Caveat: Nonnet #62

(Poem #87 on new numbering scheme)

The big typhoon failed to reach Seoul.
We just had some overcast days.
Down south, the storm struck Busan.
The sea stole a few souls.
Up here, the sky cleared
to perfect blue.
A cool breeze
pulled down
leaves.

– a nonnet
picture

Caveat: Nonnet #61

(Poem #86 on new numbering scheme)

My tendency to procrastinate
can serve me well in Korea,
although sometimes it doesn't,
and then I will end up
feeling some regret,
when suddenly
I find out
something's
wrong.

– a nonnet
picture

Caveat: Nonnet #60

(Poem #85 on new numbering scheme)

I was walking home from work just now,
and someone's extremely small dog
ran at me, barking loudly.
I was startled and yelled,
which scared the people
whose dog it was.
My mood slipped,
wobbled,
crashed.

– a nonnet
picture

Caveat: Nonnet #59

(Poem #84 on new numbering scheme)

They say Dangun's mother was a bear.
I guess she spent time in a cave.
There was a tiger there, too.
But he wasn't patient.
So he ran away.
The bear waited.
A long time.
At last.
Light.

– a nonnet
picture

Caveat: Nonnet #58

(Poem #83 on new numbering scheme)

How many scared feral cats there are
around the city of Goyang,
leaping among the shrubs?
Maybe not that many,
but it seems to me
they should be kings
here because
they are
cats.

– a nonnet
picture

Caveat: Nonnet #56

(Poem #81 on new numbering scheme)

Some landscapes of the Quattrocento
- those by Giorgione or Titian -
are conjured by autumn's light,
in the midafternoon,
when gazing at trees
incidental
to a vague
background
haze.

– a nonnet
picture

Caveat: Nonnet #55

(Poem #80 on new numbering scheme)

This one tree that I frequently see
is always my first sign of fall.
Just a few leaves near the top
surrender to an urge
to paint themselves pink,
yellow, red and
some peach-tinged
thrusts of
gold.

– a nonnet
picture

Caveat: Nonnet #54

(Poem #79 on new numbering scheme)

Blink.
Sit up.
It's morning.
Now I'm awake.
The pain of sleep fades.
My body needs to move.
One shoulder resists movement.
I finally begin to rise.
The first thing is to make some coffee.

– a reverse nonnet
picture

Caveat: Nonnet #53

(Poem #78 on new numbering scheme)

I walked home amid a steady rain.
A strong scent littered the sidewalks:
dawn redwoods - in Linnaean,
called Metasequoia
glyptostroboides.
like Humboldt trees,
the smell takes
my mind
home.

– a nonnet
picture

Caveat: Nonnet #52

(Poem #77 on new numbering scheme)

The challenge in writing is to find,
like a big clump of pocket lint,
those specificities which
capture a reader's mind
so it's glad to fall,
a child laughing
and leaping
into
leaves.

– a nonnet
picture

Caveat: Nonnet #51

(Poem #76 on new numbering scheme)

It might be impossible to see
the world as if it were a song.
Nevertheless, strings of words
mark out our daily world,
like viny hedges.
Ubiquitous,
poetry
can't be
seen.

– a nonnet
picture

Caveat: Nonnet #50

I kind of forgot to post on my blog earlier today. I got distracted by something inside my brain. So here’s a nonnet, anyway.
(Poem #75 on new numbering scheme)

I know when I walk to work each day
the best route is based on timing.
The intersections are slow
if you miss the signals.
The first light I meet,
exiting my
apartment,
sets my
path.

– a nonnet
picture[daily log: walking, but not to work]

Caveat: Nonnet #49

(Poem #74 on new numbering scheme)

Today in an email someone asked,
"How do you get from A to B?"
He meant emotionally.
I think there's no movement.
You just teleport,
like first dying,
then coming
back to
life.

– a nonnet
picture

Caveat: Nonnet #48

(Poem #73 on new numbering scheme)

"Wait,"
I say
to myself.
"Buy it later."
I'm out of butter.
So for a day or two,
my oatmeal has no butter.
I don't know why I do this thing:
my system of small asceticisms.

– a reverse nonnet
picture

Caveat: Nonnet #47

(Poem #72 on new numbering scheme)

Death.
"Oh my.
That's not good."
She made a face.
"But it's upside down."
I pointed at the card.
"True," she admitted, smiling.
The Tarot card looked so scary.
"It means you should be dead. But you're not."

– a reverse nonnet
picture

Caveat: Nonnet #46

(Poem #71 on new numbering scheme)

There is a song about Bob Dylan.
Its title is "Diamonds and Rust."
Joan Baez wrote the lyrics
and sang the moody song.
The MP3 track
plays on my phone.
I watch clouds
shaped like
sighs.

– a nonnet
picture

Caveat: Nonnet #45

(Poem #70 on new numbering scheme)

So.
One day,
Beowulf
decided that
he should probably
just give up on monsters.
He moved down to Italy,
and rented a Tuscan villa.
Still, some nights, he awoke from bad dreams.

– a reverse nonnet
picture

Caveat: Nonnet #44

(Poem #69 on new numbering scheme)

I looked up at the sky forelornly.
It was supposed to rain today.
There were only a few clouds.
I felt a slight breeze blow.
A magpie strode past,
head cocked down.
Just a flash:
some blue;
black.

– a nonnet
picture

Caveat: Nonnet #43

(Poem #68 on new numbering scheme)

I'm not a hero like Gilgamesh.
Not once did I battle monsters,
although sometimes I have died,
journeying like a ghost
through the underworld
like Enkidu,
that loyal,
friendlike
dog.

– a nonnet
picture

Caveat: Nonnet #42

(Poem #67 on new numbering scheme)

I was struck with a weird nostalgia
as I walked toward Jeongbal hill.
I sat on a bench and watched
the people going by.
The overcast sky
seemed to convey
a kind of
empty
pain.

– a nonnet
picture

Caveat: Nonnet #41

(Poem #66 on new numbering scheme)

The biggest holiday of the year
in Korea is called Chusok.
This year it's a bit early.
"Korean Thanksgiving"
celebrates harvests
and ancestors,
so people
travel
home.

– a nonnet
picture

Caveat: Nonnet #40

(Poem #65 on new numbering scheme)

No
lo sé.
De veras,
no sé porque
no sé, tampoco.
Sin embargo, puedo
imaginar razones
porque no sé. Por ejemplo:
penas epistemológicas.
I
don't know.
Truthfully
I don't know why
I don't know, either.
Nevertheless, I can
imagine some reasons
why I don't know. For example:
epistemological troubles.

– a reverse nonnet, in Spanish, with a properly-formed translation into English
picture

Caveat: Nonnet #39

(Poem #64 on new numbering scheme)

Recently I read the tide's turning
among linguists, who now reject
Chomskyan orthodoxy.
That linguist's ideas
about how words work
always seemed wrong.
I think words'
syntax
drifts.

– a nonnet
picture

Caveat: Nonnet #38

(Poem #63 on new numbering scheme)

I had let my nonnet-writing slide
during the last several days,
but I wrote this here nonnet
during a break at work,
just now, to have one
which I could post
on my blog.
It's not
good.

– a nonnet
picture

Caveat: Nonnet #37

(Poem #62 on new numbering scheme)

I had never intended to age.
Yet each year slyly captures me.
It tends to be annoying.
Nevertheless, I cope.
The main thing: just breathe.
If you do that,
you can live
till next
year.

– a nonnet
picture

Caveat: Nonnet #36

(Poem #61 on new numbering scheme)

North of the Ten Freeway at Rosemead,
a place redolent of regrets,
honeysuckle and asphalt,
I received some treatments
which electrified
the aches and pains
which haunted
my lost
mind.

– a nonnet
picture

Caveat: Nonnet #35

(Poem #60 on new numbering scheme)

I was gazing up at the green trees,
meandering to work one day,
and that Lou Reed song came on.
"What makes a perfect day?"
I wondered and thought:
"Not.much more than
quite simply
saying
so."

– a nonnet
picture

Caveat: Nonnet #34

(Poem #59 on new numbering scheme)

In my most advanced Tuesday cohort
there is a student named David.
I think he's full of anger.
When he gets a low score
his face scrunches up,
he shouts at me,
he hits desks,
he cries,
"No."

– a nonnet
picture

Caveat: Nonnet #33

I made this nonnet after reading the article I mentioned in my previous blog post.
(Poem #58 on new numbering scheme)

A new rain of unfortunate ants
has arrived, my fellow workers!
Let's welcome them to our dark
yet thriving, cold abode!
Let's show them the walls!
Let's move this dirt!
Let's begin
to eat(,)
ants!

– a nonnet
picture

Caveat: Nonnet #32

(Poem #57 on new numbering scheme)

Grasping the atmosphere like despair,
the humidity guards the dusk.
The equinox approaches.
A hazy twilight hangs.
My expectation
helps me walk home,
awaiting
longer
nights.

– a nonnet
picture

Caveat: Nonnet #31

(Poem #56 on new numbering scheme)

While
the sun
was glaring,
a cloud drifted
meditatively
across a hazy sky,
but the cloud failed to commit
to any kind of rainmaking.
It felt no inclination for mud.

– a reverse nonnet
picture

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