she has these dark eyes black like night black like the painted canvas black like the unlit stage where the moon dances shines glows black like a sheet pulled over your nose somehow darkness moving a fragility a place, a time before the universe was born moon the desert landscape the lustre of 1/8 of a candle yet in this night even a sliver is brighter than all the stars a silver slice of a more magical being
if the house
if you live in the house
or condo
or hut
or tent
or street
(because, we all once
came from the house)
if
the house
burnt down
what would you remember?
what
would keep you on the verge
of
tears
what
would keep you from spilling
and
poring
for answers
what
pile of ash
would be your
family portraits
grandpa's violin
christmas cards
head tax receipt
lost belongings.
proof of life.
proof of
belonging.
what would be left
if the A-frame closed in
on itself,
if dad could not save the roof
with a hose
if water
lost
to flame
would
the sidewalk
bare ashen prints
?
or
would
thebroken lot
bear ferns & grass. & seeds.
&vines
þs &twigs &trees,
your
ruins &
flowers
Don’t surrender your loneliness so quickly. let it cut more deep. Let it ferment and season you as few human or even divine ingredients can. Something missing in my heart tonight has made my eyes so soft my voice so tender my need of god absolutely clear. — Hafiz
i wonder what my teacher felt - fellow canadian-asian male same in struggle same in name lee, eng, lui those letters of the alphabet i've learned to hate together - as i called him a chink.
Be warmed by the fires of love.
Be rocks drearily coaxed into slow, radiant heat;
bask baking bare to the breeze. Be the middle of the circle. the centre of family.
the baby born into the arms of grandmother and grandfather.
Be the beat of feet and soft bed of palms turned up to the sky.
Be the whispered moment. Be the background voices and the sound of mom. ear to warm chest,
like the ear to a shell. it is the ocean calling.
Be seen in the dancing shadows. Be the delighted shrieking children.
Be the hunters drinking mead.
Be the warm mug of coffee, cigarette in finger,
hands wrapped ’round glazing clay; looking down
into a bowl of stars.
You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
For a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain are moving across the
landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air, are heading home
again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting- over and over
announcing your place
in the family of things.
depression is a heavy pair of pants that stand on their own in front of me beside my bed on a rainy day on a sunny day to be honest, i never looked out the window OR i sat here like a bed of flowers in the shade by cold grey memories and thoughts of nominal motivation writing the story of my life in my head with a limp hand a pencil not a pen worn out eraser skipping the best parts hurting myself on the worst parts a suicide note and even that page is blank... every casual thought stalked by a scarier, more critical comment (thinking) (in) (parentheses) (?) (..) (...) (..) if this is where i fell, how did i ever get back up?
inspired by audre lorde
why do we write things that we know we will forget why give our memories a place to die why these scars things i cannot change stripes on my skin (on the page pens scrape sharp as teeth) in a forest where i fiercely dwell the tiger's kill moans and swells always a sound sleep in a silent stalked grass atop a green blushing hill belly full and howling moon trees hold a solemn silence pieces of my ear tossed into the mouths of wolves scent lost in the wind under the shroud of night a naked body wrestles in the sheets a distant trail of ants converge over the hill a claw uncurls into the sky lamps flicker:eyes open
i think i can waters of the soul in this forest i am not alone pond where i became whole cloud of swirls tongue of pearls myself within myself.
life's too short but it's fulfilling enough like getting lost in your mind while your feet sit buried in the sandbox in the backyard, the thought of flying away on a turtle because you learned turtles hatch from eggs in the sand was somehow magical so you wonder why the sandbox now has beetles and holes and millipedes... life's too short but it's meaningful enough to know that you can suffer the saddest sad a blue-soaked towel sagging under heavy eyes stealing heat from your armpits and ribs that you can turn around, fill with sand and shape into statues and castles and bridges away from here, collapsing as you step off, feet on new land life's too short because snowflakes, dance recitals, and moons don't last nearly long enough, and christmas only happens once a year, but even as the snail leaves its shell after it is gone, you can still hold the ocean to your ear.
