ㅁ Dusk comes late as summer begins chewing at the cool edges of rough spring. Already many birds have things to say and the clouds begin taking on a polychrome luminosity.
– a reverse nonnet.
ㅁ Dusk comes late as summer begins chewing at the cool edges of rough spring. Already many birds have things to say and the clouds begin taking on a polychrome luminosity.
– a reverse nonnet.
ㅁ let's forage here and there through shattered minds across broken space and hopefully begin to find little, lost fragments of blue, transcendent perception scintillating in a rain puddle.
– a reverse nonnet.
(Poem #317 on new numbering scheme)
Kids: open young minds want to receive what they are taught but then they get pulled away by the pointless distractions that culture endlessly gives to them such that there's no room left for knowledge.
– a return to the nonnet form.
(Poem #117 on new numbering scheme)
Ninety-nine nonnets are sufficient to show the possibilities of the short poetic form. Anyway, it's Fall now. I have made enough and I believe I should stop. I will stop.
This is my last nonnet. I will not be posting daily poetry while I travel in the US over the next two weeks, but hopefully can renew the habit, with a new genre, upon my return to Korea.
[This is an automated, pre-scheduled blog post – I expect I’m somewhere over the Pacific, right now.]
(Poem #116 on new numbering scheme)
Purge. Remove. Clarify. Disassemble. Sketch odd diagrams. Display symbols in smoke. Design eschatologies. Retreat to a cave with shadows. Then live as if all those things were true.
(Poem #115 on new numbering scheme)
Don't imagine some hidden meaning. Interpret these signs easily. Those shadows in the corner, the patterns in the dust, the smooth, red apple perched on a shelf symbolize nothing. Dream.
(Poem #114 on new numbering scheme)
Cold is just a stillness of small things. The vibrating atoms dance less. The world's mind spins more slowly, as motes of matter pause. Nobody sees it happen. But it happens. Some frost forms. Leaves rot. Snow.
(Poem #113 on new numbering scheme)
Pain made signs using nerves and neurons. Then solitude replayed childhood and sadness wrought joy. But joy wrought sadness and childhood replayed solitude. Then neurons and nerves using signs made pain.
(Poem #112 on new numbering scheme)
"Boo," I said. "I'm a ghost." "You're not scary," my student complained. "Aw, but really I'm dead," I cheerfully insisted. "Why don't you believe your teacher?" She wasn't buying it, however.
(Poem #111 on new numbering scheme)
Did you see the city wherein hid multitudes despairing, its grid teeming under sky, across arms of the sea? And... did you see who controlled that sea? - I saw wherein lurked swimming fish.
(Poem #110 on new numbering scheme)
A toddler child is staggering along with his mother and grandmother. The mom patters on with words - typical mother-speak. She points at some man, says, "Bye-bye hae."* The boy smiles. He says "Ba!"
– a nonnet
* linguistic note: the borrowing from English, “bye” (and “bye-bye”), is pretty fully nativized in Korean, used as an informal farewell by many people. “Bye-bye hae [해]” would mean “say bye-bye.” Of course, in Korean pronunciation, “bye” is two full syllables, “ba-i” (and “bye-bye” is four), and that breaks my poem, but anyway the vowel break is elided and diphthongized, so I’m going with the English pronunciation I guess.
(Poem #109 on new numbering scheme)
Clouds pile up and they push against the vague, hazy horizons. A wind from the northwest grasps at the recumbent leaves so that they panic and protest, leaving them coldly disconsolate.
(Poem #108 on new numbering scheme)
Skulls and bones populate the imagery that drifts out, unsought, from those contemplations which accompany the fact that the dead cat I saw just now seemed to be merely in calm repose.
(Poem #107 on new numbering scheme)
Let's imagine a dystopia: a strange future where things are weird. Unconsciousness is a crime punishable by death. The authorities dislike darkness. Don't get caught sleeping now.
(Poem #106 on new numbering scheme)
Students congregate along damp streets like water droplets in a mist, a brownian shivering on Fall's first chill evening, their various worries floating on words across gaps between them
(Poem #105 on new numbering scheme)
Hi, sad cat. What is it? Did you get lost? ... looks like you're hungry. I'm afraid to touch you. You might carry some disease. I saw you begging from those kids, earlier. You seemed to be happy.
(Poem #104 on new numbering scheme)
Nothing comes easily, you know. Well, I admit, I can forget this terrible frustration sometimes. Nevertheless, simple stuff feels like trying to make a new poem out of dirt.
(Poem #103 on new numbering scheme)
A strange madness took hold of his mind. He believed he was made of glass. "Please, do not touch me," he begged. He made the best of it, though, declaring that transparency was more pure; the soul, clear.
(Poem #102 on new numbering scheme)
I saw a scary caterpillar throbbing across the dull asphalt: a green fragment of muscle, alive like a zombie's, step, step, step, step, step. The little feet writhe toward waving grass.
(Poem #101 on new numbering scheme)
One day, an imaginary man went to Duluth, seeking stories. He stood on the mythic shore. Gray-green waves gnawed the sand. Some black flies spun doubts. He built machines with his words. The lake watched.
(Poem #100 on new numbering scheme)
A failure of communication with a few of my coworkers caused me to tell a student with a confident voice the exact wrong thing. She cried, asking, "Teacher, why did you lie?"
(Poem #99 on new numbering scheme)
As a first step, they cut out my tongue. They removed the tumor, of course. Then they put my tongue back in. Nerves and vessels were fixed: pieces of my arm were repurposed. So that was a hard year.
(Poem #98 on new numbering scheme)
Trees announce silhouettes and glibly grope the impatient sky, meanwhile insisting that the greedy earth release them so that they can then levitate, but gravity's passion is too strong.
(Poem #97 on new numbering scheme)
As I do with regularity, I rearranged my furniture after getting home from work yesterday afternoon. I made piles of books. The couch got turned. Hordes of dust bunnies died.
(Poem #96 on new numbering scheme)
These recent days of hazy weather give midday sun a sunset feel, so fall in Daehan Minguk becomes, through memory, pale Tenochtitlan in mid Winter, and the air tastes like gold.
(Poem #95 on new numbering scheme)
Rock! It hurts. It's moving. Is it gone now? No. Now it hurts more. It jumped into my shoe. I'll have to stop at that bench; sit down and try to fish it out. I've changed geologic history.
(Poem #94 on new numbering scheme)
Id, ego - both divine - vagrant thoughts seek apotheosis, but meaning's in decline; instead we make apopheny. Behold the landscape: green blurs, black lines.
(Poem #93 on new numbering scheme)
START: I was walking and smelled woodsmoke. That, and damp streets, brought memories: high school and the Pacific fog and walks and nights at a computer crafting programs like mazes. GOTO START
(Poem #92 on new numbering scheme)
Babbling silently at the heavens, an orange half moon gave solace to no one, not even me. The evening was chilly. I was not saddened. Souls did not dance. Liminal lurkings flowed.
(Poem #91 on new numbering scheme)
cars buildings traffic lights i see these things government and hope corruption and despair these things are invisible all of these are immanences they emerge wholly formed from our minds
I wrote eight nonnets as a connected narrative. I post them here, all at once. I think you might already know the story.
(Poem #90 on new numbering scheme)
The open fields. "Hey. I'm through." His hands shook. "I don't get it." Cain was so angry. The Boss didn't listen. Instead, the Boss turned away. This just made Cain feel angrier. "Why am I submitting these reports?" "Nice." He grinned. He looked up. The Boss was pleased. Abel thanked his Boss. "I worked so hard on that." "It shows. You did very well." Cain watched, beyond the cubicle. "This really isn't fair," he muttered. "What?" "Please wait." The Boss paused. "OK. What now?" Cain said, "Can we talk?" The Boss shrugged. "Don't bother." "You know the problem," he said. "Your anger crouches, there. Own it." Cain was stricken, and he skulked away. "Look. Let's meet." Cain gestured. "Maybe later." His brother nodded. "I'll call you, when I'm done." Later, he called his brother. "How about we go for a walk?" "Sounds good," the other said. "I'll be there." The two took the El down to the end. There were some open fields around. They walked amid the rubble. The older brother swung. He hadn't planned to. His anger won. Cain saw blood. He cried. "Hell." The next day, the Boss called Cain, at nine. He answered his phone, feeling dread. "Where's your brother?" the Man asked. "How would I know?" Cain said. The Boss was silent. "It's not my job." Cain went on. "I mean." "Right?" Another call came, some hours later. The police had found the body. They added up two and two. Cain was soon arrested. The Boss was there too. "Well that was dumb." He shook his head. "You blew it." Cain stared. Sighed. A few years later, Cain was homeless. His lawyer had gotten him off. The trial was a circus. It consumed his money. But his guilt plagued him. Cain crouched, sobbing. "I'm stupid." He spat. "Why?"
(Poem #89 on new numbering scheme)
Some nonnet: I wrote it in an effort to improve my skills, capture the world I see, increase my self discipline, and express my shifting feelings regarding the meaning of my life.
(Poem #88 on new numbering scheme)
Dream: I lay fearfully - my mind empty - under a table. I was only a child. Other children yelled at me. I felt compelled to speak to them, but no words came out - I'd become mute.