"Shijo poetry makes wide use of the conventional symbols of the Chinese tradition. ...the Korean poets took them and shaped them to their own purposes, often using them in an ironical way. ...This sort of irony is at the heart of the shijo tradition, and it goes a long way toward defining the Korean sensibility." --Kvin O'Rourke, The Book of Korean Shijo (2002)


    "What Condition My Condition Is In"

   Curviangular glyph, carved
on the threshold of an echo.
   Prismatic ozmazome, drown
my dark finisecular ore:
a tapestry of justice swift
      makes your ray dissolve.


            §


     "The Worst is Over"

Silver
tapestries pull down, draw
convoy fire way soon: road
of bad vowels. i know looming

bebop-wet snail foil; hook flaw lost
amidst vast weird roil. Go by plane
loudest nook, who saw veer
some coagulating dark.


            §


    "The Fountain in the Dark"

Coruscating flower,
galaxy not too close.
The pavilion

has struck camp,
its tidbits all eloigned.

Those gliding altars
dissolve
like silken iron.

I pull out a chair to wait for you.
Warm marble to roll on.


Autism Planet discovers Cniglic.