The Butterfly Card

The Butterfly Card

Eun Ji, I got the butterfly card

The Korean swimming in my mind

From watching too many romantic-comedies

Made in Korean, it makes me weary

Of how uncivilized and hungry I have become

How strange to be a poet

That I marvel most at happiness

At my most bitter hour

Like the divine sense with an appetite

For the most human hours

Pale stones of savage harvests

South American aromas and Taiwanese fragrances

The dancing burden of the dream of time

And how we lose a skin each summer

Only to climb into words once more.

The Business of the Recluse

(Brahmacharya)

The recluse is he who
loves nature more than man
for man is arrogant
and nature is natural

the recluse cares not for
the politics of civilization
and the inflated idea of

a currency that is not real
the dollar of this or that country
and imaginary territory
of this or that people

and imaginary Gods of this or that
origin, that is innovated
by this or that gestures
and who gets credit when

the credit is due to nature
the recluse not understanding
man’s self-importance
lives a life of contemplation

not only breeding for man’s dominance
not only mating for pleasure
but with an eye for the universe

and looking for signs of the cosmos
in nature and the history of man
and for the future that has yet

to be born, the recluse
has an internal being made for
not only for her personal affairs

but for wisdom, art, knowledge
and the formula of love that
could one day save humanity.

To All Good Nights

Good night, because we must
Say how to elude strife is to sleep
Father! They won’t tell me
What the light knows

That I shall never know –
Good night, I fumble at my spirit
As players at the chords & keys
Before they drop full of music

Before the end of poetry
Good night, prepare your possessions
You will not need them beyond here
Father! They won’t tell me

Why your breath is so timid today
What the light knows
That we shall never know –
Good night, we are dealing

With Imperial thunderbolts
With a fate that scalps my naked soul
The stars above my head
And my feet pointed to the sea

Good night, because we must
Not know what to do next
Father! In our hour of doom
All evenings steal our purple flight

Reasons profound and Daffodils
Good night – merit and fear qualifies
Humanity, to my beloved need
That never met a more sufficient proof
Than saying good night,
With but itself to rest upon.

Photo Courtesy: http://www.deviantart.com/art/Secluded-404857664

With Ourselves We Have Outdated Etiquette

I should not dare to be sad
So many the years gone by
The weight we bear is impossible
If we think we bear the most

But the truth is, it’s not us who have difficult lives
We are all dying every day
I should not dare to be so gloomy
While I encourage my friends

On different terms, we are who we are
Disappearing to ourselves
Unknowable, without friends and partners
I should not dare to be alone

With my insignificant Immortality
To withdraw is a worthless thing
Secure in our simplicity, we maintain control
I should not dare to be so unobtainable

That I never select others into my life
I must befriend the world, to begin to live.