Black like the Canvas of Night poems

Eun Ji, my somber heart seeks an always
That’s what literature is to us isn’t it?
A lifelong friend that never leaves us
So long as we don’t stop writing

There are many drugs and games in this world
I learned about life from life herself
She was dressed in black like a love
That is a clash of lightenings

But art is a feat of pain
And I’ve loved the world without knowing why
And maybe loved the words
Only as a poor substitution for experience

A kind of poverty, that became my only wealth
While lovers left me and my parents died
I remained the friend to literature
And poetry well, it stuck in my mouth

Like the taste of our most familiar beloved food
The cherries of summer, and blueberries of autumn
And my love, it feeds on what you love
The writing in us is a secret between
The shadows and the soul of distant suns.

Seattle Diaries

Eun Ji, I fear the richness of the mouth
That I love too many things
To kiss any one of them properly
The snare of my love for literature

Is then songs in me that prove relentless
O, I have forgotten all praise
But as a betrothed prayer
I melt as the seat of all goodness in me

Eun Ji, how I wish to read your autobiographies
Every inch of your memories
That our ancestry shapes us so intimately
The words that come from hearts and countries

Cleansed from regret will we wash
Our wounds in the ocean of all of us?
The deep seated womb of time will
Bury on, in blood and sunburnt grasses

The fear of change in us will too be overcome
By life’s ministry of new moons and traversing birds
We’ll go on thinking of love, beauty, sorrow
And in the lost delight and unwon splendour

Of the stories we create, we’ll be
The departure of words into experience
Where nothing is forgotten and remembering means
Creating new layers of memories

Memories as awkward as the flesh
Experience that burns waiting for music.