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