The World Can Be a Better Place

Yes, there are innumerable reasons to feel worseAnd I’m not just talking about what’s going on in the worldSome of … More

Daylight Night

Daylight struggled to break through all morningInto the afternoon the clouds hold onStubbornly extending their unwelcome stayRaining down on us … More

Communion

In a cave here, on a mountaintop thereKorea lives in me by bits and piecesBite-sized chunks I can drink inMelts … More

The Same Language

It’s good to be back in KoreaA third time as charming as the firstLet the magic beginIn the fatherland I’m … More

The Circle

We all face each otherThe sun going downNot as wide a circle as it used to beNowadays a bit windedThe … More

Counting Back to Korean

There aren’t too many stars to countIf you believe in where you’re goingThe exercise of flying back to SeoulTallying suns … More

You Are a Star

It was the perfect way your body woreThe “I am a Star” T-shirt I brought to MadisonA collector’s item printed … More

Finding Peace

Floundering at the bottom of the darkest pitWhere he choked with every spluttered curseHis life depending now on letting anger … More

The Green Waves Roll

When they mow the lawns where the white crosses lieEach section of the American Cemetery at Normandy is cordoned offSeparating … More

Why Do I Shiver at the Site?

It gives me a chill, somewhat of a frightening shiverTo stand at the grave of a Nazi General and feel … More

Transportation Inspiration

Planes are for writing poetryThink turbulence encounteringPerhaps Death’s come a’knockingHis scythe gleaming keenlyBringing instant panic with stomach acrobatics An inspirational moment … More

The Burning

Merry Christmas, the card was white, like Madison snowAnd like snow does,  it’s become splotched with brown. I remember when you … More

Aftermath

At the rate they were rifling through the houseIt wouldn’t take them long for them to clean outEverything of any … More

Fall Apart

You may think your love’s perfectly pieced togetherThe final puzzle as pretty as the picture on the boxEvery curve and … More

He ha’awina ka’u i ka pō nei (I had a dream last night)

Where the world of aloha I’d knownFor most of my life fell awayPulled out from under me, the nasty trick … More

This Unknown Way

I glance behind sensing that I’ll seeIt’s only myself standing behind me I wonder why I should trust youNot knowing … More

From Words to Silence

I write to keep you safe, captured in these wordsI keep you leaving traces and love’s truthsYou live on in … More

Habit

Not this time. No. I’m done with all of that. I watched. Closely. I always do when I sit in … More

Transgression

After all the crying and cursingAfter all the anger and griefTime had the time to heal the woundBut what followed … More

And Again

To be that fool for love every timeAnd a slave to it just as oftenHow funny I remember afterwardO blind … More