Hong Kong

Do‌ ‌you‌ ‌still‌ ‌cradle‌ ‌your‌ ‌ghosts‌ ‌so‌ ‌tenderly‌ ‌that‌ ‌they‌ ‌flicker‌ ‌like‌ ‌fireflies‌ ‌in‌ ‌your‌ ‌hand?‌ ‌ ‌

I‌ ‌
do.‌ ‌ ‌

the‌ ‌skyscrapers‌ ‌writhe‌ ‌like‌ ‌scales‌ ‌of‌ a snake/
they ‌swallow ‌me swallows‌‌/ burst‌ ‌out‌ ‌of‌ ‌eyes
eyes‌/‌ bandaged caught‌ ‌in‌ ‌the‌ ‌grips‌ ‌of‌ ‌a‌/ snake‌ ‌
and‌ ‌a‌ ‌rotten‌ ‌police‌ ‌force‌ ‌that‌ ‌bring ‌shame and
sorrow/ sorrow I/ ‌am‌ ‌ashamed‌ ‌of‌ ‌what‌ ‌China‌ ‌has‌ ‌
become‌ and I/ am sorry to say that I/
knew in my heart that this/ day would come.

我‌们‌老‌家‌不‌在。‌ ‌

I’ve‌ ‌been‌ ‌thinking‌ ‌back‌ ‌on‌ ‌time,‌ ‌and‌ ‌windows:‌ ‌
one‌ ‌reflecting‌ ‌Christmas‌ ‌lights,‌ ‌dim‌ ‌
and‌ ‌quiet,‌ ‌and‌ ‌one‌ ‌that‌ ‌drinks‌ ‌the‌ ‌tumbling‌ ‌
sky.‌ ‌ ‌

The‌ ‌field‌ ‌aches,‌ ‌aches‌ ‌in‌ ‌green‌ ‌and‌ ‌light‌ ‌—‌ ‌
and‌ ‌I‌ ‌ache‌ ‌too.‌

‌Chronic

The thing that aggravates me the most is (GERD)
the acrid bursts that sometimes come shooting into my throat.
Do you know what it’s like to throw up stomach acid?
How it coats the inside of your mouth for hours,
leaving you unable to spit, unable to swallow?
It sucks ass, but life goes on.

The thing that saddens me the most is (PCOS)
that my hair falls out in clumps now. I remember when I was young
I used to layer my hair because it was so thick,
cutting carelessly in my bathroom sink with an old razor.
Now, it’s getting too hard to hide, and people are nudging, pointing
at me, but life goes on.

The thing that pisses me off the most is (Plantar Fasciitis)
that the heels of my feet ache terribly all the time, and knowing that
I’ll be wheelchair-bound at standing events for the rest of my life.
Sometimes when I take the first few steps of the morning,
I think of Aesop’s Fable and how I might choose death as seafoam
over these god damned geriatric shoes, but life goes on.

The thing that scares me the most is (Oblivion)
that because of these and other shit hereditary conditions,
my time in the sun is shorter than most people.
I am 25, almost 26 now. For some people, that might not mean a lot.
But for me, I haven’t got that much left. I am so afraid.
I will die soon,
and life will go on.

Hymn to the Basswood Tree

​Basswood tree dancing to the song of the storm, you are good, you are strong.
You grow wilder than the bonsai twisting upwards, the springwater-fed honeysuckle,
​the succulents at the window drinking, the yellowing bamboo,
but you are beautiful, beautiful.

In light, I celebrate your shining seams of golden green,
celebrate you as you dance across my floorboards.

In shadow, I consecrate your sacred shifting silhouettes,
consecrate you as you sway atop my ceiling.

You flit. You mourn.
Whisper to me your secrets and I will heed them, I will heed them.

Wood in circles, stones in circles, matcha whisk drying on the floor.
Swaddle these cold hands in light and bring me home, bring me home,
bring me onwards towards the warm aching earth.
I have sat in the shade for too long, and the sun feels good on cold bones.
The sun feels good on old bones.

Growth Chart

Growth Chart
Luyou Sun, Workshop 1

Wake up in a ball knotted work move get started spat into a noise-clotted street
sprint to work already late pushed to do the grind you hate dead man walking sleeping on your feet
drink some coffee conference call you can try to do it all but it’s like the days are on repeat.

AHH! Read the boss’s memo try to keep the tempo drowning in the workflow pace is starting to slow
feet are starting to drag
posture eyelids both sag
near rhymes don’t sound that bad
words are starting to
— snag
stop caring about the meter
stop worrying about the rhyme schemes
stop ignoring your dreams
you’re overworked and overbooked and just fucking tired!

There! Doesn’t it feel good to take a break? Shit.

High Functioning

^{(After M. Seifert)}

Grief isn’t a garden, it’s a half filled pool.
The neighborhood kids pissed in it last summer.
This house will rot to the ground.

When I was eight, I was ready to throw myself off the high fence:
the border between my backyard and wilderness.
I was hopeless. I was lonely. I was bored.
My gap-toothed baby brother asked me if I was going to jump.
My life has been a glaze of failure and apathy since then.

There is no golden spoon.
There is no safe word.

The paper gown lies crumpled on the floor.

Origami Child

i am so afraid to name you:
once I fold my mouth and whisper your sound
you flit forth as wind
as a swallow
as a seed.

i cannot slit your paper back into my throat.
i cannot slip your ghost back out of my body.

Processing; plant

the peeling corners of my fingers
are the perfect spot to start unravelling me.
will you salivate, masturbate as my coat of skin slumps to the floor?
claw me, flank me, take me by the teats:
your ribcage holds my secrets, my loin holds your seeds.
you take everything you want from my body,
and i will still stand with perfect posture
as you fill me with sea salt.
lilies sprout from dripping blood.

Icebreaker

I am a black tipped fin cutting through fields of gold.
I skim through the sighing wheat and the blinking noonday sun.

I am a doberman’s jaw, foaming with hate and acrid spittle.
I wear a crown of sun-bleached ivory. I have a heart of lard.

I am cut and polished: a diadem of jealousy hung on a gold chain,
tightly clutching the soft throat of a withered socialite.

I am a rotted Ironwood bent on the letter of the law,
not resting until I exact my pound of sap and blood.

I am a hot tongue on steel.
I am a mouth filled with cotton.
I am a Chink in the mirror,
​and danger on thin sheets of ice.

familial expectation

Your mouth is a cannon
and expectations are the fuse.

Glory.
Burden.
Glory.
Burden.

The shots ring out into the night and ripple across the water.
I feel them thousands of miles away.

Lyrical Rose Pitcher, Mind

wake from a boat as it moves through the water
wake of a boat cutting through, ripples
in your wake, in your shadow shadow shadowy
figures in my dreams in the rose fingered dawn, cheeks rosy
fingered in the dawn, drowning in the wine-dark
see how far i’ve lost myself, are you awake or asleep
standing at the wake, i am close, eyes closed
clothed in black water lights blinking, i blink awake wake, wake

what did you awaken in me?

Summer in Kyoto

Whirring of the fan
as crickets sing in summer.
​The old pond ripples.

Lu You, the Poet

I was not born on a boat
floating in the Wei River
early on a rainy morning in 1125.

I was born in a hospital bed,
father lifting me to the window
to see my Mongolian patch in the daylight.

My name does not mean filial piety over happiness.
My name does not mean divorcing your wife
for your mother’s sake.
My name does not mean civil service and war strategy.
My name does not mean defiance to Emperor Xiaogong,
disfavor with Qin Hui, or becoming a Liberated Old Man.
My name does not mean enjoying pearl barley and tree-ear mushrooms,
and drinking away pain.
My name does not mean writing eleven thousand poems.

Lu You means all of these things, and a love of literature.
Luyou means none of those things except a love of literature

but also:

Luyou means filial piety isn’t everything.
Luyou means I’d rather go to hell than divorce my husband.
Luyou means quiet determination and constant self-improvement.
Luyou means defiance to norms of what Chinese children should do,
disfavor with complacency, and becoming a liberated young woman.
Luyou means enjoying fresh mango and raw salmon,
and working through my pain.
Luyou does not mean writing eleven thousand poems yet

but it could.

For Wednesday

You, fledgling poet, catch a glimpse of flocks in the sky —
birds: wild and thriving amidst the dross and minutae of the sweating city.
Their myriad of bodies meeting, constricting, and expanding,
could wake the sleepiest pen with a freeing courage,
as hundreds of once docile parrots escape through the roads and boulevards
and fly east towards the Red River.

The stolen image wakes a fragment of your own feral nature,
filling your mind with the shapes of fangs, tusks, claws, stingers.
Free from the blur of impending work,
your thoughts arrange into a language of your own,
wishing to take flight with all expediency on parchment
and soar upwards towards wherever you may end up.

Ode to the Sidewalk Weed

A dash of green amidst sidewalks and stormdrains, oh, treasure!
You grow wild and thick until a gloved hand yanks you up
and throws you into the gaping mouth of a large black trash bag,
a mass grave of a thousand thousand brothers.

I carefully wriggle you out (you are not destined to be stepped on),
And slide you into the side pocket of my backpack (or unappreciated and forgotten),
And when I return home (not an inconvenience or an eyesore),
I add you to the great bouquet of sidewalk weeds (bloom and be radiant).

Movement of the Sun on a Summer Afternoon in Cafe Medici

^{for S. (Want to rework this, not sure how)}

The afternoon sunbeams caress your eyelashes,
brown becoming gold in a miracle of alchemy.
You fidget with a small glass cup,
and light scatters into your palms in prismic concentric blooms.
We talk while the last dregs of coffee slowly dry.

Your voice murmurs about Morocco and The Faerie Queene like a burbling brook.
The water runs clean and clear as shadows dance across the table.

As we walked together back to my home through the dry and browning bamboo pathways,
softness and sincerity framed your face and suddenly, you were aglow in the summer sunset.

South Tibet Valley

The date was Tuesday, August 27th, 2019, and the air was stagnant and angry,
unable to run its teeth through the cracks in the wall and so
resorted to laying upon us like a swarm of bees,
descending in a giant mass upon a trespassing hornet and vibrating until it dies.

That night, I laid between damp sheets,
watching sweat beads string together on my chest like freshwater pearls.
In the moonlight, my body shone like the Yarlung Tsangpo and until the sun rose the next morning,
​I was resplendent.

Slow Living

As I recline in a warm room at sunset amidst the whirring of the fan and the sound of chopping vegetables from the kitchen, life moves around me.

I sit.

Shadows from an empty sake cup turned pencil holder lengthen like a cat, stretching in the yawning summer.

I sit.

Outside, trees murmur lazily next to the cables of power lines, running, running, running towards the horizon. It breaks the sky into geometric patterns, dancing on rooftops and stretching far and away. The world outside hums with life and within all that, in a golden wall of evening sun,

I sip

and sit.

Dying Star

Your eyes trace the carpeted floor
and your chest heaves in pain
as you crush yourself under the weight of bitter thoughts.
I have seen that look in your face a thousand times.

I am helpless, floating in empty space
as I watch you self-destruct right in front of me.
You gasp awake in the early morning, over and over,
visited by the only ghost that you beg to continue haunting you.
My heart aches over something it doesn’t know, the death of what was.

Chronological

Graceful thin red thread
flying across an expanse of white
on a vast plastic disk.

Your brothers trudge behind you
thick and slow, dragging along,
snapping their fingers to an invisible song.

You spin and spin, beautiful and silent.
I gaze on you for as long as I dare
before I shudder and must look away.

Tibetan Plateau

Panting dogs and painted grass.
We are standing on the edge of the grassland
that stretches out from now to infinity.
I see horses and children, tangled hair, smeared with mud.
The flocks guides us forward. We chant as we ride.
The drums are calling me home.

Waxing, Waning

Wheat dances in the wind of the late summer,
stretching into the horizon with aching arms:
a great ocean of gold, long and free.

I walk through throngs of people
in the heart of this city of noise.
They all pass through me like they’re made of sound,
leaving no mark as they sigh and fall away.
​​
I’m losing touch.
I can’t feel your arm, laid on mine.
I’m beginning to fade away.

Reunion with a Ghost

^{for B.}

​I still think on you from time to time, lover of a lifetime past.
​Even after all these years, liebste,
a small part of me is still standing on that pier overlooking Galveston beach,
where you first taught me the joys of the ocean.
I have long since stopped watching, aching for your return, and yet —

I am still there, walking the museum grounds with you,
practically dancing through the echoing fossil-filled halls,
giddy with the first stirrings of this young love.

I am gazing on your lightly freckled face, hand in sweaty hand
near the neighborhood pond, laughing into the sunset
as you try to shade your eyes from the light which adorns you.

​I am cradling you in my arms, stroking your hair, and wiping your tears
as you cry in panic the last night before my inevitable trips back home.
You beg and beg for me not to forget you, not to move on without you.
The painful loneliness in your voice still wrings my heart the same.
​
Be with me until the end, love.
Stay with me as I fade into the dark, love.

Haunting, Remembering

Just when I thought I was safe, Violence visited me in my sleep,
lifting me up by my eyelids and placing His many sons within them.

They hid, watching and salivating, while He stepped out alone
and met me at the cusp between waking and dreaming.

He came with a disarming smile, which I returned nervously,
not knowing yet still shrinking away from something I once felt in a dim memory.

I heard strange sounds this time, whispering, nails scratching softly —
(There could be thousands, ragged, just under the surface)
like the soft crunch of paper being balled up,
(a wave of horror when a strand of seaweed caresses your leg as you wade in the shallows)
or the soft breathing of someone, close behind my ear
(my hairs stand up like rows of sharks teeth, chafing. I want to tear off my skin).

His cold hands silently trace along the nape of my neck
and I cannot move though I shriek (I had no screams then, that September),
only grit my teeth as hard as I can and blind myself with streaks of tears, shooting stars each.

I want to bite through my tongue and drown myself in my own blood.

Each spot His hands and His tongue and His teeth touch wither like chrysanthemums on fast-forward and turn black,
searing heat following as my skin kindles and smolders in turn.
I cannot even begin to describe how painful the sensation was.

He closes in with a too-wide smile as they follow close behind, and so do you! All of you! Fuck you! It could be any one of you!
​
It could be any one of you.

I shoot up from the sheets drenched in cold sweat, gasping for breath.
I still see the terrible looming horror in the shape of a friend.

Confetti

It was just a little something.
You burst through the cafe doors,
welcome bell pealing,
a little out of breath,
face kissed by the hot sun.
You winked and gave a smirk in that careless way of yours that seemed to say
“hey, still made it on time, didn’t I?”

There was a single withered oak leaf tangled in your long brown hair
unnoticed, a souvenir of your hurried trip to meet me here.
When I tried to pluck off of you (as friends do),
you playfully gave a great big “haoooooomp” and swooped in,
closing your mouth around the leaf,
but also my fingers which were still pinched around it.

I squealed and started back in surprise, trying unsuccessfully to pull away
​while tears streamed down your puffed cheeks as you cried laughing,
your mouth forming a cave around my fingers, each guffaw sounding like a drum.
Both of us crouched in various degrees of keeled over,
gasping for breath between renewed howls and coughs,
​not caring a bit about the strange looks of the people around us.
I can’t help but fall in love with you.

Ephemeral

I tenderly kissed
your cheek. It was just as soft
​as I imagined.

Cascade

I knew it was going to rain by the color of the clouds,
each one dynamically expanding, shrinking, springing into existence
like seals jumping for joy, weaving to and fro in the raging sea.

The wind was immensely strong, confidently guiding the torrent
of rain so that it came down in clear patterns –
​crescents of water pelting the pavement beneath me.

I stood still, alone in the storm, completely entranced
by the exuberance and immense power of nature,
and for the first time since I was a child, I was happy just to be alive.

Long Distance Relationship

We walked together holding hands and
I ran ahead excitedly to point something out to you.
When I turned around,
you were fixed in the same spot I left you,
arm extended before you, barren branch,
face contorted into a shape of lonely I had never seen before,
and I wondered how you became so far away from me.
Why are you standing there like this is our last goodbye?

Herringbone

^{for J.}

​At the late night Mediterranean food truck,
we shared falafel and old trauma (newly dug up).
I will never tell the secret you entrusted to me.
I will never look at you differently than I do now.

Safety Blanket

Like light through the shell of an egg,
​I used my body as a sort of tent
and held up my childhood Pooh Bear blanket,
observing the swirl of colors mixing,
piercing through the small holes in the fabric
that I chewed when I was anxious,
knitting my fingers up and down the border
​like mandala beads until I fell asleep.

Star Maker

Rough brushstroke tiger
swimming in an ocean of ink,
ripples send a light dusting
of new stars into the universe.

_{Source: Yuumei, Digital Art, 2019}

2112 Yacht Harbor Ln

The pile of bikes hastily thrown onto the lawn is a sure beacon
illuminating your way to the Temple of Air Conditioning.

Within, sweating children greedily gulp water down like panting dogs,
sprinting outside again, to ride forever as long as we are young.
​
I could live in the taste of summertime watermelon,
freshly sliced, as it dribbles down my chin in streaks.

Ball Python

​We ducked indoors, a timely refuge
​against the fretful murmurs of this young summer,
still struggling out of the shed skin
of the season before it.

The Tile-Maker’s Son

^{for J.}

​And when they asked you to lay down in the dimly lit room,
loosen the tight breath you held unaware in the forefront of your heart,
press your palms, slightly damp, against the floor,
turn your gaze inward in preparation to meditate,
and give a moment of your time in appreciation to the earth,
unquestioningly beneath our collective feet, trodden, heavy, unappreciated —

eyes still closed, you furrowed your brows in disagreement.

You never take the floor for granted.

Some years later, I gaze softly on your face
as you idly trace the simple patterns on the walls of this teahouse,
preoccupied with sweet-aching thoughts of her, sitting opposite me in body only.
​In your mind, perhaps, you return to a quiet space where you again walk the adorned mosaics
in the run-down restaurants, hallways, corner shops of memory, cool to your bare feet.
Each carefully fitted piece is resplendent, each divot and supple curvature
worn away by the tread of time; an exuberant celebration of mundanity.
My own softened heart likewise carves out a sloping space for
you, tile-maker’s son.

Tecmessa

The early hours of morning before the sun has risen
is the best time to look out onto the sleeping city from your bed, pushed up against the window.
Your green tea, brewed in the hazy afternoon, has long given up it’s single streaming wisp of steam to the great onsen
that is the universe.

It’s just fact that 3 AM is the best time to drink it.

This is the best time to pause the music you’ve been playing all evening,
avoiding confronting that loathely shadow enamored with you,
and offer her something to drink in case she is thirsty too. Hopefully this cold tea will suffice?
It is in this strange space of time, too, that musing on Ajax and Tecmessa is the most productive.
Scoot the chair closer. Read over my shoulder, would you? I’ll angle the screen so you can see.

​We’re disgraceful, aren’t we? Secure in the bubble of modernity,
we are harnessed to thousands of bungee cords of safety tied to every corner imaginable,
fastened so securely so that we’re protected even from our own self-hatred,
desperately trying to bend our knees and propel ourselves to grasp the hand of another, equally suspended.
We all hang, unable to do much besides stare uncomfortably at each other and wait to die.
​I both do and don’t want to cut the cords.

Far below me, in time and space lies the gorge of history,
and my eyes focus on one imperceptibly small pebble rolling within it,
for in it exists the brief, dust-bitten struggle of forging a new life as a war-prize,
still glistening, a siren song deep in the yawning dark.

Would you do that? Leave your beloved bereft of you, promised one,
along with hope, the newly drafted blueprint of a future, the numbered endless days of his own life?
Unswerved by Athena, grey eyed woman (who wouldn’t help you if she could, you dumb 21st Century brat!),
would you turn your hand on yourself? Would you fall on your own blade?

Well, you should.

What the fuck, no! What are you saying?
Don’t leave him, your beautiful Tecmessa, abandoning the tent you put up together in the burbs of Atlanta!
Don’t leave him, you who proposed companionship until you die, hands pressed together still!
Don’t leave him, you who within you carries his own heart, tender with each wound you lay upon yourself!
​
Every night at 4:30 AM, I stare out the window and gaze on the open-air parking garage directly below,
as Troy is sacked again and again and again.

​The early hours of morning before the sun has risen
is the best time to look out onto the sleeping city from your bed, pushed up against the window.
Your green tea, brewed in the hazy afternoon, has long given up it’s single streaming wisp of steam to the great onsen
that is the universe.

Haiku Collection 2: My Heart is a Red Envelope

Peony:
Eyes lowered, bashful,
Blossoms race across your face
as you behold him.

​Sparrow:
Soaring jubilant,
my heart flies ever upwards,
​borne aloft by you.

​—

​Grandfather, Grandmother:
Magazine pages
worn, thin, and faintly fragrant,
childhood sunroom.

​爷爷, 奶奶:
杂志堆叠好
我闭着眼睛记得
你，永远 高兴

PinYin for above poem:
Yéyé nǎinai (Grandfather, Grandmother)
Zázhì duīde hǎo (magazines stacked well)
Wǒ bìzu yǎnjīng Jìdé (I close my eyes, remembering…)
Nǐ, yǒngyuǎn gāoxìng (you, forever cheerful)

---

American Born Chinese:
Perched between two worlds,
Never really belonging
to either, I drift.

外侨
出生在美国
但是我永远没有
觉得是我家

PinYin for above poem:
Wàiqiáo (Alien)
Chūshēng zài měiguó (Born in America,)
Dànshì wǒ yǒngyuǎn méiyǒu (but I’ve forever/always not)
Juédé shì wǒ jiā (felt that it’s my home)

Aufiero

^{for M.}

​I often think on your kindness, gifted to me:
the caress of your gentle words, reassuring, murmured close to the ear.
Bird-like, my heart trembles as I offer it to you, small and vulnerable as I speak,
and you take it like a newborn child and cradle it close to your chest, eyes soft with understanding.

I remember when I traced your rough hands and arms, beautiful blue rivers down
to where in agonizing desperation, you once grit your teeth and etched your pain,
crying out to a deaf world in hopes of an answer, your own words echoing back on you.
Too soft to hear, I return your call.

Homecoming

Close, quiet friend of mine that colors my perception of the world,
we were, both of us, bereft of each other for nearly four years now, isn’t that strange?
I lost you that night. Amidst the muffled screams,
violent hands around my neck as I struggled in vain, in vain, in vain against him,
you slipped from out of my bed and silently crept away.

(I know you are with me.)

I missed you when, that fall, I looked at autumn leaves pooling, generous, on the sidewalk’s edge
and I could no longer close my eyes and dream up how my pen might capture the beauty of it.
You were always saying you could see the best of things.
I watched time fly by, sharp and grey. I never could offer a whisper of a word to entice you back.
Anchor of reality. Harbor in existential throes. Come reside again in me,
confidant of mine, keeper of my sorrows, you who understands me best.

(I know you are with me.)

I recently caught a glimpse of you (was it you?) in the sharp eyes of him, tangled mess of dark brown hair,
like a flint to steel when intrigued, pulled towards some interesting thought beside me.
I recently heard your sweet song amidst the piano’s weeping (if it was you),
notes melting into me like you’d never left, sent to rouse some part of myself I forgot I had (it was you).

I know you are with me.

I cupped his face in my hand, in the gentle sun,
deep compassion moving me to care for one so like myself.
‘Welcome, welcome,’ I cannot stop crying,
you, most beautiful, most fragile part of myself.
I was so lonely without you.

Koelkebeck

^{for T. Thank you.}

Dinged up student piano in the hallway in front of the cafeteria, with
people streaming past, some paying no attention, others visibly annoyed at the noise.
A thin body, bent shoulders, crouched frame, channeling some other time
in a frayed linen shirt, feet resting on worn-away brass.
His frame fluidly collapsing, arching, collapsing again with each swell of music,
with eyes sometimes scrunched in concentration, other times closed.
His hair, golden in the sunset drenching the Austin hills,
connected to him as real as his connection to the old keys,
echoing through the hall as people mill about on this late Wednesday afternoon.

Music at times discordant, concordant, zealous, full of passion, energy, chaos — a rhapsody.
An ocean, it swells at points, gathering tide low and deep,
now crashing down on the rocks as seagulls cry out,
wheeling and circling the cliffs as the foam bursts in the briny air.
The keys play nimbly, sometimes galloping like a stallion, streaming mane, fiercely riding –
now like a pine whipping in the wind, creaking dangerously in the storm,
now a young child, drowning, looking up at the sky, sinking without gasping.
Heart-wrenching cries echo through an abbey,
a man tears through the halls, recently bereft of something, lost to me.
Booming, virile, powerful sounds forced out of the old wood he wrings
and bends with his fingertips, slower, softer, now gently cradling:
a smile from my sun-streamed mother,
brushing hair out of my eyes when, playing in the street,
I stop to drink from the garden hose with crystal droplets
ecstatic, glistening on the grass of a memory that aches sweetly.
I will close my eyes and pull it from the small space within me
when I am old and the warm caress of the sun reminds me of my ghosts.

I am still young, now though,
but experienced enough to hold, silently, to the thought that I was the sole audience and recipient
of something deep inside the soul of someone, a stranger once.
No more a stranger to me, as I caught the briefest glimpse
into what might just have been the essence of a mortal man,
a speck, washed away in the multitude of stars of the universe,
giving freely a part of him to the wide world, which now out, ascends into the bright sky.
A wisp, fluttering, a sign of what existed once, in a single moment of time.

---

Music is a Metaphor
(Possible? rework from “Koelkebeck”, for CRW 315P Fall 2019)

Music is an ocean. It swells at points, gathering tide low and deep,
now crashing down on the rocks as seagulls cry out,
wheeling and circling the cliffs as the foam bursts in the briny air.

Music is a stallion, streaming mane, fiercely riding –
now a pine whipping in the wind, creaking dangerously in the storm,
now a young child, drowning, looking up at the sky, sinking without gasping.

Music is booming, virile, powerful sound wrung out of old wood,
tied together with red string unraveling from our feet.
Music is the bend of old wood with a thousand fingertips:
slower, softer, now gently cradling.

Music is a smile from my sun-streamed mother,
brushing hair out of my eyes when, playing in the street,
I stop to drink from the garden hose with crystal droplets
ecstatic, glistening on the grass of a memory that aches sweetly.
I will close my eyes and pull it from the small space within me
when I am old and the warm caress of the sun reminds me of my ghosts.

Music is a speck, washed away in the multitude of stars of the universe,
given freely to the wide world, which now out, ascends into the bright sky.

Cancer

Wheeled you outside on a winter morning
gentle sunlight caressing your wispy strands of hair
You let out a soft breath that fluttered away in the breeze
and in that moment
​I felt you might drift away as well.

Graphite

Outside is pale and hard, with a hum hanging in the air
like one who tries to sing through a sigh.

Water and spices in a cheap rice cooker.
I miss when I could taste fresh fruit.

Close my eyes, the mug feels comforting
around my hands so I weave them together.

Glance up to where I put a book with a brown cover
from the happy family.

Open it softly – the pages are cold
but the words in them are warm and filling.

With a small smile I lean on the counter.
I remember when I had something like that too.

I can trace the images and faces in my mind –
they are not burdened with me, they chose me.

Fragrant home where I have been invited
guest or family to this place of hope.

I am not there.
The kitchen is grey
but in some strange happiness
​I find myself
yet.

Red-Breasted Bird

​I found you in the browning shrub
with broken wing and head.
I reached to hold you in my arms
with you already dead.

I set you down upon the ground
where frost had settled low,
and left you there between two trees
to soar upon the snow.

498

I heard a voice
less like speaking and more like a sigh.
It slithered into my mouth
like it would suck away my soul.

Just little blue numbers
fluttering on the screen
like the deathly moth of fable.
“5 and 6/10ths,” it whispered.
A wilting flower.

The Birthday Card

A simple thing of gold and blue
with teal letters embossed,
orange rhinestones numbered three
and cover thinly glossed.

The fragile frame of paper,
a thing of little cost,
held within the envelope
a love I thought I’d lost.

The text said Happy Birthday
and the emotions sealed inside
were so forceful upon opening,
that reading it, I cried.

Twenty years I’ve lived
and seen only today
the little plastic Hallmark card
that could take my breath away.

The Last Few Months: A Collection of Haikus

September:
Dark and violent act
I cannot scream, only shake
and cradle my head.

Autumn:
Autumn leaves rain down
and glaze the ground with color,
like a sunset, spilled.

12 O’Clock:
Quiet times alone
losing and finding myself:
lonely hide and seek.

The Labyrinth

Mother, my head speaks in rhyme,
where my heart beats loud to mark the time
between breaths;
between deaths I find
a labyrinth, hand built, within my mind
put up to shut out those that I care for,
the exact same ones who say they’re there for
me, but I burn to the touch,
they try to embrace me but I hurt them too much,
so let me walk away.
I am not willing to make the same mistakes again.
Where I go, no one can follow,
for my words are rich, but my heart is hollow.

Brimmed

It’s a long time coming, but I can’t sleep,
for my mind is brimmed and cannot keep
the voicemails, letters, words from the past,
that gather in sewage and lay amassed. ‏

Tired and strained, my thoughts are muddled,
pools on pillows are caught and puddled
so that now when I lay down my head,
I seek cloth but get salt lakes instead.

Thrush in the Willows

Scraggly bird,
how hoarse the verses
from your throat appear.

Lonely thrush,
how flew you the
thousand miles here?

Two Weeks Out

A quiet while again has passed
from now to when you sleep at last,
my scarlet lad with sea blue eyes,
sleep well till when sun will rise.

I hear you mumble in your dreams
as high above, the moonlight gleams.
I smile and kiss your sandy hair…
pull up the covers and a chair.

When you shake hard and start to moan,
I sing to you in lilting tone,
you quiet down and rest once more,
the sleeping boy that I adore.

I wake to find with drowsy shock
The agile morning speeds the clock,
out on the chair, the book I read
still lies– but I am fast in bed.

Sometime that night, I must have dozed
and sank to rest with eyelids closed;
you picked me up and brought me here
and lay again beside me, dear.

Still you sprawl in gentle sleep
with bed-sheets clumped into a heap
and arm slung over on my chest,
upon my neck your forehead rests.

I’ll take this when I cannot stay;
a snapshot from a perfect day.

Crescent

That handsome, young, and haunting man
with eyes of pearly grey
has swept me up and grabbed my hand
and stolen me away.

His faces vary hour by hour,
It shines and then goes dark;
His laughter conquers all my power:
a starry, brilliant spark.

He hides his heart and many pains
though I can see them plain,
I fell in love but now he wanes,
his wanderlust is strained.

For all my pleading, he insists
He’ll still be leaving soon,
away from me, he now exists
as my elusive moon.

Above my roof-top he will see
the youth that holds me near,
he groans and pulls the balmy seas;
A somber, silver sphere.

Anti-Limericks: A Collection of Limericks About Serious Subjects

The Sorrow of Thetis

Achilleus, my beaming boy,
has wandered off to conquer Troy
with sand-bucket and plastic sword,
leaving no swing-set unexplored.

Though I implored you not to go
for I knew your death was near
and that my heart would fill with woe,
You carried on, devoid of fear.

Agamemnon took your conquered bride;
over the girl, your heart was sore,
and so Patroklos by Hektor died
when you were grieving by the shore.

My boy, my son, the battle’s won
and splendid Troy is lost,
but now your breath’s already gone;
twas much too high a cost.

What’s the use to live forever
When my immortal heart already died?
Life seems a useless endeavor
When always tears are mixed with tide.

The Black & White Film

I spin around, it’s disconcerting;
my head pounds hard and my arms are hurting
and then you throw me down once more,
I crumple as I hit the door.

Slam.
Crack.
Thud.

Rhythmic frenzy like a clock
as I crouch inward, reel with shock;
Stomach, shoulder, chest, and head;
the floor around me stained with red–

Smash.
Swoosh.
Thud.

As I struggle backward, I hear you speak
as you spit my name, my heart grows weak,
and it’s with fear I turn your way;
My breaths come hard and both legs sway.

Crash…

Crunch…

Silence.
Please speak out in domestic violence.

Porcelain Fragments

The simple, perfect geometry of our lives
running like crisp glacier water
thousands of miles down to the sea,
eroding both stone and time on its path forward.

Each consummately formed crystal
in the opaque and nebulous cavern below my feet;
some murky grotto where secrets lie for millennia
like a new Earth, chaotic and sublime.

Each facet of ourselves carefully crafted and labeled;
Type O+ blood; my spiraling serpent of DNA whispering secrets
into the narrow crevices of my nervous system…
Am I simply chain after chain of complex reactions or do I have a soul?

Down in Flames

A single spark was all it took
to set my world ablaze,
one harmless wink, one loaded look
to lock me in your gaze.

We’ll waltz together, you and I
around the smoky room,
don’t stop the beat to kiss goodbye;
This love will be our tomb.

Dance with me an hour more–
we’re going to crash and burn.
Slowly twirl as blazes soar;
the point of no return.

I knew the moment we commenced
this mortal, deadly dance
that this love would stand against
my past; a true romance.

And now we’ll pay a heavy toll
for going on this so far,
but I’d take ashes over coal
and loving from afar.

…

We’ve begun a promenade where
passion fuels the famished fire;
I mark the danger, crack and flare
that leads me to my funeral pyre.

Thoughts on my Grandfather

I’m not sure which is worse:
the newly empty hospital bed
or the filled and flowered hearse.

A Collection of Poems Addressing Love (4)

Suicide

What if you were to lose me;
not catch me when I fall?
Not to God or someone else,
but to nothing at all?

The Fairy Queen’s Suitcase

Let me dream away the time tonight
where love is real and we take flight across the country
weave and glide through oceans, forests, riversides.
Your long blonde hair and silver eyes
with violet dress and petal shoes
on clover beds and opal tides
with strawberries and honeydew.

Fraught

What immense burdens and a frail frames we bear,
where our screams make no noise
our tears make no marks
and our suffering continues behind closed doors and happy masks.

Ballet

We are a chaotic ballet,
where I dip my head to the beat and you swing
towards me; a dark blue paint
scatters across my body.

The meter of my heart is irregular
the tempo rises
like a fever-induced dream where one day you will erupt into a crescendo
and my song finally stops.

Ocean of Ink

If we’re going to drown ourselves, we might as well do it the right way.
Let the words slide from the corners of my eyes and onto the floor
some inky vastness that we sink ourselves into
line by line.

Submerge.

let the cold seep between our toes,
creeping upwards to our thighs, hips, waists–
circles on circles ripple outward from where we are.

We move so slowly that the lines of water run hardly visible,
like the silk of spiders, in crisp, parallel lines that collide
in a glorious power struggle when yours touch mine.

All is still again, and we sink deeper,
it engulfs our chests, water droplets resting delicately on my shoulders.
My hair, thick and loose, cascading like an amber waterfall
fanning out in the water; a welcome mat of sorts.
Pockets of air slide towards the surface as we
sink
deeper
still.

I let my eyes close as tiny beads of moisture collect on my eyelashes,
each balancing like tiny seeds of dandelions, little parachutes each,
held together so faintly, braced for the gust of wind that will tear them towards some brave new world.

What if I want to throw myself headfirst into the black water;
shoot into the murky unknown like an arrow, not stopping until I hit the rocky bottom–
plunge in and let the water claim me for its own,
never again resurfacing?

Bookshelves

Submitted to Echo Literary Magazine, the Liberal Arts Magazine published yearly, on 3/18/2013
3/26/2013 update: Accepted for Publication. Pictures below.

Let me tell you a story infinitely more rich than any book on a shelf,
the construction and destruction of a sense of self–
ishness, because I’ve lost more sleep over writing this than all of my science tests combined.
I know there’s some key to the universe we all seek but can’t seem to find
walking around with sight but might as well be blind the way we misread each other
so take heed, open your eyes and look past the (sur)faces of people around you
cause I’m being haunted by a vision of someone who made an incision in my head
with his coarse hands and rich voice and whole heart.

Now let me tell you
if silence were a noise, it’d be the laughter of little boys
and girls who haven’t yet discovered life beyond the innocent,
oblivious to the loans and rent
that their parents have amassed when none was saved and all was spent
where dreams were of being astronauts or presidents or someone
not trapped in the realities of the here and now
like somehow we’d all live and learn instead of crash and burn and breathe
in the toxic words and secondhand smoke of the people around us,
cause in childhood, everything was beautiful and simple and pure.

Now let me tell–
but no, because then I’d be a “tattle-tale”, and these aren’t tales, they’re the truth
of the teenage years of his youth where his voice cracked
and his heart did too
when his father walked away and the girl he liked didn’t like him back
school became a blur of just-trying-to-get-by,
because who wants to try to learn something you’re never gonna use again anyways?
by the middle of junior year, his locker clanged closed for the last time,
no crime but his passion and over-commitment to something not marketable.
now, alarms screaming sound the beginning of another day, another shift–
sifting through endless files thinking “God, when will this be worthwhile?”
before, he had never fully realized how hard his mother worked for him.
she only worked part-time then, her attacks got worse and every time she coughed,
he swore he could see little pieces of her soul drifting away
she told him it’ll be fine, she’d be ok,
but there was nothing she said that made him truly believe it.
despite the hopsital’s best efforts, night decended on the town and in her eyes.
when they took her away to her final resting home, I thought he’d never laugh again.

Now
He could rule the world instead of this little couch in the corner of a rickety house
with nothing but a beer glass, remote control, and a hard past
loveseat stained with throw-up and tears and memories of her
and how once, these cushions lived up to their name as she moaned his
but now, he can’t even pay child support, much less the rent that’s stacking up
that leaves other women backing up
because they can’t afford to be in a relationship with someone that’s gonna drag them down
or so they think
and now he’s on the brink of loneliness,
and that’s a cliff that’s damn hard to climb out from
so light up another Camel, and smoke away all those faded memories and dreams–
that’s the closest he’s ever gonna get to out-of-country travel.
If he hired a whore, he’d feel cheaper than her cause when you always gamble on the wrong hands
no one’s surprised when you’re left in shambles with tears streaming down your cheeks
and your fingers seek nothing but smoke and stolen years.

He was infinitely more rich than any book on a shelf.
his pages were dog-eared and worn and wrinkled and torn and precious to me
inkblots smear the pages where I’ve read and re-read the story
of the man who couldn’t read it himself.
I couldn’t get the words out on his funeral day
so they’ll stay in my head forever, I’ll never get to tell him how much he
he-
I’m being haunted by a vision of someone who made an incision in my head
with his coarse hands and rich voice and whole heart.

The SUnrise Anthem

I draped the stars in the cosmos over my nest as fairy lights,
my memories like the juice from a just-ripe peach
where I can still taste the tangerine and strawberry bites
when I will see Dawn approach the hills of my home
cloaked in golden glory.

The blush on her face is sweet and fragile;
starlight and dew drops followed in her wake.
I will pay proper homage to her in flight so agile
when I see Dawn approach the hills of my home
cloaked in golden glory.

I will bend my sparrow frame in a dance of ecstasy
and she will give the silver winds as her blessing
with the scents of spring as she giggles next to me,
And now I see Dawn approach the hills of my home
cloaked in golden glory.

I pursue, but she disappears, and in her wake,
Winter descends as a defensive father
freezing the streams and rivers and lakes,
And I can’t see Dawn approaching the hills of my home
cloaked in golden glory.

That brittle and bitter old gentleman was keen,
but when his frigid frame rigid came around the corner,
I hid and dabbled in daylight and sought shelter, unseen,
until once again, Dawn approaches the hills of my home
cloaked in golden glory.

When you come, sun-kissed and legs long,
I will profess your beauty daily with my chirps.
I will always usher you in with my song
of love for you, the sweetest, purest story
of Dawn, cloaked in golden glory.

Weather to Love

Published in the 2012 Literary Magazine.

After a year up north, I’m finally back home,
The engine’s hum cuts as I leave my van.
The cry of seagulls, the smell of sea-foam,
I just want to see how far the brine can span.

I’m drawn to Galveston, and under it’s spell,
I’m guided towards the water by an invisible hand.
In the distance, I squint hard and can barely tell-
A slender figure tracing creases in sand.

The pearl hue in her skin, her legs like reeds,
The first glimpse I have is of her coral corsage.
Blush colored shells line her hips like beads,
She could be an oasis, or just a mirage.

Under the peach colored sunset, her smile shined,
Her seaweed tresses streaming down her side,
Those kelp-like waves of hair floating closely behind…
Her gaze pulls me in like the evening tide.

Laying among sand castles and cumulus dreams,
If I’m the sailor, she’s the lighthouse rays:
Wonders of the world are closer than they seem,
And her voice speaks of better, sunnier days.

Over the months, our relationship was like the weather,
We met and I melted for you in the summer heat.
It got cold and it’s true- we were still together,
But the gentle dew of your eyes slowly turned to sleet.

I couldn’t tell it was just the calm before the storm,
Where the whole beach hushes and the wind just grows.
If only I could have seen the brooding clouds form,
I’d have been warned about how hard Zephyr blows.

But there was a howl in the mistral that ripped off my cap,
And waves crash angrily against the rocks,
The yachts in the harbor moan and snap,
With violent force, the ships lurch from their docks.

There’s a jellyfish sting in her ocean eyes,
I grasp about wildly and the moonlight sears.
The gale still whispers her siren song lies,
As she steps deep into the waves and disappears.

If this is a shipwreck, I am lost at sea,
The only thing I’ve got left is the ocean’s hymn.
My heart is a treasure chest and she has the key,
And it’s the essence of love to sink or swim.

Severus Snape: A Portrait

The directions of the assignment were to pick a character who is traveling (following the Canterbury Tales route) and describe his or her physical and moral appearence in third person narrative using iambic pentameter.

With cape of black and scarf of forest green
A scowling man appeared within our midst
His greasy, tangled hair did seem to gleam
He clutched a polished stick within his fist

He hisses like a snake when others talk
His manners and his tone feel very strange
His vicious nose reminds me of a hawk
No travelers will laugh within his range

He always smells of herbs and potion brew
And stalks around when moving to and fro
It always feels like he is watching you
His hatred seems to give an eerie glow

He wears the night upon his bony frame
His mirthless laugh sends shivers down my spine
And though his pupils burn like white-hot flame
His drawling voice is subtly serpentine

He muttered words I’d never heard till then
With darkened shadows underneath his eye
He acts like he’s above all other men
And snarls at me whenever I walk by

But listen now! I’ve something to confide
I caught him with a wispy, silver deer
The only reason that I know he cried
Is because I spied a wayward tear

This man feels pain! I never would have known
The way he pushes everyone away
Perhaps he’s blue from always being alone
Or hates the dark because he’s seen the day

I tried to make him feel at home here, but
He heard some whispers clep him “Witch” and sneered
The last strings of his tolerance were cut,
He stepped into the night and disappeared.