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Articles/Essays – Volume 39, No. 3
Tonkas
Editor’s Note: Please see the PDF below to get the experience of the poem that the poet intended.
| the real M.A.S.H fiction forests colonials raped harsh llbon-nohm-dil Hankuk and Chosun were bald all native trees Japan burned | |
| rice paddy foxhole frozen now gray red soil waiting for spring rain disappears under night snow smells of life it will create | battle-scarred country plants long rows of small scotch pines green and gray at night will grow into great forests line by line in row by row |
| Uijongbu Station shaved bald gray gourd bonging monk surrounded by meat breaths bundaegi cooked silkworms beats to blue subways rhythm | Mornings wet or dry crowded busy and quiet in one direction the crowds flow like small tired fish straggle home at night meulchi |
| uniformed students scramble through streets baggy eyed books pens pencils bags pause just a moment to eat spiced finger thick rice noodles | a modern nation stomps to a united thought apartment forests below Uijongbu’s hills fade I pour my cold spring water |
| sitting on my rock on my day off before church I watch the subway snake through the thin corridor a thousand armies marched through | an old man sits down legs cross pours water on head dreamy eyes look down his leather face confesses long days worked in the paddies |
| Hankuk now transformed M.A.S.H California copies not scrabby desert once it was plush verdant green now stark urban concrete gray |