“Empty white paper,
a world of pure potential,
a world before creation,
this is the perfect moment for a poet.”
Poetry (2010)
Kim Yong-Tak
13 Poems on Friday the 13th in April
1.
Halfway through Poetry Month and nothing.
No poem each
day. Maybe next year?
Last year, a strong start and
a defeating end
And weak because
some were revisions,
not originals.
This year, after a slow start a strong end?
Maybe next year I’ll get it right.
So now it is time.
To begin.
Empty white paper. The perfect moment or something else?
NOTE: See last year’s attempts at http://simplyshorts.blogspot.com/
2.
It’s in between
the time it takes for
a butterfly to flap its wings
and revisions in your head,
a battle royale of second guessing
and darts tipped in a potion made
to paralyze one’s prey.
It’s in between that
a poem is lost
3.
Vested service or
ecclesiastical vestments.
Settled.
Fixed.
Absolute.
Except when they’re not.
4.
His big warm hand
covered mine the first time
It was comforting and electrifying at
the same time
A singular sensation
once
over in a second
or a millisecond
to be sure, fleeting
to be sure, never forgotten
5.
Once, I fell down the well and
immediately
regretted not listening to my mother.
I looked around.
Something resembling a giant
bunny was there. But he was no Mad Hatter.
And definitely no queen.
I felt in no danger in losing my head.
Soon a visiting priest gingerly climbed
down and
scooped me up.
No broken bones.
They said it was a miracle.
They said I was unconscious.
But I’m sure I was other-conscious.
6.
An intervention to an intervention to an intervention.
So confusing.
Was she on the wrong path, or were they?
Was she wearing rose-colored glasses when a microscope was needed
to see the fine details of reality?
Dreamkillers or voices of reason?
Are windmills tilting?
Or do we all ask too many wrong questions?
7.
A world before creation.
When it’s all possible and perfect
and exquisite and
then it’s not
an empty page anymore
and it’s not what was hovering
just beyond.
The words that speak truth and
soothe souls and make people
sigh or laugh or gasp or weep or
clap or love or
It’s not an empty page.
It is what it is.
8.
Spider dragline silk with
tensile strength of high-grade alloy steel
creates the outer rim of the web
prepared to capture and
allow natural death.
9.
They need to be somewhere beautiful
for just a moment
to be quiet
to be slightly sad
And wonder
when they crossed over
to join those
who are not essential
They gather in groups
in corridors
in cubicles
Then they make way
and
move aside
10.
Because of a boy
She roamed far from
her base far from
her center far from the truth
of her
And left no
markers
to find her way back
11.
Weeding my garden
can be no more tedious
than begging for words
from an unknown muse.
My back, however, remains
pain free
12.
Not yet waving the white flag
of defeat
but resolute that
next April
I will begin
on the first day to write
and scale any wall no matter
how tall
to cast
the first word
13.
What will come tomorrow?
Surely this exercise of 13 has
primed the muse
and tomorrow
some semblance of
poetry
will show its face.
