My Published Poems

These days, we can read almost everything on the Internet for free. However, if the printed magazines and books that don't go digital, we are out of reach of them unless we purchase a copy.

For those of you who don't have a copy of the in-print journals that have published my tanka, here I'd like to share them with you.

The following tanka are about war in general, the Vietnam War in particular:

Memorial Day
the bagpipes' lyricism
on the screen
I recall the Tet Offensive
in Saigon and Cholon

(bottle rockets, no. 29)

For those of you who experienced the war in either Vietnam or America will remember the Tet Offensive that escalated the war. This tanka of mine is not only about the Vietnam War but about other wars as well.

maple leaves
spray red on the ground
I stand
on the blood-soaked earth
contemplating peace

(red lights, June 2013)

"War and peace" seems to like to pair up with each other. When the war ends, comes peace. Right? Wrong. For us South Vietnamese, peace did NOT come until . . . You fill in the blank.

Happy Halloween!