Koon Woon June 1, 2024

Poem _______________ David Gilmour

 

DEPTH GAUGE

 

Standing on the sunlit bank

Throw yourself into the stream, shadow and all

If you are in substance ready to plumb the depth.

The experience you suffer daily is enough to appall;

Immersion in that material swamp—contents not forms.

Viewing the off-season family theatre from the crack

In the stage door; star-struck neighbors hanging round,

Stiff with drink, animated bags, stalking before the flood-

Lights and backtracking into the barren set.

There’s furniture, sure, the place is packed,

Furniture and pictures just for the sake of mood.

 

You are seeking contact with the wild world,

Aren’t you? I mean beyond the daily tragedy,

Where unnerved Furies can be temporarily tamed

By gutbusting laughter, or where a saint, crowned

By an atom-bomb blast, stands as an icon on a knoll,

Glowing like the beaming Dalai Lama in Dharamshala.

Hey! Forget those black-light dashboard skeletons.

In this scene The Presence smiles a happy refugee.

 

Do you really need the wisdom of bombastic Agamemnon?

Foreverafter fearful of the backyard bathroom?

That cannot help much.  Noooooooo!

For the scientist and the poet,

Creative data abounds

To study humankind in ways beyond the norm:

You know, fragrant thoughts of forests in Borneo;

An FM-band humming B. B. King, the blues bard,

Singing “Hummingbird” just on the verge of twilight

Greening.

 

Come on then!  The horned Bull has been sacrificed,

The Ram has run,

The Fish have played upon the horizon

In spring morning’s celestial stream.

If you are going to enjoy the Waters,

Fall, sun at your back,

Throw yourself in, shadow and all.

 

David Gilmour

 

 Koon Woon in Quail Bell Journal:  http://www.quailbellmagazine.com/the-unreal-20/poetry-seattle-3-poems-by-koon-woon

Julie Dickson ________________________ three poems

 

Earth sadly

 

I am the earth sadly waiting to die

below a vast canopy of green leaves;

flee from here into expansive blue,

revel in the view, expanse of kestrel

wings, shimmer of sun in knowing eyes;

he sends me back, time not yet over.

 

Sit upon my rocks far out on sea

island, jagged edges biting flesh, raw

memories run marathon, overlap,

collide, reality crashes - the past

cannot separate until a whale breach

sends spray, sea mist awakens; stand

 

high on melting glacier, feet frozen, boots

rated for below zero don’t cut it, won’t

feel toes nor fingers, numb like each time

gunshots heard, screams of children, knives

slice silent shouts of protest, unappeased

masses, more weapons amassed to destroy

 

what semblance of calm remains as blood

drains, rivulets careen down streets, footprints

mark path of humanity, destined to

destroy species without habitats, elephants

perform under duress, bears feast as birds

peer down from canopy of leaves, I expire

 

slowly, painful floating waves of plastic,

discarded refuse in belly of sharks, oil

slick pelicans suffocate, death on sand –

no matter ancient commands of worship,

humans once knew my worth; still progress

into state of ruination, await my demise.

 

Julie A. Dickson

Exeter, New Hampshire

 

 

freezing to death

 

if i lie down in snow

will fire still burn,

harsh embers

igniting

a frightening

explosion, white flames

erupting, disrupting

coherence

will fire still burn

if i lie down in snow?

Julie A. Dickson

  

Vigil

 

Barren the dunes,

landscape of emptiness,

devoid of humanity,

lighthouse keeps vigil,

watchful over ships and sea birds,

blue horizon meets sea of hopefulness,

lighthouse calls out, answering the waves

 

 

Julie A. Dickson

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Poem __________________ David Mason

 

A Mathematical Abecedarian Poem

 

A problem is to calculate the

Beta function at alpha = 1/2, where it is

Continuous, has a transcendental value and is

Divisible by Beta at 3/2.

Easy enough using

Familiar properties of this function.

Galois theory does not come into play nor do

Hilbert spaces and their special properties.

Indivisible numbers, as well as,

Jordan curves should be avoided. You might get sucked into a

Klein bottle and never get out.

Latin squares may befuddle you or

Manifolds on Lie groups.

Never try to understand

Ordinary differential equations without

Practice in Fourier analysis and knowledge of

Quaternion valued matrices.

Riemannian metrics are essential in talking about

Space that is very curvy.

Time and time again they are

Useful in describing unexpected worlds.

Vector spaces are helpful too

When defining one’s place in space.

Xeno did not know about them when he fashioned his paradox.

Yet it confused philosophers long ago. By the way,

Zeno came up with the famous paradox, not Xeno.

Poem _____________________ Koon Woon

 

When you, when I …

 

When you catch me writing,

when you catch the wind,

a warm breath is blowing, &

birds flock over the land.

 

Though the political is absurd

and men often pitch dirt,

a raindrop of the good

portends a brotherhood.

 

Take this feather, my friend,

it’s preserved from childhood.

Recall fondly the days and nights

in this undertaking we call life.

 

When you, when I are far awake,

an opulent music we shall make.

And we will laugh and dance, as

Providence bestows another chance.

 

Koon Woon

E. Martin Pederson _______________ four poems

The Beauty of Books on a Shelf

 

pinetrees at the edge of the forest

ready to be felled

pickets in a fence

always white

dandelions in the grass

in a seaside town

in salty Maine

creases in a thick curtain

in the projection room (industrial marketing shorts)

the bored room

junior & senior yes women & men yesyesyes

coats on a rack

in the room in the back

where I am sent

for snickering

during story-time

in Miss Soite's fifth grade

and in the scoutmaster's mind

boy scouts ideally rigid

baseball bats leaning on a cyclone fence

then tall glasses on the bar

bottles in a supermarket with cartoon labels

in alphabetical order

one by one.

 

The Chill of the Sierra

 

is not cold

the sun's out

the night was damp

and the night was cold

the frost is cold

but now there's only a chill

the brisk air

the smell of granite

floor of duff

air you'd want

to share

in advertising

 

I can feel that fresh air

anywhere

everywhere

any and everywhere

 

 

Curse Immortality

 

There’s a sad sigh of relief at the end of every job

Like summer

Like a sealed vault at the end of a hallway

I’m glad to move the train, leaving another station behind

I only wish it would never end

This curse of immortality.

 

A Life Saved is a Life Earned

 

Everything around us is dust

we’ve only got each other

I will never let you out of my sight

ever again, all my days.

 

You are mine or I yours

proper and appropriate

went down with the cathedral

on the believers’ heads.

 

Never to separate, claustrophobic

two as one inside the other

I will never break my promise

you wear yellow rubber boots.