Sometimes
Sometimes rooming house residents quarrel over
the communal table where Joe leans his bicycle
and Frank is about to eat his mushrooms.
Sometimes loud voices out there in the hall,
a thin plywood door is a pretense to block
noise creeps into the pallor of my room.
Sometimes quaint things grown in isolation
compensate with loud exotic features; they are
both admired and feared like a fancy, imposing tomb.
Sometimes raw internal voices drive us across
the ridiculous to the Nietzschean abyss
or to the Wagnerian heights for doom.
Sometimes when the sheriff comes to inquire
about my thoughts, I exhibit recent calculus
results frantically calculated in my room.
Sometimes he’d smile big, custodially, and say,
“Jail is not where you want to be; so, don’t be a
fool and write critical verse, or
set off surplus crackers that go “Boom.”
Koon Woon
February 22, 2026
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