Galloping Fuck

Today's vernacular for Buddhist detachment: I don't give a galloping fuck.

Inner Landscape I

(Writing exercise with theme of Inner Landscape. Written on January 15, 2015)

Motion sunrise
Light streaking by
Bare trees grey bark ochre leaves
Grey clouds blue trying to break through
Words sounds like crow's caw
Sounds noise construction
Annoyance anger trigger
Moments moments stillness
Smoke still air wafting
Smells aroma scents
Taste on tongue bitter sweet where's salt?
Speaking pictures thoughts in words fluid
Water emotions flowing but unchanging
Around stones around people
Past anger now anger still
Still the same roots
Roots deep where is shovel
Give us axes
My sword taken away
I have quills sharper than knives
Ink ink colors sienna
Ochre the earth blood Crimson
Where's parchment the canvas
Where's the water for words
Sailing on to places not here
Not here where I'd rather be
Not this family where I'd rather be
Not this culture
Pass me the flint and steel
Words are tinder
The fires will come
A fire horse descends
A sun on its hooves
To scorch to incinerate
Ashes ashes then feathers come
Not returning to this place
This is no longer my bay city
Distant shores faraway sands await

Late

It is so late and this heart so weary
Blood ties mean nothing
I live on feathers, on wings
I would rather drown as an albatross

A Morning with Theptun Tulku Rinpoche

I had the honor and pleasure of spending the good part of the morning Sunday with a small group of Buddhist practitioners in the presence of Thupten Tulku Rinpoche for a short talk and discussion. I have been around a number of Buddhist leaders of a couple different schools. This time was the first with a Tibetan master and for the first time, I was touched and felt a connection like nothing I had ever experienced.

I don't consider myself a practicing Buddhist and I had no idea what to expect yet his view and lines of thinking made more sense in bringing together a lot of concepts and ideas that reached the core of me. It was strange, very strange, in a good way. I could not have imagined that during his chanting that tears starting flowing and I could tell that they were neither good or bad. It was just being touched.

April 30, 1975

It is the dead who keep
Whispering into our hearts,
Paint visions into our souls.

They know it's their time.
Their time to finally rest,
Leaving the living to struggle on

With the memories of all that
We cannot rightly place to rest.

— Son Dao

(Tomorrow, April 30 will mark 39 years since me and my extended family fled Saigon at the end of the Vietnam-American war).

A Poem for Chino

This Side

There is light. We neither see nor touch it.
In its empty clarities rests
what we touch and see.
I see with my fingertips
what my eyes touch:
                                 shadows, the world.
With shadows I draw worlds,
I scatter worlds with shadows.
I hear light on the other side.

— Octavio Paz

47 Years

(for Tata Chau)

It's been 47 years yet it is yesterday 
For her. A rose in bloom crushed. 
What is left, a stalk of thorny memories. 
She mourns her brother, still. 

I trace remnants of his presence.
A father departed before I arrived
as the quill scratches wandering thoughts 
(as he might have) 
in scattered strokes in each of my sketches.

October 21, 2013

magma

anger is magma
heart is heat
figure the rest

Hier Soir, Ce matin

Last night's cigar and this morning's Oolong tea.

Be Mindfull

Ink on paper.

upstart crow (or wandering mind)

It's the fog that belies the Spring day. I wake from strange dreams involving strangers and distant places, a manor, a castle, preparation for a feast, children. All things that are possibly as distant to my reality as one could get. It is my mind in wanderlust perhaps. It is the wanderer in me reconciling reality with the concept of what I desire perhaps.

something to watch over me

Wednesday's morning sketch

bitter first

the coffe is slightly bitter until
the sweetened condensed milk
comes through then
I remember to take a moment
and savor awakening before filling
my moments with the promises and
demands of the work day
I remember the simple beauty of
her foot sticking out from the covers
then I remember to take out
the baguette dough to warm and
grin at making bread later in between
slices of work while so many others
are staring at the walls of their cubicles

joshua tree

the morning sun low on the horizon
glowers at me with the heat of a distant moonscape.
mockingbirds chatter on as if they
were cactus wrens atop sharply outlined yuccas.
yet familiar burnt cliffs aren't to be seen,
only geometric scatterings of glass and concrete.
eyes closing, memory's vision open
to towering rust and tangerine formations.
warm breezes rustle tendrils shading face,
fingertips feel raw at asperous monzonite
my ancient castles appear around me.

bodhichitta

the bitterness is not all from the tea

the sweetness is not all the sunrise's

i would trade these blue skies 

for a softer magenta, a gossamer hue

that blankets the pain, a warmer tone

reminding us of our softness so

that the stones we harbor at our 

brothers and sisters can build a

blazing hearth instead of walls

What I Remember of my Nanny Mai

I just found out the death of someone so very dear to me: My nanny, Mai.

I have known her all my life and she has been part of my family since I had memory. I have many memories of her.

She cleaned me up and put me back in bed when I was still suckling on a bottle of milk or whatever it was we had in Vietnam. I have a huge missing chunk of missing memory between life and eight years old when I was transplanted here in California but I never forgot those nights when I would in my sleep barf out my last bottle of formula and she would clean me up and make sure I was okay.

Later, when I was ill and feverish she would go to the market and buy grapes (do you know how hard it is to find grapes in Saigon back in the day?) and split them, take the seeds out and feed them to me.

I remember when I was a butt and being a spoiled brat, I fought with her and tore the sleeve of a shirt that she herself made because later I learned that she sewed all her clothes because that was what she could afford. I still see the moment clear as glass today and have never forgiven myself for it.

I remember when she gave me a roasted giant cricket and told me it was a delicacy. Maybe that was the start of my culinary adventures along with sitting next to her plucking freshly slaughtered hens that were gotten from the market earlier that day. I plucked my first bird and pulled out its guts when I was probably five. This is where and when I know where my food comes from.

I remember when I was cleanly bathed and dressed in my pajamas in the early evening and I was convinced by the cook's son that I should go after the fish and hopped in the fish pond, going after Grandpa's Koi and got so much hell for it.

I remember all the kindness and love she has given me despite the distance when our family left Saigon because of the war and she stayed behind. All the years following, my family here still cared for her, made sure she had what she needed despite the distance. In my two trips back to Vietnam, I went to see her and even in her aged form, she was still bright, kind and nurturing as always. She has been with our family since a teenager and her loyalty was unfaltering and we have tried to reciprocate no matter the time and distance. I am as much of a fabric of her as anything in this universe.

She taught me how to tell time, how to read a clock.

I'm sure she placed the first pencil in my hand before a piece of blank paper. The earliest photos of us were of me and her at a table on the second balcony of our house and me making scratches on a blank.

It was 25 years after leaving Saigon before I saw Bac Tu again. She was a lot older but still vibrant. She was proud of her family and especially grand and great-grandchildren and I met some of them. It was a happy time. In the years in between, most contact was through my grandmother and other family members and members of her family one of them, Lien who is her grandmother that I am friends with still here in San Jose.

I remember I'm not sure what age I was but in her mind I should be getting married, she sent me an old timey I don't know what you call it, a nuptial bedsheet according to old Catholic ideals; a sheet with a hole in it for you know what when I got married. I know that she is too practical and not very Catholic but it was cute.

I remember later she sent me two pairs of hand-sewn pajamas (because as a child, she would have nothing less but hand-sewn clothing for me. Yes, I know I was spoiled). They fit me almost perfectly because at that time, she had not seen me for 20 plus years. The shoulders were just too snug and the pants were just a tad long. She must have figured me to grow up to be a greater man.

When I saw her in 1999, she was still my Bac Tu. She was older, less energetic but the life in her was as the same. It was only the physical shell that aged. We had a meal together and that was what was important. Even then, I was not sure that I would see her again but she was a strong woman in ways that I could not count the stars in the sky.

I returned in 2005 and saw her again. She was much older and more frail, slower but all her continents were in position. In the time between, I would always get news from her grand-daughter Lien and I would occasionally get photos. Regardless of her age, she was always regal.

In the latter years when she was too old to work she focused on spirituality: Buddhism.

I know then before I understood it in her manners and more so now that Buddhism was and has always been her keel. She led a life of kindness.

I don't think I could say more and something more highly of someone in my meek experience than to say that Bac Tu led a life of kindness.

She is gone from this physical life but she has been and always shall be part of me.

Burns Night

Burn's night; it's supposed to be mostly meat
and offals and good solid starches
But never so simple when liver catches on
feather and quills become entangled

Suddenly there are textures on phrases
that were never meant to be; where's the cut?
Too soft is this once a lung that breathed life
it's lovely chewy and soft, my next breath

Then the drams of whisky, the peat, the sea,
Oh damn, it's just a dinner, no its a wake.

Burns Night 2013

Day of the Dead

I'm having morning tea
With dead people on the patio
Bach is whining but happy
He has lost that damn wig
Wilde makes cheeky pokes
But Cezanne just doesn't get it
Burns is bitching about the rain
Saying isn't this California?
Finally I've had enough and
Serve the bloody mary's so
I can tell them all to shut up

November 1, 2012

Samhain

Samhain's gate has open
I light candles
Pour drams of whisky
Oh faeries and spirits
Prank on my enemies

October 31, 2012

Desk-bound

Desk-bound, I am left
To wonder photos from
Other's wandering path
Through verdant forests

October 25, 2012

It was charred
That is all there was
You are shocked
That it was flesh?

October 19 2012

About Vietnam

It doesn't always occur
Keep the head down
There will be less splatter

October 19, 2012

It was the bunt eye brows
She looked at me
The world then changed

My extinct culture
Now replaced by fossils
How can essence fight MPH

I travel thousands miles
To see faded  stones
My souvenirs of 13 generations

Blood glory

Crescent moon sets
Where is my nebula in
Its red blood glory?

October 19, 2012

Gingko

Pungent, no putrid
Smell of crushed gingko nuts
Indian summer fades

Darker

Scratching quill on paper
Blood like ink dries darker
More bitter on gritty soil

October 17, 2012

Echoes

I had a dream before waking in which I was a student again and my professor tasked me with designing an eight story tall library building. I left campus not knowing what to do because I had one night to design it. I went to the hospital to go talk to my mom but she was busy teaching her own students (though she never teaches in real life). I left and went to a pub, some place unfamiliar though it felt like the west side of San Francisco perhaps the Richmond near USF. The inside of the pub was greenish. I could not find a table large enough to layout the roll of schematics and blueprints I had under my arm for a long time. The pool tables were taken. Finally, I ordered a chicken fried steak but had a hard time choosing a beer. The barkeep finally suggested an Oktoberfest styled beer called Echo after he showed me the grains and hops they use to brew the beer.

October 12, 2012

Rot

This morning leaves are still damp
Wooden fence displaying water streaks
Finally, first rain has come to bathe
The people's resentments, but fruits of
Collective discontent when wet, rots

October 10, 2012

Almost Autumn

My almost Autumn
Killed by Indian Summer
Give me fallen leaves

October 2, 2012

crow

crow caws thinks leaving
passing day move on
flight feathers new journey

september 27, 2012

Bitter

This tea so fragrant
So green like shadows
Of reluctant sunrises

This fragrance stirs
Dried leaves inside; sparks,
Soon feathers will aflame

September 27, 2012

Departure

Glancing out the window at
The earliest shades of Autumn.
Leaves contemplating departure

From graying gnarled branches; a
Gradual decent to mist dampened soil.
A red tailed hawk swoops low; tilts,
A flash of sienna in its spread tail.

The hamster pauses then freezes;
still motionless tribble-like, as
I fill another Yixing cup with Oolong.

September 24, 2012

Autumn

Early morning bitter red tea
Steam rises to face, a seasonal touch.

A few dry leaves crunch
Underfoot leaving rusty crumbs.

Autumn arrives; my heart warms,
Soon crackle of chestnuts roasting.

September 22 2012

Sencha and The Boss

Sencha and The Boss aren't companions,
First thing in morning, when sun glows
Through grey dawn cover. He speaks
Of faith, I try not to snicker. Thinking about
Trading summer colors for autumn's rust & decay.
He sings about pushin' it till it's understood
And these badlands start treating us good.
So I pick up the quill and pot of ink,
On rough paper this landscape will be redrawn.

September 19, 2012

Paths

A hazy morning or is it fog?
Either substance, the path
Dully shimmers like warm
Breath on cold crystal.
Many hours before time
for sleep and already the
road is long, has been long.
Are cobblestones beneath
Fast waters a blaze to salvation?
Or is there a pyre in which to
Ignite for ashes becoming feathers?

September 18, 2012

Sympathy

Asters glowing in the sun gazing
Up at the lone mourning dove
Quietly perched alone on faded fence
Golden petals drooping in sympathy
For his solitary silence as Autumn nears

September 14, 2012

Wish Tree

Leaves trying to drift with wind
Still tethered to branch and trunk
Wishes desiring pilgrimage to heaven
Still burdened with earthly vices
My wish tree is one I draw each day
Then burn to free them from my mind

September 10, 2012

Trade

Scent of Oolong in my nose
Warm early sun grazes asters
Shade on far side hints of Fall
Time to trade wool for cotton
Eager for coming season's frost

September 9, 2012

Waking

Feather quill scratches paper
Feeble vibrations grazes my hand
Vellum's tooth evokes dormant dreams
I know this process from time past
I have seen these images already
Time for spirited imaginings to wake

September 4, 2012

Quill

It started as a blank, once a living tree
Felled and cut to pieces,
Limbs and digits bleached in the sun
Now in this tired fingers I search for its life
Turning it into something to be stained
Into something manipulated and pushed
It becomes an extension of this tired hand
It becomes a tactile voice of these tired eyes

September 3, 2012

Thinning Vines

Thinning tomato vines
Beneath a grey late Summer ceiling
Pungent scent on my stained fingers
Fine cilia scratches skin like
A cat wanting attention
Scarlet orbs in dirty palm
See translucent fragile skin
Mouth waters imagining taste of
Sweet savory fruit dipped in sea salt

September 1, 2012

Autumn Moon

The sound of mourning doves
cooing through the open window
woke me ahead of passing cars

Soon the night air will be too cold
to leave the glass open wide

Soon I will have to place a blanket
on the bed instead of soft thin sheets

But I am already imagining
the Autumn moon feigning shyness
behind gossamer clouds
during the cooling midnight

I will watch her and wait
for the silhouettes of migrating birds
against her bright face flying South

August 31, 2012

Endings

Summer is waning and
I can't wait for autumn

Give me the falling leaves
Give me the golds and reds of forests
Readying for respite

Summer will lie down when the fall
Mist greets me in mornings

The smell of dry bark will tickle my nose
The sound of cracking twigs will make me giddy

And I shall watch the orange sun
Each evening reflecting fallen foliage

August 30, 2012

pre dawn

before dawn wakes i toil restlessly
in dreams to push her away
looking for more hours of sweet slumber
looking for more hours of reverie
to soothe my bruised soul
yet beyond these eyelids there is pink
it is not my thin flesh but the magenta of a new day

 august 28, 2012

Chino the Hamster

He was sleeping in my arm and started snoring. We managed to get only one squeak before he woke.

bitter tea

i rose before daylight
waited patiently with hot
cup of jasmine tea in hands
then finally the first golden
gingko leaf tumbled down
onto damp mossy flagstone
my autumn is here as
bitter tea hits my palate

11.11.11

it's not a crusade
save a couple beads
don't think it's new

don't think it's sacred
or with this red cross
i'll come for you too

as i came for myself
finding bloodied fingers

seeds

sleepy eyes and wandering fingers
teddy cat in my face when i wake

but her scent is still on our pillow
smile, inhale a sweet experience

a season may past, maybe a snow
in this clime, spring flowers are seeded

settings

i wake tangled in delicate strands of amber and honey
her sweetness and warmth are still on the linen
her marks are on my clothes like cat signs, "taken"

i only set out one coffee set but just for now
i have to pinch the third growth on tomato vines
she is not there sleepily in the morning sun at seven

in this interstitial i'll have to adjust portions for one
until later moons give tide to new harvests
then i'll have to wash dishes for two settings again

wheels

early in the morning
as i stretch my neck
round and round

lives of last nights' dreams
play in the forebrain
as a thousand tangled wheels

matin

Low sun cool air
Contrasts with memory
of her warm skin
While I stare at singing train tracks

racing

the mind races with coming dawn
soft bands of pale violet and periwinkle
ribbons of what will be washed ochre
chases shadows at tops of still tree tops

after dinner

sun lazily going down
after a satisfying dinner
palm fronds catching
slow breezes from bay
periwinkle sky turning violet

helios and eos

there is a dim grey sky
high above the still sycamores
but i know helios is chasing eos
and hot yellow rays are coming

summer

the tang of sour cream
on ripe black figs
play nicely with oolong's
bitter then sweet visit
on the tongue, in the nose

matin

the warming day
momentarily delayed
by cool air, scent of water

4th of july

on this day
my coffee is too sweet
to counter the idiocy
founding fathers
would resurrect themselves
to fix the ship of fools
in the large
white domed building

scent of water

i got up early
sprayed the patio
still in shade

and waited for the scent
of water to draft inside
sipping hot espresso

july

july's sun has breached the horizon. i feel the heat that is about to come.

church

it sucks
when you
can't say, "dad you told me once…"
because it never happened
it didn't happen
it never got the chance
to happen this
this in this moment
i see the point
i become gabriel and
i pierce the flesh i kill god
all becomes ash ash turns
into slurry turns into river
turns into a sea
i charred perfection from
this comes life micro organisms
fucking the wrong cells
because fucking doesn't exist yet
but they go on and on and on and
in millions of years later fucking
still goes on in light of the roman church
it goes on and on and on and life in
the foreseeable future continues

30 may 2011

Double Suture

(I think this has been brooding in my head. Last night in my sleep I had the vision of two sutures going through the same hole in bleeding skin. It was time to put it down on paper.)

This kind of pain is
like the pain of birth
but there is no new life.

It is pulling a double suture;
two needles, two threads
but one hole. It bleeds just the same.

The cries are mournful
just the same as those who cheer
in the streets though unaware.

Those getting drunk in musty bars
finding only blinding fog when they leave,
their path home is unclear.

The sand gives no direction,
their path shrouded in freedom
in a land with no compass.

3 May 2011

in the dark places

this is so haunting and beautiful i can't get it out of my head

Laura's Xmas Movie Bloopers

What if you ordered chicken fried steak and the server tells you the last one is gone?

What if you ordered chicken fried steak and the server tells you the last one is gone?

Answer here

formspring.me

Ask me anything http://formspring.me/equusignis

"All those experiences in life that i accumulate definitely gives me maybe we can call it a cooking wisdom." — Eric Ripert

fog

early morning
dense white fog
matches the limits
of my waking brain

16 january 2011

the night is not silent

(merry christmas)

the night is not silent.
this world remembers little peace
yet beneath the pale moon;

between riffles of bare branches,
between cold winds there are
adamant flames

unwilling to extinguish.
there are old memories
unwilling to surrender.

silence is only a state,
not destinations of our efforts.

(christmas eve 2010)

Laura's Xmas Movie

Yet another one of her creations... Enjoy!

at dawn's light

at dawn's light
there was a sliver;
a thin momentary view

into the night that preceded,
into the shadows where
faces and eyes have been left.

i stand in magenta rays
of this mourn's break
watching them recede,

watching lost desire to
thread on coarse gravel paths
barefoot, inhaling risk.

17 december 2010

A Sense of Accomplishment

Is what I'm feeling after finishing doing updates to my online folio and revising my resumé.

equusignis.com

Of Different Worlds

A short piece I was asked to write for the 10th Anniversary of ICAN (www.ican2.org)

--

I arrived in California in 1975 at the age of eight. I grew up in this country for many years in places where there were not many or any other Vietnamese people. Over the years, I was very much part of the melting pot that is America. I learned English and to this day it is my best language though I never lost my mother tongue. While I don't have the vocabulary of my Vietnamese friends, I feel lucky to be able to speak, read and write though I stopped school in Vietnam when I was only in the third grade.

Culturally, I became a mutt of sorts. I grew up among people from various origins. I learned a bit of this culture and that culture. I became a mosaic of many sources and was quite comfortable with that. It was not until 1999 when I returned to Vietnam for the first time that I experienced a stirring inside that had been dormant for a long time. Like a sleeper awakening, through the people I met, the places I visited and the home that I grew up in as a child.

It struck me that even though I have had so many other experiences in various countries and with various non-Vietnamese people for so long, there was still a very large part of me that remains Vietnamese. It was the start of a journey that I will be on for the rest of my life. However, it is not a simple journey of finding what bits of me connect to the culture I was born into because after all of these years, I realise I am a product of many roots.

I am not Vietnamese like the people who never left Vietnam. I am not Vietnamese like the many friends I have who grew up there then came here. I am not fully American either and to a great extent, it is a cloud of thoughts that has and still does sometimes blur the sense of who and what I am. There is not a simple easy answer but over time, I have come to accept the complicated nature of belonging to more than one people, than one place and culture at the same time.

There is richness in it and I know it will always be an adventure and learning experience.

— Dao Thai Son

Three Hours

Three hours was the time I spent talking to an old good friend last night. It was wonderful. It was like finding a cache of dormant energy I had put to safe keeping long ago. Step by step, embers of power and courage are revealing themselves to me, mostly because I am letting them.

The path is rocky and often steep but these eyes are open.

Reconnections

I reconnected and caught up briefly with a friend from art school that I haven't spoken to or seen in years. Of course we are thousands of miles apart, this sort of thing seems to happen a lot in my life. I wouldn't say it is a curse but most of the people I would like to spend time with are always so far away (or it is me who is always distant).

I don't know what to make of that thought. I do know that there has always been a strong nomadic streak in my life and I don't see it changing anytime soon. It is okay, it is a big wide world and much to see and experience. This makes me feel good though I can't say I exactly understand why. Sometimes it is not necessary to know, it is more important to just take the step forward as the path reveals itself.

Ink on Paper

Yesterday while waiting for a friend at a cafe, I sat and pulled out my Moleskine and for the first time in I don't know how long I put the nib of my refilled fountain pen on paper and started writing. It was nothing in particular. It was about nothing and everything. It was about little things, little observations as well as grander thoughts. I was not sure where I was going but it didn't matter. What matter was that I was writing, letting my mind wander unrestrained by the narrow avenues of life, the obligations that I think I should be on top of. On those pages where the winding curves and percussive strokes of letters were forming was a freedom I had forgotten about. My mind was rusty but my hand remembered the patterns. My hand remembered the joy and reward of simply drawing letters and making them run like a snake in the grass.

In the last several days, I have had an inkling that something is about to start again. Call it the sleeper awakening, call it the phoenix's embers lighting up again, it doesn't matter. In this moment, all that matters is I know something is stirring and some things that have been dormant are coming out of hibernation.

awakening

there is something stirring inside. it is deep down and has been dormant for a long time. it is stirring and soon it will glow like embers before it explodes into flames and rise again. it is time.

i wander into the night
the silence holds me
almost comforts me
as when she holds my hand

— equusignis

i feel fragile
no god agrees

you all fucks
put dicks in

same old
fuckin

baggy sacks

Subtlety and Complexity

Subtlety and complexity live side by side, those who refuse this reality find it easier to gravitate toward attachments where it is easier to fear and hate than reconcile and build bridges among diversity in beliefs.

— equusignis

line

when you look up at the night sky
turn around until you start to get dizzy
you find there is a center and starting point
then you know you have a line to follow

11 july 2010

seeds

i'm not overextended
not in this world
i'm kind when blood
paints patterns so pretty

it's not my soil all this
concrete pretty pay shack
this godless mayhem joint
and they still want taxes

i pay taxes in seeds they
are too stupid to understand

there are those
there was me

came to this place
came to this home

i found a new soil
they found shiney cars

i found my desert
they found gucci

all that was good
about my new land

they fucked into garb
and knew nothing

of the places
they came from

wearing DG and
shit they do not

realize how they
are so proud of shit

New porfolio

I woke refreshed today after having finally completed my new portfolio site. Minimal canvas and to the point.

http://equusignis.com

calla

there is a delicate thing in my bed
the room's air wants to
move when she breathes
the gauzy curtains want to
fan her calla lily skin
outside the dawn light
is trying to graze her twisted locks
i watch her scapula
sigh with each breath and
find the golden mean embedded
in the space between us

27 April 2010

Lately

He has been dreaming vividly
She now walks with him always
Through passages of familiar
Bazaars in strange old cities

— equusignis

Ode To A Haggis

Fair fa’ your honest, sonsie face,
Great Chieftan o’ the Puddin-race!
Aboon them a’ ye tak your place,
Painch, tripe, or thairm:
Weel are ye wordy of a grace
As lang’s my arm

The groaning trencher there ye fill,
Your hurdies like a distant hill,
You pin wad help to mend a mill
In time o’need
While thro’ your pores the dews distil
Like amber bead

His knife see Rustic-labour dight,
An’ cut you up wi’ ready slight,
Trenching your gushing entrails bright
Like onie ditch;
And then, O what a glorious sight,
Warm-reeking, rich!

Then, horn for horn they stretch an’ strive,
Deil tak the hindmost, on they drive,
Till a’ their weel-swall’d kytes belyve
Are bent like drums;
Then auld Guidman, maist like to rive
Bethankit hums

Is there that owre his French ragout,
Or olio that wad staw a sow,
Or fricassee wad mak her spew
Wi’ perfect sconner,
Looks down wi’ sneering, scornfu’ view
On sic a dinner?

Poor devil! see him owre his trash,
As feckless as a wither’d rash
His spindle-shank a guid whip-lash,
His nieve a nit;
Thro’ bluidy flood or field to dash,
O how unfit!

But mark the Rustic, haggis-fed,
The trembling earth resounds his tread,
Clap in his walie nieve a blade,
He’ll mak it whissle;
An’ legs, an’ arms an’ heads will sned,
Like taps o’ thrissle

Ye pow’rs wha mak mankind your care,
An’ dish them out their bill o’fare,
Auld Scotland wants nae skinking ware
That jaups in luggies;
But, if ye wish her gratefu’ pray’r,
Gie her a Haggis!

— Robert Burns (25 January 1759 – 21 July 1796)

venom

it is the cold night i crave
the cold outside fires my skin
the cold is not the cold it is family
they call me cruel call me cruel
i'm the spitting cobra in their faces
i'm fulll of venom and it's all for family

happy birthday

i wonder what you would make of all this madness
i wonder if you would feel like you are missing out
i doubt it because i have a feeling that in your heart
you are sitting with all of monet's colours at giverny
i doubt it because i have a sense that on your tongue
you are tasting the sea and salt from normandy
if you were here now we might be sitting in the sixth
drinking dom and chewing on lemon after oysters

The Gathering

Outside, the scene was right for the season,
heavy gray clouds and just enough wind
to blow down the last of the yellow leaves.

But the house was different that day,
so distant from the other houses,
like a planet inhabited by only a dozen people

with the same last name and the same nose
rotating slowly on its invisible axis.
Too bad you couldn't be there

but you were flying through space on your own asteroid
with your arm around an uncle.
You would have unwrapped your scarf

and thrown your coat on top of the pile
then lifted a glass of wine
as a tiny man ran across a screen with a ball.

You would have heard me
saying grace with my elbows on the tablecloth
as one of the twins threw a dinner roll across the room at the other.

— Billy Collins

Believe nothing

Believe nothing on the faith of traditions,
even though they have been held in honor
for many generations and in diverse places.
Do not believe a thing because many people speak of it.
Do not believe on the faith of the sages of the past.
Do not believe what you yourself have imagined,
persuading yourself that a God inspires you.
Believe nothing on the sole authority of your masters and priests.
After examination, believe what you yourself have tested
and found to be reasonable, and conform your conduct thereto.

— सिद्धार्थ गौतम (Siddartha Gautama)

stream

there is that waviness in the darkness you've been watching for you wait for its restlessness to absorb yours like a ghost hunting for emotions for it to take it away from you then you can fall into some sort of almost black indigo night that you imagine exists then all will be well all will be well not like the weird dreams of the night before when you sat next to bush sr then obama then it all turned out to be some sort of therapy cause the plane landed then we had to walk from sfo across the new bay bridge for some unknown reason and there was the one point where we were hundreds of feet up in the air around a turn and there was no railing and i looked into the water below all turquoise and green and it called me but i kept going cause i had to find some unknown on the old bridge and it turned out to be an old chinese woman with alms and some fortune telling then we got back to where we started and obama's secret service took us and we were on a helicopter then we were in some courtyard waiting and some movie producer asked us questions then someone else explained it to her all and she laughed then all these people all costumed up like they were in the next star trek movie which they were showed up and asked where was lunch then i realized i had left my house key at home

l'automne est arrivé

Autumn's first rain. She came in a violent passing, blowing droplets almost sideways and her chilling breath shocked all the complacent Californians. I loved every moment. I loved walking in the wet and windy air, coming home soaked and having to change into drier garbs and settling down with a cup of steaming sencha.

before dawn

it was so long ago. what do you remember in a dream but impressions? for me, obviously a lot more.

the white rose i photographed at the campground; white is a wild color, not something we looked for. it stared at me beneath the afternoon sun like the heart of honesty. i stared back but all i could do was to steal its image; i took a photo.

i go to some semblance of the wild to remind myself that nature is still out there. i go for trees, dried grasses, pine cones, the stinky smell that we have all forgotten in the wild. when the raccoon came the night before, i could not beckon it to stay though i had chicken roasting on coals. we of the suburbian cycle have lost what it is like to be among the trees.

i grabbed two leaves of california bay laurel and said to my friend you can cook with this and found it was something novel for her.

how have i gotten so far from the earth?

today i have tear stained cheeks because it is not where i want to be. give me the city or give me the country. this in-between land is for people looking for conveniences and i am NOT one of them.

if i have ever had enmity in my life i have learned that it has always come from my family.

In her serene display

In her serene display, originally uploaded by equusignis.

The parasol is the umbrella's daughter,
And associates with a fan
While her father abuts the tempest
And abridges the rain.

The former assists a siren
In her serene display;
But her father is borne and honored,
And borrowed to this day.

— Emily Dickinson

--

She's been gone almost two weeks and it seems so much longer...

woke with your name

YOU

Uninvited, the thought of you stayed too late in my head.
so I went to bed, dreaming you hard, hard, woke with your name,
like tears, soft, salt, on my lips, the sound of its bright syllables
like a charm, like a spell.

Falling in love
is glamorous hell: the crouched, parched heart
like a tiger, ready to kill; a flame’s fierce licks under the skin.
into my life, larger than life, you strolled in.

I hid in my ordinary days, in the long grass of routine,
in my camouflage rooms. You sprawled in my gaze,
staring back from anyone’s face, from the shape of a cloud,
from the pining, earth-struck moon which gapes at me

as I open the bedroom door. The curtains stir. There you are
on the bed, like gift, like a touchable dream.

— Carol Ann Duffy

Duffy became Britain's Poet Laureate today. The first woman to hold the post in its 341 year history.

I can't look at his face and not shed tears. I miss him...

Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,
Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,
Silence the pianos and with muffled drum
Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.

Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead
Scribbling on the sky the message He Is Dead,
Put crepe bows round the white necks of the public doves,
Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves.

He was my North, my South, my East and West,
My working week and my Sunday rest,
My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;
I thought that love would last for ever: I was wrong.

The stars are not wanted now: put out every one;
Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun;
Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood.
For nothing now can ever come to any good.

— W H Auden

Ghosts

This autumn I won't be spending with ghosts
I won't be dancing with faces that have faded
the golds and reds of this season will fall
and be a prelude to the light of what I'll find
when these lids lift and the warm glow of you
touches my face, I'll know it is time to wake

11 December 2008