Let No Charitable Hope
Elinor Wylie

Now let no Charitable hope
Confuse my mind with images
Of eagle and of antelope:
I am by nature none of these.

I was being human, born alone;
I am being woman, hard beset;
I live by squeezing a stone
The little nourishment I get.

In mask outrageous and austere
The years go by in single file;
But more has merited my fere,
And more has quite escaped my smile.

Elinore Wyle born on September 7, 1885, in 
Summerville, New Jersey, was poet and 
novelist. She died on December 16, 1928 

Ode to the Exceptional ones
of the near miss Victim's Story

They care and righteous;
they are invisible as air;

no one knows
where they are in this dry world;

some believes from heaven;
some call them angels of the night;

but they are there
when one needs.

when one is threatened by the tacky poison;
run among the harmless and helpless ones;

morning glories that bloom
to observe the world 

first thing in the morning
then close the petals to consider

when to grow mighty winged creatures.
they would be there right before

one gets down
by the sticky poison. 

©Byung A. Fallgren
 

 

The Monkey Show, social media

He feigns as if to save
   the baby monkey from drown;
rub, squeeze, the tinny blue belly,
   until the milk gushes out of the mouth,
cheeks, and into the pink ears,
   unaware of the viewers' horror-hit eyes.

his hand continues pinching; shaking
   the little animal. he might say: this is only a test
to see your reaction;
   a snake slithers out of his grin; believing
he could fool the eyes; not know the fact that
   to do what he has done takes
a heart of steel or stone.

Why would he presume we could enjoy the show?
Because it is October? Why would Halloween need
all those gores? Because some sick minds wield
the guns and knives at school and malls?

As there are many thorny trees in this world, so are 
   many marigolds that thrive on love; that need to write 
a poem to allay the heart; to get some sleep at night. 

©Byung A. Fallgren

   

Early October Mountain

Decades have gone, and 
you greet us today in the same way
you did on the days of unsettling;
the bear-rock watches the world
over the mountains,
the mystery;
has not been solved; or never will;

the sun's long finger stirs the brook,
smiles at the glitters; at the rare child's play;
the golden leaves listen to the water
that warns of the eventual bareness and
freeze of you and me.

But today, we will indulge in
your calm mature beauty;

and we will prepare for the reborn.

©Byung A. Fallgren

Like You
Rogue Dalton

Like you I
love love, life, the sweet smell
of things, the sky blue
landscape of January days.
And my blood boils up 
and I laugh through eyes
that have known the bud of tears.
I believe the world is beautiful
and that poetry, like bread is for everyone.
And that my veins don't end in me
but unanimous blood
of those who strange for life,
love, 
little things,
landscape and bread,
the poetry of everyone.

Rogue Dalton, born in 1930 in El Salvado, was the
author of several influential poetry collection. 
He died in 1975.

My poems and five haiku appear in this Weekly Avocet.
Thank you, Charles, Vivian, and Valerie, for choosing my poems.

–Byung A.

The Orchids
Jose Santos Chocano

Freaks of bright crystal, airy beauties fair,
Whose enigmatic forms amaze the eye--
Crowns fit to deck Apolo's brows on high,
Adornment for halls of splendor rare!
They spring from knots in tree trunks, rising there
In sweet gradation; winding wondrously,
They twist their serpent stems and far and high
Hang overhead, like wingless bird in air.

Lonely, like pensive heads, all featherless,
Loft and free they bloom; by no dull chain
Their flowers to any tyrant root are bound;
Because they too, at war with pittiness,
Desire to live, like souls that know no stain,
Without one touch of contact with the ground. 

"The Orchid" appears in Isaac Goldberg's Studies in Spanish-
American Literature (Buentello's Publishers 1920.)
Jose Santos Chocano, born on May 14, 1875 in Lima was 
Peruvian poet.  
 

Ode to the Kimchi

Don't spice up our food, they say;
what kind of people eat the cabbage 
looks like that? says a girl, wincing. 
But many Americans and others 
                                  love kimchi.
don't eat, if you don't like it;
no one force you to eat it.

With garlic, ginger, cayenne pepper
in it, kimchi is antioxidant.
If you don't like spicy red kimchi, 
then you have a choice--white kimchi.
yes, white kimchi. even kimchi has 
red and white. To make white kimchi,

use green pepper and pear for you and me. 

©Byung A. Fallgren