Shadow (From Substance, Shadow, and Spirit, by Tao Yuanming.) There is no way to preserve life. Drugs of immortality are instruments of folly. I would gladly wander in paradise, But it is far away and there is no road. Since the day that I was joined to you We have shared all our joys and pains. While you rested in the shade, I left you a while: But till the end we shall be together. Our joint existence is impermanent: Sadly together we shall slip away. That when the body decays Fame should also go Is a thought un-endurable, burning the heart. Let us strive and labor while yet we may To do some deed that men will praise. Wine may in truth dispel our sorrow, But how compare it with lasting fame? "Substance Shadow, and Spirit" appears in Arthur Waley's A hundred and Seventy Chines Poems (Alfred Knopf, 1918). Tao Yuanming , also known as Tao Qian, is believed to have been born in the year 365 in China. He is one of the great hermit poets of ancient Chinese literature. He died in the year 427.
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Double Disaster
Double Disaster difficult to buy a book at Amazon hacker's game have a cold and hay fever at the same time War in winter
Worry is not total Waste
Worry is not total Waste frog song lost its fantasy why wail? sky is hazy and the air smells of smoke bright red sun deer-eaten tulip and withering forsythia bloom roots are still alive ©Byung A. Fallgren
The Days When the Stars Wept
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)
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.
May
May all night long gutter drums with drizzle Mother's heart Mother's Day poor daughter sends her selfie with a love poem Mother thinks that is the best gift she's ever received ©Byung A. Fallgren
The Weekly Avocet
Spring Hill Song
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
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
Byung A. Fallgren 