Wedding Anniversary

For: My Wife

November 20, 2011
My master: shackles never shown as soft
until this golden bond enslaved this wrist.
Amid my brightest hours, the cuff embossed
a whitened ridge where sun divorced my skin.

What once was darkest, purest skin, now sends
a warning: all who pass this thrall, the Queen
commands respect. The hearts of lonely men
can find a peace, but sacrifice the free.

Engraved upon my shackle reads, "fin,"
and when I dared to ask the Queen to dance,
a lucid diamond weighed upon her limb.
Some year ago, recalled, we traded vows,

For I'm a King and serf, and she a Queen and wife:
As lords and grunts, we're both enshrined for life.

November 20, 2010
I think of you and see your subtleties.
Your laugh at "taco hugs," my dancing shows.
Your often overlooked ability
To listen to my shouted anecdotes.

And from these small affections choices rose:
To live in San Jose, to dream as one.
To know our passing summer days unfold
In winter's basket, each delight in turn.

And every night, when sleep has caught your eye,
I come inside and whisper sweetest dreams:
"That though I've held another's hand, your smile,
Forever trust, is all of which I dream."

These words, tattooed by faith, are promises:
The greatest day of life has yet to come.

Vows to My Wife

I think of you and see your subtleties.
Your laugh at "taco hugs," my dancing shows.
Your often overlooked ability
To listen to my shouted anecdotes.

And from these small affections choices rose:
To live in San Jose, to dream as one.
To know our passing summer days unfold
In winter's basket, each delight in turn.

And every night, when sleep has caught your eye,
I come inside and whisper sweetest dreams:
"That though I've held another's hand, your smile,
Forever trust, is all of which I dream."

These words, tattooed by faith, are promises:
The greatest day of life has yet to come.

Romance

I haven't worn a tie for you in four years,
and $49.99 buys a week's groceries, not a dozen roses.
The stub from our third date downtown
went through the wash.
And the only sounds from our bedroom
are my eyelashes scraping the pillow
as I fall asleep beside you.

Though the hanger has ruined your red dress,
though I watch TV as you say goodnight,
I'll kiss you from post-its that read:
I wish every night was taco night.

Carousel

I'll give one chance, my dear, to pluck a rose.
And when you catch me, place its stem between
my grasp: The emerald thorns of envy rise
in reddened, passioned promises of "me

and you." My dear, come follow close behind.
My Fafner should not scare you. Golden bound
along round paths, he guards his princess, blind
to knights like you, who seek to earn my crown.

Mount your whitened stallion—but sheath your glaive.
Don't fear his claws; just fear I'll fly away.
You'll gallop up and down with metal gears
and plated poles to grant my lovely spray.

Come close, and let the rose untame its smell.
My dearest, give chase on this carousel.

Quilt

One thousand dreams woven together
along their seams of reality and faith.

The loops of joy and punctured flesh
sustained the sloping cotton hills
of pastel memories. And streams of stitching
marinated doubts in sweet strawberry jam.

This balanced cloth, honeycombed
of warming past and cooling present,
was sewn in twilight, between secrets
and truths...and for that, I gave my sight
for its intricate beauty.

It's for you: my blindness and my quilt.
My mollified darkness waits for the ridges
of your fingertips plucked by my eyelashes.
And I can love more warmly that wrinkles
of your wind-cracked face are soft like the grooves of your smile.
Red porcelain whispers on my cheek as white porcelain.

Come beneath what I've made for us:
Darkness for both of us, predicted by the matchmaker of thread.

Curator

Down familiar curves of the museum,
extinct footsteps echo from two galleries away.
Some days, our travertine floor
sings only for my wingtip shoes
as we waltz around your pedestal.

Your gypsum face won't smile,
but your lips touch softly as flesh.
The white folds of your dress, carved
onto your skin, may not change
with the seasons, but your beauty
is as rare as the day I met you.
You are my alabaster empress—
though you bend the hairs on my arms with sight,
I can feel you like a bird feels a shadow.

Lanai

Often, it is the most deserving people who cannot help loving those who destroy them.
—Hermann Hesse—

The wind's hibiscus fingers reached through
the open sliding door and smoothed my hair
with dreams of coral glass and chocolate nuts.
I rolled into the gift the charmed lanai
delivered. Calming hums of pineapple
lullabies asked me to stay in paradise.

I feigned sleep as if my departure
eased with torrents of drowning denial.

The misted midnight air knew my secret
but wished me honeyed peaceful sleep despite
my lie and despite our sinking concord.
The curled Hawaiian draft draped its bent leg
atop mine and gently lowered itself
into the sweat-syruped cradle of my arms.

The thought of leaving made the subtle breeze
of island balm decay in gales of ruin.

Back home, the chills of dreamless slumber beckoned
the breeze once more for humid kisses—wet
against the marooned contours of my back.

Skyward

I kept her deep inside my head: A grain
of rice that rattled free one night and fell
atop the freedom land I prayed deny
her. Starving, I kept her for myself, stored
away, that fate may chance me with a storm
and wet the cloistered plot saved for her.

On fertile ground, she chose to sprout
without me. She found life elsewhere.
She grew tall, over 50 feet of emerald
sinews tempting me up.

I climbed her stalk to reach her face:
I grabbed her hair, hand over hand, and went skyward.
I sank my hands in her hair as I did
when dreaming of kissing her and combing black
strands with my fingers.

I reached her lips and pulled my face
above the crest to peer into her mouth.
I saw a pink pillar of rose petals.

I moved to kiss her, to tell her I can love her
more in freedom's rain than in my sunshine.
I leaned in to whisper my confession,
expecting her breath to smell of rose blossoms.
Instead, I tasted earthy water, drinking her reflection
as she walked away.

Hibakusha

A summer day, a solitary bomb, a single instant; and Hiroshima was transformed into a raging inferno and a hell on earth. Countless precious lives were tragically lost, and even those who somehow managed to survive have lived in constant fear of radioactivity's grim after effects.
- Takeshi Araki -

You asked me once about your father...

It was a surprise one summer Monday.
Walking to work, I saw him ahead of me.
I craned my neck skyward to see his face:
a Little Boy confessing he was made just for me.

He grabbed my arm and pushed me down.
The grit of the sidewalk tangled in my hair.
The waist of my pants pressed into my lower back.
And even in the early hour, the sidewalk heat burned
a criss-cross pattern on my skin.

He hunched over me, his outer thighs
spread my inner thighs.
My temples were clamped between his wrists.
He lowered his head so his bottom lip
slid along my left ear.
And even in a summer morning,
the yellow whisper lit up the sky—

Surrender.

His word tore my shirt open.
He wet my breasts
with clockwise swirls of his tongue.
The goosebumps around my nipples
swelled into blisters filled with white puss.

And all around, the people pretended not to see.
But I saw their dislocated shadows painted on the ground.

I turned my head away from the vermilion
throbbing between my legs.
The glass of shop windows
were crying tears of ice for me,
and the buildings reached to me
with crimson beams of pity.

When I looked up, he was gone.
I touched my leg where he'd finished.
His thrusts had rubbed my skin loose:
flaps of my leg hung like rugs
from a clothing line.

I propped myself on my elbow
and felt a drop of water from the sky.
I opened my mouth to catch the rain
only to taste charcoal.

You asked me once about your father.

You asked me once
why you look different
from your brother.

You asked me once
to tell you
how you were born.

I Dreamed the Dream That Lovers Dream

Behind the house, we walked beneath the pines.
The trail released a lingering dust that dimmed
the laughing summer voices from inside.
Our shoulders swayed and gently glanced in time

with the coy, half-curved smiles shyly revealed.
He brushed the peach-pit pebbles with his foot
before he flapped a white silk sheet over
the sloping terrain, swollen by the tree roots.

We sat in warmth despite the citrus sky.
I rolled pine resin between my fingers
and watched the sap turn black. He whispered kisses
tickling the goosebump hairs behind my ears.

     This dream inspired love's faith, but day told me:
     Even the sweetest dreams are only dreams.

The Slothful of Dante's Inferno

"Beneath the slimy top are sighing souls
who make these waters bubble at the surface;
your eyes will tell you this—just look around.

Bogged in this slime they say, 'Sluggish we were
in the sweet air made happy by the sun,
and the smoke of sloth was smoldering in our hearts;

now we lie sluggish here in this black muck!'
This is the hymn they gurgle in their throats
but cannot sing in the words that truly sound."

(VII.118-126)













Works Cited:
Dante. Inferno. Trans. Mark Musa. New York: Penguin, 1984.

Bolts of Silk

One of my poems has been published on an online poetry blog "Bolts of Silk" (which, I must say, is a very potent image and title for a poetry blog).

Check it out.

Thank you Bolts of Silk for posting one of my poems.

Silence

i want to tell you i like you, but...
you might already know
you might not care
you might not think its genuine, or worth persuing
and it might make my position worse.

soi guess ill just wait untill its obvious enough for you.

Punxecret

The day we met was simple: laughing hard,
a stolen glance—Those were my purest words.
That night, though, all the nights along the road
until now, I saw a faceless lover carve
your simple virgin face with lips like shards
of conquest. Loving faceless phantoms blur
decisions in the day. Potential blows
of rejection freeze me, so I'll just wait.

- - -

The winter frost arrived. The mouse's supply
of food diminished dangerously low
by thoughts of hawks that might consume his heart.
Inside his hole from fear, he decided to lie
and wait within starvation's safety. Shown
no mercy, winter kissed his slowing heart.

Blue

Electric fly killers have three basic functions, all of which must be present if we are to have an effective fly control system: they are to attract, to kill and to collect. Attraction is achieved using lamps that emit Ultra Violet light. As UV light is invisible to the human eye traditional UV lamps had phosphors added which produce visible blue light enabling us to see when they are switched on.

This blue colour has no attractant power and is purely an indicator.

From: Fly Killers: The Myth and Magic
By: Paul Sidebottom

The ocean blue appears so far away.
I often wish to drink the center spot,
that all the sea surrounding me obeyed
my words and bowed in homage of my clout.
The sky appears so blue. I wish to fly
upon the wind and tear between the geese
and clouds. And I would fly beyond the sky
and view the peons trembling underneath.

The blue harmonic buzzing calls to me—
Ambition calls me. Dare I break the clasp
and free this vast potential? Dare I free
the strength and hope once kept beyond my grasp?

I wish no more: my blue cylinder
is here—Touchable—Kissable—Power.

Blinded by Thorns

my life has been so rediculous lately, and im so incredibly lost.
all i can do is laugh about it and hope that things will get better.

~Punxecret~

The once red rose had turned to faithless brown
and bowed its head to mourn the passing hues.
The dying petals cackled as I burned
the flower's corpse. And then I left for home.

Along the journey of my life, I woke
to find myself confused and lost inside
the darkened wood. Upon the stubborn walk,
I strayed off course without a rose to guide.

But then a blinded clown approached and claimed,
"I'll be your guide," and smiled through yellowed teeth.
His rainbow colored clothing loosely draped
his starving frame—he was as lost as me.

The sightless led the lost while telling jokes.
I laughed along, and I could only hope.


~~~

PS:
I happened upon the Punxecret blog about a week ago, and while the teenage angst or "emo" levels are rather elevated, I have become a religious reader of this particular blog. There is something pure about the posters' levels of loneliness and sadness.

This blog is unique in that the username and password are made public: anyone can login anonymously and post their thoughts or feelings. Because all the posts are by "punxecret," there are no means to individuate one post from another. The posts all blend together into one globule of emotional tension.

The Punxecret posts may not be the most refined, but they have unfiltered emotional charge. I enjoy absorbing that charge and discharging it into my own poetry, hopefully in keeping with the poster's original intent.

In my Dream

You were in my dream last night. =]
I miss you.

~Punxecret~

We shopped inside the mall for clothes and hats
for Friday's party. Costume parties aren't
my pleasure, but you said we'd go as "cat
and milk." You and I found the perfect parts,

and I became your cat and you my milk.
You poured yourself into a saucer. Full
and white, I lapped you up, absorbed your silky
fat, and tucked it behind my marbled fur.

You held my paws as gently as I kissed
the gifted birds for you. A perfect match.
But at the party, you couldn't hear me hiss
as you floated away with the kayak.

I lived a life in which you loved and left,
and even in my dreams, you loved and left.

Flowers Need the Sun

Daylength, or photoperiod, is perceived as a seasonal signal for the control of flowering of many plants. The measurement of daylength is thought to be mediated through the interaction of phototransduction pathways with a circadian rhythm, so that flowering is induced...
~Laura C. Roden~

Your guiding shine—eclipsed by the shade of night—
is blinding dark, and I know not which way
to face my growing petals. Every night,
I fear you won't return to me the way
I need—the way that, as you crest over
the eastern range, ensnares my life away
from chilling frost and fear that freezes over
my wilting leaves. Amid the darkest night,
crest! Rise and guide away the charcoal night.

The human plucks us for love every day,
and I was told to die a tool for love.
But I'm no symbol. I feel you, the day,
the sun, as brightly as the human loves.
I may not beat with blood. I may not pulse
with cardiac muscle, but I can still love
because my heart exists for you: a pulse,
a tempo set to dawn and dusk, night and day.
You cross the sky in rhythm with my day.


Works Cited:
Roden, Laura C. et al. "Floral Responses to Photoperiod Are Correlated with the Timing of Rhythmic Expression Relative to Dawn and Dusk in Arabidopsis." Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 99.20 (2002): 13313-13318.

Supple

As the farmer held the shears, he told the sheep,
"Be good." He ran the blades against the wool,
and curly clouds were set adrift to sleep

upon the gentle blades of grass below.
He scooped the tufts into a sack, returned
inside his cottage, and began to weave.

He softly took the strands and made a sweater.
He sent it to her. But she returned the gift.
"I'm sorry. I cannot," read the letter

pinned to the breast. Depressed, the wool lost its bliss.
With butcher knife in hand, the farmer sought
and found the sheep. The wool-less sheep lifted

its head and whispered to the man, "Be good."
He slit its throat. "I'm sorry. I cannot."

Kiss

A Conversation Overheard at Denny's
Of all the stupid things to do. I kissed
her. She's my only girl friend, and I fucked
it up. Now she knows. She knows about this.
We were friends. Now it's weird. We can't go back.

Dude, Jake, you haven't even talked to her.
Relax. She mighta dug the kiss. That's not
the point. The point is that she knows for sure.
She knows I dream of her, and that cannot

be wiped away. So what? You two are great
together. Everyone else thinks so too.
But she didn't get accepted to Yale.
I think the world of her, and can I move

away and leave the love of my life here?
I wonder what all this means for next year.


Dear Diary,
Jacob kissed me today. It happened just outside the photography room after fourth period. It wasn't like I imagined it would be. After dreaming of him for two years, after fabricating a meeting between us, after all my failed plans—he finally kisses me in the most unromantic manner.

We were laughing about how crazy Mr. Williams looked in class today, and before I knew it, Jacob leaned in so fast that our front teeth hit each other. It might have been more romantic if we had the chance to sink into the kiss, but as fast as he kissed me, he pulled away. It was the same length of kiss that I give my dad on the cheek. Just a peck. It wasn't at all like I imagined it. His spit was all around my mouth. It felt like I had just eaten ribs. I guess a hasty kiss is hard to aim correctly.

It wasn't slow or sensitive. He didn't run his hands through my hair. He just plowed into my face and pulled away. I think he was more shocked than me. After the kiss he said, "Sorry," and scampered away. I haven't seen him since.

I don't know why he was so embarrassed. Even though it wasn't perfect, I'm glad it happened. After so long a time, I had resigned myself to being his "friend."

But I wonder what all this means for next year.

The Murders in the Rue Morgue

My dad and me are at the Oakland Zoo.
I'm really glad he brought me to the zoo.
We saw a lion cub, a bear, and bugs.
But the best thing is the orangutan.
He's wearing that box like a fancy hat.
He's happy on his island in the sun.
It must be fun to sleep and eat all day.
He'd be the perfect smiling pet for me.

When I'm released from this electric cell,
I will pray for you. Rampage haunts within
and pulls the muscles in my arms. My grasp
to warp your neck; my mind to warp your rules.
For I'm no man, but a beast imprisoned.
For now, this moat preserves the rending depths.