writing | music

METAPOETRY (2005)

1

I don't know if this is a poem

these words on this page about to become

vibrations in the air

recited recitation

recited

incited

excited

2

Aspire inspire

This poetry thing's keeping me from my shower

And now I know how John wandered that desert

For days and nights

I know how you got there

Matted hair

Unwashed face

Because our eyes are stinging from the soap in my eyes

And water drips down my pen as I write

This poem

Because if you are a poet

No one can take that away from you

And if you are a poet, you know

This poem is for me

And poetry is alive in the detritus of my mind

This great big dumpster dive

And poetry belongs to the streets to the sheets to the litter and the girme

What treasures that there reside, sublime

In the half-life of dreams

Be ready with your pen

When the muse calls you, jump out of the shower

3

My poetry's got no style you see

Just words from my heart that have no home

Sometimes a swarm, sometimes a trickle, like Ottawa

Sometimes its a freezing drizzle.

It's psychobabble but its real to me like no other

This is my product, the sum value of the value of me, the intersection of the unconscious

and this vehicle, this vessel

I write

1

You and I
we love each other with our eyes
I think it was you who started it
with your silence
and your pauses
and your slow motion butterfly lashes

in that in between space
you saw me

seeing you

2

What is bubbling in my body

a spring of

wordless being alive

apprehension
excitement

you! are a mood, you are music

the incoherent song of a mad man being sung inside of me

If you want to live here a while

on the inside of my arm...you can

3

worshipping you
seems incongruent, separate, of being in the world
it belongs to skin
it belongs to forest
the city there, at the edge of my peripheral vision
bursting with energy and movement and carbon emissions,
is a universe away

4

when You smile at me
what is it that you’re seeing?
I have been lost for so long,
longing to know my true nature

Quick--! Tell me what you see?

I can never catch this dancing shadow

5

We spend our lives longing for love
not knowing that it surrounds us,
it is the air we breathe.

On a road bike (2006)

you Glide like a shark
Whipping and circling to keep
your balance
A breathless standstill

Slick black streets and wet rainforest air
We forget a million things everyday
Like: the pleasure of breath

(2007)

punctuation (2008)

my days are punctuated by you--
thinking of you, hearing your voice
parentheses, commas, oh joyful exclamation mark!

I disappear into long stretches of reverie,
hyphens where I-------
           kiss you lightly
           taste your tongue your lips your Adam's apple

-----where I slide my hands around your hips
----where I feel your body curled around mine,

I live in the ellipsis of
the smile that you leave me with..
the wonder and safety of all the things that you might do
to make things right in the world
you are what frames this story
the soundtrack that runs
in the background of buses caught, errands run, and people passing by...

     all these breaths that get taken

     bright bright glimpses of sun

Lying in bed Tom said to me, your parents just want you to be happy you know

I laughed in his face

Crazy laughter

The laughter of the middle daughter of Asian parents

(2005)

ASIAN WOMEN (2005)

A tit for tat

A kit for kat,

Asian women rarified darified Lily.

Of the Kimono fashion victims

We are broken ribs in the garden of eden

Teetering on the bunions our mothers

gave us

Too polite to state the obvious

(There emperors wearing no clothes)

But

this peace that is no peace is based on Mutual silence.

We avert our eyes, After all it's traditional

Not to believe in the value of our own words

It's traditional

for us

To capitulate.

accept what we're told by our betters,

our elders

our men.

But mothers! tell your sons

To love me or fuck me

Cause if they can't do both or even

either

Then they can go fuck

Themselves

Because I'm tired of putting up with other people's shit

Tired of other people's bad behaviour,

Waving their swords, stomping all over the world

I'm Tired of being

A Good Sport

And My nipple and its hair

Is not my shame

And the size of my ass is not my glory

And do I practice tai chi?

I"ll tell you: I practice tai chi in my heart.

So let us make a choice

and Let us speak up.

Let us not fear for the fragility of the balance we keep

Pigeon-toed,

Mothers and daughtesr,

this is the strength we have.

Not silence or endurance

But each other