Category: A Daily Poem

Caveat: Sons and Daughters

A Daily Poem / Banalities & Journaling / Book 1 / Life is a Dream / My Poetry & Fiction

I tried to write a poem back on April 22. I didn’t really finish it, but I decided to put it here as-is.
(Poem #8 on new numbering scheme)

Sons and Daughters
The ephemerality of the world is just a stone wall.
There are blossoms on the trees along Gangseon-no.
The suburban pavement exhales.
The air reeks of density,
of garbage
of sand
of springtime
of buses.
There are little square patterns of bricks paving the sidewalk.
I see a discarded umbrella, broken,
its ribs jutting among some weeds.
My students exist in a dream.
I have a couple hundred children,
my alternately charming or obstinate sons and daughters
who then each disappear after a year or two.
My sons and daughters almost never say good-bye.
One day they are in class with me.
One day they are not.
No beginning.
No ceremony.
A month.
A year.
An infinite specificity lies behind this mystery.

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Caveat: The Main Cause of Poetry

A Daily Poem / Book 1 / My Poetry & Fiction

(Poem #7 on new numbering scheme)

The Main Cause of Poetry
I think the sky is the main cause
of poetry, because sometimes
there is a color or a cloud
and a picture would be useless.
I see the sky that way today.
And I see the leaves on the trees
have so many colors that I
decide to try to write this poem.

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Caveat: “dim white”

A Daily Poem / Banalities & Journaling / Book 1 / Englyn / My Poetry & Fiction

I wrote this englyn penfyr.
(Poem #6 on new numbering scheme)

the morning sky looked too cold, and dim white,
my window's light like a fold
of feeling, and it looked old.

I see these Welsh poetic forms as something offering the same brevity as haiku but more “native” to the Western – specifically Britannic – tradition, especially with their emphasis on rhyme, consonance and assonance.
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Caveat: the January afternoon

A Daily Poem / Banalities & Journaling / Book 1 / Life is a Dream / My Photos / My Poetry & Fiction

(Poem #5 on new numbering scheme)

the sound of the wind
in winter
in the frozen leaves of the frozen trees
is perfect
the buildings trace lavender-shaded
straight lines against pales orange curls of sky
near sunset
nearby
there are boys practicing soccer
on the dirt
on the playground of Munhwa Elementary School
and their breath
snakes up in visible lines of white
in the January afternoon
the setting sun reflects
garishly off garish signs
off a building across the street
off in a separate place 
again the sound of the wind
in winter
in the frozen leaves of the frozen trees
is perfect

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Caveat: o beloved megalopolis

A Daily Poem / Book 1 / Life is a Dream / My Poetry & Fiction

[this is just a jotting of a poem.  it’s not meant to be a finished product.  i♥서울]
(Poem #4 on new numbering scheme)

o beloved megalopolis
subways
buses
walking crowds
uncountable kilometers of streets and the writhing snakes of expressways
clogged with cars
strewn with neon
littered with convenience stores like breadcrumbs leading to mountainside neighborhoods
the undergrounds spaces
exhale and seem to breathe
breath slightly sweet of kimchi and cheap perfume
bookstores
malls
walking crowds
of old men spitting
of old women selling hothouse lettuce and radishes and garlic
of children
children playing
riding bikes and scooters
fashionable children
studious children
walking alone at 10 o'clock at night talking on cellphones
cellphones everywhere
smartphones
four bars everywhere
in vacant lots
in factories
in tunnels
on trains
in subway restrooms
talking crowds
fashionable crowds talking on smartphones
dramatically sighing businessmen
drunk laborers
old women yelling
children gazing about happily
japanese tourists milling
foreigners stealthily alienated
tall buildings
short building
the same buildings over and over
marching across the landscape
soldiers on leave
shopping crowds
young women arguing in cafes
boys arguing on street corners
old men arguing in bars
teenagers arguing near schoolyards
the megalopolis argues with itself cheerfully
lovingly
continuously
rhythmically
the city is always there
brand new
unceasing
evolving
incomplete
walking crowds
dreaming crowds
dreaming dreams

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Caveat: A Stone

A Daily Poem / Book 1 / My Poetry & Fiction

(Poem #3 on new numbering scheme)

A Stone
Just give me some thereness. The being in a some-where, unMoving. Resting. Still.
A stone. A stone in a highly regular plane of sand, like a zen garden.

picture[Poem written on date of posting, back-posted on 2011-07-31]

Caveat: Ephemera

A Daily Poem / Book 1 / Life is a Dream / My Poetry & Fiction

(Poem #2 on new numbering scheme)

Ephemera

There were many faces in the corridors.
I had given my seat to an old woman, on the bus, and so I stood the whole way. It’s odd, but there’s no discomfort in standing that way – voluntarily. Swaying.
In the faces, then, I saw the resolve of each person, to live each person’s life. All separately.
On the sidewalk, there was a discarded cigarette, still burning.
I felt despair. These feelings come and go.
Like this, the sun strikes out across the sky in the morning.
I saw it glittering off the side of a glass building. A weird angle.
I felt resolute. These feelings, too, come and go.

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Caveat: 장난이 아니게 비가 오네요

A Daily Poem / Book 1 / Life in Korea / My Poetry & Fiction

(Poem #1 on new numbering scheme – this is a somewhat arbitrary beginning, arrived at by working backwards from my strong poem-writing habit at the end of the decade. There are poems written that predate this point in time – perhaps I’ll give them negative numbers.)

Nostalgia in July
The sky was overpopulated by the wind.
I had no friends.
I struggled to carry a smile for strangers because happiness is the most important thing.
The green-laden branches of trees labored to lift the earth into the clouds.
The storm tore up its first draft in frustration.
So rain droplets scattered, like solitude in a crowded subway.
The dry spaces between the droplets shrank, afraid and consumed by the imperial splashes of water.
How trite. How tiny.
A twilight of car headlights lased the half-offered monsoon.
Triumph of gray, but it's only inside.
Golden, radiant joy of still being alive, if only I could convince myself.
Unjokingly, the rain comes (장난이 아니게 비가 오네요).

– a free form poem.
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