What dwell amid the rows of cement collars,
astride the mounted hills stepped with sustaining grass
and winding from the Seoul of late descent
came by morning of early trained mass?
Then met by Ahn the mentor and more, the idiot
when drovely driven to yellow the monkey’s crevass
did tremble to the sea by road and harried trail
and plunge into [...]

An Ode to Allen

Steeped in 500 years of Confucianism
The heritage of a dynastic Yi hermitage
Indoctrinated its population in the prism
Of expanding stasis, getting on in age.

Here begins the story of Horace
As he happed on the hapless case
Of Kojong and his hermit race
In a time of encroaching barbarians and Yi’s passing grace.

Entering on a medical ruse, [...]

I remember following up the long incline
Of cement stairs
Along the steep sided alleyway
To the peak of our expression
And the open expanse

I recall the lights of Heuk Seuk dong
Staring up at mid night
Arcing like an amphitheater
With the dark stage reflecting stars… wobbling
The light movement of shades across the Han

I remembered your ballet
And the blackness of your [...]

On a warm twist of winter
At 5:30 in the morning of Korean calm
An early bus slips past the chot noon [first snow]
Sailing down in windless clusters
Like whispers
Wetting windshields,
Highlighting the beaming headlamps
And washing by the well lit emptiness within…

It greets the faces of early commuters
With little welcome-to-the-day kisses
And brightens the pre-dawn
Sleepy-eyed alleys and avenues…

It alights on [...]