Turkey-Day 2008

High heels, shorts and parasols stroll from shop to shop

Perusing protest pamphlets before they let them drop.

Students lounge in luxury, forget the bloody past.

Still barbed fences guard the tower:  freedom forced to last.

Cosmos under sycamore feels the silver shine.

Girls in pairs and triplets relax with cold rice wine.

Here they call it Chuseok, Thanksgiving at the graves.

Reverent parents, another chance to teach children to behave.

But by afternoon they’re drunk, lucky traffic’s slow.

A loudspeaker reminds the guests to pay for this year’s mow.

One asks if grandparent’s graves are a long U.S. drive,

I say we don’t even visit parents when they are alive.

Tradition hangs on mandatory days of industry closure.

All time off is gobbled up by familial exposure.

This may be better than the adulterous sneaks by home,

But leaves no time for adventuring minds to roam.

She comes dressed in black, with wings and bangs for hair,

Offering no snack, which stops your questionnaire.

The US occupies Korea for only four more years,

When we leave will it bring happiness or tears?

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The Spirit Within

Even when your life grinds down to bus stops, floating from one

job to the next, so full of required tasks that you become constipated,

that you relieve yourself right in the middle of a class being taught at

the house of a nice doctor, that you barely have the strength to play

Legos for twenty minutes before falling asleep right there on the floor,

that your dead love life isn’t even mourned anymore, comes this magic

moment of goodness, the smile from the three-year-old, the woman who

nods as she takes your offered seat on the 54, heading from northwest

to southeast, the shaking branch of the familiar sycamore, the thousands

of women who walk by, the noise of bouncing balls, dribbled home at

one thirty in the morning, waking you up, but part of that same natural

feeling that makes you aware again of the force that glues us together.

Even when your money dries up, and your house, and your dreams, and

your spouse, and the bus driver yanks around one corner, slams to his stops,

sending all but the strongest flying around, and your father got old, and your

family is dying, and the jobs aren’t enough, and your child is hungry, and

the gig is up, and there is no time left for pizza or beer, and the cute roller

skaters all disappear, this magic comes through in the shape of a squirrel,

or six walnuts handed to you by some new Buddhist, or a piece of cake made

of coffee and almonds gets handed across the old kitchen table, with love.

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The Innocent #1

There, at the rock, the innocent stands waiting

for what she’s not sure, but she knows the

man she once dreamed of could not be out

fishing until two in the morning, nor could her

busy parents be lured away from the fields by

the promise of money, nor her dreams fulfilled

in the rice paddy, nor will some Batman, half

hero, half millionaire show up, nor will wearing

a yellow, pleated mini-skirt and pumps attract

the type of guy she wants to spend the rest of her

life with.  She doesn’t see a salamander popping

its head up above a fallen leaf.  She hears the owl

call his hunting call instead.  Fog dampens night.

She can’t explain why she knows this is the place

she is meant to wait.  She can’t relax or even sit

without the pain of growth spurts ruining her

yearning.  No hikers present themselves, no slow

moving conversations, so she marches back down

to her lonely room, sits reading by a new lamp,

listens to her parents snoring, fully aware of time.

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Hikaru

One cherry blossom detaches, falls, a single unit

allowing fruit its space, starting its new journey: island

to reflecting pond, orchard to cottage yard, daughter to

lover, enhanced by the wind, if even for only six seconds.

Transformed to long-boned genius, long-yearning adult,

considerate friend, purple-green plaid from soft pink,

tan suede boots from four-petalled bloom.  Hikaru, as they

say in Japan, hits the town running, arms crossed, cradling

herself like the war-torn victims of Vietnam, but not

worn or torn, she flings enthusiastic youth toward

outstretched limbs.  She captures her beginning and future

simultaneously, shedding one form, embracing another,

sweating humid Spring, still awkward in this skin.

Descending unannounced, she moves among mere mortals

Spreading joy, quietly demanding obedience, offering all

in exchange for all.  Most can not accept, choose an

easier, less complicated path, but those brave-strong

souls born from deep roots, blessed metamorphosed

beings who join Miss Cherry soon realize, if for one day,

week or lifetime, their lives will never be the same.

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Jeju

We’re off to ladder-day playground, three days of bliss, but

can bliss be made over the ghosts of 1948?  We’re not even

ashore and visions of Navy shops landing blood-thirsty

policemen already dance over our slightly innocent vacation.

Five-hour boat ride provides re-acquaintance, so I ask

questions as if it was our first date.  When and how tower

over why, as I work to coax our brains away from the day-to-day

and into a place where bodily delights can shine naked, unbridled.

Spring water, goofy stone statues, like the Disney version of Easter

Island, orange chocolates, unique cakes, scraggly crags, and

one vast ocean await.  Someone drew a round-headed lady with short

hair on the back of a seat.  Yobo holds my hand, signs an email

“Your Lover,” and cares so well for Little Bear when he’s sick

or yelling out for Big Bear in his sleep.  Thirty thousand ghosts

take vacation, allowing beauty, peace, birds and humans to mingle

on this rock paradise.  We stroll, climb, swat mosquitoes, laughing

about the one Little James got, his first kill.  But that brings ghosts

back to your mind, unfairness, how lucky you are.  Ah, how lucky

to be safe, happy, soaked in love, a strange love, parental, spurts

of closeness, but mostly responsible, efficient, providing protection.

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Happy Birthday AJ

Arielle fills her coach with bills and coins

Quite aware of the heat emanating form her loins.

She may be happy, but not quite full up

Except the way she fills her C-Plus cup.

She hides beneath a Polo cap, so pink,

It makes the Gwangju boys stop and think.

She works hard to make a constructive day,

Like ancient princesses, she can really play.

She dreams of love, and wonders what it’s like

To ball on  Mudeungdan on a mountain hike.

She sneaks small moments of her type of fun

While others walk the shade, she walks the sun.

AJ has the most elegant fashion sense,

And when it comes to love her heart’s immense.

Now she has her secret romance team

That helps her get past rules, develop schemes.

Her life is like a game of spies,

To have fun she must avoid her parent’s eyes.

She has another member to help her now.

SO let me know what you need, or when or how.

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JHS at Three

Little bear runs and grabs a leg,

Positive that his enthusiasm will be met in kind.

One day he goes with Mom to paint,

Abstractions refined to shoes, eyes, creatures of his mind.

At three James H. is a bilingual juggernaut,

Racing from puzzles to Legos to playing with dogs.

He keeps asking when we will be back in Chapel Hill,

Watching deer eat, swatting golf and splitting logs.

He has two thousand tiny plastic building blocks,

But not enough to build the village of his dreams.

He asks he if he can take them home by plane,

When we say yes his entire body beams.

He has aunts and cousins and older friends aplenty,

But misses out on children his own age

Because Big Bear’s colleagues children are all grown,

And Gwangju nursery schools are full of rage.

Little Bear cheers Obama’s election victory,

Maybe hoping racism will even end in Asia.

For now he knows Pororo and Kokemon,

But also Elmo, Grover and Mickey in Fantasia.

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The Korean Crane Soars Again

One pair of the most frilly, zipped, leather shoes, mega-

high heeled, this being Gwangju, tightens calves, thighs,

buttocks on a swaying skinny-mini whose shape, though not

curvy, must be proportionally petite under her winter coat.

She waves a purple credit card, wears a small red bow in

very large hair, and you, waiting for number 54, can’t help

but shout an “Angyon Asayo” as her flowery tights, barely

nine inches in circumference, strut toward some lucky man

half drunk on soju at home.  Maybe he’s full-drunk as it’s

after seven, and that’s given him an hour to start the nightly

bend.  This town is soaked, marooned at the far end of the

economic lifeline that stretches from Seoul.  Here, where ugly

is pretty, thin is the norm, bushy pubic hairs bulge women’s

jeans more than men’s, and sex remains such a taboo, that

to mention the subject in public, or private, is akin to shitting

in your hand and throwing it at a grandmother.  Here, where

people live at home until they’re married, 186 love motels

thrive, keeping hidden the normal loving closeness God intended

all of us to celebrate.  Here, where feelings and outward emotions

are so forbidden that the inevitable pop of suicide soars like a crane.

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High Speed Korea 

The nostril-tingle that precedes teardrops forms

a crystal sensation, as you stand in front of your 9am.

You know there won’t be many more times to compare

hairdos , excuse toilet troopers, chastise tardiness, or

encourage students to be better at English.

Forces beyond your control conspired with forces in

your soul to scheme an escape plan, but your

conscious being would prefer to stay.  Bloody fountain

water isn’t noticed, as the pink, red, yellow leaves

of autumn outshine any suicide pool.  Scenarios

plow through your gut, palpitating heart, tear-

stained cheeks down at the end-stall in the

men’s bathroom between floors two and three.

Make little noise now, be a man, be brave, face the

rigors of your own making.  If those innocent yet

adult, yet naïve, yet experienced students are to be

expected to work for their grades, you better be ready

for the Korean work week, otherwise the thick-stained

pools that grew on 5-18-1980, may return as self-inflicted

wounds ooze crimson.  What a waste.  What waste.  Waste.

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November Song

Now the seeds that dropped so pure fling green leaflets up,

The pretty lady spied your act, but will not go out to sup.

The massive wave that buried scores of Myanmar’s hopeless poor

Moves west from China, now so dry:  expanding sands’ fake lure.

You sit and smile and rub yourself, a desperate, silly, fact,

A new haircut can’t hide the scowl, or worn out lack of tact.

Gut hangs out, hands are cold, your heart pumps formaldehyde,

A cultural box both tight and small exacerbates suicides.

The sniffing season has hit full force, the classrooms are ice cold.

No one tries to mitigate the bullshit you’ve been told.

So scattered brains lay warm and steaming, biology, of course,

Is the reason you eat alone, at the restaurant of remorse.

She wears black and he wears black, the suits drive away for lunch.

Your full-bran organic cereal in Tony’s tiger bowl goes crunch

Because sometimes you eat at your desk, at least you’re still alive,

But no one likes your research here, so dive solo swimmer, dive!

Not a single tennis court in town can be played for free

So you snuggle with yourself on the couch, dreaming joyfully.

You’ve had your run, the girls were fun, but the time was short.

Hyung Sun made sure that you were seen as an evil incompetent wart.

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Canary Row Hoe Ho

There’s a hippy girl in my class who wears Mao’s cap, dates

a long-haired boy and wrote a kick-ass environmental piece.

You’d like to poke through every long-leafed elephant-ear on

campus, stroking nature, this beautiful sub-plot, with hoe, adze,

al or clipper: chopping down in order to raise back up, involved

with earth as is intended.  Some say a new time has come, White

Buffalo and all. Consequences outnumber rewards at a twenty to

one clip, as Mongolians suffer from bad air and China’s expanding

desert, even though they’ve done their part to live in a preservationist

way.  But global means brutal these days:  global trade = wage slave,

global warming = no food, global war = death for the multitudes,

profit for the stinking rich few.  Love abounds in campus towns,

while “repo-men” reap millions, and songbirds still find seeds around

as legs spread out the leaves.  Our new man is African, and that’s

so fine with me, and babies laugh, and mothers smile, here in the

land of the free.  So what that free means money, instead of love

and food.  When no one has a dime to spare, friendship will lift

our mood.  Or will there be the occasional hijacked truck or plane?

Who cares as long as we can load up the kids, drive south to live

in a genuine, warm, Steinbeck-decorated pipe that used to be a drain.

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And I Love Her

Maybe she heard this from somewhere else,

Abbey Road studios, so gay, so creatively childlike

while musically pure.  Maybe  her sister told her, but

no matter now, it must come from me more often, so,

Kwang Suk, I love you.  I'm sorry six am comes so

early, midnight so late, I miss Hyuntay, I miss you more.

"No," I can't say no to a senior professor, so it means no

to my family, my heart.  No crying at work, except

quietly in stall number six, no time for a kiss, no less. . .

No new Korean friends, no Korean language class, no

research fellows no special nights out, almost no Lego

building, book reading, Lacrosse tossing, snowmen.

This is not my fault nor yours, it's simply part of a

culture I neither understand nor fit into, but repetition

repeats itself and this 20-liner is too personal for print,

too truthful to be used in class, to precise, didactic.

Shredded dreams of the idyllic professorial domain inch

into conversations, ruin the party.  Potential foiled again by

mysterious, emotive, defense system brutally lashing, when

stress piles, love time is lost, requests outnumber invitations.

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 Patio Drama

Well-cooked ribs, a perfect Bordeaux, and invited guests

sit under warm stars, relaxing in an urban sanctuary abutting the

fanciest jewelry store in the region. Up an elevator, then through

a top-end clothing store.  You are expected to stay all night,

keeping you away from your father-in-law’s massive 80^th

birthday bash, but words, which had failed you all night, burst

forth, blistering the jeweler’s “clients.” Basic addition (six men

plus six women = much fun) got broken apart, when what to

my astounded eyes should appear, my son, arriving asleep,

bundled in the arms of my friend’s darling wife.  That screwed

the ratio doubly, so being bored, you opened a barrage of truth,

crass, unapologetic, taboo truth.  Here, the list of taboos is forty

pages at six point type, on an A-4 sized, three column page.

You inadvertently stumbled upon a large percentage of them,

but, even larger than your personal sex life at twelve decibels,

was the truth component.  Truth is the pinnacle of gauche in

polite Korean society, (three skipping Dad’s 80^th!) where

graft, payola, bribes, and Hong, the Won-soaked pimp are all

accepted, while an utterance of truth at a party will get you

eighty-sixxed, strong-armed, shoved into a cab, and bid adieu.

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Marble Bench at University and 1^st

I walked downtown waiting

For my oil to change.

I ran into the watercolorist.

The same one I saw at the post office.

Other than a few artists

This town (the downtown part anyway)

Has nothing but bankers and weary workers.

Hard-working weary African Americans.

A student may wander down to a bank

And there are a few tellers.

Mostly there are hard-working African Americans:

Scuffed hardhats with dirty plaid pants.

Or thin corduroy coat, red and blue sweater

With Florsheim shoes and leather cap.

It's awfully cold today, except for the artist

Who must be hanging a new show at the bank.

Maybe I will shock her and walk

Across to say hello.  She'll think she's got a groupie.

She may even let me help her hang one or two,

It's bound to be warmer than this marble bench.

      Tragedy at Woodside

The Millhopper puffs

An ethereal mist into the night.

Insects forget the danger

And come on six point landings:

Secure at Dali Memorial.

Ants and uncles wait

Inside the terminal, protected

From the memory of fright.

Most are happy in art's custody

But one takes off, quite unsatisfied.

Screams of horror beg

Her not to go, but youthful instincts

Coax her to greater heights.

She clears the creek heading over trees,

Landing lightly under Gala's brush.

Eye-Level: Stack D, Library East

"Where is everybody?" asked the voyeur, not above suspicion.

"A mile beyond the moon" replied the Georgia boy.

"She was a billion dollar sure thing, not like other girls.

I wanted to take her down the thruway to Wonderland:

An encounter in Key West with the old man and the sea.

There is so little time in the lives of girls and women."

"Life is life," said the Georgia boy, "winner take nothing."

"I heard the general zapped an angel,

Turned her into Kentucky ham, a real Roman holiday."

"I have so little time (87 days) to find the crossroads

Out in mumbo jumbo.  I'll steal the smuggler's bible

And find the sneaky people by following the curve of the snowflake."

"Listen to the whispers of the player piano,

Take five smooth stones from Deep River,

Remember, sleep is for the rich, and don't forget

The protocol for a kidnapping," the mutant advised.

So off I went on a couch trip in search of a hero.

Across the river and into the trees,

Determined to be home before dark.

Suddenly, in the air, she appeared, the wine of life,

Sam's legacy, a small success, exclaiming:

"While still we live, let no man write my epitaph!"

Pablo and Max

This is the story of Pablo and Max,

They left New York City to avoid income tax

And gather some primitive artifacts.

They left in the rain in spring '52

And were seen in the fields with an African gnu

Admiring the shapes that came into view.

While Pablo was digging up red cube-like art,

Max drew some monsters on government charts.

(They looked like amoebas with elongated parts.)

The days were spent studying carvings of stone,

Or walking in jungles out on their own.

An artist knows how to survive alone.

Always popular with their new friends,

These two went about setting new trends.

They taught the natives how to pretend.

Unlike the scientists who went to steal,

The artists just borrowed that primitive feel.

A congenial arrangement, if not ideal.

Eagle Pond Farm

October in New Hampshire means colored leaves for kicking.

Donald kicks a few heading into town for cheese.

He notices that the antique dealer, once again, announced

The coming of winter by changing his sign.  It now reads:

"Driveways Plowed, Reasonable Rates."  The type of

De-evolution Donald appreciates.

Standard time ensures contrast, as autumn's last bonfire

Sends a leaf-shaped spark into the air.

A simple way of life is free to walk around without inspection:

So Donald does.  He checks out of Najur's General Store

With Gouda and N.Y. Sharp Cheddar tucked away.

He climbs up the knoll then down the driveway to the farm.

He kicks a pinecone to the safety of the woods.

He exhales steam that quickly disappears.

He can almost see ice forming on the pond.

Long Pond and Staub

If you drive south on Long Pond Road

From the lake, at the corner of Staub Road

There's a willow tree, that, as long as you're

A couple cars back at the light, provides a

Shade, which gives you a chance to think

About how sweaty you are on a

Great-lakes humid, July-hot day.

You might think back to the fourth when dogs

Chased ugly Americans away from pick-up

Basketball games, and ghost-white

Rochestarians donned their old fashion

Bikinis, looking more like work clothes than

Sexy swimwear.  A case of lubricated minute

Nostalgic tidbits was bartered for a laugh.

Then a horn blows and snaps you back to

A hospital balloon delivery you have

To make dressed as a pink gorilla.

What a wonderful summer job:  spreading

Joy while suffering so much humiliation.

Yet, it's worth the hassle to enjoy good

Times with folks who remember and care.

Red to Go

Cardinals don't visit often, but a proud male

Perched, inquiring about the weather, so I implied,

Through body movement, that this was a suitable

Winter retreat.  It's not Miami, and highs

Are in the 60s in January.  So he stayed.

He caught us on a clear day:  third in a row.

The reflections of a manmade pond (called Jacuzzi)

Must have drawn him.  The chow-chows were inside,

The rumbling of distant showers hit the walls

While wind chimes hung dormant in the still.

Cardinals signify a change in my life.

The last one I saw came by to tell me it

Was time to walk away from snowy winters.

This time I knew the new stuff was coming,

And the red-bird came to relax my nerves.

Sharp shadows move slightly with the leaves.

Our cardinal darts a foot above the rail,

Cutting the water with a flame.  A ringing phone

Beckons:  two weeks before I walk away, two

Weeks to wrap, tie, hug, make peace then leave.

La Jolla

One Beech tree separates the cold Pacific harbor

From a lighthouse that blinks white and turquoise.

Twelve knots of wind kicks the salt up.  Port lights

Warn planes, but a single starboard twice the

Width marks the length of boats passing.

Only pairs find such an April night enticing.

Earlier a rain heavied leaves that remain

From autumn.  New ones stretch out to guard

Their ancestors.  A few are more than one year old.

The lighthouse sends two different rays:

White glides across the ripples in a double-pump;

Turquoise snaps a single moment to sailors

Who find a type of relief in sleazy bars downtown.

Now a fog reminds the pair how eerie ports can be.

Blinking starboards try to find a place to land.

Seaplanes hangers wait for the marines to be sent in.

Chilled rocks seem immovable but they're not:  newborn

Leaves of Beech know nothing of it, and should not.

Life Sans La Mode

A leaf dropped straight down, slowly

As we whizzed by, 58 MPH.  It didn't

Twirl or flutter, the last leaf down

In Carolina this autumn.

It's been eight years since winter.  In

Gainesville or Tarpon Springs we didn't

Notice leaves.  We didn't have to

Explain to anyone.  Uninhibited.

Then Christmas trapped us.  A week

To joke about upon returning.  It didn't

Mean to force such cynical remarks:

Pondering, floundering, repackaging gifts.

It's been a year since the creative mode.

Apart from it, life's progressed:  sour to vile.

It didn't mean to leave me in the cold:

Creative forces have no bad intentions.

We broke up at my request.  Intentions

Were to lead a normal life.  I didn't

Look back, cry or wallow very long,

But life without it hasn't been the best.

New Potato

Just what are we supposed to

Accomplish

In this leftover culture?

Apathy soup or

Mindless decadence?  Meatloaf or gold?

Start modern traditions now.

Discover

Potential by ignoring

Everything they want.

Play hard then dedicate completely.

Jump off, get straight, share yourself.

Initiate

New dances for the timid.

Create vibrant space

And keep the space open to changes.

Publicize your ideas.

Saturate

Your neighborhood with abstract

Lifestyles made of art.

Drop the past like a hot potato.

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