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

Best quote of the day

"Palin had her Cliff notes in order." –Robert Zimmerman, CNN Contributor

gaze

the space within his gaze
will be filled with a presence
that for now is only carried
in the organ beneath his ribs

Passings

Yesterday I received news from one of my cousins in France informing me that her father, my uncle had died the night before. He had been fighting an illness for a long time. His pain has ended finally.

We only brief periods of time together but over the years, I stayed in contact and felt a closeness to him because he and my father were like brothers and much of what I knew about my father came through him. (My father died a week before I was born).

I wish I could pour out some beautiful verses for him now but I can't. Perhaps it is still early, too soon. Maybe I'm in shock but don't realize it though I knew this day would come. Maybe it is because I've been wanting to visit him these last two years but couldn't. Maybe I was meant to not see him in a state of pain and remember him as I saw him last: Boyant at heart, funny and wise...

Two shades too light

He pours tea
Into pale porcelain
The green of sencha
Is two shades too light
So more leaves fall
Into the pot
So he can match
The hue of her eyes

28 May 2008

Fusion

The distance is the distance
And the time is a wait
The time is a fuse between
Two preternatural embers
So the distance becomes a touch
The distance becomes closeness
And the time becomes singularity
The fuse becomes fusion

19 May 2008

Hot Sand

Outside, the sun wants to cast
My shadow to the east
My skin is heated and seared
Like images branded into memory

I step inside to a sheltering shade
It is like waking from sleep
And finding her image, the way
She looks from her gilded frame

My skin still feels like hot sand
But it's not from rays of Summer

15 May 2008

Out of the Corner

Out of the corner of my eyes
I always think there is an emerald
Glittering in the midday sun
Out of the reach of my ears
I always think I hear a voice;
A bird of paradise in a tree
So I keep my senses vigilant
But when a breeze brings that scent
I know my favorite muse is near

13 May 2008

What would we have

A found poem:

What would we have to

hold in compassion

to be at peace right now?



What would we have to

let go of

to be at peace right now?

--Jack Kornfield

If You Must Know

If you must know
I was thinking of her
The sun was setting
Sky turning into violet
And vermillion
Outside my window
And I looked
For the shades of green
That I know are in her eyes
If you must know
I was thinking of the distance
That separates us
And the closeness
In the words that we utter
And of how the deep ocean
Resembles our connection

(23 April 2008)

Found wisdom

*
Karma Is Not Fixed Destiny
Karma is often wrongly confused with the notion of a fixed destiny. It is more like an accumulation of tendencies that can lock us into particular behavior patterns, which themselves result in further accumulations of tendencies of a similar nature.... But it is not necessary to be a prisoner of old karma....Here's how mindfulness changes karma. When you sit, you are not allowing your impulses to translate into action. For the time being, at least, you are just watching them. Looking at them, you quickly see that all impulses in the mind arise and pass away, that they have a life of their own, that they are not you but just thinking, and that you do not have to be ruled by them. Not feeding or reacting to impulses, you come to understand their nature as thoughts directly. This process actually burns up destructive impulses in the fires of concentration and equanimity and non-doing. At the same time, creative insights and creative impulses are no longer squeezed out so much by the more turbulent, destructive ones. They are nourished as they are perceived and held in awareness.--Jon Kabat-Zinn, Wherever You Go, There You Are

New Line

I thought of: "Just because I read an article in NG on vaqueros doesn't mean I want a drink of tequila."

Now I have to think of a story around this...

Etsy!

Due to popular demand to purchase my work, I have finally set up an Etsy storefront! So please have a visit here or just search for the seller name equusignis and it will get you there.

Hold

if i can't hold you in my thoughts
then let this be all a dream
at the edge of wakefulness
let the glimmering images
of your smile be a phantom
in my imperfect memory
let it all pass like a handful of snow
melting through loose fingers
from your body heat and
i can be on my way down the path
between bare birches
their white bark reminding me
of your skin and once the shadows
have engulfed me wait for sixteen heartbeats
before you light the beacon
that will guide my frail steps
home to where you wait

Glow

There came a glow in these dark eyes
Because I thought of you
Even in this early hour
When the robins have yet to sing
Nor the ravens have yet to caw
There came a glow in this muscle
Beneath my ribs because
You visited me in my darkest dreaming
Bringing light I did not know existed
So in these eyes barely light enough
To give you a hue I think of you
And hope that when in your gaze
They will grow brighter and
In one day I won't see you
Merely through a photograph

6 April 2008

Astonished

It is astonishing
That in the cold numbness
Of your feelings
A passing bird

A bird in flight
Across your focus
Could change
The hues of your sunrise

It is astonishing
How your gravity shifts
Because you see a delicate creature
Unbound by the weight of the earth

Fluttering across your vision
Changing all of your dreams
What dreams have come before
What dreams will come after

In the turbulence of pale white wings
You'll never be the same as before
You think that the armor is thick enough
You think that experience

Has built enough cynicism
You think and think and then find that
Your eyes cannot look away
From the one fluttering feather

Passing through the air in the trail
Of the passing dove
In that moment
You find in astonishment

That your world
Your world has forever changed

1 April 2008

Ember

He stares out into the afternoon light
Thinking of her image
With eyes closed mouth parted

And forehead against the cold steel wall
Hands delicate as primary feathers of a swan
With grace in her neck to match

He stared into the image in his mind
And let lose his eyes
To the thoughts of her being

Trying to feel ephemerally
Her mercurial mood
Trying to close the distance

An expanse of continent and ocean
Trying to reach the source of the little fire
That burns beneath his ribs

Like an ember that sleeps for years
Before evolving into a forest fire

30 March 2008

mirrors

he

stood
outside

himself
hoping to

look

into the wells
of his own

eyes

but couldn't see
through mirrors

that kept
strangers

at bay

(26 March 2008)

Dream state intuition

Went to sleep very late last night though I slept well and dreamed of faces I have not seen in a long time as well as faces that I have yet to meet. It is strange how over the years of being a lucid dreamer, I have developed certain intuitions that become acute when in the dream state. For example, learning to recognize faces of people that are inconsequential versus people that I would eventually meet. When I first starting doing this years ago, I thought I was just having dèja vu's but upon going back to my journals, I discovered I indeed did dream of these people before I met them. The shortest time frame being exactly one year to the day and in other cases, there are periods of over five years before I met the person or people. How does this work? I stopped trying to figure it out and just record the dreams and go with it. The other sense I have in my dreams is that I always know my cardinal directions, similar to real life. In last night's dream, I was on a coast that ran north to south and the sea was to the east. I don't know where it was, I just know it was on the east coast. At first, I thought it was the west coast but "up the coast" was to my left, this I am sure. Strange as it seemed I lived there and I've not lived anywhere like that since Vietnam and then Scotland. It doesn't surprise me, there is that nomadic streak in me. I just wonder how long it will take before it happens...

Contrast & Classicism

A friend and I have been talking about some of the sci-fi books we read growing up and the cover art that opened the doors to our imaginations and influenced us into becoming designers. I remembered that I had found this in a bin of a waiting room a couple of years ago. It is definitely a classic both as a book and its cover art (which I believe is by John Berkey).

It is funny because in this last week several others have brought up the subject of classic sci-fi books and such. We such a bunch of geeks. I wouldn't have it any other way. :p

Serve

Midnight came too early
Dawn passed without sleep
And dreams did not come

Until birds ceased to sing
And I sit here feeling battered
As if night holds a grudge because

I was recapitulating my day instead
Of listening to her lamentation
Give me a hand or a cup of tea

To warm my touch and soothe my senses
Or give me longer days and nights
So I can two mistresses serve

25 March 2008

Dawn

Morning came sooner than expected and the dreams were late
Venetian blinds held back the light like a veil of the mind
Yet at dawn's close all truth became apparent

In My Dreams

In my dreams
It is a river lake or ocean
But always water
An edge a boundary water
Waiting for me to cross
Leave behind previous lives
Persons faces words touches
That vibrate as photons across cold space
In my dreams heart computer processes
Events situations desires
They leak into waking day
They seep to surface as indelible ink
Designs drawings seals
Sometimes others can read
In my dreams they are composites
No need for realism
They say the same things
Cut the same way carry similar smiles
Two three five persons into one
Efficient because there are only five seconds to draw
A 20 minute two hour six hour film
In my dreams i never walk swim fall drown into water
I move as shorebirds along its edge
Waking up never having
Drank cleansed re-birthed

25 February 2008

formations

lines ascend
accelerate
abruptly plummet
turn like eagles
in mating dances
slashes dots curls
congregate
a thousand bees
ready for forage
rows rows rows
of variant formations
yield at end of pages
what a single image
imprints into memory
of patient observant ones

–equusignis

Another life

I had a dream last night that I was living the life of a 19th century painter. I didn't know who it was supposed to be. The key details that were vivid were the colors, brush-work style and the fact that he lived next to the sea. The dream took place from the time he met his yet-to-be wife to the time he had two children. There were periods of turmoil which were intense. Now I feel compelled to research...