Short poem

There once was a bamboo ladder.
It reached up to the sky.
And the Japanese man
Did tricks on the ladder
And said what a good man am I.

Two little dickie birds sitting on a wall,
One named Peter, one named Paul.
Fly away, Peter! Fly away, Paul!
Come back, Peter! Come back, Paul!

Abraham Lincoln
his hand and pen
he will be good but
god knows When

Kwangju, 1980

Sarajevo, 1992

If I could catch the green lantern of the firefly
I could see to write you a letter.

Brighter than fireflies upon the Uji River
Are your words in the dark, Beloved.

Now footsteps on shingle. Make of it what you will. Seabirds roost
on the breakwaters, accustomed, of course, to twilight.
The spirit lamp in that house on the headland could easily fall and spill
and the fire burn all night. Some time later a subtle ghost,
yourself  in memory perhaps, might well set foot
up there amid clinker and smoke, the whole place silent and still
except you bring in the tic of cooling timbers, and then the birds in flight.

•

Now chains through gravel. Make of it what you will.

Soldiers never do die well;
Crosses mark the places —
Wooden crosses where they fell,
Stuck above their faces.
Soldiers pitch and cough and twitch —
All the world roars red and black;
Soldiers smother in a ditch,
Choking through the whole attack.