Author: Byungafallgren

The Days When the Stars Wept

~ Byungafallgren ~ 6 Comments

The Days when the Stars Wept

To be a youth was a curse in nineteen-sixties
in the tiny corner of the world;
the peninsular divided in two, South and North;
joining in the bloody demos, after school hours,
like extra-curricular classes.
mostly out of patriotism; to rebuild the loose system.
the more often the parties went on, the more of them 
fell, the petals in the storm.
Everyone prayed in silence for miracle, to save them.

Then the time had come;
the night sky above the city was blazing;
the air smelled of gunpowder.
Everyone's heart leaped, but no one 
talked about it, in fear of the dark net
that might swallow them. 
the old leader's demise, and the General assumed
the Blue House as the frontier of the new age.

Many years later, the childhood friends still gathered
in memory of their brothers 

who vanished 
in the night wind. 

©Byung A. Fallgren

Selkie Weaning Young (Redux)

~ Byungafallgren ~ 2 Comments 
Selkie Weaning young (Redux)
Diana Khoi Nguyen

Finding her hide we trailed
                    finger down then against
     grains of fur thrusting shoulders into its waxy skin.
                This is how she found us 
            the past draped about us like a cloak
hands separating peach halves from a care.
              her form in the sound
a pandan leaf peeking through milk. The only seals in Vietnam:
                                               American men with green faces.


Ms. Diana is the author of the collections Root Fractures, forthcoming 
in 2024 and Ghost of (Omni dawn, 2018), winner of the 2019 Kate
Tufts Discovery Award, among others. She is an assistant professor
at the University of Pittsburgh.

Spring Hill Song

~ Byungafallgren ~ 2 Comments 
Spring Hil Song

Poems of 
the hills and dales
donned rainbow.
echoes in the clouds and hawks
glide in the sea of blue sky.
Even the lazy tumble weed
among the gorgeous maidens
can't help but dance in the zephyr.

Dazzling smiles of
the rainbow in the fields and dales;
celebration of the roots and seeds;
their survival beneath the snow,
more resilient and stronger
than the little stars in the night.

To begin the new life; to try again
the failed dream in the season gone;
to renew the lost love;
Mother nods in the wings of the time.  

 ©Byung A. Fallgren

Nearly or Surely Solved Mystery

~ Byungafallgren ~ 2 Comments 
Nearly or Surely Solved the Mystery

While visiting Son, we took the grand boy 
to the park, enjoyed the warm sun, geese on
the pond and took the photos. On our back 
home, we dropped by the store to get some 
soft drink. At home, we ate dinner prepared 
by daughter-in-law. That was a good day,
or so I thought. The grand boy began to get 
sick, then his dad also. We rushed them to
the emergency room. The doc. said they got
a food poison. 

We suspected the drink might have been 
contaminated by the unclean tank. But
why the rest of us who drank the same one
were fine? The food, I thought, might've 
been the culprit. We all ate the same food
she lovingly cooked for us.
Why the only two were sick? 

Jasmine rice, I pondered, the rice with 
the unfamiliar spices. I recalled when 
my son was on a business trip to China
he was very sick after eating food. 

I thought then unfamiliar food could cause
some people to get sick. Now, the jasmine rice
is not so unfamiliar, but the spices she lovingly
added to the rice might be.
Those spices, even to me unfamiliar, were 
from South Asia, the Indigenous ones.
The two might've been allergic to the spices!

All the people are the same in many ways,
but we have different perspectives, tastes, etc.;
one that is good to a person can be a waste to
others, even poisonous. 


Byung A. Fallgren

On Looking Back

~ Byungafallgren ~ 2 Comments 
On Looking Back

Yesterdays, 
forest of night
with the long days of rain and sleets
no one wants to visit, not even the
sentimental, old soul.

Don't look back, 
you urge, but the scar-ridden emotion
has no ear but wayward eyes. 
Tiny voice whispers:
In the spirit of hooting owl at dawn, 
do you see the gossamer of glim from
the pile of decaying leaves?

Hear the tiny voice of forgotten love?
Feel the little hands trying to smooth your feet
that went through many paths?

If none,
how 'bout grab one of the wounds
and turn it into a poem;  and 
look back again for more? 


©Byung A. Fallgren