Content

Buddha rang my doorbell

Smacked my face with

a bible and

Jebus offered me his blood

Sliced my arm with

a butter knife

I stood up

spat out

a tooth

When they sang

"We learn the tunes always

whether

      7 days under trees

      3 days inside tombs

Intoxicated with water

Somber with lotus flowers

      Life is, Love is

            Death is.

Of Kim

Forbidden (Foreign)

words

rang in every ear

hung on every tongue

So the peasant children

threw their life savings

rotten apples,

      pebbles

at a crumbling castle wall

the communist

continued his silent chess game

hurling pawn-corpses

into the bloody moats

to drown without mercy

The sound of

shattering joints,

      though loud

will not cover the moans of

ancestral souls

      trapped in silos.