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Love Song

by Suchoon Mo

let the very silence
of a solitary bird
soaring in the sky
over the frozen land
be the song of love
too painful to sing.

First published in The Blue House, June 2006

Musical Landscape

by Suchoon Mo

her name is elizabethelizabethelizabethelizabeth
a coal train is coming
a long snaking coal train is coming
a coaltraincoaltraincoaltrainicoaltraiin is coming

elizabeth is watching a coaltrain
elizabeth is watching a coaltraincoaltraincoaltraincoaltrain
elizabethelizabethelizabethelizabeth is watching
a coaltraincoaltraincoaltraincoaltraincoaltraincoaltraincoaltraincoaltrain

where is barbara?
barbara is in a coal train
barbara is in a coaltraincoaltraincoaltraincoaltrain
barbarabarbarbarabarbarabarbara is in
a coaltraincoaltraincoaltraincoaltraincoaltraincoaltraincoaltraincoaltrain

First published in Subterranean Quarterly, 2006

DESTINY AND DESTINATION

by Suchoon Mo

I have no inspiration
it has expired

I used to have a theory
about something
or something else
it drifted away

I have no need of enlightenment
or awakening
or nirvana

wisdom is a fraud
once spoken or understood
or practiced

a stray dog
or a stray woman
or a stray shadow
may follow me
my destiny
has no destination
my destination
has no destiny

time is not what
time is when
now is now
now is just now
one day passes one day per day
one second passes one second per second
one day is just one day
one second is just one second
time is not speed limit

I am here and now
that does make no difference
I am not here and not now
that does make no sense
ultimate truth is not true

tomorrow and yesterday
they may dance together
until today is gone
or will never come

I am indifferent
to comedy or tragedy
life is neither a drama nor an opera
I have no need of stage

I am real

First published in Dissident Editions, 2007

Suchoon Mo is a former Korean Army Lieutenant and a retired university academic living in the semiarid part of Colorado. His recent poems appeared in East and West, Bitter Oleander, Taj Mahal Review, Religious Humanism, Thunder Sandwich, The Blue House, Verse Adagio Quarterly, Erbacce, Spillway Review, the Stylus Poetry Journal, Word Riot, Word Myth, Underground Window, Tryst, Subterranean Quarterly, Orange Room Review, Round Table Review, Strange Road, Feathertale, Dissident Editions, Snake Skin, Flutter, Poetry Cemetery, and others. His music compositions appeared in Unlikely 2.0, Mad Hatters Review, Sage of Consciousness, Strange Road, The Adroitly Placed Word. He has no formal music education.