Category: Book 1

(Poem #93 on new numbering scheme)

START: I was walking and smelled woodsmoke.
That, and damp streets, brought memories:
high school and the Pacific
fog and walks and nights
at a computer
crafting programs
like mazes.
GOTO
START

– a nonnet

(Poem #92 on new numbering scheme)

Babbling silently at the heavens,
an orange half moon gave solace
to no one, not even me.
The evening was chilly.
I was not saddened.
Souls did not dance.
Liminal
lurkings
flowed.

– a nonnet

(Poem #91 on new numbering scheme)

cars
buildings
traffic lights
i see these things
government and hope
corruption and despair
these things are invisible
all of these are immanences
they emerge wholly formed from our minds

– a reverse nonnet

I wrote eight nonnets as a connected narrative. I post them here, all at once. I think you might already know the story.
(Poem #90 on new numbering scheme)

The open fields.
"Hey.
I'm through."
His hands shook.
"I don't get it."
Cain was so angry.
The Boss didn't listen.
Instead, the Boss turned away.
This just made Cain feel angrier.
"Why am I submitting these reports?"
"Nice."
He grinned.
He looked up.
The Boss was pleased.
Abel thanked his Boss.
"I worked so hard on that."
"It shows. You did very well."
Cain watched, beyond the cubicle.
"This really isn't fair," he muttered.
"What?"
"Please wait."
The Boss paused.
"OK. What now?"
Cain said, "Can we talk?"
The Boss shrugged. "Don't bother."
"You know the problem," he said.
"Your anger crouches, there. Own it."
Cain was stricken, and he skulked away.
"Look.
Let's meet."
Cain gestured.
"Maybe later."
His brother nodded.
"I'll call you, when I'm done."
Later, he called his brother.
"How about we go for a walk?"
"Sounds good," the other said. "I'll be there."
The two took the El down to the end.
There were some open fields around.
They walked amid the rubble.
The older brother swung.
He hadn't planned to.
His anger won.
Cain saw blood.
He cried.
"Hell."
The next day, the Boss called Cain, at nine.
He answered his phone, feeling dread.
"Where's your brother?" the Man asked.
"How would I know?" Cain said.
The Boss was silent.
"It's not my job."
Cain went on.
"I mean."
"Right?"
Another call came, some hours later.
The police had found the body.
They added up two and two.
Cain was soon arrested.
The Boss was there too.
"Well that was dumb."
He shook his head.
"You blew it."
Cain stared.
Sighed.
A few years later, Cain was homeless.
His lawyer had gotten him off.
The trial was a circus.
It consumed his money.
But his guilt plagued him.
Cain crouched, sobbing.
"I'm stupid."
He spat.
"Why?"

– 4 reverse nonnets and 4 regular nonnets

(Poem #89 on new numbering scheme)

Some
nonnet:
I wrote it
in an effort
to improve my skills,
capture the world I see,
increase my self discipline,
and express my shifting feelings
regarding the meaning of my life.

– a reverse nonnet

(Poem #88 on new numbering scheme)

Dream:
I lay
fearfully
- my mind empty -
under a table.
I was only a child.
Other children yelled at me.
I felt compelled to speak to them,
but no words came out - I'd become mute.

– a reverse nonnet

(Poem #87 on new numbering scheme)

The big typhoon failed to reach Seoul.
We just had some overcast days.
Down south, the storm struck Busan.
The sea stole a few souls.
Up here, the sky cleared
to perfect blue.
A cool breeze
pulled down
leaves.

– a nonnet

(Poem #86 on new numbering scheme)

My tendency to procrastinate
can serve me well in Korea,
although sometimes it doesn't,
and then I will end up
feeling some regret,
when suddenly
I find out
something's
wrong.

– a nonnet

(Poem #85 on new numbering scheme)

I was walking home from work just now,
and someone's extremely small dog
ran at me, barking loudly.
I was startled and yelled,
which scared the people
whose dog it was.
My mood slipped,
wobbled,
crashed.

– a nonnet

(Poem #84 on new numbering scheme)

They say Dangun's mother was a bear.
I guess she spent time in a cave.
There was a tiger there, too.
But he wasn't patient.
So he ran away.
The bear waited.
A long time.
At last.
Light.

– a nonnet

(Poem #83 on new numbering scheme)

How many scared feral cats there are
around the city of Goyang,
leaping among the shrubs?
Maybe not that many,
but it seems to me
they should be kings
here because
they are
cats.

– a nonnet

(Poem #82 on new numbering scheme)

I was reviewing with a student
the list of vocabulary.
We saw the next word was "skill"
- "gisul" in Korean.
"Do you have a skill?"
I asked. He said,
"Just one skill:
I can
sleep."

– a nonnet

(Poem #81 on new numbering scheme)

Some landscapes of the Quattrocento
- those by Giorgione or Titian -
are conjured by autumn's light,
in the midafternoon,
when gazing at trees
incidental
to a vague
background
haze.

– a nonnet

(Poem #80 on new numbering scheme)

This one tree that I frequently see
is always my first sign of fall.
Just a few leaves near the top
surrender to an urge
to paint themselves pink,
yellow, red and
some peach-tinged
thrusts of
gold.

– a nonnet

(Poem #79 on new numbering scheme)

Blink.
Sit up.
It's morning.
Now I'm awake.
The pain of sleep fades.
My body needs to move.
One shoulder resists movement.
I finally begin to rise.
The first thing is to make some coffee.

– a reverse nonnet

(Poem #78 on new numbering scheme)

I walked home amid a steady rain.
A strong scent littered the sidewalks:
dawn redwoods - in Linnaean,
called Metasequoia
glyptostroboides.
like Humboldt trees,
the smell takes
my mind
home.

– a nonnet

(Poem #77 on new numbering scheme)

The challenge in writing is to find,
like a big clump of pocket lint,
those specificities which
capture a reader's mind
so it's glad to fall,
a child laughing
and leaping
into
leaves.

– a nonnet

(Poem #76 on new numbering scheme)

It might be impossible to see
the world as if it were a song.
Nevertheless, strings of words
mark out our daily world,
like viny hedges.
Ubiquitous,
poetry
can't be
seen.

– a nonnet

(Poem #74 on new numbering scheme)

Today in an email someone asked,
"How do you get from A to B?"
He meant emotionally.
I think there's no movement.
You just teleport,
like first dying,
then coming
back to
life.

– a nonnet

(Poem #73 on new numbering scheme)

"Wait,"
I say
to myself.
"Buy it later."
I'm out of butter.
So for a day or two,
my oatmeal has no butter.
I don't know why I do this thing:
my system of small asceticisms.

– a reverse nonnet

(Poem #72 on new numbering scheme)

Death.
"Oh my.
That's not good."
She made a face.
"But it's upside down."
I pointed at the card.
"True," she admitted, smiling.
The Tarot card looked so scary.
"It means you should be dead. But you're not."

– a reverse nonnet

(Poem #71 on new numbering scheme)

There is a song about Bob Dylan.
Its title is "Diamonds and Rust."
Joan Baez wrote the lyrics
and sang the moody song.
The MP3 track
plays on my phone.
I watch clouds
shaped like
sighs.

– a nonnet

(Poem #70 on new numbering scheme)

So.
One day,
Beowulf
decided that
he should probably
just give up on monsters.
He moved down to Italy,
and rented a Tuscan villa.
Still, some nights, he awoke from bad dreams.

– a reverse nonnet

(Poem #69 on new numbering scheme)

I looked up at the sky forelornly.
It was supposed to rain today.
There were only a few clouds.
I felt a slight breeze blow.
A magpie strode past,
head cocked down.
Just a flash:
some blue;
black.

– a nonnet

(Poem #68 on new numbering scheme)

I'm not a hero like Gilgamesh.
Not once did I battle monsters,
although sometimes I have died,
journeying like a ghost
through the underworld
like Enkidu,
that loyal,
friendlike
dog.

– a nonnet

(Poem #67 on new numbering scheme)

I was struck with a weird nostalgia
as I walked toward Jeongbal hill.
I sat on a bench and watched
the people going by.
The overcast sky
seemed to convey
a kind of
empty
pain.

– a nonnet

(Poem #66 on new numbering scheme)

The biggest holiday of the year
in Korea is called Chusok.
This year it's a bit early.
"Korean Thanksgiving"
celebrates harvests
and ancestors,
so people
travel
home.

– a nonnet

(Poem #65 on new numbering scheme)

No
lo sé.
De veras,
no sé porque
no sé, tampoco.
Sin embargo, puedo
imaginar razones
porque no sé. Por ejemplo:
penas epistemológicas.
I
don't know.
Truthfully
I don't know why
I don't know, either.
Nevertheless, I can
imagine some reasons
why I don't know. For example:
epistemological troubles.

– a reverse nonnet, in Spanish, with a properly-formed translation into English

(Poem #64 on new numbering scheme)

Recently I read the tide's turning
among linguists, who now reject
Chomskyan orthodoxy.
That linguist's ideas
about how words work
always seemed wrong.
I think words'
syntax
drifts.

– a nonnet

(Poem #63 on new numbering scheme)

I had let my nonnet-writing slide
during the last several days,
but I wrote this here nonnet
during a break at work,
just now, to have one
which I could post
on my blog.
It's not
good.

– a nonnet

(Poem #62 on new numbering scheme)

I had never intended to age.
Yet each year slyly captures me.
It tends to be annoying.
Nevertheless, I cope.
The main thing: just breathe.
If you do that,
you can live
till next
year.

– a nonnet

(Poem #61 on new numbering scheme)

North of the Ten Freeway at Rosemead,
a place redolent of regrets,
honeysuckle and asphalt,
I received some treatments
which electrified
the aches and pains
which haunted
my lost
mind.

– a nonnet