My first poem was actually written on the plane home from Vietnam. The war had brought me back and had cast me aside. I started writing notebook after notebook of prose and poetry but simply threw them away. I did not write to be published but to be healed. The words brought back parts of myself that were battered and broken. They also provided a safe haven for me to hide in.

After years of writing into notebooks, I refused to write another word because I finally saw my own truth and I blinked. I resumed writing in January of this year, and at last my eyes are opened wide.

Poems are words tucked away in the tiniest corners of the heart. They must be slowly removed, given a voice, and allowed to sing their own song. The reader should be given a taste of these words and then politely invited to dine. A poem is self-containing. It lives within itself, and if written well, it allows us to enter its house.

My poems are dark, painted with the reddish brown earth of Vietnam. They are images of recalled memories of a true world. I wanted the readers to see and feel its pain and hurt, to arouse emotion so it would speak for itself.

I never seriously thought of myself as a writer. Even now, my word usage is heavy. A good poet should say what he wants to say, say it well, and allow the reader to decide what it means. Most new poets want to be entertainers and to win an audience for themselves. The only motivation for poetry should be poetry itself.

Most of life has
gone       
	out of 
me,                   
	beaten into this land alive with madness.  
	Dreams, dragged into 
blindness,
	are broken beyond
solace.

The wind
	cries,   
	unable to stop,
not unless
it whispers 
one thought: 

"all  tomorrow's  rise too early."             

	So we live, only 
to die        

again.

	The past holds the 
present
	with his hand 
against
the door. 

But
I never knocked.