Winter, short poems #2

Below zero
yesterday
spring-like today
capricious 
old soul

Snow coated
street light
stands
musing like
a homeless man

©Byung A. Fallgren

Winter Remembered
John Crowe Ransome, 1888--1974

Two evils, monstrous either one apart,
Possessed me, and were long and loath at going:
A cry of absence, absence, in the heart,
And in the wood the furious winter blowing.

Think not, when fire was bright upon my bricks
And parts the tight board hardly a wind could enter,
I glowed like them, the simple burning sticks,
Far from my cause, my proper heat, my center.

Better to walk forth in the murderous air
and wash my wound in the snow; that would be healing,
Because my heart would throb less painful there,
Being asked with cold, and past the smart of feeling.

Which would you choose, and for what boot in gold,
the absence, or the absence and the gold?

Born in 1888, in Tennesse, the poet John Crowe Ransome founded 
The Kenyon Review and guiding member of the Fugitive. 
 

Winter short poems

The neighborhood
in the deep snow
sleeps
and dreams 
of spring

Snow coated pine trees
stand vigil
like
the sentries
of the forest

 ©Byung A. Fallgren 

Busy Tongue

If i speak as fast as my thoughts
i would be too chatty,
like bubbles a child blows out from the straw,
pop and disappear in the thin air; or a bubble 

or two snagged in the witch's wand.
turn to snake around the neck of an innocent one. 


©Byung A. Fallgren

I am Bound, I am Bound, for A Distant Shore
Henry David Thoreau, 1817--1862

I am bound, I am bound, for a distant shore,
By a lonely isle, by a far A zore,
There it is, there it is, the treasure I seek,
On the barren sands of a desolate creek. 

Although Henry David Thoreau was a poet, his most 
defining work was his book, Walden.  
  

Loving the Fresh air at 3 a.m.

At night, we tend to breathe more,
like a couple of bears in the den; filling,

the room with CO2 oh so quickly.

open the window and fall back to bed.
the cool, fresh air from the treetops rush in,
kisses my face; Mother Nature's breath;

Thank God, we still have some fresh air
despite the pollution we all produce.
Take a deep breath of the dawn.

Let the green angels scent the 
ugly air we emit, like the old stars;
I will plant in spring more trees. 

©Byung A. Fallgren