Wednesday, April 16, 2014

Three poems ----- Koon Woon



Love me when I am old



No need to love me when I am young,
because I can only love myself then.
No need to kiss me under the apple bough,
as any pair of fair arms would me arouse.

But love me, love me when I am old,
when the extremities of me grow cold,
when neither food nor drink will do.
For all the years that we drift through,
pretending we each other didn’t know,
now love me, love me as we stand in snow




Unnamed

Static as Buddha
inert as a rock
I move you not,

But snow melts
and rains fall
on mountain top,

Even as I breathe
vapors of December –
that after taste

of my days, I hold
you in memory
as a photo in wallet.

Oh come run with me
for a day more
in the valley

And linger there
as the ice melts
and snow dissipates.




How like a clearing in the woods


On the 10th day of the 19th year we finally stumble
out into a clearing

The remaining men shrieked like children
as our captain in full beard

Supplicates to the blue sky

We had killed our imagination for otherwise
the numerous cries of the jungle
haunt the years we are forgotten

As men on expedition

And finally we have each our own place
even though as our neighbors

Have changed to the right of us
to the left of us

And the truth now is to put our machetes
down, disrobe, and cleanse
ourselves

In the creek
with the dense foliage of the jungle
behind us

amid the fearsome flights of Gothic
bats and growling bears

But now our wise captain leads us
into this clearing

Where the light is right for a van Gogh
the price is right for a Picasso

And on this 10th day of the 19th year
we cry, but we no longer know
why we are here

We will go back into it for another 19 years.

3 comments:

  1. Love your poem, "Love me when I am old"

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  2. For those of you Koon poetry followers, he will have two poems in an upcoming raptor anthology, called Prey Tell. More on this soon. The anthology is a fundraiser for the Owl Moon Raptor Center in Boyd, MD.

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