No shame (needed) plug. Brushes & Petals: A Benefit Show for Children in Vietnam

I am showing a selection of my photos and watercolors this coming weekend in a two person exhibit. The photography will be a combination of photos from last summer and fall as well as of a Ikebana arrangements by my friend Ivy. Part of the proceeds of the show will go to a non-profit called ICAN.

For those of you in the Bay Area, please drop by if you can. It's for a good cause.

RECEPTION
Saturday, January 26, 2008: 3pm - 7pm

EXHIBITION
Friday, 1/25/08: 3pm - 7pm
Saturday, 1/26/08: 10am - 7pm

ICAN is a 501 (c)3 non-profit organization whose mission is to help Vietnamese children realize their potential and become caring and contributing members of their family and community. ICAN's programs aim to create strong family and community networks to support the children as well as provide the children with skills, confidence and opportunities to succeed in life.

For more information, please visit www.ican2.org

Tragedy

found quote:

"Tragedy is when I cut my finger. Comedy is when you fall into an open sewer and die."–Mel Brooks

We are like sculptors...

found quote:

"We are like sculptors, constantly carving out of others the image we long for, need, love or desire, often against reality, against their benefit, and always, in the end, a disappointment, because it does not fit them."

Anaïs Nin

Shadows (of things that get overlooked)

Today seemed overly productive, for a while there, so I decided by mid-afternoon it was time to stretch my legs with a photowalk outside. The sky was clear and cold so I walked. Oddly, I walked and walked and even got on a bus and I was uninspired to take a photo of anything. Not good. I boarded a bus and headed to a local bookstore. It was depressing. It looked like it was trying to regain itself from the Holiday rush. I considered seeing a movie but that seemed contradictory to my getting out of the house.

It was not until I was almost home that I started to click the shutter. It seemed odd because they were at places where I saw almost everyday and found a couple of new things. So...



And when I looked at the photo, this came to me:

Shadows as veins
Reveal past damage
Shadows as lines
Reveal ages past

January 7, 2008

Six of Swords

"...the Six of Swords shows the necessity to take a look at where you've been and where you're going. This mental clarity will also serve to smooth the way ahead, and make the passage from negative to positive as peaceful as possible. Though the waters behind are choppy, there are no rough seas ahead to slow your progress...Instead of ruling the emotions, the Six of Swords actually offers a highly controlled balance of logic and intuition. This is how true mental clarity arises; you can use your intuition to guide you through easy situations and call upon your impartial and analytical nature when it is needed for a more complex decision. Do not seek to suppress your emotions any more than a sea captain would want to eliminate the water. Rather, respect their presence and their power in your life, and use them to your advantage. When a balance between head and heart is achieved, truly great things can be accomplished."

–James Rioux from www.ata-tarot.com

The Pond

It has rained all day today. Feeling nolstagic, I donned my coat and grabbed my camera and went for a walk, half-heartedly wishing that my walk was taking place in another continent, in another place. The sky reminded me of winter days in La Tour-de-Peilz or Dundee. When I think of these places and all the moments of laughter I had there I find a bittersweet flavor in the core of my heart. Constantly we compare the moment of now in some sort of dissonance and look back to other times when we laugh as a matter of natural response, not a practiced effort. Still, I did find some kind of little joy in my steps today, listening to the rain drops pelting my hood even with earbuds in and listening to the moment's soundtrack from my iPod nano and feeling the swing and thump of my camera hanging around my neck and tucked in under my coat.

I managed to get a couple of photos without destroying my camera in the downpour...then when I came home, I found the poem.



The Pond

Night covers the pond with its wing.
Under the ringed moon I can make out
your face swimming among minnows and the small
echoing stars. In the night air
the surface of the pond is metal.

Within, your eyes are open. They contain
a memory I recognize, as though
we had been children together. Our ponies
grazed on the hill, they were gray
with white markings. Now they graze
with the dead who wait
like children under their granite breastplates,
lucid and helpless:

The hills are far away. They rise up
blacker than childhood.
What do you think of, lying so quietly
by the water? When you look that way I want
to touch you, but do not, seeing
as in another life we were of the same blood.

Lousie Glück

downtown

today's acquisition.

over the years, i've had the opportunity to work in manhattan, staying there just long enough each time to enjoy all the good and great things a huge metropolis has to offer but never staying long enough for the city to get under my skin and leave its bitterness. i remember coming across a review of this book a while ago and when i saw it on the shelf of a dollar store today, there was no question.

halves

they were like two halves of a missing sculpture like two halves of a perfect pear cloven and that was their story before they even knew it beyond distance they could trade words their thoughts meshed like the sea met the sky on a misty day as time passed they didn't know where one ended and the other started and they had this crazy idea that that was how their lives were going to unfold, like a piece of endless, elegant origami unfolding and with each leaf and crease undone there were to be art and love escaping from the thin recesses of their mingled lives and then the burr came it was not new it had been displayed or mentioned or talked about but it was not full so when it came it killed all they had together like a plague like a black death as if they were a continent of humans they all died he lied or he didn't lie he lived his own lie in his life so it was the truth so it came out as a lie even if he didn't want to lie there was the terrible fright there was the terrible fright of losing the only one he had met after all the years who was an equal there was the terrible feeling of wanting to tell yet it receded into the empty part of his soul where he thought it would not come out but it did and it did and it was horrible it was the crystal castle coming down, weighed with such darkness, it was like all the feathers of a thousand doves turning to lead and falling on the earth, falling on the earth when the earth is made of glass and everything broke apart and violently flew in all directions and it was the beginning of the end and it was the beginning of a new beginning and so he patiently, now, watches the sun and lets it set beyond the horizon and in the darkness he sees things and thoughts and emotions and realities that were too subtle for the bright light of day and his heart begins to calm knowing that it did not matter what he knew but it was about what he might see

i could not sleep in these hours before dawn

so i wandered and found this...

Demian

Some years ago, an old friend sent me a letter and she said I was her Demian. I had no idea what she was talking about. Recently, someone told me that was a very high compliment. So today, I went out and bought a copy. It's been some 16 years since that letter so it is high time I figure out what she was trying to tell me...

Happy Birthday Papa

For a moment this morning when I drifted from sleep to wakefulness, I thought what it might have been if you were still here on this earth. I thought how it would feel as an adult to have a close connection with my father. Thoughts as these give rise to ideas that make me feel that I should be a writer full time. That may happen yet...

Meanwhile, happy birthday papa.

grey morning, transparent clouds

rolled out of bed way too early this morning or at least that is how it feels. it wasn't too early though. it was 8:05am. my body was no longer interested in sleep even though i wanted to drift back into lucid dreams. there seemed unfinished business or lack of recall from some of the dreams. the whole night seemed to be some sort of odd recapitulation of excerpts from my life, actual characters replaced by new faces in some cases. the brain trying to draw lines between the dots and make connections while the other-reality part of the brain was presenting mobius loops and introducing unlikely or impossible trails to follow.

the strongest and most lingering recalls:

a woman who was either completely new or a composite of several people (i was reading about herman hesse's novel damien. perhaps influence by the character of frau eva?); an ambivalent relationship somewhere between platonic and intimate; a man who completed the triangle with more ambivalence; distances traveled everyday––something about the connection between a rural place and an urban setting; a place where everyone knows you; restraint in my own natural urges.

a return to art center, my alma mater. it was not clear why i was there. there were many familiar faces. we all came with our "kits," ready to design, draw, whatever. perhaps thoughts about me starting to teach next month. something i've wanted to do for a long time and it is finally happening.

in any case, my head was active and clear on this early winter day and i have the instinct that the feeling of this morning will stay with me for a long time to come...

Winter Sarabande

Strewn across his vision
are fragments of hues
and luminance; souvenirs
of the moments of a year.

White pale light conducts
fragments of remembrance,
matching chroma and senses
like a kiss telling a truth.

Written from Al-Zahra

a found poem

From al-Zahra
I remember you with passion.
The horizon is clear,
the earth's face serene

The breeze grows faint
with the coming of dawn.
It seems to pity me
and lingers, full of tenderness.

The meandering waterway
with its silvery waters
shows a sparkling smile.
It resembles a necklace
unclasped and thrown aside.

A day like those delicious ones
now gone by
when seizing the dream of destiny
we were thieves of pleasure.

Today, alone,
I distract myself with flowers
that attract my eyes like magnets.
The wind roughhouses with them
bending them over.

The blossoms are eyes.
They see my sleeplessness
and weep for me;
their iridescent tears overflow
staining the calyx.

In the bright sun
red buds light up the rose bushes
making the morning
brighter still.

Fragrant breaths come from the pome
of the waterlilies,
sleepyheads with eyes
half-opened by dawn.

Everything stirs up the memory
of my passion for you
still intactin my chest
although my chest might seem
too narrow to contain it.

If, as I so desire,
we two could again be made one,
that day would be the noblest
of all days.

Would God grant calm to my heart
if it could cease to remember you
and refrain from flying
to your side
on wings trembling with desire?

If this passing breeze
would consent to carry me along,
it would put down at your feet
a man worn out by grief.

Oh, my most precious jewel,
the most sublime,
the one preferred by my soul,
as if lovers dealt in jewels!

In times gone by
we demanded of each other
payments of pure love
and were happy as colts
running free in a pasture.

But now I am the only one
who can boast of being loyal.
You left me
and I stay here,
still sad, still loving you.

~ Ibn Zaydun
(died 1070) (Córdoba)

The River

for Benazir Bhutto

There is this sadness and comfort
As if everything is okay
Today when I walked beneath sheltering trees
The shade gave me a grace
I never thought was possible

There was for a moment
That I really am not alone
And tonight the stars
Would break open for me
And shed celestial light

I stopped in my tracks today
And looked down at a fallen leaf
So rusty and coppery in the midst of summer
And I saw myself in its colors
Always in autumn no matter the season

And in that moment
I let a bite of hope enter my heart
As if I didn't have to walk this path
With only my footsteps as companion
The road to the river won't be so far

all i ever get for christmas

touch

touch
Originally uploaded by equusignis

sometimes all you need is a touch...

movement

sometimes things have to be arbitrary or seem that way, sometimes enough is enough and you dust off your breeches, get up and go. the thing is you never know when it comes. last night, it came to me and from where i know not. maybe it was in the words of another but that is not as important as it coming...



The Delight Song of Tsoai-talee

I am a feather on the bright sky
I am the blue horse that runs in the plain
I am the fish that rolls, shining, in the water
I am the shadow that follows a child
I am the evening light, the lustre of meadows
I am an eagle playing with the wind
I am a cluster of bright beads
I am the farthest star
I am the cold of dawn
I am the roaring of the rain
I am the glitter on the crust of the snow
I am the long track of the moon in a lake
I am a flame of four colors
I am a deer standing away in the dusk
I am a field of sumac and the pomme blanche
I am an angle of geese in the winter sky
I am the hunger of a young wolf
I am the whole dream of these things
You see, I am alive, I am alive
I stand in good relation to the earth
I stand in good relation to the gods
I stand in good relation to all that is beautiful
I stand in good relation to the daughter of Tsen-tainte
You see, I am alive, I am alive

–N. Scott Momaday

friday

today was marginally better.

i had to cry. i had to cut new quills and scribble thoughts on paper but it made me continue. at an hour before dusk, i walked and talked to the dying light to give me some interesting images. i walked and looked and shot while listening to suzanne vega and the shins. it is funny how simple things can make minutes, moments, hours more bearable...




Gold teeth and a curse for this town were all in my mouth.
Only, I don't know how they got out, dear.
Turn me back into the pet that I was when we met.
I was happier then with no mind-set.

And if you'd 'a took to me like
A gull takes to the wind.
Well, I'd 'a jumped from my tree
And I'd a danced like the king of the eyesores
And the rest of our lives would 'a fared well.

New slang when you notice the stripes, the dirt in your fries.
Hope it's right when you die, old and bony.
Dawn breaks like a bull through the hall,
Never should have called
But my head's to the wall and I'm lonely.

And if you'd 'a took to me like
A gull takes to the wind.
Well, I'd 'a jumped from my tree
And I'd a danced like the king of the eyesores
And the rest of our lives would 'a fared well.

God speed all the bakers at dawn may they all cut their thumbs,
And bleed into their buns 'till they melt away.

I'm looking in on the good life I might be doomed never to find.
Without a trust or flaming fields am I too dumb to refine?
And if you'd 'a took to me like
Well I'd a danced like the queen of the eyesores
And the rest of our lives would 'a fared well.

–The Shins

Ludlow Street

sometimes...

sometimes one has to go back a long way and find some fragment in the past that helps to make the present more bearable. today, i came across the lyrics and music of suzanne vega again after having been far away for years.

i am reminded of being a confused 17 year old trying to make answers of questions he did not even know.

i am reminded that in art, i found help.

today, i found it again. for a moment, it makes the winter sun a little less harsh.

--
Ludlow Street

Love is the only thing that matters.
Love is the only thing that's real.
I know we hear this every day.
It's still the hardest thing to feel.

This time
When I go back to Ludlow Street,
I find each stoop and doorway's incomplete,
Without you there.

Another generation's parties.
And it is still the same old scene.
I can recall each morning after.
Painted in nicotene.

This time
When I go back to Ludlow Street,
I find each stoop and doorway's incomplete
Without you there.

All of the people I once knew.
All of the ones I was close to.

Love is the only thing that matters.
Love the only thing that's real,
And when I think about you now
Love is the only thing I feel.

This time
When I go back to Ludlow Street,
I find each stoop and doorway's incomplete
Without you there.

Tim, this time
When I go back to Ludlow Street
I find each stoop and doorway's incomplete
Without you there.

restless

it has been a restless day and it feels like the night shall be the same. there is a world of too much space around me and there is a universe too far away from friends i wish i were with; even if i didn't have the right words to say or the right song to sing to carry us through this strange season.

i tried everything to get me through these weird moments; scratching a quill on paper; drawing a brush across paper; taking photos of an almost empty sky all the while thinking of the friends i'd rather be with yet nothing seemed to work. if the value of a vessel is the void within then this vessel is full of void today and i wish it were filled.

for all that i have, i wish the best thoughts out to my friends so as to remind them that they are not alone. perhaps in this, i can be at peace below the yew tree and the pale moon

This is the light of the mind, cold and planetary.

it is that time of the year again. i don't know why death comes so frequently around the holidays but several of my friends have lost dear ones in a short time. or is it maybe we jus pay attention to it more? is it because we become more sensitive of how it is to be alone?

whatever the reasons, i feel for my friends. it is also because i have expressed the same, have known the thorn in the heart and the pebble beneath the saddle. i am a horse so all i know is to move ahead regardless of whether or not i know what direction i'm headed into.

unlike some journeys, some destinations can't be known...




The Moon and the Yew Tree

by Sylvia Plath

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 on my feet as if I were God,

Prickling my ankles and murmuring of their humility.

Fumy, spiritous 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 the 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.

Epilogue

Those blessèd structures, plot and rhyme—

why are they no help to me now

I want to make

something imagined, not recalled?

I hear the noise of my own voice:

The painter’s vision is not a lens,

it trembles to caress the light.

But sometimes everything I write

with the threadbare art of my eye

seems a snapshot,

lurid, rapid, garish, grouped,

heightened from life,

yet paralyzed by fact.

All’s misalliance.

Yet why not say what happened?

Pray for the grace of accuracy

Vermeer gave to the sun’s illumination

stealing like the tide across a map

to his girl solid with yearning.

We are poor passing facts,

warned by that to give

each figure in the photograph

his living name.

Robert Lowell

calling it quits

encounters and musings

it is late and i can't seem to fall asleep.

i keep thinking about our two conversations since friday. they were nice though now i'm really curious because you wanted to send me a letter via snail mail. i'm like a cat and seem to have just as many lives. i wonder what this next life will bring me.

the "you" i'm referring you know who you are. after all these years you step back into my life and i don't know what to make of it. i hope you'll give me a clue. i still think about the shakespeare sonnet you sent to me years ago in a letter. it is one of the most endearing things anyone ever sent me.

as i've said before, karma is a strange mistress.

les temps pas perdus

it was a strange and rewarding weekend.

the expected things that were good were even better than expectations. to see old friends that you have had history together was even more than one could ask for especially when your connections multiply with new wonderful people. you can never have too many wonderful people in your life.

then to get phone calls from people from your past that you have loved and reconnect; that is so much. i lack the words to describe such feelings even though at times i think of myself as an artist with language.

so all in all, it was a weekend of experiences beyond expectations. or in the words of dickens, it was a "great expectation."

time

we wake and upon our turn of shoulders we move. we don't always know where we are going but movement is a good thing when you are a nomad in heart and otherwise.

sometimes when you cross trails be them old or new senses come alive. the smell of burnt cinnamon, the roast of coffee and the dying sage that has been in a bag too long. one would think these these things would past. one would think that once i've gotten sand out of my socks i would not feel this way.

sands grate at my arteries though like life pushes my blood. all that i ever thought was untouchable has become reality.

there are not enough moments in which i could share my broken life with and never enough to give full disclosure. perhaps this is the ZEN i struggle with. perhaps giving a child a meal is enough for the day but i find it so doubtful.

but i can't change it. i can only make little images.

clouds

if she calls
if they call
if i call myself
what will it come to?

in the cold days
i love to walk in the shade
knowing the light might melt me
knowing even i have a limit

if she calls
if they call
what if i hide myself
what would that bring me

in distant cloud days
in days when they are shy
i sense they won't enable me
they play tag with the yellow disc

02 december 2007

most days I cannot remember

Wanting to Die

Since you ask, most days I cannot remember.
I walk in my clothing, unmarked by that voyage.
Then the almost unnameable lust returns.

Even then I have nothing against life.
I know well the grass blades you mention,
the furniture you have placed under the sun.

But suicides have a special language.
Like carpenters they want to know which tools.
They never ask why build.

Twice I have so simply declared myself,
have possessed the enemy, eaten the enemy,
have taken on his craft, his magic.

In this way, heavy and thoughtful,
warmer than oil or water,
I have rested, drooling at the mouth-hole.

I did not think of my body at needle point.
Even the cornea and the leftover urine were gone.
Suicides have already betrayed the body.

Still-born, they don’t always die,
but dazzled, they can’t forget a drug so sweet
that even children would look on and smile.

To thrust all that life under your tongue!—
that, all by itself, becomes a passion.
Death’s a sad bone; bruised, you’d say,

and yet she waits for me, year after year,
to so delicately undo an old wound,
to empty my breath from its bad prison.

Balanced there, suicides sometimes meet,
raging at the fruit a pumped-up moon,
leaving the bread they mistook for a kiss,

leaving the page of the book carelessly open,
something unsaid, the phone off the hook
and the love whatever it was, an infection.

–Anne Sexton

Friday's omens

Yesterday was an eventful day. Meeting someone you've known online for a while in person always is even more so when you have similar bent on this strange internet world that we work and live in. Oh yes, having a wonderful lunch and great conversation with them is even better. Thanks D!

The afternoon...oh the afternoon. First there was the crate of fuyu persimmons...



In the afternoon, while strolling down an old familiar avenue and seeing an old friend/co-worker from years ago was a bonus. Even from 25 meters away, there was no denying who he was. I called by his first name but got no response (maybe because it was John). I then called out, Mr. H. and watched him turn around. I waived. There was recognition now. I crossed the street and we chatted and caught up a bit. I took his photo. When we both resumed our opposite paths, I knew it was an omen. Days like I had yesterday don't happen for no reason.

I smiled. I smiled a real full smile outwardly and inwardly in a manner that seemed antique. Can facial expressions really get that way? Antique? Am I old enough for that? It didn't matter. I knew one chapter had closed and another had begun.

Ten minutes later, I saw a store that had favorite acoutrements of someone I held dear. Without thinking twice about it, I went in and bought something of use (I knew for sure) for her. I'd mail it on Saturday. It didn't matter if it got refused or not. It was just the way I felt, my surroundings felt. I decided that was okay. Whatever was going on in my mind was okay because they were my thoughts and I could do whatever I did with them.

Magenta

If I were in this night
To lose you to some uncertainty

There would be one less unknown
Like the ephemeral seventh color

Of Sir Isaac Newton's rainbow
Then I would have to learn to love

Another hue, perhaps magenta
Which when dark enough reminds

Me of crimsom that flows in
Our veins; a reminder of our sins

November 29, 2007

it is relative

it is again late. though this kind of late is relative, it relative because i cannot be sure of my origin. how does one measure where they are from? by geography, by the last words said in an incident? by the last wreckage that you had started (and one where parts of you were left behind)? no matter, right now i know i'm not at home and it is not such a bad thing.

sometimes there is a wonderment in being lost in a city full of secrets and no map has ever been drawn of it. a city not made obscure by the mist or narrow alleys but by the hundreds or thousands of faces you pall by and you realize you can't tell them apart. yes, that is the kind of face that is most difficult to ascertain because of their homogenity it is easy to forget who you are.

perhaps this is what solitude really is

Floating World

Between earth and sky
there is a floating world
unseen by the likes of
who walk by day.

Beneath earth and sky
there is a kingdom
of ghosts of those
who haven't let go.

In the distance between
him and her, there leagues
that yet to be walked and
wows yet to be exchanged.

November 28, 2009

equusignis

November

Early November morning rays
of cool light turn warm as they

pass through the gossamer
veils upon the window.

I could almost imagine
the decay of autumn and

the dormancy of winter
are over but the frosty air

tells me a different story.
I know this to be factual because

I am made of water. Instead
of melting I am giving off winter's breath.

Instead of warming I chill all around
me with the reverie of my heart.

I'm impervious to frost bite.
I glow like a child's rosy

cheeks but within me are
icebergs for sinking ships.

November 24

nocturne, friday

sometimes, late in the night though not too late you are sitting there staring at the computer display with itunes running and the tv on but set to mute.

in such an event, you sooner or later wonder "what the hell am i doing?" then you remember that you were hoping to talk to someone before the medications your doctor prescribed for you to have a decent night's sleep are going to kick in. still, you find yourself defiant; "i can handle it."

yet there is not quite that level of determination you were hoping for. but you wait anyhow, you then start surfing the photostreams of people you like and your won then you stumble onto the epiphaby...

don't try to make too much sense of it, it is the nature of the wandering mind. don't try to understand all and don't try to remember everything. just let it feel you and then let it past...

The underlying cause is as absent as rain.

In a landscape of having to repeat

In a landscape of having to repeat.
Noticing that she does, that he does and so on.
The underlying cause is as absent as rain.
Yet one remembers rain even in its absence and an attendant quiet.
If illusion descends or the very word you’ve been looking for.
He remembers looking at the photograph,
green and gray squares, undefined.
How perfectly ordinary someone says looking at the same thing or
I’d like to get to the bottom of that one.
When it is raining it is raining for all time and then it isn’t
and when she looked at him, as he remembers it, the landscape moved closer
than ever and she did and now he can hardly remember what it was like.

–Martha Ronk

Night Oleander

Follow me to my true center
Find the true nature of this body
Reveal the honesty of your desire

November 6, 2007

equusignis

Maze

A fragment found in one of my notebooks:

"Love is a maze in which the corridors are hidden within our own hearts that even we cannot see so we stumble through the hidden lanes like a blind person in the Minotaur's labyrinth. The only way to see it truly is to tear our heart apart and risk the price of death to see an ephemeral vision of our own love's truth."

November 16, 2006

I don't know what was on my mind at the time I wrote this but now I understand what I was trying to say.

Changes

For the second time in over a month, I actually was still in deep slumber when morning came – as opposed to being already wide awake or having not fallen asleep at all from the night before and/or from the night before that. In the midst of my emotional maelstroms I always lose sleep but never like this before. The first week found me going for 7-8 days with only half an hour or an hour of sleep a night. I'd almost stopped eating. A piece of fruit here, a little cereal, a glass of milk (and I don't normally drink milk), peanuts, ice cream. Yeah, really healthy considering my normal eating habits. One day I came out of the shower and weighed myself. I'd lost 9 lbs in a week (and I only weigh 118 lbs). I think it was somewhere around there that I decided something had to change or I'd disappear into thin air.

I tried to breathe the air again and see if it felt any different. There was the start of some musty scents that were sure signs of autumn. They are even there in a land with not quite real seasons and even in suburbia. My eyes could still recognize the beauty in the hues of fallen leaves, the hues of decay. Even in decay there is beauty.

I don't know where this is all taking me but I know autumn is a time for for many things to turn down, decay, go dormant in order to rise again. Whatever comes, I am sure it will be interesting, challenging, beautiful, heartbreaking and will irrevocably change me. Nothing is permanent.

October 30th

I cry and I cry
All the night is still dark
And all the stars are like your eyes

But I still stare into the darkness
But I still search for the star I had named
After you so long and drifting name
After your name that would rebirth

But I'm left with
The cold, cold dark night
I'm here beneath this moon
She tells me it will get better

But I only see the black of night
I only see beauty of what I can't see
I only see of what my words started

October 30, 2007

Renae

Touch me for a moment
Or just a glance
Touch me as if I were a glare
Into the darkness of your soul

I know I'm so not allowed
I know I'm so forbidden

But there is this image
But there is this taste
It is of your eyes so blue
It is of your lips so salty

October 29, 2007

Tonight

Tonight is the loneliest of nights
All I want to give and all I want to touch
All I want to feel that's ever been important
So distant from me, so far in this desert
Tonight I'll dream of blue seas of your eyes
Tonight I shall die in your waters forever

October 28, 2007

i wonder

i wonder if she misses me at all like i miss her like the ocean misses the winds that turns its crests into the spray of angels...

Linen

It is my left hand that reaches
Reaches for a form that is now
Only memory though so vivid

Reaching for bleached coppery
Wires above the warm pillow
Gentle breath against the linen

How I want me to be the linen
To be part of breath taken in
To be the life in melancholy breath


October, 25 2007

Manquer

God I miss her...

Renaissance

for Hilary

She curls up into herself
thinking of this shape and position;
something of a more comfortable state.

She remembers the dark,
the slurred sounds and warmth
in another time, other place.

She is struck with a bright light, fire
and cry, the first loud sound of her voice
and opens bright eyes into a new world.

Birth and renaissance aren't too different;
in one you have no volition and in the other
you are of ashes building into feathers.

2007

Albatross

In september he found a bird floating
upon the ocean's winds in a distant place.
It had a heart so distant with strings
tied to the vessels of his soul.
There was a wandering soul
looking at cold seas but hoping
a warmth within and beneath.

He lifted letters, assembled words,
sewed them together and made a flag.
He flew the flag for the bird to see,
for the distant wandering albatross.
He plucked at hairs, assembled brushes,
wetted paper with pigment.

He held up longing images against his window,
wishing for the bird to find his beacon.
One day the bird came to earth, placed its feet down,
wrapped its wings around him and
he felt a movement beneath his ribs
for the first time in ages.

He touched its feathers,
his fingers always trembling,
he looked in its eyes,
it held stories and lives.
He tried to tell it everything that was him,
he wanted to confess the good and the bad,
he was still wrapped in a gossamer of fear
stronger than steel and older than rocks.

One morning came,
he woke entangled in the gossamer,
it was changing, he was changing.
He could not finish his whole story
so his voice was lost.
Stories yet untold, seeped out on their own,
turned into betrayal, turned into pain.
His hands; what were once covered in skin
now turned feathery;
His human form lost to silence,
he fell out of the window;
found the cold sea's wind.

Looking behind, she was curled up and folded in,
still with those depths in her eyes;
with such sadness in her eyes.
Looking below, he saw a string tied to his breast
but he knew it was not a miracle thread
to find the window again nor return.

October, 2007

Virgil

It is that feeling again,
It is like being on that edged hold,
The rock cutting into your flesh
And the last solid saviour is six meters down.
You are on heaven's precipice.
It kills you to stay but you won't let go;
Better to die smashing all below you
Than to avoid pain.
Better to slash open your heart
And give it to the sky, thinking
There must me a star there that wants you.
Blood can't hold heart,
Muscles can't hold life
So you become best friends with Virgil.

October 24, 2007

In Morning Light

Pu-erh greets me in morning light
Her scent pulls emotions deep in darkness
Her scent give pulse to a dying muscle
She comes to me from a thousand leagues
She brings to me scents of mist laden havens
She touches me in a scant moment;
Thousands of years have longed for touch.

October 24, 2007

October

It is like a bass line
That thumps in your chest.
It won't go away,

Its rhythm won't quit.
It is like an aria in your heart;
It sings until exasperation.

It is like a long drawn chord
From Jacqueline's hands.
It feels like dusk at mid-afternoon.

You find the moon where
She should not be, so many leagues
Before she will give you light.

October 24, 2007

Cauldron

And yes I do miss you.
Yes I miss you...
I would be telling an honest lie
If I said differently.
I know I miss you.
But the pearls of my words
Have turned into coal to you,
Even if they are shiny.
And yes I do miss you,
Yes I miss you.
The summer strands in autumn;
How strange you are,
How your colors stayed true
Through all the torment.
How you made me feel
(earth's magma in my heart)
And how I disappointed you.
Yes I still feel you.
Now I sit with a cauldron of molten tears,
Molten past and it is my function
To let all melt all into one.

October 24, 2007

Swords and Cups

Write some words,
Make them soothing;
It's only morning.

Flip some cards, toss some stones,
Light the incense, inhale the smoke.
Drink the tea, it's much too hot;
Scalds the tongue but doesn't hurt

As much as what lingers.
There's the eight of swords
And three of cups;
The magician is so out of place.

Write some words,
Make them soothing,
Make them healing.

October 23, 2007

Weighing

That red lump of flesh
It wants the freedom to go past
The fragile threshold of comfort

It wants to wander the Gobi sands
To find a warmth it lost because of words
Because it never really owned its vessel

That red lump of flesh
It wants to break the invisible line
The numbing threshold of pain

It wants stray on Antartic sheets
To cool its fiery furnace of longing
Because this body never knew moderation

It never could leave love for logic
Nor find logic in love's reasoning

October 22, 2007

Outside the window the night is still cold

Stray

From another point of view
perhaps the truth looks different;
perhaps the hues will be warmer.

Outside the window the night is still cold.
Sky hides the stars from me
so my thoughts don't stray to her.
Sky tells me, "Find the warmth in clouds
and I'll cleanse you with morning's rain."

October 17, 2007

Sky

Tip tip, tap tap, splat sputter, tap,
Sky pulls a grey cover over her pretty
blue face to hide her sadness.

She works to stay quiet but her crying
lets loose tears to earth sounding like
plucked harp strings or a struggling brook

in the midst of Winter's ice.
I feel the cold in her hands reaching
toward my face and into my blood.

She says, "I ask for little, just a little verse,
just a momentary touch as it is so distant
and cold up here. So ethereal is this

existence and I want to feel, for once,
something warm besides a shower
of fiery meteors caught in my hair."

October 15, 2007

Silentium Amoris

As often-times the too resplendent sun
Hurries the pallid and reluctant moon
Back to her sombre cave, ere she hath won
A single ballad from the nightingale,
So doth thy Beauty make my lips to fail,
And all my sweetest singing out of tune.

And as at dawn across the level mead
On wings impetuous some wind will come,
And with its too harsh kisses break the reed
Which was its only instrument of song,
So my too stormy passions work me wrong,
And for excess of Love my Love is dumb.

But surely unto Thee mine eyes did show
Why I am silent, and my lute unstrung;
Else it were better we should part, and go,
Thou to some lips of sweeter melody,
And I to nurse the barren memory
Of unkissed kisses, and songs never sung.

Oscar Wilde
--

This poem was sent to me as a share by an acquaintance. I don't think she had any idea how close this is to the roilings of my insides as of late...

Shedding

The measure of depth in the season
is how low the morning shadows
are upon my neighbor's wall when I wake.

Even this far past sunrise the angles are low,
slanted, seemingly sharp. They remind me
of the sometimes sharp lines made by

light and shade cutting into Scottish fog
in early winter. The visuals take me
to another place; momentarily,

I escape the scraping feeling in my chest
(like a stingray's tail being removed).
I am still here and the angles are changing,

the day's light transforms as I am transformed.
bit by bit, the fleshy parts of memory
are removed and when I turn to the mirror

I begin to recognize myself less and less.
Soon, all those live cells with living memory
will fade and like a serpent I will have shed

my skin and be fresh to inherit another set
of this experience in each and every
moment of beauty, madness, joy and pain.

October 14, 2007

The bird being a medium of song

Song

Air an instrument of the tongue,
The tongue an instrument
Of the body. The body
An instrument of spirit,
The spirit a being of the air.

The bird a medium of song.
Song a microcosm, a containment
Like the fresh hotel room, ready
For each new visitor to inherit
A little world of time there.

In the Cornell box, among
Ephemera as its element,
The preserved bird–a study
In spontaneous elegy, the parrot
Art, mortal in its cornered sphere.

Robert Pinsky

poised for autumn

all senses poised
for autumn
like a leaf on edge

october 13, 2007

Fuyu

In the dim fall light
At the window eating
A fuyu persimmon
Thinking of one that I
Might have shared with

October 12, 2007

roiling dreams

i spent the night in endless roiling dreams.

in the dreams i rolled and tumbled like one she told me of once and she kept entering my presence, my existence. i found myself curling up like a millipede or pretending to be a shut nautilus to push her presence out. each time stung like a centipede's bite but i could not bear the allure and pain of her presence, her touch.

i wrapped her up in an imaginary membrane and tied it shut to rid her from my mind.

in the dream, i wept. when i woke, my pillow was damp and smelled of salt.

Like Gunpowder

Below a splotched sky
He needs tea like gunpowder
To hold against images
Lingering from last night's
Dreams like she lingers
In his consciousness

Feeling flighty

Early morning
Chill of autumn
Tea grows cold fast

Feeling flighty
Feeling nomadic
Images of deserts

Turquoise then shells
Some place to find
Warmth for the heart

October 11, 2007

Pu-erh & Persimmon

I had my first persimmon
of the season today; another
sign of autumn's presence.
Its sweet, bitter taste
demanded a tea worth
its depth. So I made a
pot of Pu-erh and gazed
at its dark liquor. Its drifting
fragrance like a longing for a
lover walking beyond one's vision.

October 1o, 2007

Today I Drank Jasmine

I picked up these artifacts;
they made me think of her.
that night I drank tea;
ginseng oolong with friends.
Today I drink jasmine
and choose a quill to suture
words knowing she is gone.

October 9, 2007

– equusignis

autumnal cycle

october is here again. this part of autumn is my favorite part of the
year though it is always associated with great pain. perhaps it is something i do to myself to match the season; everything decays and/or dies in order to have a rebirth again in spring.

Wanderer

I think of her
how could it
be possible

that she does not
walk in my mind?

The warmth of
her footsteps across
mazes of my dreams.

October 8, 2007

sunday

i stood there,
watching the kettle.
waiting for the moment.
i wanted the hotness
of the water to brew
the tea of green but to
avoid the shriek of the
whistle of the boiling point.
why am i nervous?
with you in the other room,
covered beneath white and green?

september 30, 2007

If I wound another

"If I cheat another, I cheat myself out of the person that I could be. If I wound another, I will eventually find the cut recalled to my own heart. There is no appropriate confession, only the will not to fail again so readily, perhaps because while failure can be forgiven it cannot be excused."

– Jeanette Winterson

Prisms

It is still early, before 6 AM and the warmth of you
is rushing off to dim morning streets
then onto the distant campus.
My nostrils still are in a dreamy head of you
though my eyelids are lifted to wakefulness
and my fingers fumble to grind coffee
and froth stubborn soy milk.
The apartment now half empty,
I watch the cool grey beyond the windows
turn creamy white as the sun casts its rays
across the waking city. Sounds of the streetcars
and loud clinking glass tumbling into recycling bins
are so sharp compared to the muffled and
soothing hush of me pulling a blanket
over your shoulders; so different then
the barely perceptible lento and largo
of my fingers brushing your hair
away from your face so I might find
a hint of a smile or soft grin on your lips
while you teeter between slumber
and the light of morning. In these hours,
in these expanses of time and distance
while you are gone, I must remind myself
of the other half of me. The one that is still here
standing in the damp footstep of
where you stepped from the shower;
skin warm and moist (and I had to restrain
myself so you wouldn't be late).
I'll hold these sensory experiences
like fragile magical icicles that
won't melt in the heat and sunlight.
And with these, I'll have prisms that will
guide me in the images I am to bring
into the world this autumn morning.

September 27, 2007

Indian Summer

Beneath the indian summer sun
My skin wishes for the shadow of you
Standing above me; summer strands
Flicking stringy shadows across
My washed out, squinted eyed face.

Beneath the warmth of this day,
The salt on my skin dies to be tasted.
Crouched above me, flushed moist lips
Make me feel like a summer snack;
Hot trembling skin, smelling of autumn.

September 26, 2007

At Dawn

Dawn comes through the hazy window,
Morning's blue tempered by aged glass.
Beyond, cold air of early autumn seeps through.

In here, the warmth of you holds me;
In here, golden strands bring me summer rays;
The slow rise and fall of your gentle chest;
The in and out of your breath that I breathe;

These mornings are new, so new to us
Though they feel like the stirring of ages
In the way we entwine in one another.

September 25, 2007

Anterior Superior Iliac Spine

I was momentarily distracted
by the protrusion
of her hip bone:
anterior superior iliac spine.

It is not that my vision is bad
but the clarity in my head
was not on the clarity
of the closed glass door.

September 18, 2007

sister sea

i am sitting here eating tuna
and it makes me think of the sea;
its saltiness and its proximity to you.

i am not a jealous soul but in this case
i envy the sea but know it's pointless.
she will laugh at me and my impatience.

yesterday when i stared at her,
she knew what i was thinking
because we are both waters of sorts.

and she snickered and threw spray at me,
she left a briny film on my pale skin
and said that is what yours will taste like.

sister sea always knows what churns in me
and always finds cause to jest
of all the things i find irresistible.

sometimes she puts brine in my eyes
then asks what i'm crying for;
then turns and says gravely to me,

"think of it as a blessing, dear child.
you have crossed a threshold into a new life
few in this universe can even imagine of."

an act of love

an act of love has only in it
total clarity like a cloudless night

an act of love has no judgement
like the wings of a hummingbird

an act of love holds the wisdom
of a million broken hearts

an act of love holds a universe
of emotions like a blink holds light

it gives up on nothing and nothing
can contain its expansion

it is the only virus in our experience
that was meant to be from inception

january 31, 2007

the courting

standing still in the wind,
his mane flutters about his neck.
in the near distance,
he smells her scent.
he is pulled in like water
down a fall though
his genes tell him it is danger.

she crouches in the low grass,
thinking she can't be seen.
she sees an irresistible sight,
an opportunity that can't be passed up.
already she salivates,
already tasting an easy meal.

he stares into blades of ochre
and stalks of burnt umber,
sees the glow of her yellow eyes
she thinks he can't see.
he stomps his hoof
on the hardened soil,
throws up dust like whisps of smoke.

she thought she saw fire,
she knows she saw smoke;
it can't be real.
it's just a riderless horse, lost.
how hard could this be?
how dangerous is a lone horse?

far above beyond both sets of eyes;
beyond the common senses
of earthly creatures not of god
olympians chuckle in their mirth.

september 12, 2007

Nguyen Duc Dat

My great-great-grandfather Nguyen Duc Dat.

My grandmother had a tattered and torn wallet sized photo of him and asked if I could do something to salvage it. It took hours of minute repainting but today, I finally finished. Prints are to be made and sent back to the family altar back in Vietnam

night songs

for when or why i don't understand
but there is this melody in my head.
there is a woman's voice in my skull;
she murmurs phrases in my dreams.

for night that comes without warning
there is an phantom songbird.
there is that voice again, a moan;
she tells me a tale, makes me shudder.

september 2007

from the outside

he watches himself from outside of his skin.

he stares intently, thinking there is a light in

there somewhere.

it just must be hidden. he sidesteps away from

the shadow of the trees looming behind him.

the trees of life he almost expects to abandon –

the way he feels.

the feeling inside of his chest.

it's what happens when you constrict

time and space by the force of emotions.

reality is distorted in the same way that

large bodies in this universe distorts space.

how does he deal with this?

how does he deal when he himself is the cause

of the distortion? did einstein think of this?

what if he called stephen hawking now?

what would he say?

it's happening again; the thoughts.

he remembers that he is supposed to breathe.

three slow deep breaths and he remembers he is sitting

on a cushion on the floor of this small room.

with three breaths as if each were a brushstroke,

he lets the cascade of thoughts splash over him

and realizes they are just thoughts.

*this is a repost of a piece that was in prose form earlier

questions of heaven

it is about the courage of questions.
to not smother our doubts for the sake
of tradition or belief or religion.
it is about the courage of honesty.
to forsake doctrine for clear perception
and empty space. so often we walk
in the afternoon light with the summer
breeze on our face and emptiness in our hearts.
it is a wheezing as if it was asthma.
that is the acceptance of beliefs
which trap eagles in canary cages;
a blue whale in a fishbowl.

august 2007

gift

i came across your name by accident

without a face, i found your melodies
then i found your voice
full of melancholy with rhythms of hope

you spoke to me as if through a muse
and told me stories of a past
as if you walked through them with my eyes

and a feeling heart that bled my blood
for souls long gone that i've yet to meet
so i ask myself why this gift?

why this gift that i will never know?
in the afternoon light and the darkness of night
when your voice comes on in my dreams

job description

i asked her what is it exactly
that angels are supposed to do.
she sat there across the small
granite table, smoking her brand-less
cigarette and exhaled. moments
passed quietly, neither one of us
uttering a word or squirming on
the leather cushions. she closed
her eyes for a long minute
and i could only pay attention
to her crimson lipstick. then she
looked at me and smiled,
"why do you always ask questions
that you already have the answers?
i mean shit, we work for the same boss
for god's sake."

july 28, 2007

I am not a man; I am dynamite

a found poem:

I am not a man; I am dynamite
–Friedrich Nietzsche

Sometimes you are the single source,
the fist with all the flowers. Sometimes
you are the golden bass, a whisper-
revolution in this country of dust
stretching across the pond’s dirty
bowl. Like a razor through silk
bedclothes, your fin breaks through
the tunnel of sky and one vain cloud.
Sometimes the hostage next door, you
are Sunday every day, and at night
a teenager in Auburn, Nebraska,
slamming an aluminum bat
to a goalpost until your head can’t take it
to make something fucking happen.
Sometimes you are the single source,
the fist with all the flowers, a walking
iris, whose promise to die by late
afternoon makes you the word,
too much to bear. A syllable is
a latch, this word a door you shouldn’t
have opened on a room, its very air
unstable with history. In the wrong
hands and right conditions such
a word will detonate, the way Ambrosia
hides murder in its chest; to find
the brute, look for grieving; how
many souls packed themselves in
until Bethlehem beat them into bedlam?
You are the single source, the fist
with all the flowers—the bass, the razor,
the hostage, the boy, the bat, the ignition,
and yet we sleep on in this field of arms
where I am yours and you are mine.

LEIGH ANNE COUCH

evening greets me with a cool air
she takes my colors and stares at my ring

she breathes at me words
that only unicorns can understand

so i wait patiently
for the evening star, so bright

so i find patience
in this enigma i've caressed

and i wait for her to put me to sleep
i wait for her to let me dream

and the sky
in the spaces
of its broken clouds
tell me stories
of a long summer
full of verses

and then the
violent rain comes
heaven's tears
pelting tender skin
angels kiss me
and leave violet bruises

afternoon streams in my window,
past the feeble shades
that try to keep the heat from
this tender skin.
they glow on their edges like
stray moonlight on a clear inky sky.
this tender skin that becomes
an ally with night,
struggling with the desire
to forsake the sun.
afternoon will fade, i know.
i wait for venus in the western sky
and jupiter in the eastern dim.
my world unfolds
like a box painted black
on the inside and
it is the darkness
i'll wait for some
presence i have no proof exists.

human

the best thing about being human is that you never really know where you came from nor where you are going. you are utterly unpredictable. this, is human nature.

Themes, written under duress

something i found today. it seemed fitting for the mood and the moment...

A VALEDICTION FORBIDDING MOURNING

My swirling wants. Your frozen lips.
The grammar turned and attacked me.
Themes, written under duress.
Emptiness of the notations.

They gave me a drug that slowed the healing of wounds.

I want you to see this before I leave;
the experience of repetition as death
the failure of criticism to locate the pain
the poster in the bus that said;
my bleeding is under control.

A red plant in a cemetery of plastic wreaths.

A last attempt; the language is a dialect called metaphor.
These images go unglossed; hair, glacier, flashlight.
When I think of a landscape I am thinking of a time.
When I talk of taking a trip I mean forever.
I could say; those mountains have a meaning
but further than that I could not say.

To do something very common, in my own way.

– Adrienne Rich

evening

it's evening and venus comes to greet me
on the low horizon. against the deep ultramarine
she tries her best to smile at me and to tell me
that sometimes in love there are casualties.
sometimes in love there are the brilliant hues
of someone's eyes that you cannot save and
it is part of the matter of this existence.
i cry and she cups my tears, she holds
my shed emotions in her hands and
they turn into green emeralds which
she casts into the cold, cold sea.
she lifts my chin and says to me
"these are not things under your control,
you must let them go as you did the black doves.
they will come to you but perhaps not in this life.
they will come to you but not in the form you expect.
you must remember that when you smile you give life
to the ones you had to leave behind. you must remember
that when your eyes come to tears you've given
a new ocean to a multitude of broken hearts
to escape from their shackles."

2 july 2007

lacunae

there are syllables missing, consonants misplaced
and verses left empty. they aren't mistakes.

they are lacunae.

they resemble the spans of unfelt emotions
that stream through his heart.
he is not trying to avoid the feelings.
it is the feelings don't feel like
anything from the outside.

an intact seashell holding the emptiness
inside with all the care of a minotaur.
an empty flute keeping its yet present
bubbles from expanding into the outside world.

they are lacunae.

when he sips his tea, the heat bites
into his tender tongue and then the pain
is absorbed. for a creature of risk, chances
have been taken away from him.
he walks in darkness without bumping

into odd things. he dances on the razor's
edge without ever being sliced.
having given to the universe,
his empty spaces and empty motions
have turned into emotional mobiles

that Calder would have killed for.

feeble

the sun's rays are competing
with the deep blue of the early morning.
what starts as blue that turns to non color
in the deep distance of space.
what starts as blue that turns into an
inky night perforated with a million
phosphorus holes. it's the ceiling
above our heads, above our hearts and
holds our hopes that we can't ever touch.
these wispy clouds, they are so far from
our reach yet so close to our existence.
so close as opposed to the nebulae that
crowns Sirius the dog and Cancer the crab.
ironic how we name these celestial objects
so far from reach with mundane, earthly names.
ironic how we take things in heaven and
force them to our scale, our perspective.
so vast is the human imagination
yet when it comes to fear we always reach
no farther than the corner we are afraid
to look around. so vast is human experience
yet we find such lukewarm comfort in
dumbing ourselves down so no one else
need bother with our feeble effort.

1st july 2007

Luminant

(in light of Firefly)

Violet and crimson bleed into the burnt umber
like a post torrent migration of emotions.
He stares into the darkness but the darkness
offers no protection. Colors intrude into what
otherwise would be a calm void.
Colors in their brilliance attack his retina
like hornets invading a beehive.
Purples taste bittersweet and reds burn
like cayenne on his emotional palette.
He wonders what might be an antidote
to these feelings that are like sharp crags
upon tender skin. These feelings that are
so beautifully vicious like a cheetah taking
down a gazelle in a blur of yellow ochre
and streaks of blacks.
Spots are only spots when stationary.
If you see them as a blur, then it is a forelighting
of death bathed in luminant scarlet.
Even with eyes closed the hues do not recede.
Light from the outside color the pink
of closed lids like an organic projection screen.
Light from the outside illuminate in detail
the creases and folds of his pain.
He is not allowed to shelter from them
even in blindness, even in darkness.
The only comfort he has is in the knowing
that eventually even the most brilliant hues
die into grey, into a lackluster that only time affords.

don't tear the silk

silence. he waits for it to come. he knows it will come if he is patient, if he waits long enough. is it enough? faith? does he have to have faith? perhaps. faith is not something he has ever felt he could be an owner of. it is not so much that he has no faith, he just can't seem to accept the concept that faith is something you can own. it seems or feels paradoxical. so he waits, he thinks that perhaps he can wait as an exercise in some kind of mental and emotional exertion. it is not about patience. he could think of it as a challenge, as a kata, a movement of non action. a stillness like in the motion of a calligraphy brush in the fraction of existence right before he plunges the ink laden head onto but imaginatively, into the rice paper. a splattering of blackness, stray drops throwing themselves into a pattern preceding the next movement of the brush, an extension of the hand, a linked appendage of the arm, an exploration of his mind, his vision, his instinct. all that power, potential and dynamism withheld so momentarily before the energy explodes. to know the degree of power that comes when the brush is released is to mirror and comprehend the stillness of its opposite. now, he feels the reverse. in this moment of waiting for silence, for stillness, his mind churns with thoughts with almost violence with the movement of a cyclone trapped in a funnel spider's web. don't tear the silk is his intent. flow with the surging energy, flow with the swing of emotive gyrations but don't tear the silk. just turn and bend and turn and whirl, and the quietness, the tranquility will come. it will come at its own pace in its own moment. for now, just sit. just exercise non action and the silence will come.

Pulp

There is a place and a moment
out there is the deep blue sea.

Somewhere between floating and sinking
the water changes between support

and demon, wanting a luscious meal.
Somewhere the colors make a change;

between cooler falling deep below
and blackness, is really a dark violence.

Violent in her pressures to hold you;
violent in her loving crush of you into a pulp.

Tea

(for Hina)

Time ends at a place
where your heart ceases longing.
It gives up the painful desire
to fall into the waterfall;
to throw itself into the glacier.

Pain ends in a place
when a tired muscle starts pulsing.
It gives up the tired motion to die
to roll into an easy lulling sleep;
to simmer itself into a gentle hell.

There is a sign on the other side
where your soul finds a right place.
It finds a color to soothe your mood
to seep into your being like strong tea;
to release the flavor you've been hiding.

14 June 2007

a blood trail or a snail trail or just vandalism

Copán
(for suttonhoo)

there is a line sketched out in dried blood
it's not a geography of vengeance or sicilian intent
it's just a place where a lost, wandering heart once stopped
it stayed too long and when it left, finally
part of its soul wanted to leave behind a trail
a blood trail or a snail trail or just vandalism
of the place where it once parked what it thought
was a noble, court love, flamboyant love
no one dared tell it that it was just an infomercial
that its grandfather had bought into some years ago
but these were crisp lines you would have to concur
ghostly fine lines in the midst of a snowstorm
splayed out like toothpick fences in a indian monsoon
yet in those tiny yet to be washed blood lines
there is a lineage of smiles and broad confidence
there is a lineage of sacrifice until a daughter's blood
so look at this map all you want and remember its purpose
for all the brothers who have followed have given to mayan gods

one god

there will be time. time enough. the words stumble around inside of his head. he is not sure what it means. he heard those words in a movie but the connection is nil. it is just noise. time shifted noise just like red shifted light. it stays with him or he stays with it though he knows he should just let it go. they are just thoughts and he should just let it wash over him and then they will be done whatever their purpose is. so he closes his eyes and takes a deep breath and lets out a sigh that sounds like the voice of an angel dying. or perhaps a demon, is there really a difference? is it really just a matter of point of view? one person's angel is another's demon. that thought is probably more accurate, use that one instead. can one believe in angels and demons if one doesn't believe in god? or a god? it occurs to him that he finds the idea of having more than one god more palatable than the idea of just one god. is that odd?

conversations

this morning a dark cerulean blue came to the horizon while the constellations were still telling me stories. orion was relating old hunting stories and cassiopeia was bitching how she got up there, upside down. they were refusing to fade into daylight with as much resistance as they showed when their exploits turned into myth. cassi said to me, just wait, it will happen to you too but you may not even have stars for people to remember you by. even upside down, hanging here, at least i've got multitudes looking at me. i glared at her and thought, i need a cup of tea. and there goes orion again, insisting i practice archery at night outside so he can correct my form. i tell him to chill out and keep his distance. i am of scorpius, after all. just tell me stories. that is all i need, stories to fill the restlessness which stirs a wanderlust within my chest; a wanting to go that can't ever be sufficed for how does one escape their own heart?

turquoise

i looked for you
there was this turquoise ocean
and i sat there, waiting for you

my friend who would have
come out of dying the glow
come out and give me me a hand

the hand needed to become stone
it's the place where we all end
and i waited for you

This is the silence of astounded souls

Crossing the Water

Black lake, black boat, two black, cut-paper people.
Where do the black trees go that drink here?
Their shadows must cover Canada.

A little light is filtering from the water flowers.
Their leaves do not wish us to hurry:
They are round and flat and full of dark advice.

Cold worlds shake from the oar.
The spirit of blackness is in us, it is in the fishes.
A snag is lifting a valedictory, pale hand;

Stars open among the lilies.
Are you not blinded by such expressionless sirens?
This is the silence of astounded souls.

– Sylvia Plath