Yuko Otomo

midnight noon

(for steve)

not just the light/darkness
but the soundless-ness
almost silent but not quite-quietness

suddenly

brings my attention
back to a mystery
of the moment

how you place 
words

to “where”

determines
the mood
of the day

For Poe

I keep the light
as low as possible
to have serendipity
of the 19th century darkness.

In a ghostly city
of brick walls,
stoned paths
& wooden framed glass windows,

Autumn is
deepening
as it should.

The quietude of the late hours
of a rainy night
is a perfect gift
for a decadence
of thought.

Sunday Cave

to avoid
the world

I opt out
to be indoor
in the afternoon
shade of the day

a misanthropic hermit
in a modern cave

of the day
of the sun

I listen 
to Satie’s Lent
again & again

small candles lit
in the corner
of the room sit as if
they were musical notes

Yuko Otomo is a visual artist & a bilingual writer of Japanese origin. She writes poetry, haiku, art criticism & essays. Her publications include Garden: Selected Haiku (Beehive Press); Small Poems (Ugly Duckling Presse); STUDY & Other Poems on Art (UDP); KOAN (New Feral Press); FROZEN HEATWAVE: a collaborative linked poem project with Steve Dalachinsky (Luna Bisonte Prods) & the most recent Anonymous Landscape (Lithic Press). 

photo by Donald Martineaw-Vega