Dead for 17,838 days.

Dead for 17,838 days. Today, he reached down from on high and took hold of me.  I was seized with the power beyond understanding, love overflowing, and intoxicating satisfaction of selfless submission in exchange for all my fears.  The wonder of infinite wisdom, the mystery of unconditional grace and the mercy of utmost compassion took hold of me. He had planted eternity in my heart long ago so that I may yearn for him, to be broken, redeemed, and loved.  Desperately I cling on to the edge of His garment and never let go, can't let go.

Fifty Years Gone By...

Nineteen sixty-two 
In black and white gazing
Only twenty, mom
And dad not thirty
Wedding gown flowing
Among strangers staring
Fifty years gone by
Hiding in the attic
To promise land coming
Three little bundles in panic
Through the Bronx clinging
Many nights pain dwelling
Not knowing, not knowing
Never home was dad
Wonder how many jobs he had
And Sonia mom became
Counting garments made
Pricked by needles day by day
Fifty years gone by
Here we are today
Roaring trains overhead
To a house with white picket fence
Seven little bundles more
From the three you made
There is so much more
I can't explain
Green pastures and sunlight rays
You always made
Room with fireplace where we bundled
You always made
Backyard with open space
To run, laugh and dance
You always made
All these years
You carried your bundles
To bring them to a resting place
And there is so much more
I can't explain

To All Men...

A righteous man will never be shaken, he will not fear any other man or thing or circumstance, his heart is steadfast strong trusting in the sovereignty of the ultimate Lord.

Dad, is it o.k. to look at boobs?

Son:  Dad, is it o.k. to look at boobs?

Dad:  Well son, first of all, we don't call them boobs.

Son:  What do you call them?

Dad:  We call them breasts.

Son:  Then, is it o.k. to look at breasts?

Dad:  Man's breast or woman's breast?

Son:  Dad, why would I look at man's breast?

Dad:  I don't know.  I wasn't sure which team you were talking about.

Son:  I'm talking about girls.

Dad:  Well, then, it depends on how you look at them.

Son:  What do you mean?

Dad:  Well, first, you have to understand that breasts are perfect creation of God. 

Son:   Are they all perfect?  How come God made some big and some small? 

Dad:  God loves variety.  And yes, they are all perfect.  They are his gift to mankind.

Son:  So if it's a gift, we can look at them, right?

Dad:  Yes. You can look at them but with awe and wonder.

Son:  With what?

Dad:  With awe and wonder.

Son:  How do you do that?

Dad:  With respect.

Son:  So if you look at it with respect, it's o.k.?

Dad:  Yes.

Son:  Really?

Dad:  Yes.  But don't stare.  Never stare.

Son:  Why?

Dad:   Just glance. 

Son:  Just glance?

Dad:  Yes.  But with respect.

Son:  Glance with respect?

Dad:  Yes.

Son:  What if you can't just glance with respect.

Dad:  Then, don't look.

So enchained my spirit's vision...

Since mine eyes have looked upon Jesus,
I've lost sight of all besides
So enchained my spirit's vision,
Gazing on the crucified.

O.C.

Be still...

Lost summer dreams
when everything still,
a whisper from above
upon my pillow soft,
awakened me from
a sleep I didn't know.
Upon a hilltop awaiting
with angel's breath flowing,
peaceful streams along
green meadows resting,
a book beneath a tree
tells a story about me.
Images and places lost
among once familiar faces,
winds of melancholy drifting...
then a voice in a sunlit room,
with morning dew lilacs bloom
whispered be still...be still.

Pious deceit of the soul...

Even when alone it malingers...

Buried flowers...

Sunday morning fireplace
Robert Frost, the bible and a cup of tea
Life in a specter with lingering voices
Unfinished puzzle pieces on a vanity
Yearning for things left to wonder
Quilted pieces held together
Time and essence, bound forever
A breath of life for buried flowers wither.

The Birth of a Tragedy...

I was seven years old. Mom raised all of us alone in Korea while dad was in America. We moved in with grandma, a single room make shift shack in a backyard of someone's house.  The dog barked and chased us around his doghouse like uninvited guests. After school, grandma had a bowl of rice with marinated beef jerky waiting. I was her first grandson. Grandma never took to mom.  Mom and grandma argued a lot. We all slept on the floor.  My brother, sister and I in the middle. Mom slept on one end of the room and grandma on the other.  Every night I stared into the silence of the night in its entombed blackness. I was afraid to move. I didn't want one of them in the morning to find me facing the other.

Salted rice balls and the cosmic universe...

My father was 14 years old when the reds started to take over the villages in the north and pilfered the young sons of the land.  Wanting to save her only son, my grandmother filled a sack with salted rice balls and sent my father away to hide in the mountains.  She told him no matter what happened, he had to live.

His two sisters remained behind and after that day, he never saw them again.  He hid for three months in the dense mountains until the salted rice balls ran out and found himself scavenging for food in the abandoned villages.  The reds got wind of these young party infidels and conducted daily sweep patrols through the mountain terrains.

One predawn night break he was awaken by the sound of leaves in distress.  Nature taught him the linguistics of basic survival.  It was the sound of approaching footsteps in military boots and a cacophony of artillery and uniforms rustling rigidly through the heart of darkness .  He instinctively rolled for cover and settled upon an unsuspecting bed of branches.  He quickly gathered himself only to find a set of eyes piercing him from the deepest edge of the night's abyss.

At first sheer terror palpitated uncontrollably through his boyish empty body.  It was followed by a rapid cascade of the heart pulsating through every fiber of his core, turning into a slow rhythmic beat which became a familiar, predictable, and strangely comforting companion.  He found himself inextricably captivated by a divine power of the cosmic force and for a brief fleeting moment, he felt peace.

But that tranquility never had a chance to malinger as he was suddenly pummeled by the crackling sound of a cocked rifle echoing off the mountain’s deepest valley. He felt instantly paralyzed by the eyes that held the pointed rifle.  In that same passing instant, he felt the overwhelming power of his death and all other random deaths wrapped irreverently around that instant.  But also in that same passing instant, he felt the overwhelming power of his life, and all other random lives wrapped irreverently around that instant.

But on that day, that very day he found himself with an empty sack of salted rice balls, everything about him and everything about me and everything about the cosmic universe took a turn when those eyes pointing the rifle turned and walked away.

The Deconstruction of a Man

A delusional  objectivist since NYU days when  first exposed to Whitman, Nietzsche, and Ayn Rand's Howard Roark,  I have been in a lifelong search for my “voice”.  In the process, through every random life experience, through knowledge and wisdom collected and pieced together in a fragile glass menagerie, through the dark alleys with broken bottles strewn, through the façade of maturity, accountability, and even faith, I have become layered thick beyond recognition. I find myself still tittering precariously on the cusp of this tight rope and it seems I have reached a point, a somewhat unprofound and unoriginal point of sheer desperation, forcing me to realize that the only true way I'll ever find this elusive voice is through the deconstruction of the self.