Category: Book 1

(Poem #455 on new numbering scheme)

ㅁ
A terrible inertia settles in
created by exhaustion, setbacks, sighs.

– a couplet in (quite rough) blank verse (iambic pentameter?).

(Poem #454 on new numbering scheme)

I came home from work.
My computer was broken.
So I did not blog.

(Poem #453 on new numbering scheme)

The world is chopped in pieces, then,
the gods' desires irrelevant.

(Poem #452 on new numbering scheme)

I listen to the radio:
it's Minnesota news.
It tells me it will snow today.
I miss that sort of muse.

(Poem #451 on new numbering scheme)

Even in Goyang,
sometimes woodsmoke scents the air.
It smells like camping.

(Poem #450 on new numbering scheme)

The air had turned cold
as I walked home. At last Fall
falls down from heaven.

(Poem #449 on new numbering scheme)

“What is appropriate,” she asked, “when all around us the world burns?”

“Well let’s discuss the gold sky’s hues, then, or instead, let’s sing,” I said.

(Poem #448 on new numbering scheme)

The people brought machines to bear -
they sought to solve some things.
Instead they found they should submit
beneath their gadgets' wings.

(Poem #447 on new numbering scheme)

There is no poem that can get you unstuck from the daily experience.

Actually, stuckness can only be tackled by diligent disregard.

(Poem #446 on new numbering scheme)

The lines project across the hollow gulfs
that underlie imagination's flights.

(Poem #444 on new numbering scheme)

Dawn comes later now
But gray gives way to silver
blue or pink or gold

(Poem #443 on new numbering scheme)

Lately the poems are not coming so easily. Epics and haikus are
difficult; weather and sunsets and student behavior become tired.

– some kind of effort at a heroic couplet (dactylic hexameter)

(Poem #442 on new numbering scheme)

The sun was large, and alligators played
beneath a random rainbow made of trash.

You can see the following blogpost for context of this couplet.

(Poem #441 on new numbering scheme)

The universe is not so big these days,
the fasteners have taken over all.
The problem is the lack of paper, since
the cellulose was used for paperclips.

(Poem #440 on new numbering scheme)

It's difficult to go on Saturdays.
There's just one class: those girls who hate to work.

(Poem #439 on new numbering scheme)

Ghosts dwell between things
and gesture with puffs of air
to show their regrets.

(Poem #438 on new numbering scheme)

Microwave something to eat and then sit down to see if the world spins;

write a few sentences hoping the meanings emerge from my pen’s end.

(Poem #437 on new numbering scheme)

I looked up. Birds were flying south. The clouds
were heavy, moving north. They passed like trains.

(Poem #436 on new numbering scheme)

There might be rain now.
Do you have your umbrella?
Then, an autumn rain.

(Poem #435 on new numbering scheme)

Magic machines lurk listless and grim in the clouds as if history
writes conversations alone, disregarding the rainbows that follow.

(Poem #434 on new numbering scheme)

And thus it happens now, today,
vacation days are past;
in fact, it's bland cliché to say,
but time went really fast.

[daily log: walking, 1km]

(Poem #433 on new numbering scheme)

Clouds drift, torn, vast, broken and scattering; destitute gods look

downward to see what, where, who, how, why. Answers can’t be found.

(Poem #431 on new numbering scheme)

I had decided to wait. Through my window the rain swept dreams
leaflike along damp sidewalks, gravity pulling the water down.

(Poem #430 on new numbering scheme)

Night demons eat words.
They gulp them down. Sunset comes.
The air becomes chill.

(Poem #429 on new numbering scheme)

Here in the world, all the sky is afraid, and its gaze is compelled – bent

down – so its motionless countenance glowers horizonward, clouds gray.

(Poem #428 on new numbering scheme)

Time takes on odd shapes.
A rain clears from cooling air.
Summer yields to fall.

[daily log: walking, 8km]

(Poem #427 on new numbering scheme)

Sometimes with dreams, they approach unexpectedly, whiz by like fast cars

passing on roads, then are gone through the night, and unseeable: blurred ghosts.

(Poem #426 on new numbering scheme)

They saw bits of trash
as they looked along sidewalks.
No words could be found.

(Poem #425 on new numbering scheme)

Holding down ocean’s perimeters, plunging beyond all the clouds’ bounds,

conjuring night’s most unknowable faces and smiles, so the sun sets.

(Poem #424 on new numbering scheme)

Dragonflies practiced their patterns of purposeful aimlessness – their goal:

challenging verdant ecologies through presentations of striking blue.