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