Category: Book 1

Sometimes sleep comes but then leaves just as fast,
and I'm left with what night weaves...
the mind grieves.

[daily log: walking, 7.5km]

with devastation the gods showed their wrath
till only dust remained, and drifted bits
of snow were heaped at time's old edges then.

The sky's fingers reach
down, grasping trees winter's stripped
to desolation.

the hills are dull, like metal surfaces
impossible to burnish, impossible.

(Poem #484 on new numbering scheme)

and now i have become dissatisfied
with how i number all these little poems.
perhaps a change could be created soon
to leave it all confused, disjoint, and new.

(Poem #483 on new numbering scheme)

light
reveals
what's hidden
among atoms
and up in the trees
tracing fractal motions
distorted undulations
aimless disquisitions of form
leaves, for example, caught in the wind.

(Poem #481 on new numbering scheme)

The air was biting
the bones of trees. The winter
had come to freeze all.

(Poem #480 on new numbering scheme)

and she was sitting there, like happy,
and, like, not a care in the world,
and she goes, like, "whatever,"
and she holds her hand out,
and she's smiling, too,
and I agree,
and, well, see,
and then,
and...

(Poem #479 on new numbering scheme)

Words spill out like cars on a highway.
They spin swirls, like oil on water.
Rising up, they take on birds.
They mumble to themselves.
And problems emerge.
Difficult words.
Confusing.
Gentle.
Stop.

(Poem #478 on new numbering scheme)

What color is dawn?
How does it contrast with night?
Today, it is gray.

(Poem #477 on new numbering scheme)

Snow:
drifting
through the air
but not sticking
to anything, just
making big promises
and icy atmospherics
which no one can appreciate
because they don't like feeling so cold.

(Poem #476 on new numbering scheme)

Red-robed rogues rumble reductive rhetoric rhotically.
Relatedly, robots rule regions, run rhinoceros races.

(Poem #475 on new numbering scheme)

the high today was
zero degrees. winter has
arrived here early.

[daily log: walking, 7.5km]

(Poem #474 on new numbering scheme)

Solidly overcast sky pins people like butterflies, broken
creatures who lack any purpose or meaning, and nothing is spoken.

(Poem #473 on new numbering scheme)

long meetings eat time
time gyres around like a top
then time eats the sky

(Poem #472 on new numbering scheme)

I heard that it snowed
from my students. But the ground
was snowless by noon.

(Poem #471 on new numbering scheme)

A leaf tore loose and fluttered down.
A girl was walking slow.
She saw the leaf and stretched her hand.
She caught it like a pro.

(Poem #470 on new numbering scheme)

You.
You talked.
You explained.
You challenged me.
You gave me presents.
You said, "Don't ever change."
You lived, laughed, traveled, and cried.
You said, "You've changed." I had to leave.
You then made clear the world was not yours.

(Poem #469 on new numbering scheme)

I needed to get out of my house.
I walked around my neighborhood.
I saw a lot of buildings.
I saw a lot of cars.
I looked at the trees.
I stepped on leaves.
I saw birds.
I thought.
I.

(Poem #468 on new numbering scheme)

passing buses wail
a magpie glides to a branch
atoms get slower

[daily log: walking, 8km]

(Poem #466 on new numbering scheme)

Everyone seated on cushions, around a long table for late night
eating and drinking, a constant slow patter of talk in Korean
that I can't quite understand: the ubiquitous Korean group dinner.
I have decided to write down and publish this ode to the hweh-sik.
What is an ode? You expect me to tell you about bouts of fondness,
share some congenial anecdote. No. I just sit and absorb words.

(Poem #465 on new numbering scheme)

sun
shining
down on me
through my window
actually it's
annoying me a lot
so i think i'll pull my shade
and get it out of my eyes now
it's not that i don't like the sun
but well sometimes it gets on my nerves

(Poem #464 on new numbering scheme)

Only one student
came last night to that bad class
so it was less bad.

(Poem #463 on new numbering scheme)

I can taste the salt
the other tongue-senses lost...
but still there is salt.

(Poem #462 on new numbering scheme)

A twilight settles like dust on sand,
the sky consumed by lavender,
the clouds slightly soft and vague,
the roar of cars on streets
imperceptible
until you pay
attention:
zooming...
hiss.

(Poem #460 on new numbering scheme)

The wind grasped puddles
left over from morning rain
and the moon was full.

(Poem #459 on new numbering scheme)

Kay turned, saying, “My birthday was Saturday. Were you aware?”
Next to me, she pushed out from her desk, but not looking at me.
“I didn’t know.” Put my head down, sighed. So she said, “And my sister
died early Sunday. She still knew – in her coma – her deathday
shouldn’t be shared with my birthday.” Suddenly tears were appearing.
“I didn’t plan on this… why am I crying again?” I sat silent.
Gathering scattered cool remnants of calm, she returned to her work.
Just an odd, errant outburst of emotion disturbing smooth water.

Coda. I watched a small orangegold leaf twist, struggle, detach
float and then hang, now suspended against a wide orangegray sky,
held there in place by a wind that was blowing from somewhere quite far.
It was so strange. Maybe life’s endless terminations grant
sweeping perspective on things – if not hope – and so, pulling my eyes
down and away from the spinning dead leaf, in the end I keep walking.

(Poem #458 on new numbering scheme)

Beasts of the Earth, part-uncoiled from the sphere, rising up skyward,

cruising alongside the edge of the sky, become platforms of gold stone.

(Poem #457 on new numbering scheme)

Skeletons, mummies,
witches and ghosts. The fall night
decorates the trees.