Obtuse reflection

This is poetry
because I said so
because the way the lines break
force your eye to read, to see things
not differently
not always
but to see
the strings between two similar things
the thought that sat in your mirror
every morning when the fluoride was
not quite enough to wash out the taste
of not dreaming
and the way your brother lets women's numbers
go to voicemail.
Leave a message, a message, a message
after the beep. A brief pause,
and then never enough time to say what you want to say.
This is poetry because
there is a frustratingly tenuous rhythm
in the way the words come
but not enough to see
clearly
the way you like to see things
designated, well designed.
You are now resigned to the fact that this,
is poetry.
The sort of thing that pokes and pulses
and makes prose feel a bit like
the second cousin at a wedding,
known enough to be invited but not in fact
in any of the good pictures.
Poetry is after all, made up of good pictures.
It is the retraining of the eye, accustomed
to straight lines, towards tangentials and always
in the rule of thirds.
the lover, the brother, the father,
the intro, the conflict, the end,
the message, the message, the message.
This is poetry.*



*because I said so

adrift

your old syllables

sit like warm garlic on my tongue

warm garlic from the strip of green

underneath the concrete of my old window

are you too growing green?

the scent of you brushed against me

in the market place and I am too warm

too much skin and pavement and sound

pushing against me

where did the breeze get your smell?
it is too much to bear
this message from home
with no return address. 

the waiting void

The thought of your being
is a thing-dream
an imaginary item.
Some sort of wishlist
sits in the midst of
my pulse, and appetite,
and urges
hunger for
an unlocked door.
I hear echoes in songs
and stories and shadows.
They cascade across my skin
tumbling about my bones
swelling in my brain.
It makes no sense
this you-it-thing.
I am full enough already
with longing and wanting
and more than I can handle-
things I can touch and turn
and create. You seem still
some trick, a feint
inside myself to consume
selfhood and develop otherness
a reduction by production.
Yet, for all that, I balloon
with this hunger for growing
stretching and swelling
and cannot let it be.
The thought, though, of a
you-thing, an object-self
weighs on my mind

Past two.

I slide across the sheet into your skin
a surprise
the suddenness of stepping
up out of sand and onto stern
concrete beneath my summer feet.
I dig my toes into your warmth
looking for purchase
like a climber of some foreign hill
when you rumble, half asleep, a protest
but roll open to my arms
I am content
planting my breath along your neck
as a proper proprietary flag
and sinking myself into sleep.

Where I'm From (debts to George Lyons)

Where I’m From                          By Mrs. Roberts

I am from concrete, from coconut and candles.

I am from the rice paddy silt

(cool and sticky with green shoots of hope)

I am from the deep well water, the river

Where forbidden ships took sail

With every passing leaf.

 

I’m from khanom and uniforms 

From Kala and Ming Ibao

I’m from short prayers and long books

From sabaii sabaii and cool your heart

From the strangeness of “where are you from”

And twenty two houses I can list offhand.

 

I am the half, half, half,

Thai voice, Chinese heart, farang body

From neither here nor there

The infinite inbetween

 

In a drawer beside my bed

My passport waits

Covered in stamps and memories

It promises to me, if I would try

That I could just fly home

But through the pages, the dates, the changes

I’m not sure what destination would answer my heart:

Where am I from?

Musings

I wish to be adrift
free of the weight
of even my bones
with skin stretched
between wave and sky
as smooth and countless
as the sand of beaches swelling
up into some portentous mass.
I imagine the silence
of nothing but the thrum
of my unfettered pulse
echoing quietly into the horizon.
The horizon of course, is key
the solution to this puzzle between
the finite edges of myself
and this looming reach of space.
Perhaps between the water and air
the weightless self
can sort and split
redefine the sense of duty
into some more holy joy.
Till then I remain,
half-baptized,
run aground in the tub.

The victory

The tension in my body swells.
It bubbles up
in soufter rotund hips
in added creases around the elbow
in firm hints towards a double chin.
My skin resents me
for these protrusions
and in turn erupts in creamy stripes
new scars without a wound.
The only injury is that of weight
a heaviness my heart resists
by poundting
unrelenting at my ribcage.
How dare I let this happen?
My knees protest with my spine
in sore response.
The complaint is echoed in strain
and ache by every sullen part
but one.
And in its ceaseless gloat
the uterus smiles
and begins to bloat.

To Papi

Truth teller
Wisdom weaver
The stories that matter
I heard in his shadow.
He's become the hero
in my own tales
the surprisingly real
clever quipper
the debonair raconteur.
Fair fighter
Philosopher
Words and sides
Let love abide.
Aisle walker
Hand giver
Courage creator
and heart holder.
Happy birthday Daddy.

The childhood that was my own.

There is a lie
that has been told
many times over
and years on years
The lie of the firm foundation
the steady rock
and the possessive childhood.
It was not yours, nor mine
nor in the way of things
was it a thing at all.
A collections of vagaries,
a soiled retelling
that wears thin to touch
or is so heavily darned
as to be remade in entirety.
You hasten to protest
to return in hauetur
to repossess the land
that was your own,
and your fathers before you
but it has turned to dust
and blown away.
The places that were ours
were taller, brighter, more
in existence than could possibly be.
They are a series of extrapolations
from concrete  squares of facts
into the type of narration that dissolves
the thread of story.
There is no thing to own
no needful title or claim
to boast in memory.
It was no more mine than yours
but more than that
it is no more
and therefore might as well
it never was.

HamJien

I once knew a girl
with cheecks plump with life
soft skin stretched tight
the red glow of peach skin
a lucky double peach.
Her parents called her Gold
True gold
the type that bends soft in your hands
but will not change.
She wore her mother's heart
around her wrist, a heavy bangle
and her mother carried her against her skin
warm with the heat and work.
I knew her small hands
with sticky fingers and pink crescent moons
because she had seen her mother
with the tiny nail brush and had wanted
had needed that magic too.
She scowled and laughed too loud,
 always loud
and the house turned around her.
True gold, they told her, shines softly
but she shook her head.
She blazed.