Category: Book 1

(Poem #116 on new numbering scheme)

Purge.
Remove.
Clarify.
Disassemble.
Sketch odd diagrams.
Display symbols in smoke.
Design eschatologies.
Retreat to a cave with shadows.
Then live as if all those things were true.

– a reverse nonnet

(Poem #115 on new numbering scheme)

Don't imagine some hidden meaning.
Interpret these signs easily.
Those shadows in the corner,
the patterns in the dust,
the smooth, red apple
perched on a shelf
symbolize
nothing.
Dream.

– a nonnet

(Poem #114 on new numbering scheme)

Cold is just a stillness of small things.
The vibrating atoms dance less.
The world's mind spins more slowly,
as motes of matter pause.
Nobody sees it happen.
But it happens.
Some frost forms.
Leaves rot.
Snow.

– a nonnet

(Poem #113 on new numbering scheme)

Pain made signs using nerves and neurons.
Then solitude replayed childhood
and sadness wrought joy. But joy
wrought sadness and childhood
replayed solitude.
Then neurons and
nerves using
signs made
pain.

– a nonnet

(Poem #112 on new numbering scheme)

"Boo,"
I said.
"I'm a ghost."
"You're not scary,"
my student complained.
"Aw, but really I'm dead,"
I cheerfully insisted.
"Why don't you believe your teacher?"
She wasn't buying it, however.

– a reverse nonnet

(Poem #111 on new numbering scheme)

Did you see the city wherein hid
multitudes despairing, its grid
teeming under sky, across
arms of the sea? And... did
you see who controlled
that sea? - I saw
wherein lurked
swimming
fish.

– a nonnet

(Poem #110 on new numbering scheme)

A toddler child is staggering along
with his mother and grandmother.
The mom patters on with words
- typical mother-speak.
She points at some man,
says, "Bye-bye hae."*
The boy smiles.
He says
"Ba!"

– a nonnet
* linguistic note: the borrowing from English, “bye” (and “bye-bye”), is pretty fully nativized in Korean, used as an informal farewell by many people. “Bye-bye hae [해]” would mean “say bye-bye.” Of course, in Korean pronunciation, “bye” is two full syllables, “ba-i” (and “bye-bye” is four), and that breaks my poem, but anyway the vowel break is elided and diphthongized, so I’m going with the English pronunciation I guess.

(Poem #109 on new numbering scheme)

Clouds
pile up
and they push
against the vague,
hazy horizons.
A wind from the northwest
grasps at the recumbent leaves
so that they panic and protest,
leaving them coldly disconsolate.

– a reverse nonnet

(Poem #108 on new numbering scheme)

Skulls
and bones
populate
the imagery
that drifts out, unsought,
from those contemplations
which accompany the fact
that the dead cat I saw just now
seemed to be merely in calm repose.

– a reverse nonnet

(Poem #107 on new numbering scheme)

Let's imagine a dystopia:
a strange future where things are weird.
Unconsciousness is a crime
punishable by death.
The authorities
dislike darkness.
Don't get caught
sleeping
now.

– a nonnet

(Poem #106 on new numbering scheme)

Students congregate along damp streets
like water droplets in a mist,
a brownian shivering
on Fall's first chill evening,
their various worries
floating on words
across gaps
between
them

– a nonnet

(Poem #105 on new numbering scheme)

Hi,
sad cat.
What is it?
Did you get lost?
... looks like you're hungry.
I'm afraid to touch you.
You might carry some disease.
I saw you begging from those kids,
earlier. You seemed to be happy.

– a reverse nonnet

(Poem #104 on new numbering scheme)

Nothing comes easily, you know.
Well, I admit, I can forget
this terrible frustration
sometimes. Nevertheless,
simple stuff feels like
trying to make
a new poem
out of
dirt.

– a nonnet
[daily log: walking, 1km]

(Poem #103 on new numbering scheme)

A strange madness took hold of his mind.
He believed he was made of glass.
"Please, do not touch me," he begged.
He made the best of it,
though, declaring that
transparency
was more pure;
the soul,
clear.

– a nonnet

(Poem #102 on new numbering scheme)

I saw a scary caterpillar
throbbing across the dull asphalt:
a green fragment of muscle,
alive like a zombie's,
step, step, step, step, step.
The little feet
writhe toward
waving
grass.

– a nonnet

(Poem #101 on new numbering scheme)

One day, an imaginary man
went to Duluth, seeking stories.
He stood on the mythic shore.
Gray-green waves gnawed the sand.
Some black flies spun doubts.
He built machines
with his words.
The lake
watched.

– a nonnet

(Poem #100 on new numbering scheme)

A failure of communication
with a few of my coworkers
caused me to tell a student
with a confident voice
the exact wrong thing.
She cried, asking,
"Teacher, why
did you
lie?"

– a nonnet

(Poem #99 on new numbering scheme)

As a first step, they cut out my tongue.
They removed the tumor, of course.
Then they put my tongue back in.
Nerves and vessels were fixed:
pieces of my arm
were repurposed.
So that was
a hard
year.

– a nonnet

(Poem #98 on new numbering scheme)

Trees
announce
silhouettes
and glibly grope
the impatient sky,
meanwhile insisting that
the greedy earth release them
so that they can then levitate,
but gravity's passion is too strong.

– a reverse nonnet

(Poem #97 on new numbering scheme)

As I do with regularity,
I rearranged my furniture
after getting home from work
yesterday afternoon.
I made piles of books.
The couch got turned.
Hordes of dust
bunnies
died.

– a nonnet

(Poem #96 on new numbering scheme)

These recent days of hazy weather
give midday sun a sunset feel,
so fall in Daehan Minguk
becomes, through memory,
pale Tenochtitlan
in mid Winter,
and the air
tastes like
gold.

– a nonnet

(Poem #95 on new numbering scheme)

Rock!
It hurts.
It's moving.
Is it gone now?
No. Now it hurts more.
It jumped into my shoe.
I'll have to stop at that bench;
sit down and try to fish it out.
I've changed geologic history.

– a reverse nonnet

(Poem #94 on new numbering scheme)

Id,
ego -
both divine -
vagrant thoughts seek
apotheosis,
but meaning's in decline;
instead we make apopheny.
Behold the landscape: green blurs, black lines.

– a reverse nonnet