once I was a star-eyed child
standing still
between a muddy earth and a glistening sky and
dream of fire and God.
I had not learned how to tip toe
I was lighter then,
and silence was still.
Give me a holiday without
holes beneath my feet,
clowns dancing above my head.
oh a holiday,
a holiday’s
scent of lilac and jasmine,
soft and intoxicating.
i cannot believe–
the same guy who shaved
a single mutton chop just
to see to if anyone would
notice (and then forgot)
the same guy who vowed
to wear black pants and a
white shirt for an entire
year (but failed because of a girl)
the very same guy who ran
nude with us across
Norlin quad and into the
shockingly cold night (after some hesitation)
the exact same guy who breathed
in the Pacific after we drove
to the edge of the continent to
sleep under Redwood trees (eventually)
–will soon be a father.
i cannot believe the guy who
shaved
vowed
ran
breathed
will soon be a father.
but i am confident he will
be brilliant (and quite the
embarrassment during her
teenage years).
red and pink
pack your bags
tomorrow you’ll be a dad
and notes scribbled on the back
of receipts showing your desire
to not lose even one word of
whats coming
all the people wondering why you chose here
to write it down
will words
can a word
describe the experience
new – not feelings or experience
LIFE
of mine!
no desire to eat
placenta
but oh to see her break
into the world the very first time
that very first breath
i want to see her
but much more
to kiss your head
to pray for you
i want to hold my daughter
We take turns holding
each other in the dark
as we resist sleep
certain morning will dismantle
the delicate patterns
we have traced
upon each other’s skin.
gleaming and dreaming, running for air
clopping and sopping, fighting unfair
(hug and hug and hug and hug)
Sure,
flowers are nice
but not near so nice
as the smile
on your face.
Pink petals of snow
moved out from trees to find
their new sidewalk home.
eyelids cower back to call on arms and brain but mind enough
curse your mom once your chin breathes and you find where you’ve been dropped
float or swim around you’ll drown or hit the wall
(tired or not)
but if you busy yourself going nowhere long enough to turn your head on purpose, even if upstream, you’ll soon enough reach one place: where you guessed and saw better and better
The sky is my home
a roof I won’t lose
In the torment of night the moon smiles softly,
the silver rays ease my heart, and
breathing feels enough.
learn to play your favorite song
you’ll see the math
lose the music
PLEASE
never learn to read my writing
you’ll see the joy
lose the poetry
Tonight
I enjoyed
the solitude
of crossing the street
in a downpour,
hood up,
into the
buzzing neon lights of a
chinese restaurant,
escaping these
pink petals
wilting and dripping.
24 years after 1984
and i’m still reading dystopias
because they seem the most true
I Want to Believe
That the world will be a better place
That everyone will be equal
That the future is on an upward course.
but no matter how much i want to believe
i can’t get past the lessons
that Mulder taught and the fear
that we are all mind slaves
caught up in our ideology:
capitalism
communism
what’s the difference-ism
if in the end
we are always wrong
in the end.
there may be no Big Brother prying around
but is America all that different?
there may be no Fahrenheit 451
but surely Fahrenheit 911 isn’t much better.
in our quest for a better world
do We inevitably end with a Brave New one?
or is it as Nathaniel said
that man’s accidents are God’s purposes
that no purposeful action will ever do what we intend?
after the Earth’s Holocaust
will everything merely be the same
in the end?
hurtful in texture but not to touch
because imagination is the foreplay of experience.
i think therefore i am,
and i also trust all i can see,
and believe only what i can predict
all it means is that i’m embarrassed when alone
not guilty.
fresh sashes over empty faces,
both struggling;
patience and keep worthless once a martyr is announced value.
seduced by the supple taste abreast
i wander the waning wide-open.
Convince others that one sees the world exactly as it is, rotten and unreedemed, and understands that one will change nothing of it not even our aging bodies.
Yet believe in the secrecy of ones soul that one can improve the world, even the neighbor of stage who sneers and cackles when she sees you.
Make her beautiful like politics, noble like justice, and generous like life. All turn in circle, so and how little it matters if she is vicious, if one is vicious, if the world is old, because all turn and stop not. Otherwise it’s death, the death people loathe or welcome, which despite everything never misses its secret rendez vous and lurks in silence, prompt to gather someone, anyone in its arms at the least excessive sign. The anguish of being no more is banal, one wears it on the forehead like an invisible tag:”will die one day”, and engraved in the feisty spirit:”as late as possible.”
Nothing is to be done, one is born mortal. Nevertheless, everyone precipitates ones life differently. Some people save and manage life like the budget of a country with an imminent crisis, others consume life intensely and fast as if they have only few minutes left. Most people, however, either resort not to think about it or emulate someone else life.
Still none of it matters, life holds everyone in the palm of her hand, and magnanimously question ones existence. She tickles and throws ones vulnerability in the face by simply asking: “who are you?”, and “what are you doing here on earth?”
one.
giving you up
like ignoring
that itch on my leg
i know it’ll pass
if i just
wait.
but you’re so soft
cooling my sweat
slowing my heart
easing me to sleep every night
and the worst part?
i can justify you
two.
dont forget when you almost
died
and i was there to pull you out
remember how i held you
and watched over you as you cried
do i lose
points for bringing it up
why do you fear salvation?
and breathe
life is not about
(please pause for the bass interlude)
what you think it is
because no one cares
for your 40 inch
(please pause for the guitar solo)
tv
because everyone knows
its not about the size
but rather about
(please pause as the drummer does his thing)
how well it drives in
your new car but its not about that
breathe
(silence as the words go on but the music stops)
life is not about
all the things you never handles well or all the things you wear and hear and
who you knew and what you wanted out of it
because you know its just not like you thought it was
(crescendo and pause as you scream)
just something more
Behind the glass window, she waits
for lust and obsession to pass,
for claustrophobic thoughts and the spasmodic soul to stop
In the living room shadows, nasty ogling beasts wait for her- to
crack, snap and break
till there is nothing left-
maybe bones or ashes scattered somewhere no one cares to look
At the bottom of eternity a boy waits,
amidst the tomorrows that never came,
the ashes of furtive passions,
for the second before he hurt her
Through refracted beams,
Across the diamond I saw
The fence vibrating.
When i tell you things from
deep within i feel exhumed and
exhausted and as
vulnerable as if your next
word could be a
lifeline
or a noose.
(And sometimes i feel this way for days.)
small things, strange things,
things in which
my wife is always amazed.
like taping stargate
and watching it all day;
or the thought of sci-fi friday
not being too far away.
like new video games
to play on my wii;
and summer vacation
giving me leisure just to be.
like burt’s bees wax
and its surprising tingle;
or the Christmas season
and the coming of kris kringle.
like listening to indie music
and finding new bands;
or watching strange movies
that take place in distant lands.
like sitting at home
alone with my wife,
focusing only on the present
and not the rest of life.
back breakage
l i n e steppage (by this i mean cracks)
who has things
against their mother?
how we make decisions
like donuts
or houses
or even
where we
(
that is
you and i
)
place each
step
?
i can do that
but not what
to eat
i can choose what to say
but not quite order in which it
said
should be
how do they decide?
who has things
against their mom?!
there are so many
languages i’d like to
learn because there
are so many things
i’d like to say–but
lucky for us
my most important thought
requires no words only
eyeslipsskin and
clandestinekisses
in the kitchen of this house.
of places that people go
and the things people say
to sound better to themselves
recalling three members of the
red hat society eating high-
end cajun food at an overpriced
restaurant and saying repeatedly
“tar-jshay” you shop at “tar-jshay?”
oh i shop at “tar-jshay” too! how i
love “tar-jshay” i’m so happy that you
too love “tar-jshay”
of cheap goods we cannot help
but love and loathe shopping
elsewhere when we can buy off-brand
cornflakes for 9cents/ounce
1 dollar
1 box
chew on cardboard but refresh with
off-brand honey by “whose-it-a-honey”
1 dollar
1 bear
of the things i call places
because they make me laugh
recalling two members of my family
sitting in a free car in a wealthy
neighborhood laughing at ourselves
and our fascination with
tarshit
and
wal-shart
My Dwight bobble-head
Makes me laugh
As it nods away
On my desk
Making my office
Not so dull.
there are certain things i heard
in childhood about pine cones of
which i can only say that i hope
they turn out to be just not true
(two distinct viewers of light on a train;
perfecting perfection and the properties therein)
i’ve awed the sweat from a crouch-hidden blushing glove
jump off just in time to avoid being party to a beheading
but
i’ve admired most battles bested by
positioning
and foreseeing
that
relegate blows as unnecessary
Why do you bother me so?
Why do your unblinking eyes never look away,
From my eyes that cannot be torn from yours?
How can you always smile,
When my life is interspersed with frowns?
What is it in you,
That causes my need to erase you?
Why do I look for the wrong in you,
When these feelings arise in me?
I have been trying
for twelve years
to learn Tagalog–
even though it was my
first language.
