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NO I WILL NOT
NOTE: TODAY’S POST FOLLOWS BELOW: Dear poetry-lovers, Thank you from the bottom of my heart for following my blog. Some of you have been daily readers since it began 9 years ago, some are more sporadic or more recent followers. Thank you one and all. As you can imagine, it takes a fair amount…
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FOR SPACIOUS SKIES
It is a clear sign of my agethat I recall the hours we spentlearning about America, whatit stood for, how it was welcomingto immigrants from everywhere,why America was the greatestcountry in the world, and weincredibly naively ate it up.Vietnam brought us a large doseof the ugly reality of the modern age.Half a century on that…
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CEILI
He liked nothing more than slipping out the back of the Ritz Carlton and heading down Nonhyeon-ro, more alley than street, past the small bulgogi restaurant, and winding his way to Gangnam-daero 106, finally arriving on the great avenue, Gangnam-daero. It was buzzing with life at all hours, but in the early evening the Virgin…
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BASHO, REDUX
This poem was recently published in the first issue of a new journal, Punt Volat. You can find it here: https://puntvolatlit.com/issues/winter-2019 If Basho were here today, in this America, at this time, stop briefly and consider what he might write, how he would describe the faces of parents mourning children gunned down in random urban…
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FOR SPACIOUS SKIES
Two men, having reached an indeterminate age, sit on old chairs outside the small town grocery, it’s neon beer sign half, flickering, around the corner from the bank on main street. One, plaid shirt tucked in coveralls, one bib strap unbuckled, leans back, takes a turn on his long neck, his cane propped against his…
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FORGOTTEN PROCLAMATION
He was quite tall for then, even tall for now, and that hat must have added almost a foot, a mortician likely as not, if not a lawyer. He wrote eloquently, even if his voice was not quite of his stature, his words always had impact, digging in the gray and blue bled soil of…
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DROWING ON DRY LAND
Cities should abut rivers. The better of them do, and the best still have rivers running through them. That is the nature of a great city, it allows you to look at a river from both of its banks, and still be in the heart of the city. In Europe, this is an expectation, it is…