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Notes From the Land of the Morning Calm

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From My Notebook

Journal Entries

Third Journal Entry (August 2000)

Second Journal Entry (July 2000)

First Journal Entry (June 2000)

Essays

Blackberry (Feb. 2001)

Creative Destruction (Jan 2001)

"Why I Want to Translate Korean Poetry" (Sept 2000)

Gravity and Poems (Sept 2000)

Notebook Gibblets

-These days I know that I don't know a lot more

-It happened again this morning so beautiful...nothing to say (sept 99)

-I don't like the cuckoo birds in the subway (sept 99)

-I hate the city-worker lady knocking leaves off the trees so she can sweep them up (nov 99)

-I love the pusher at the bus stop. Love more the poor woman trapped behind the folding door at the next stop, "ahh..aum..help" (oct 99)

-oatpillow (Paul cursing in Korean Class, dec 99)

-puzzle in a giggle box (Paul mumbling in Korean class, dec 99)

-no pong in my bap today but it turned out OK (june 2000)

-when I stepped off the bus today my glasses fogged up. It was that hot. (july 2000)

-a new experience, sitting by the air conditioner while its raining (july 2000)

-The organic layer was analyzed by TLC with chloroform/methanol (95:5) (found proofreading a friends thesis) (july 2000)

-so, what is if this TREE stands alone (feb 2000)

-the Chinese character for "love" is really complicated (ancient)

-Pythagorus said 10 was the number of truth... 10 dots stacked can make an equilateral triangle. In two dimensions, the same on all sides. (jan 2000)

-looking into the mirror this morning I realized I could only look into one eye at a time (mar 2000)

Poems

Pickleweed

pickleweed
bulbous and bloated
in the salt flats
low tide sandpipers
go for easier pickings on the beach
marsh rosemary
and time
spelled differently
garfunkle
and pale velvet
in late july
the fog clearing
this morning
an occasion
to desert thyme's associations
for hushed russian thistle
running through the cordgrass
sliding out over the mud flat
like the tide
gathering itself
somewhere else

Turkey Vultures

Bolinas-Olima Road, May 1999

in a deep breath pulling at the taste of the Snickers I bought at the market
swallow and the sweetness falls into peanuts and caramel
climbs a small hill to ease into recognizing the plastic grocery bag is
digging into my hand
a moment just long enough to hear the wind
rattling the Eucalyptus leaves
the faint blue of the sky
the heavy orange light holding down the green
Bolinas ridge

turkey vultures circling

pick at the muscle
holding these last impulses in the joints of sentences

peck at the bones
and there is

white

silence

and then the wind
rattling the Eucalyptus leaves
faint blue
orange holding down the green
Bolinas ridge

Things I heard at Doughnut Alley

The sputter and slurp of a thermos running out of coffee
and Bill talking to Dave about Redwood's JV baseball team
and the shallow sound of KNBR news
and a couple explaining to their son that he was going to have a new brother and/or sister
and how tricky that part was
and the couple asking the little boy if he likes the idea,
and him kind of saying, in his 3 or 4 year old way of understanding completely not everything, no
and the parents gently asking him why and the little guy rambling on about something that came out to mean to his parents he didn't like the idea of losing his top stop in the family
and mom coming back a few sentences later to say that he would always be bigger than the new arrival

and Joe, the retired cop, and Whyman, who's two sons play semi-pro ball, arguing
about whether a raccoon could kill a dog,
and if it could how big a dog, and if raccoons ever fought in packs to kill the biggest dogs, or if they only fought alone
and Joe and Whyman agreeing that raccoons were smart
and Bill filling up the thermos
and the click of it closing tight.

making alive an unoriginal unam

If a poet is anybody, he is somebody to whom things made matter very little--
somebody who is obsessed by Making...

--e e cummings

Dizzy-coffee-after-a-nap-afternoon
hail from the skies--
three or four of them,
blue, black, gray, and one to count for all the rest un-nameable
black birds wings buckling in the wind
whistling under the wind
ow pane
no pain
just the want to make

e plubus unum
and feeling all that
one with the universe and my mocha
and unmocha
just a cup of coffee
stuff

no
my
should exist, but it didanddoes,
today
beside the mocha
and in me
but not in the unme,
because unI, to steal, to barrow, no,
no, to incorporate,
things I find
into the unI,
is what is

not many am's in
the language these days
unbecasue there are
so many gopeople
and stoppeople
in the holy unwholly hole whole
in he and we
the unme
me
nothingthatiseverything
hardassoftrock
we can't unfind
just one
being
hav'in fun
making
alive
an unam

My Best Friend's Lover

I think, slow dancing past midnight,
with a woman in a white nightshirt,
that only smart people are confused
and dumb ones sincere
about giving red or even white roses.

Looking forward to morning,
I think that I am surely gowned and bagged,
and foolishness is strained orange juice
and saying "There is too much jelly in my jelly doughnut."
I think about hitchhiking from Anchorage to Kenai
and waking up to sweet oranges by the side of the highway.
I think about the set-net-sight, my foreman, Joe Thorp, the Vietnam Vet,
smoking KOOLS and drinking coffee black at 6 a.m., saying
"I was thunder and lighting once."
I think that real courage is tying a bowline fast enough
to hold a cork-line against a flood,
men I would normally call assholes coming in off a dark ebb tide,
and bitter wind warm with brave jokes. I think the hand moving down my back would disarm even Joe,

so I laugh a little, smile at my indulgence, my sincerity at the door, and wonder
about morning.

Beam Sa Gea Gok (Dead Serpent River)

From my notebook
Jan. 3, 1998

Sitting by Beam Sa Gea Gok (Dead Serpent River) at the foot of South Korea's tallest mountain, Chiri San. Looking up Beam Sa Valley toward the peaks and thinking about the hike yesterday, along one of Chiri San's many ridges.

Things I notice:

You're butt gets cold
sitting on a rock
by the river in January

Falling water
makes a lot of noise
but sometimes
the finches are louder

The clank of crampons
dangling from my memory
of the snow

The arch of a foot bridge
over a young river
in a steep valley

Green bamboo leaves under snow
in heavy orange morning light

Icicles under a granite boulder
checking gravity

Pine trees on a ridge
standing among the leafless maples

A few dead leaves
that haven't let go
this January

A bird landing
to dance on a cold rock

The river
cutting pools
deeper
before forcing the water
to move on

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