Category: Book 1

(Poem #258 on new numbering scheme)

The language sings itself alone
with writhing contours bared,
emerges into empty rooms
its inclinations shared.

– a quatrain in ballad meter.

(Poem #257 on new numbering scheme)

By vortices we wend across
the demon-strewn collage,
with useless metaphors in hand,
lamenting: c'est domage.

– a quatrain in ballad meter.

(Poem #256 on new numbering scheme)

A moon's orangeness scaled the night
and trailed the mere dark disks
of recollected memories
and contemplated risks.

– a quatrain in ballad meter.

(Poem #255 on new numbering scheme)

The trees are all in blossom now -
it seems that spring's arrived.
Each year the best I'll say for spring:
"At least I have survived."

– a quatrain in ballad meter.

(Poem #254 on new numbering scheme)

The space just at the edges, where
my vision shades to blue,
there dwell the ghosts of angels, who
attempt to speak what's true.

– a quatrain in ballad meter.

(Poem #253 on new numbering scheme)

Two stones sat down with plans to talk
beside a path. The grass
tried listening and bent its blades
alert like kids in class.

– a quatrain in ballad meter.

(Poem #252 on new numbering scheme)

The surreptitious movements made
by mice in windblown leaves
reveal the clockwork of the world
to passing birds, like thieves.

– a quatrain in ballad meter.
[daily log: walking, 1.5km]

(Poem #251 on new numbering scheme)

Can madness be a game we play?
At first we dance and shout.
The moon might help us find a style;
we'll let our crazies out.

– a quatrain in ballad meter.

(Poem #250 on new numbering scheme)

The emperor stepped out one day
to meet his citizens;
they pointed and they laughed at him;
he couldn't trust his friends.

– a quatrain in ballad meter.

(Poem #248 on new numbering scheme)

Just take a moment to reflect
on what a monkey be:
a human with a smaller brain,
a spirit brutish, free.

– a quatrain in ballad meter.

(Poem #247 on new numbering scheme)

The truth, enclosed in shells of myth,
like stones unbreakable,
we craft in order to survive,
but sense, unknowable.

– a quatrain in ballad meter.

(Poem #246 on new numbering scheme)

Imagination is no more
than ways of seeing stuff
as if you were a demiurge
who's had it kind of rough.

– a quatrain in ballad meter.

(Poem #245 on new numbering scheme)

Some people like to predict doom.
They think there is no hope.
But actually things aren't that bad.
It's just... they tend to mope.

– a quatrain in ballad meter.

(Poem #244 on new numbering scheme)

The sofa doesn't just get used -
it gets abused instead:
all beaten down by laundry, junk,
and output from my head.

– a quatrain in ballad meter.
[daily log: walking, 7.5km]

(Poem #243 on new numbering scheme)

Some pines that lurk along the path
might make a plan to lift
off Earth like dandelion seeds,
but then the wind will shift.

– a quatrain in ballad meter.

(Poem #242 on new numbering scheme)

In melancholy, time goes slow.
It's like a rocket ship:
in freefall, after stage three drops...
a parabolic trip.

– a quatrain in ballad meter.

(Poem #240 on new numbering scheme)

The teachers bring doughnuts to work
which makes me feel real sad.
You see, I used to like such things...
now, eating them is bad.

– a quatrain in ballad meter.

(Poem #239 on new numbering scheme)

A typical Korean rain
will smell just like sea's needs;
but spring we sometimes taste a storm
that reeks of desert's weeds.

– a quatrain in ballad meter.

(Poem #238 on new numbering scheme)

I waited for a poem to come,
but nothing ever came.
I wracked my brain and tapped my hands,
but what I wrote was lame.

– a quatrain in ballad meter.

(Poem #237 on new numbering scheme)

I wonder why the monkeys fly
But fly they do each day.
My students throw them through the air
they like to laugh and play.

– a quatrain in ballad meter.
[daily log: walking, 5.5km]

(Poem #236 on new numbering scheme)

"My ego trumps my neighbor's needs,"
the patriot believes,
sincere, perhaps (in fact, malign)
but to those ends, deceives.

– a quatrain in ballad meter.

(Poem #235 on new numbering scheme)

Korea has these feral chairs:
they rest beside the roads;
they wait, unloved, unsat upon;
they bear no human loads.

– a quatrain in ballad meter.

(Poem #234 on new numbering scheme)

The ocean's arms can grasp the mind;
recursively ingrain
small chunks of memory and dreams
into the seething brain.

– a quatrain in ballad meter.

(Poem #232 on new numbering scheme)

You know that spring has now arrived:
the air, it makes you cry;
Korean spring's a lousy time;
the grayish, yellow sky.

– a quatrain in ballad meter.

(Poem #231 on new numbering scheme)

The clouds patrol the sky, adrift
Then aliens arrive
who scoop the clouds up like some bugs,
because they want them live.

– a quatrain in ballad meter.
[daily log: walking, 1km]

(Poem #230 on new numbering scheme)

He lies awake, and counting sheep...
those sheep are saying stuff:
They're telling him about the fact
that anger's not enough.

– a quatrain in ballad meter.

(Poem #229 on new numbering scheme)

Ponder the foolishness of faith
in light of so much pain,
and yet decide to still believe...
inspired by the rain.

– a quatrain in ballad meter.

(Poem #227 on new numbering scheme)

Each Wednesday is speaking class
but how is this a thing?
The students sit and sometimes smile.
They don't say anything.

– a quatrain in ballad meter.