Category: Nonnet

ㅁ
I was happily starving myself,
when friends and family took charge.
I was robbed, I tell you, robbed!
My freedom surrendered.
My resentment grew.
It's just not fair.
Leave me be.
Assholes.
Fools.

– a nonnet.

ㅁ
An eagle lurked on the metal arch,
that framed the dock by the green sea,
waiting for food to appear.
"Tweet," I said to the bird.
The bird ignored me,
but in moments,
saw something,
leapt up,
swooped.

– a nonnet.

ㅁ
A robin stood outside my window
on the spruce tree's bedraggled branch
and tilted its head at me.
"Tweet," I said to the bird.
The bird was alarmed,
and flew away,
unwilling
to stay
there.

– a nonnet.

ㅁ
Recreational asemia:
letting the meaningless language
flow past me like falling rain,
pretending that my mind
has the right pathways,
and can take me
to new thoughts,
insights.
Yes.

– a nonnet.

ㅁ
Summer has all its expectations,
accumulated pending tasks,
and they leave me overwhelmed.
So I procrastinate.
It's not fulfilling,
burdened by guilt.
Those lurking
projects
wait.

– a nonnet.

ㅁ
Maybe a frustrated guitarist...
the equine cowboy sought justice.
A radioactive horse
seems to have bitten him.
Swinging in on vines,
kabonger high,
he could yell,
"¡Olé!"
Bonk.

– a nonnet.

ㅁ
Bright
daylight
burns the sky
for all the world
around four AM
because the latitude
and the season of the year
and the awkward tilt of the earth
conspire to make the mornings early.

– a reverse nonnet.

ㅁ
As the international journey
fades from my recent memory,
I'm left with a detritus
of unused foreign words
that swarm, and pile up
against my mind's
exit points,
making
noise.

– a nonnet.

ㅁ
My
mother,
in Japan,
with a woman
who called her 'Florence':
then the dream unfolded,
and I was looking for cats,
searching in schools and bus stations...
the air all shimmery like amber.

– a reverse nonnet.

ㅁ
When I'm alone, I talk to myself,
in a continuous patter.
But around my deaf uncle,
I have to be quiet.
If I say something,
he'll ask me, 'What?!'
Then he'll want
to know
what.

– a nonnet.

ㅁ
Well, once every few weeks, or so,
the sun comes from behind the clouds,
to illuminate the world:
the north window turns bright,
in early morning;
the reaching trees
do battle
against
light.

– a nonnet.

ㅁ
In this one dream, I'm driving around.
I've got a bright blue rental car,
somewhere in vast Australia.
I find some Mexicans
starting a strange cult
near volcanoes.
They tell me
to get
lost.

– a nonnet.

ㅁ
The persistence of identity
can bother me when I wake up.
Am I the same person now,
that I had been last night?
Maybe I'm fresh, new.
With memories
given me
by old
gods.

– a nonnet.

ㅁ
No, I'm not really into the sun.
There's a reason I'm in this place...
this cool, misty rainforest
that beetles the ocean.
The sun annoys me.
It's like a weight,
pushing down,
extreme,
hot.

– a nonnet.

ㅁ
Machines covered the planet's surface,
an inorganic patina,
staining the hills and the seas.
They had overthrown those
who had come before.
Purposelessness
occupied
spinning
minds.

– a nonnet.

ㅁ
Sad!
Many
mice have died
while visiting
our well-heated home.
I put out traps for them.
They might find some kitchen crumbs.
But the traps have appealing snacks.
Snap! I think: "I'm a lousy Buddhist."

– a reverse nonnet.

ㅁ
There's a certain type of dream I have:
it visits me regularly.
I call it "Mexican Bus."
When I was young, I'd take
the bus all over
through Mexico.
Now I dream
bus trips,
dazed.

– a nonnet.

ㅁ
Sleep.
Jet-lagged,
overwhelmed
by work's routine,
I've been sleeping lots:
twilight through dawn's efforts.
Normally I'm up at 5,
but lately I sleep much later.
I wake up already exhausted.

– a reverse nonnet.

ㅁ
In the end, my travels depressed me.
Revisiting things left behind,
I had to confront losses.
Decisions were taken
that ended old ways.
In this new life,
set apart,
the past
rots.

– a nonnet.

ㅁ
with enthusiastic diagrams
I'm planning out my senescence
targeted losses of things
a whole, long catalog
abstract memories
fine procedures
old journeys
new thoughts
plans

– a nonnet.

ㅁ
I had a lucid dream this morning 
all composed of raw emotion. 
I knew that I was dreaming 
so I set myself some tasks:
experience fear;
cry in despair;
fall in love;
know joy;
die.

– a nonnet.

ㅁ
Back
at home:
I went off
to inspect trees,
the various ones
I've planted in the ground
at spots around my domain:
the oak, three maples, cherry, fir
these are alive. Others, not so much.

– a reverse nonnet.

ㅁ
Bands of purple line the sky up here 
beside our flight; below, Japan.
We'll leave the sun behind us,
and now insert ourselves, 
stealthy, like angels,
into the east
and darkness
and then
dawn.

Well, somewhere just south of Kamchatka,
I opted to boldly declare
a new, liminal approach:
an opposition to
exaggerations
of sentience,
and instead,
exist.
So.

Later, over the Aleutian chain,
there arose feelings of regret.
Baroque significations
unfurled their abstractions.
Inaccessible,
meanings were lost;
nothing left,
I sought 
sleep.

– a poem made of 3 nonnets enchained.

ㅁ
I actually feel less tired - I mean...
compared to my expectations.
Visiting my friends, perhaps -
these friends I'd abandoned -
recharged me a bit,
left me engaged
with living...
and with 
dreams.

– a nonnet.

ㅁ
Then I was so tired on the airplane.
I'd doze, immediately dream,
enchain strange mental symbols,
overdetermined signs,
archeologies
of lost cities,
but not real...
just dust,
light

– a nonnet.

ㅁ
the tropic rain made downward gestures
reaching wildly from bold gray clouds
to caress my car's windshield
and dodge the slow wipers
while the strong trees leaned
and cows waited
patiently
in green
fields

– a nonnet.

ㅁ
A flash of green, high up in the tree.
Lorikeets sometimes visit, here.
It seems an exotic thing,
now that I live up north,
up in Alaska.
Eucalyptus
leaves wave;
a bird
flies.

– a nonnet.

ㅁ
"You're just wanting to lock me away,"
my mother said to me, leaving.
At the home for the aged,
we'd discussed with the staff
various aspects
of living there.
I told mom,
"it's your
choice."

– a nonnet.

ㅁ
Guilt
lingers,
manifests,
and taking form,
breeds defensiveness,
and thus leads to anger.
You can't really solve this thing.
Instead, just try to ignore it.
Let it fade away like dusk's edges.

– a reverse nonnet.

ㅁ
while 
entire
surging seas
are crossed over,
something's left behind;
the affective anchor
lies abandoned alongside 
so many aimless skeletons 
trudging around and murmuring dreams

– a reverse nonnet.

ㅁ
looking down from the zooming airplane
we note each cloud casts its shadow
perfectly against landscapes
rumpled by the passage
of a time so slow 
whole continents
have drifted
like swans
past

– a nonnet.

ㅁ
there's a detachment that arises
when traveling to old places -
once willfully forgotten -
they're now resurrected
like shadow kingdoms
and there's nothing
different...
faded...
lost...

– a nonnet.

ㅁ
I have this one friend in Korea
who often speaks Spanish with me -
that's how we met long ago.
That language is rare here.
We met in Suwon,
one cold winter,
and we talked...
became
friends.

– a nonnet.