vapors

oh father,
the water is wide and the fog lays low.
for so long now it seems,
i’ve been trying to find a way home
across desert plains and windy steppes,
over sharp peaks and through tree thick valleys.
now i’ve come to this last crossing
but there is no ferryman to give safe passage
and i’ve no coins to pay for my way.

oh father,
the water is wide and the fog seeps into my flesh
like a slow poison but it is so calming.
is this the end of a journey or the beginning of a new one?
i can’t tell where i end and life starts.
the guiding angels left a long time ago.

i’ve only an occasional abandoned feather to mark the path.
the feathers become quills which are the points
with which i scribble this story
this story will have more life than i.
the feathers pen letters constituting words,
bringing to life tales that i won’t be able
to take with me in this crossing.

on the other side, words don’t exist and
they tell me there is no pain.
the fog is so cold but so calming.
something this tranquil can’t be damning;
something this beautiful can’t be an end;
for a while perhaps, i’ll lie in life’s vapors.

doubt

doubt
Originally uploaded by equusignis.

sometimes you can't the expression for what you feel in yourself. sometimes the expression of that fleeting emotion exists in a face that is not real, scratches of a steel quill with other worldly ink, cross hatching that is reminiscent of terrible contradictions that live inside but are ever present and real enough, real enough for you to want to express. on the page and in that other world, the wind blows. you can't see the needles of snow in horizontal cascade but the inside of your skin feels it. so in that way, it is real.

The Moon and the Yew Tree

Sometimes the words of another, the words of an artist best speak the countenance that sits quietly within one's own heart. This is by Sylvia Plath:

The Moon and the Yew Tree

"This is the light of the mind, cold and planetary.
The trees of the mind are black. The light is blue.
The grasses unload their griefs at my feet as if I were God,
Prickling my ankles and murmuring of their humility.
Fumy spiritious mists inhabit this place
Separated from my house by a row of headstones.
I simply cannot see where there is to get to.

The moon is no door. It is a face in its own right,
White as a knuckle and terribly upset.
It drags the sea after it like a dark crime; it is quiet
With the O-gape of complete despair. I live here.
Twice on Sunday, the bells startle the sky -
Eight great tongues affirming the Resurrection.
At the end, they soberly bong out their names.

The yew tree points up. It has a Gothic shape.
The eyes lift after it and find the moon.
The moon is my mother. She is not sweet like Mary.
Her blue garments unloose small bats and owls.
How I would like to believe in tenderness -
The face of the effigy, gentled by candles,
Bending, on me in particular, its mild eyes.

I have fallen a long way. Clouds are flowering
Blue and mystical over the face of the stars.
Inside the church, the saints will be all blue,
Floating on their delicate feet over cold pews,
Their hands and faces stiff with holiness.
The moon sees nothing of this. She is bald and wild.
And the message of the yew tree is blackness - blackness and silence."

– Sylvia Plath

muse, flora, fauna

muse, flora, fauna
Originally uploaded by equusignis.

all these things live in mind at the moment, in the light of tides of those around me, those in confusion, those in fear. in that chaos, archetypes appear in my mind to help ease the spikiness and sharpness in the realities of others that encroach into my space...

of course

of course i hurt. how can one not hurt after being slapped in the face by those who were thought to be pillars of support for you? how can one not hurt when one is misjudged because of fear and misinformation? but that is the reality. reality is now, in this moment. in this moment this body still has breath and this heart and mind still feels, pain is just a reminder that you are still alive. sometimes it is a good thing.

Moving forward

"I can't go back into the past and change it, but I have noticed that the future changes the past. What I call the past is my memory of it and my memory of it is conditioned by who I am now. Who I will be. The only way for me to handle what is happening is to move myself forward into someone who has handled it." – from Gut Symmetries by Jeanette Winterson

Georgia

Four A.M., no sleep
Candles die in predawn light
No dreams, daylight soon

--

Unknown birds call out
Dogwood blooms in violet dawn
Waxing into light

--

Early summer stroll
Doused in crepe myrtle petals
Snow flurry in June

Grandpa

My life lost its breath
He slipped from me
Even after all those years

The man who showed me
Camelia from azalea
Magenta from cyan

He holds his feet firm
At the base of mountains
With head onward to the blue

Taste of fuschia
And smell of cut grass
Life has its smells
Love has its scents

Gloom

“gloom,” she said
not gloom as in bloom
nor spacious as in a room

not the space we keep private
not the face we avoid to show

grey and maybe dark
lacking the face of the moon
that is the kind of gloom she meant

i think

but in darkness of such a place
there is no sense in a big room
no buds in haste for spring

“in dark spaces we keep things
close and safe, protected.”
that’s what she said

i’m sure


after Sarah Arvio

Canyonlands II

A journey to fix us
After the deaths,
The breakdown and alcohol
The suspicion of a fairy tale’s end

In desperation
We became pilgrims
Not knowing emptiness
Has no material destination

In search of feelings misplaced
Hoping to find them intact
In fear of damage and mutilation
White knuckles on emotions
Looking for porcelain hearts,
Shapes that held affection

Among the trails,
Among deep red sandstone canyons
Once reliable organs became strangers
Sky, sand and thousand year old
Chips in ancient stone walls cast more beauty
Than our identities and how we came
To see one another

Love once held still held but hands
Once held each other lost their clasps
As romantic idealists, we held
That no obstacle could divide the bond

I held confusion, I held fear
I held for the last time
Faith that vows were real
And the rings would always
Remain in each other’s company

One person’s understanding
Can’t ever be another’s faith
It is a self reflective possession
Affecting and benefiting the beholder
Its power and paradox,
Non-transferrable even when floating
On an endless ocean of love

smiles to make you smile

eric and sara
Originally uploaded by equusignis.

little cousins

energy, boundless, tireless energy...

Blind

Because I do not turn

Cold winter day.
Grey skies wishing for desert winds.
These come from the seas, warm,
and arrive on cold shores.

Outside is the
The universe manifesting.
In here are hungry,
Slack shells of souls looking,
wanting, praying for the promises
of a negligent god.

Desperate,
Empty of awareness,
They seek salvation.
Blind to the usefulness
Of empty space, inside,
they carry on in faith.

Like their Maker,
Blind to their own jewel.

Bangkok

Recling Buddha
Gilded in gold, lies watching
Truth immutable

--

Chao Praya dawn
Your smile effervescent
Lychee on your lips

--

Sea of coal black heads
My stupa in blond locks here
Far, I will follow

Bamboo

I refuse to be out of faith
I don't care what they old wise men say.
If I were their wives,
I would whip them out of their double skin.

I am a product of something without balance
And so now I am out of balance
But that is all going to change.

I am going to learn the lessons
Passed from the little women
In our history

I'm going lose that shell.
I am going to lose that fragile thick shell.
I am going to lose that manly man stance.
I am going to stand like the way the bamboo would.

I am going to stand the way my mother

Stands

The way she stands in a cyclone
And kisses the wind of heaven.

Birthday

28 October 2001...

Kirala was one of our favorite sushi places
The hostess remembered us even after the long absence
As we ducked into the lobby, out of the chill

On the drive there, I wondered what would make
The evening a nice experience—it was my birthday
It had been the longest span since that

February in New York that we had been apart
You looked wonderfully glowing but hesitant
Like a moth choosing between light and flame

The steaming miso warmed me inside
But we never got past agedashi tofu
In the rhythm of our conversation

The space between our sentences was
As fresh and cold as that night’s otoro;
Precious and tasteful but seeming misplaced

The aesthetic presence of the meal; a metaphor
Four our odd situation but as yet unaware
The attraction and nourishment for heart and soul

Was in the paradox of sushi’s delicate beauty—
The sensual contact on the palate of uncooked, raw fish

song

it is another song
that brings gone people back.
i can barely listen
to the melody and rhythm.

they are traces,
beats of something
i've tried to banish
without success.

memory is a thing
that brings something
which does not exist
right now into reality.

it changes your countenance
into things you have
never imagined possible.

even darkness and
closed eyes do not help.
even in the night
the sights are there
behind reluctant eyelids.

even in the darkness
the voices still stir
something inside of you.

silicon valley fashion accessory #37, part 2

So it has been about a year since I posted about the bluetooth wireless headset thing. Specifically, how silly it seemed for people to go around with this funny looking thing hanging on the side of their head even when they aren't on the phone. Moreover, how incredible silly it is when people use the product as a symbol of prestige or wealth or in some cases, astronomical and almost superlative attraction to geeky gadgets that potentially put them ahead of the social-techno elite...or something like that.

In any case, after much observation I have found that in almost 9 out of 10 ten cases it is always men who wear these headsets as a fashion accessory. It makes me want to do a field trip to say, Milan or Paris to see if this is in fact a male thing or if it is an American male thing (like the big chrome wheels with spinners. The person who invented that should be duct taped to a windmill in Northern Netherlands facing the North Sea).

However, in a moment of epiphany a great idea came to me that could be a rather interesting book and/or documentary...the subject could be:

"The Evolution of Product Design: the evolution of a product from basic utility to vanity support in case studies."

I've got a thesis idea for grad school!!!! Hah, the irony of it leaves a metallic taste in my mouth. Or is that blood?!

living in memory

Scene:
Sitting in a cafe sipping tea. Woman walking out the door, talking to person behind counter, "I'm so sick of this rain. It won't stop."

observation:
People so easily fall into the habit of complaining about the gloomy, rainy weather that they turn their behavior shallow and transparent. They fail to see the beauty of the swirling droplets of moisture in the light breeze, backlit by the early morning sun. They fail to see the gorgeous, soft hints of violet at the edges of the not too distant clouds and how they look against the luminous white and silver strata of suspended water. It is a subjective reality and they limit themselves to the perceptive lens of other people's misplaced and misfounded expectations of how they should see the world. They are living in the reactions of someone else's memory. C'est dommage...

grandpa

oh old departed man
everytime i look at certain plants
their blooms and foliage

bring you back to me
i see you in the garden
bent over feeding the glorious white roses

you have not left me at all,
not as i thought
like the old monk said,

"death is only a notion,
a human notion"
i've been listening to this

intuition inside of me,
wondering from where it comes
wondering of its vibrant, almost violent

intensity like the color
of a crimson rose bleeding into white
i am realizing it is still you

inside of me, you still teaching
i should have known you had
not finished the lessons yet

firefly

it was a stranger in the crowd
someone passing by, a glance, an impression,
an almost encounter that brought visions of firefly

briefly but vividly
triangulated between
the eyes, the brain and the heart

the pools of her dark eyes
loomed in my field like
the black sea under a new moon

how could such titan eyes
be supported by the waif like frame?
how does the smile below those eyes

move my being more than
three hundred gods
in six thousand years?

the vision of firefly departed
as quickly as it came,
my internal triangle unable to hold

her presence like the giant
tanks of chemicals buried by
scientists trying to capture neutrinos