Caveat: Quatrain #72

(Poem #263 on new numbering scheme)

The words just shivered on the page,
The verbs in disrepair.
The pronouns were disconsolate,
The nouns limp with despair.

– a quatrain in ballad meter.

Caveat: Quatrains #66-71

(Poem #262 on new numbering scheme)

"Philosophical zombie" is
a concept you may know.
I'd like to now propose a twist
to how those stories go.
Most typically these zombies are
like strange automata.
They act like people, react too -
but it is just data.
So nothing's felt and nothing's hoped;
there is no inner spark.
These zombies might seem like humans,
but their sad minds are dark.
Now here's the change I'd like to make:
let's add a soul inside,
but not connected to the flesh -
it will only reside.
Like those sad paralytics who
stare helpless and afraid,
this second mind lacks any link,
must wait for any aid.
So here's the first, with agency,
the second with the why,
together they must walk the earth,
as we do, you and I.

– six quatrains in ballad meter – an essay on phenomenology in six stanzas.

Caveat: Quatrain #64

(Poem #260 on new numbering scheme)

Con chupe de pescado, pues,
soñaba sin querer.
Al despertar, me estremecí
¿cómo pude saber?

This is my second attempt at a quatrain using English ballad meter, but in Spanish – for which ballad meter is quite awkward. Still, this more or less works, except how it reverts to trochees in the last line. Don’t ask me what it means, exactly. A prose paraphrase: about fish chowder, then, [I] dreamed without wanting to. Upon waking up, I shivered – how could I know?
This is actually a dream I woke up from this morning: nothing complicated or surreal – I was just eating Peruvian style chupe de pescado at a certain Peruvian restaurant in Newport Beach, down the road from where I used to work in 2005-2006. I used to go there for lunch with coworkers fairly often. That fish soup is some of the most memorable food in my life, for some reason. I’m sure if I had it now, it would seem a poor shadow of its former glory – but that would be because of the changes to my own physiology of taste, post cancer.

Caveat: Quatrain #63

(Poem #259 on new numbering scheme)

A flowering, dystopian land
is found at empire's edge:
the north looks south; the south looks north;
near Ilsan, there's time's ledge.

– a quatrain in ballad meter.

Caveat: Quatrain #59

(Poem #255 on new numbering scheme)

The trees are all in blossom now -
it seems that spring's arrived.
Each year the best I'll say for spring:
"At least I have survived."

– a quatrain in ballad meter.

Caveat: Quatrain #58

(Poem #254 on new numbering scheme)

The space just at the edges, where
my vision shades to blue,
there dwell the ghosts of angels, who
attempt to speak what's true.

– a quatrain in ballad meter.

Caveat: Quatrain #57

(Poem #253 on new numbering scheme)

Two stones sat down with plans to talk
beside a path. The grass
tried listening and bent its blades
alert like kids in class.

– a quatrain in ballad meter.

Caveat: Quatrain #56

(Poem #252 on new numbering scheme)

The surreptitious movements made
by mice in windblown leaves
reveal the clockwork of the world
to passing birds, like thieves.

– a quatrain in ballad meter.
[daily log: walking, 1.5km]

Caveat: Quatrain #55

(Poem #251 on new numbering scheme)

Can madness be a game we play?
At first we dance and shout.
The moon might help us find a style;
we'll let our crazies out.

– a quatrain in ballad meter.

Caveat: Quatrain #54

(Poem #250 on new numbering scheme)

The emperor stepped out one day
to meet his citizens;
they pointed and they laughed at him;
he couldn't trust his friends.

– a quatrain in ballad meter.

Caveat: Quatrains #52-53

(Poem #249 on new numbering scheme)

The hungry alligator sat.
He looked at many things:
a tree, a boy, a dog, a boat,
a famished bat with wings.
"What shall I eat?" he wondered. "Boys.
can be delicious, true....
and dogs in boats have lousy taste,
and trees are hard to chew."

– two quatrains in ballad meter.
picture

Caveat: Quatrain #48

(Poem #245 on new numbering scheme)

Some people like to predict doom.
They think there is no hope.
But actually things aren't that bad.
It's just... they tend to mope.

– a quatrain in ballad meter.

Caveat: Quatrain #47

(Poem #244 on new numbering scheme)

The sofa doesn't just get used -
it gets abused instead:
all beaten down by laundry, junk,
and output from my head.

– a quatrain in ballad meter.
[daily log: walking, 7.5km]

Caveat: Quatrain #46

(Poem #243 on new numbering scheme)

Some pines that lurk along the path
might make a plan to lift
off Earth like dandelion seeds,
but then the wind will shift.

– a quatrain in ballad meter.

Caveat: Quatrain #43

(Poem #240 on new numbering scheme)

The teachers bring doughnuts to work
which makes me feel real sad.
You see, I used to like such things...
now, eating them is bad.

– a quatrain in ballad meter.

Caveat: Quatrain #42

(Poem #239 on new numbering scheme)

A typical Korean rain
will smell just like sea's needs;
but spring we sometimes taste a storm
that reeks of desert's weeds.

– a quatrain in ballad meter.

Caveat: Quatrain #40

(Poem #237 on new numbering scheme)

I wonder why the monkeys fly
But fly they do each day.
My students throw them through the air
they like to laugh and play.

– a quatrain in ballad meter.
[daily log: walking, 5.5km]

Caveat: Quatrain #39

(Poem #236 on new numbering scheme)

"My ego trumps my neighbor's needs,"
the patriot believes,
sincere, perhaps (in fact, malign)
but to those ends, deceives.

– a quatrain in ballad meter.

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