Month: September 2022
Caveat: Poem #2250 “In darkness”
ㅁ Blink. Open. Look around. I see nothing. It's completely dark. Oh, the faintest light, there. That's waking up before dawn. So I turn on my little light, Put on some clothes, exit the treehouse.
– a reverse nonnet.
Caveat: Tree #1343 “Pathside”
Caveat: Poem #2249 “Return”
ㅁ Mostly in town, I don't see eagles. But high over the parking lot, a single-minded eagle swooped down from a treetop, sighting a nice snack, or just for show, in morning's drizzly mist.
– a nonnet.
Caveat: Tree #1342 “Old and young”
Caveat: Poem #2248 “Tourist town, off-season”
ㅁ Dull. Quiet. Standing there. No one came in. I vacuumed the floor. Outside the town was dead. I had no framing to do. The store was quite unpopular. The whole day, we had five customers.
– a reverse nonnet.
Caveat: Tree #1341 “PVC view”
Caveat: Poem #2247 “Sixty-third stanza”
ㅁ Kiamon counted the times she had tried, Each time as if she had somehow just died. Now here she was, trying once more, again, Still she compelled herself: think where she'd been.
– a quatrain in dactylic tetrameter.
Caveat: Tree #1340 “Backgrounded”
Caveat: Poem #2246 “Up before dawn”
Caveat: Tree #1339 “Reverence”
Caveat: Poem #2245 “아저씨”
ㅁ perhaps I'm an oddity {a/o}ccidental ajeossi* this unlikely odyssey
– an englyn milwr, somewhat loose on the rhyme.
*NOTE: “ajeossi” (아저씨) is a very common Korean word. Formally, it’s a term of polite address used by a younger person for a man who is older. Such terms of address are ubiquitous in Korean, because there is a taboo on using the name of someone older than you in their presence – so you need a term of reference and address, instead. If you’re a child, all men in their 20’s and up are “ajeossi”. If you’re a man my age, then only men in my dad’s generation are “ajeossi” – it’s a relative term. It’s frequently translated as meaning “uncle”, but that’s not really accurate at all – there’s no implication of blood relation of any kind, but in Korean society, which is quite communitarian (such that the whole of society is, in one sense, one big family), there is some of that “uncle” semantics attached. In Korean popular culture, the word is used, too, as a kind of slang to represent “a stereotypical middle-aged man who lacks a sense of what’s currently trendy and is entitled and stuck in tradition”. Thus it actually overlaps with English slang terms like “boomer” – I’ve even heard it explained as a kind of male “karen” (in the slang sense). In Korean English, the word is almost always used untranslated, as it’s considered untranslatable. Among my friends in Korea, I was often jokingly referred to as “miguk ajeossi” (“miguk” = “American”) – both because I was older than the typical “American teaching in Korea” but also because in terms of behavior, I was perceived to be “more traditionally Korean than the Koreans”. Generally I decided that rather than be insulted, I’d take it as a compliment on my having gone sufficiently native.
Caveat: Tree #1338 “Stove in the mist”
Caveat: Poem #2244 “Indecisiveness”
Caveat: Tree #1337 “Beach bum”
Caveat: Poem #2243 “Rainsound”
ㅁ the rain bonked the roof all night, but sleep's disruption was slight; I slept in, till morning's light.
– an englyn milwr.
Caveat: Tree #1336 “Welcoming committee”
Caveat: Poem #2242 “Constraints”
ㅁ The dreamspace filled with angles, adrift in air, like seagulls, but math was all illegal.
– an englyn milwr.
Caveat: Tree #1335 “Patiently”
Caveat: Poem #2241 “Heat map”
ㅁ It was a heat map, showing where the cells died first... better known as "leaf".
Caveat: Tree #1334 “Silhouette”
Caveat: Poem #2240 “Interiority”
ㅁ Some stories are told alone, you can hear, with mouth for ear, with soft tone, self-whispering, on your own.
– an englyn penfyr.
Caveat: Tree #1333 “In the woods”
Caveat: Poem #2239 “4 a.m.”
ㅁ The moon was up there smiling, among stars, and maybe mars, above things, things like the trees, all growing.
– an englyn penfyr.