Vox Populi
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Wayne Karlin: Because You Are Not Here
For my wife, Ohnmar Thein Karlin, 9/29/1950 - 2/28/2020 Clothes that touched your skin cling for a desperate second on the metal maw of the donation bin, tumble into darkness But when I come home you return with me, awakened in a saffron spill of light on the kitchen counter The wood molding splintered by the turn of a wheel-chair at the bathroom door. The medicine cabinet opening to an audience of empty pill bottles their faint rattle a mockery of applause. The tight hollow of silence in the bedroom, in the chest, in the narrow of the throat. Because you are not here you are always here Because you will never be here you are always here. ---- Copyright 2022 Wayne Karlin Wayne Karlin is the author of eight novels and three non-fiction books. His awards include The Paterson Prize in Fiction, The Vietnam Veterans of America Excellence in the Arts Award, and the Juniper Prize in Fiction. His short fiction collection, Memorial Days, will be published by Texas Tech University Press in Spring, 2023.
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Sometimes I am tardy reading these posts/poems.
This is so beautiful, also makes me wonder if Wayne knows the great John Balaban, whose voice and story also stems in part from Viet Nam. I must also ask Andy Wilkinson who is a professor at Texas Tech if he has read Wayne. But back to the poem which is very moving—
Thank you for this today, 18 days truant to my thoughts, but like everything late to the heart, still on time.
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Beautiful poem ❤️
“The tight hollow of silence
in the bedroom, in the chest,
in the narrow of the throat.”
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wonderful poem
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I have been to your house. It was nine years ago. Reading this poem, I feel as if I were visiting your house again and being served tea and fruit by your tender wife.
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What a gracious thing to say. Thank you.
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Thank you, Hien. I’m so glad you had that chance to experience Ohnmar’s generous heart.
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Love this. Still those flashes although I lost Fred in 2010
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Touching. Beautiful. The pictures are heartbreaking.
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Yes, I was glad that Wayne sent me the two contrasting photographs. I think they add a lot to the elegy.
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Totally!
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