Friday, February 28, 2014

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?

Wednesday, February 26, 2014

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.

Sunday, February 23, 2014

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.

Thursday, February 13, 2014

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.

Tuesday, February 11, 2014

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.

Saturday, February 8, 2014

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.