as emotional?" A movement to
     awaken people to that.
*   A movement to make innocent friends perceive the
     degree that we love loss of innocence.
*   It is said, "How could you who haven't even passed
     through anarchism become communists? And you who
     haven't even comprehended futility. A magical
     movement to stress that.
*   It is said, "In a socialist world there is no room for
sneers, scorn and deceptive logic." This is deceptive
logic to sneer and scorn at not even understanding that.
*   It is said, "A small bird."
*   As for the saying, "Your limitless, orderly negativity
     doesn't even have an affirmative value," if one says,
     "How civilized?" it's the logic of you boarding a soap
     bubble and being able to fly outside the earth's orbit. Yet
     you are educated for an airship. For that overly physical
     airship you try to imagine even a soap bubble space
     expedition. Such an affirmatively affirmative you. You
     don't perceive that.
*   Materialistic. Materialistic art.
*   Noblelady where small birds live.
*   Noblelady where fish live.
*   Gavo . . . Gavo . . . Gavo . . . Gavo . . . pon pon pon . . . pan . . .
     pim . . . pum . . . Gattan . . . GovoGovoGovo? . . . I am lonely.
*   Noblelady where fish and small birds live.
*   The time you can say "Lonely, lonely" isn't lonely at all.
*   The story of a boy on a dirigible balloon.
*   A glass dish gathering tears.
*   A bulb that doesn't breathe.
*   Red curtain.
*   Red.
*   Mephistopheles with parasol today also displays a white
     heel through the window of a high-rise building. The
     view of an ocean that wants to smoke tobacco.
*   Metaphysics without kangaroos.
*   Brontasaurus.
*   Sincerity, in moderation, speaks of lies. At least. That's
     what becomes of it.
*   If truth is so necessary, let me teach you one inventive
     art. That is to search for the most stupid thing. But now.
     Could anything be the most stupid?
*   Roses and books.
*   Midair-falling-doll.
*   The surface where pressure operates. The surface where
     pressure doesn't operate.

The Latin round-body completely quit his tactics of low-
altitude flying. Then he closed the thick, oval window. Space
stretched out infinitely. Insects within white gas probably
sing acetylene tunes. He doesn't know. Probably no one gets
to know.

______________________________________________________________

Armor bathhouse       theory

______________________________________________________________

Cloud viewing

______________________________________________________________

Rigid cooking       theory

______________________________________________________________

 


 


 
GHOST IN EYEGLASSES

holding a fragile, ceramic pipe, I gazed at an observatory
a shell's twisting is its peak
shells were also on top of electric towers
closing a conical window, I saw a long, narrow figure in a green book
a grey shell was also on that musician's forehead
I am gloomy

 


 


 
L'OMBRE

above bricks, an alienated parrot
above bricks, an alienated cloud
no moon, no sun a dancer's gloom

 


 


 
THÉATRE DE SALOMÉ

Salomé digests film like a dragonfly       Salomé is a lovely daughter
a daughter of Babylon

Salomé, stand turning at the top of a hotel tower     that sparkling
hair     blue hair     that conical light circulating

below green Babylon's moon     one eyeless bird     that's one
eyeless bird

where is Yokanan?

he's cutting hair     originally was a prophet but now wears a
derby hat working in a bank

 


 


Go to 4 of Kitasono Katue's diagramatic poems from White Album