ㅁ confused tableaux disjointed narratives surreal settings strange dreams unlikely transitions random characters old memories strange dreams korean prison alaskan school mexican church strange dreams it's happened there appeared made abstract giraffe came said some things captured me turned yellow past events present anxieties future hopes strange dreams
Category: Book 4
Caveat: Poem #2273 “Rainbow aggression”
Caveat: Poem #2272 “Programming”
ㅁ Indirectly, the bits were altered, or rather, manipulated, via high-level symbols, small, language-like fragments so appearances began to shift and pixels redrawn, changed
– a nonnet.
Caveat: Poem #2271 “Just deserts for talking to rocks”
ㅁ Yesterday morning, colder, and I walked, stopped and talked... to a boulder, it was silent. I, older.
– an englyn penfyr.
Caveat: Poem #2270 “That terrible drought”
Caveat: Poem #2269 “Structural weaknesses”
ㅁ the wind was quite strong it blew through town all day long and the building creaked
– a pseudo-haiku.
Caveat: Poem #2268 “Sixty-fifth stanza”
ㅁ Rosalie laid out the cards that she'd made; winter, outside, sculpted snow and conveyed endings to things that she hadn't yet schemed: Kiamon's name came to her as she dreamed.
– a quatrain in dactylic tetrameter. Rosalie is Kiamon’s great-great-grandmother, and Not-A-Wolf’s granddaughter.
Caveat: Poem #2267 “Onomastics”
Caveat: Poem #2266 “They said it was a failure of compliance”
Caveat: Poem #2265 “Unstructured time”
Caveat: Poem #2264 “On the subject of composition”
ㅁ I sought out some words. They failed to appear as hoped. So instead: these words.
– a pseudo-haiku.
Caveat: Poem #2263 “Diary”
ㅁ In the end it wasn't the weather that ended my treehouse sojourn, rather, my uncle's issues with his declining health suggested prudence and I decamped. The attic, again, home.
– a nonnet.
Caveat: Poem #2262 “Turns out…”
ㅁ Some said that they left no stone unturned, but that isn't how it happened. The search was desultory, and stones were left unturned. In fact the stones won: they kept secrets, bided time, waited, hid.
– a nonnet.
Caveat: Poem #2261 “The regular”
Caveat: Poem #2260 “The dog’s version of events”
ㅁ this morning i'm in mourning that dead fish so yummy squish decaying then you yelled "no!" so boring
– an englyn penfyr.
Caveat: Poem #2259 “Signal-to-noise”
ㅁ Communication works like this: I speak my thought out loud, then he decides what I have said within his mind's closed shroud.
– a quatrain in ballad meter.
Caveat: Poem #2258 “Aggressive lumber”
ㅁ The two-by-fours fell, and they tried to bonk my head... bruised both hands badly.
– a pseudo-haiku.
Caveat: Poem #2257 “Sixty-fourth stanza”
ㅁ Kiamon dwelt in the house by the shore, built by her grandmother's mother, before; lately she'd taken to sitting alone, there by the trees on an outjutting stone.
– a quatrain in dactylic tetrameter.
Caveat: Poem #2256 “Broad horizons”
Caveat: Poem #2255 “Uninsulated”
ㅁ I've slept in my metal clad treehouse every night for three months now. But lately it's dark out there, and the nights grow colder. Uninsulated, with a screen door... I'll move out. Winter comes.
– a nonnet.
Caveat: Poem #2254 “Boat maintenance report”
ㅁ i was baptized in barnacle blood as i scraped at the boat's bottom and used the pressure washer to blast off the black bits until at long last i decided that was enough so i stopped
– a nonnet.
Caveat: Poem #2253 “Huff”
ㅁ The dog was wishing she could run all up and down the road, but I restrained her with the leash... she huffed and bore the load.
– a quatrain in ballad meter.
Caveat: Poem #2252 “An errand”
ㅁ I went to get lumber in the rain. Fred's driveway was a vast mudhole. Wading ankle-deep in mud, I loaded the lumber sticking out the back of the Chevy and drove home... uphill, down.
– a nonnet.
Caveat: Poem #2251 “Lost treasure”
ㅁ The dog found a discarded deer's foot lying in a ditch by the road. Bits of flesh clung to the joints. She was quite pleased with this. The bone was held high, triumphantly. She gnawed it, and pranced. Yum.
– a nonnet.
Caveat: Poem #2250 “In darkness”
ㅁ Blink. Open. Look around. I see nothing. It's completely dark. Oh, the faintest light, there. That's waking up before dawn. So I turn on my little light, Put on some clothes, exit the treehouse.
– a reverse nonnet.
Caveat: Poem #2249 “Return”
ㅁ Mostly in town, I don't see eagles. But high over the parking lot, a single-minded eagle swooped down from a treetop, sighting a nice snack, or just for show, in morning's drizzly mist.
– a nonnet.
Caveat: Poem #2248 “Tourist town, off-season”
ㅁ Dull. Quiet. Standing there. No one came in. I vacuumed the floor. Outside the town was dead. I had no framing to do. The store was quite unpopular. The whole day, we had five customers.
– a reverse nonnet.
Caveat: Poem #2247 “Sixty-third stanza”
ㅁ Kiamon counted the times she had tried, Each time as if she had somehow just died. Now here she was, trying once more, again, Still she compelled herself: think where she'd been.
– a quatrain in dactylic tetrameter.
Caveat: Poem #2246 “Up before dawn”
Caveat: Poem #2245 “아저씨”
ㅁ perhaps I'm an oddity {a/o}ccidental ajeossi* this unlikely odyssey
– an englyn milwr, somewhat loose on the rhyme.
*NOTE: “ajeossi” (아저씨) is a very common Korean word. Formally, it’s a term of polite address used by a younger person for a man who is older. Such terms of address are ubiquitous in Korean, because there is a taboo on using the name of someone older than you in their presence – so you need a term of reference and address, instead. If you’re a child, all men in their 20’s and up are “ajeossi”. If you’re a man my age, then only men in my dad’s generation are “ajeossi” – it’s a relative term. It’s frequently translated as meaning “uncle”, but that’s not really accurate at all – there’s no implication of blood relation of any kind, but in Korean society, which is quite communitarian (such that the whole of society is, in one sense, one big family), there is some of that “uncle” semantics attached. In Korean popular culture, the word is used, too, as a kind of slang to represent “a stereotypical middle-aged man who lacks a sense of what’s currently trendy and is entitled and stuck in tradition”. Thus it actually overlaps with English slang terms like “boomer” – I’ve even heard it explained as a kind of male “karen” (in the slang sense). In Korean English, the word is almost always used untranslated, as it’s considered untranslatable. Among my friends in Korea, I was often jokingly referred to as “miguk ajeossi” (“miguk” = “American”) – both because I was older than the typical “American teaching in Korea” but also because in terms of behavior, I was perceived to be “more traditionally Korean than the Koreans”. Generally I decided that rather than be insulted, I’d take it as a compliment on my having gone sufficiently native.
Caveat: Poem #2244 “Indecisiveness”
Caveat: Poem #2243 “Rainsound”
ㅁ the rain bonked the roof all night, but sleep's disruption was slight; I slept in, till morning's light.
– an englyn milwr.
Caveat: Poem #2242 “Constraints”
ㅁ The dreamspace filled with angles, adrift in air, like seagulls, but math was all illegal.
– an englyn milwr.