Category Archives: Stubbed Toe

cycle of modern haiku-ish sudden poems – written in bursts in Japan, Olympia, Utah, Guam and other sundry locales – assembled into themes, connected by sinews

Folio: Hotsprings and Stubbed Toe / occasional haiku, 2004

Hotsprings and Stubbed Toe / Occasional haiku… 1992~2004, cover (download pdf)

Download poetry chapbook (pdf): Hotsprings + Stubbed Toe, by Dave Olson, 2004

Folio: January in the Hot Springs / haiku and paint, 1993-5

Folio: January in the Hot Springs / haiku and paint, 1993 / front cover

After arriving in Japan for the first time, i began exploring Japanese poetic forms – realizing that the didactic 5-7-5 structure *wasn’t the point* /  Then combining with impressionist colours seen on a recent ramble in Europe, Read it a series combining, in a fashion, Japanese forms with European colours and “new-world” themes.

Then with brother Bob’s upcoming wedding, compiled a bunch of these creations into a little book and read (with translation) at his wedding (mostly to blank stares of bewilderment.

A few years later in Guam, did a proper layout and production run (maybe 50?) and mailed the chapbooks out around the world. Used hemp/cereal straw paper from China (ordered from Paul Stanford in Oregon) which was rough going through copy machines of the day –especially my complicated double-sided / zigzag layout with topstitch binding – of course sewn with hemp twine.

I don’t have one of the “finished ones” in my archive, but do have the original layout production master / will eventually dig out > in the meantime, here is the cover (not hemp paper) + Pay special attention to my proto-Creative-Commons non-copyright on the erstwhile colophon and the pseudonym (do you know the origins?)

Folio: January in the Hot Springs / haiku and paint, 1993 / colophon

While I have few delusions about my poetry chapbooks being “popular” this one especially seems to have disappeared into the wind with nary a sound (despite it being one of the projects of which i am most proud).

Folio: January in the Hot Springs / haiku and paint, 1993 / back cover (with pseudonym)

Note: a few of these poems were used/re-mixed in a collection from 2004 (assembled in Olympia) called “Hotspring and Stubbed Toe” which was distributed digitally and will be available shortly in this archive as part of #daveo50 series.  

Bamboo dish pointing…

Bamboo dish
pointing skyward listening
perhaps

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from Hotsprings and Stubbed Toe, Occasional haiku… 1992-2004

Download Hot Springs and Stubbed Toe (.pdf)

10 years later…

10 years later
trees taller
concrete the same

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from Hotsprings and Stubbed Toe, Occasional haiku… 1992-2004

Download Hot Springs and Stubbed Toe (.pdf)

If only this mountain…

If only this mountain
two fingers taller
I’d climb it to the sky

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from Hotsprings and Stubbed Toe, Occasional haiku… 1992-2004

Download Hot Springs and Stubbed Toe (.pdf)

Found you like a seashell…

Found you like a seashell
picked up
before cutting my toe

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from Hotsprings and Stubbed Toe, Occasional haiku… 1992-2004

Download Hot Springs and Stubbed Toe (.pdf)

Coral green, your eyes…

Coral green
your eyes
follow me to sleep

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from Hotsprings and Stubbed Toe, Occasional haiku… 1992-2004

Download Hot Springs and Stubbed Toe (.pdf)

Wiping shelf…

Wiping shelf
dust lands
on tidy counter

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from Hotsprings and Stubbed Toe, Occasional haiku… 1992-2004

Download Hot Springs and Stubbed Toe (.pdf)

Kept wondering, wandering…

Kept wondering, wandering
taking notes
from time to time

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from Hotsprings and Stubbed Toe, Occasional haiku… 1992-2004

Download Hot Springs and Stubbed Toe (.pdf)

Daydreaming all afternoon…

Daydreaming all afternoon
til darkness
changes the dream

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from Hotsprings and Stubbed Toe, Occasional haiku… 1992-2004

Download Hot Springs and Stubbed Toe (.pdf)