Jesse Ko Poetry

Bangkok Stories, Part 4: Revelations

2011-08-29T15:44:00.000-07:00

Place

The art on my walls are falling
down, one by one
the glue that held them up
through last winter
is letting go—

they say
it's the humidity of this place
that makes things, people,
never wanting to stay too close,
too long, together.

Sacrificial

Lying
between two bodies, one big
bestial, hairy-heaving, and one
cherubic small;
I sensed holy.
The fear of
doom—to be eaten, my lust
to be consumed
did not move me, but the motions—
the creaking of the bed, my slow forfeit
to their hands, and my cleansing
by their tongues inducing a high
that can only be described as ascension,
to be brought closer
to god, ready
for sacrifice.

Purpose

The other day I saw an iced coffee
placed in a poor excuse of
a plastic bag, cut out and
shaped only to fit a cup—

imagine life like that,
one purpose, regardless
how insignificant,
and nothing else matters;

I can’t

help but stare
at those ornamental
ceiling lamps, softy glowing
in your already luminous room
every time we fuck.

Sober

When you grasped my hand
and slyly grazed my fingers
on your soft facial hair

your face was still
warm in that cold room filled
with drunken indifference;
that alcohol in your breath
has yet to steal heat
from your body—

You know,

I long for those moments
when you're sober,
your eyes
conscious and aware
of the love, pain,
you give me.

A Child’s Poem (Beautifully)

I like to leave my balcony window open at night for
my neighbors, and their apartment
with all their lights on, and everything. Not that
it matters what they do— dinner
tv, magazine? I can’t see without my glasses
anyway. But it’s the movement, the bodies and their
breathing shapes moving in light that remind me
if one can look from outer space, far far away,
we all blend in
no matter the colours, or what we do.

Bangkok Stories, Part 3: The Mourning After

2011-08-22T17:56:00.000-07:00

Confetti

The day before Chinese New Year
I keep finding pieces of confetti in my room,
it's odd because I don't remember
being near any celebrations, any place
I could have taken a bit of festivity
with me; this year
I could celebrate,
no more black clothes,
black memories, I'm allowed
to wear bright reds and yellows,
and be loud, joyous, cheering—
but do I want to be those things?
Do I want to let go of the austerity,
the silence we shared in those last moments,
those last few minutes in that hospice room
I listened to you breathe.

Princess

in the mirror
before makeup,
notice

your black hair,
thin, sharp eyebrows,
and the gentlest square cheekbones;
you've matured—grown
as if your father
had mold the beauty of your face
with his own
soft, boney fingers,
your smile
by his suit's warmest greys;

today
in your deep brown eyes
he breathes again
life—the sweetest cigarette breath

that leads you, white
and softly,
down the aisle.

Theoretrical

Energy cannot be created
or destroyed—

conversion, potential to kinetic
and everything else;
we learned that in physics class,
high school, before that

I learned from you
food loses its goodness when
its heat escapes from the dinner table
while I stared at my computer screen. I
thought of that today
sitting at a cafe watching
my iced coffee condensate, almost
sweating at the irony of steam
rising from the ice in the cup;
evaporation, heat moving upwards or
goodness, escaping the static cold—

Your body, the white sheets,
the rose they put on your chest, already cold
when I arrived an hour after you died;
your sublimation was
impatient, unlike you.

Energy cannot be created
or destroyed—

I love to think about the invisible,
energies, matters that surround us
in total disregard, stoicism?

How much insensitivity
can matter tolerate,

think about it, if
this world came from an explosion
of invisible matter then
didn't we all—humans so involved with
feelings, emotions,
begin as these same stoic particles
in sub-atomic void? So

when will your energies, heat,
goodness, decide they've had enough
silence. You are out there,
waiting, because you exist now
only as patience; particular,
insensitive to the cold, heat, joy, pain, tears;

How long, before you come back
to me?

One year later

One year later
I look up
at my white textured ceiling,
the unevenness of the paint,
the soft shadow masonry–
I see the history
of your hands.

One year later
I stare at the setting sun,
the orange, the reds;
no words, just colour trusting
its last warmth on my body,
like the last time
I held your face.

One year later
I see the unfolded laundry
sitting on my bed,
patiently waiting
through the night,
as you did
for me.

One year later,
I still see you in everything.

The Towel

The towel you used
has been hanging on my balcony
since yesterday
morning, after you left.

I’m reluctant
to take it back inside, clean it,
fold it, put it away—no I can’t
just destroy the memory of your body
wrapped in white
fabric substance-less in the wind;

lacking.

Bangkok Stories, Part 2: Measures of Love

2011-08-02T22:11:00.000-07:00

Bangkok, ผมรักคุณ

When my motorbike driver made the turn
my body was only inches
from the brown pavement I travel on everyday,
it was so close, and fast,
that the masonry looked
too smooth, too refined.
Somehow I felt
it just shouldn't be that way, it was
like how rocks become polished by moving
sands on the beach—

my love life;

if only there were
no secrets, no scars.

Hypothetical

As our footsteps echoed through
the wet streets of the sleeping market
I wondered why we always meet
in this kind of scenery—dark, surreptitious,
but romantic;

you don’t forget these things,
first impressions, his speech
effortlessly assonant and
never a silent consonant—
they all belong to him
even after you realize
it’s not just him,
the rest of Europe speaks the same way.

These impressions, they become just as real
as the hazel of his eyes or
the musical inclination of his stare;

one year ago
our gazes connected through the rhythmically beating
air-conditioned space, yet
I still don’t know if I was just
paying too much attention to his creaseless white shirt
or the way he says “fantastic”
not as an adjective
but a nominal metaphor of us:

the staring bronze Buddha, and the papier-mâché pig,
artwork scattered on the floor of his apartment
like a gallery exhibition that’s gone on for too long.

Colors, Body, Parts

I.
Golden hair,
violet-reds and blond gives it
that warm autumnal glow, you,
the naturally occurring
biological complement.

II.
Bisexual eyes
verbose green and quiet brown;
I can't help the blush you cast
on my body, confused
by this twofold arousal.

III.
Powder white skin
freckled, almost to say
the pale in you is fighting to harmonize,
as I am submissive, blending in,
to your body, colors.

Cigarette Smoke and Songs

Every time I look
the strokes of browns he made on the white
of your neck
just above the collarbone speak to me
of Van Gogh and his
Starry Night, how hard
he had to fight with his canvas
to lure the psycho-passions
in the calm blues, greens;

I want to fight with your canvas—I want
to learn how to draw those
reluctant cedar reds, I want
my lips chapped and lost in your
five o'clock shadow so nobody could see
the pain and my thirst instinctual;
artistic martyrdom, how
you do that to me. No matter
how deep, how dark it grows;
my lust will only be a stained mistake
unexplored on that tender vacancy
of your neck. No matter
how much of myself, my saliva,
my scents
I try to leave, or should I say,
belong on you, until
the next morning.

I will never get it,
how he excites the quiet, insensitive
darks of midnight—
your cigarette smoke,
and songs.

Measure of Love

I found a piece of your hair
on my bathroom floor, I knew
it was yours because it was brown,
soft, and slightly curly, unlike
the harsh black of my own. I picked it up,
looked at it for a moment,
and tossed it in the bin; I do not
need to be reminded of how
my fingers noticed your hair getting longer
every time I stroked you head
thinking that love
is something
I could forever measure.

Bangkok Stories, Part 1: Perspectives

2011-07-18T07:41:00.000-07:00

Crumbled tissue with coffee stains

A rose, perhaps
dying, its petals
giving in to yellows
and browns, or

a vagina,
tired
after unwanted sex?

Postpartum

Trying
to stretch into an arabesque penchée
in the pool, at the
four feet mark I bend forward
feeling the lift of my body
in the clear water,
chest dipping in;

the muscles in my leg
hesitates to rise
up, and out
to break the liquid surface.

The cold air between my fingers,
yours, and his;

I couldn't help being distracted
from the lights, the screaming noises
of the movie screen in front of me, how
even in a moment like this—moment of
public darkness, the two of you
so subtle, as if unaware your fingers are
madly intertwined in what I want to imagine as
sex positions.

DJ Station (Scents)

When bodies gather,
moving to the speaker’s bass
skin to skin; there is
no place for fabric,
no containment of
this shared body heat—
scents of perfumes
and sweat, a marriage
so perfect yet
tragically fading.

Red Candle

This year I grew too old
to have that many candles
on my birthday cake, so
they just gave me one
big red candle to fulfill
my wish;

how funny
life’s metaphors can be.

Update notice

2011-07-13T09:42:00.000-07:00

For the two people who read this blog... I'm just putting together my Bangkok work right now, I'll have them up ASAP! Look forward to it!

Preview: Bangkok Stories

2011-02-15T05:46:00.000-08:00

Place

The art on my walls are falling

down, one by one

the glue that held them up

through last winter

is letting go—

they say

it's the humidity of this place

that makes things, people,

never wanting to stay too close,

too long, together.

L(ove) Words 2009

2010-12-29T05:51:00.001-08:00

journal p. 529

Your eyes, a kind of brown

I dare not describe, because to say

they are ambers

washed in the raw seawater greens would be

obsessive, I am

so eager to take you in,

your soft hair, pale skin

so easily flushed, embarrassed, resistant

like your facial hair’s subliminal

feedback, the pricking as if to say

no, you don’t

actually want me.

The Rejection Kiss

When our lips not only touch

but lock in the saliva of our

acquainting tongues,

our faces tilt with our bodies

moving to spill body heat

flooding in the fabric of your bed;

and almost colder than

the air conditioned room

you stared,

eyes wide, hazel

on my face has never been

so harsh—I used to like that

eye colour.

Pale, pale skin—

do I, or perhaps you

read too much into those

panda eyes

not so much brown as they are

earthy, no, reflective.

I imagine you fallen,

restlessly staring into ground beneath

not with scorn but a sense of wonder

why

has the earth pulled you down,

taking away the strength in your legs

and forced your body upon

this bed, unwilling to absorb you back

into the creation?

I want to be this earth,

this entity so familiar to your body,

your mind but incapable of

taking you in—

I want this longing

of flesh, to become one,

forever alone

with you.

Floss

Be the floss in my teeth,

the angry non-flosser who

for the first time in months

was made to floss

so hard, so frustrated this

intrusion of white

brighter and more critical

than what he’s used to. Blood

is his only release—

this jealously rushing

to the surface because it’s

better to hurt now

than stain forever.

Shower steam,

warmth, moist—

The skin (or callous?) of my feet

touched, mid-stretch

and they stuck together;

a second,

enough to looked

as though the cells decided

today

they didn’t care for the divorce,

the split—the want

to become one again.

Perhaps they were confused

that moment, dazed,

wet, ecstatic,

but strangely

romantic.

Death/Songs

2010-01-03T07:18:00.000-08:00

This is a collection of poems I have written in response to my grandmother's illness and degeneration in the last year.

* * *

The Leak

…the brown crawls
through the white unfallen
ceiling tiles
like salt into watercolor,
painful flowers
inside fleshy tissues—
beautiful, cancerous;

my grandmother’s lungs.

* * *

Her feet and the elevator doors

Every time
our neighbors, strangers,
run ahead to hold the metal doors of the elevator,
when silver chair legs are dragged
on carpeted floors
at the sight of her in restaurants,

when she is lifted out of her moving seat
into a real one;

my grandmother’s moments of silence.

She stops
all conversations, stories
of her past, and knows only to stare
at her heavy legs, silent
even to her late sons and daughter’s
eagerness to stay alive in her words—

I never realized
how much she has lost
already, two sons and a daughter
in memories that want to slip
even further with her brown eyes
into the less laborious
blind-eye blues around the iris.

What does she, or I see
reflected the glint
of these momentary metallic surfaces—

the cold iron elevator door,
the impatient glimmer of moving chairs
and the wheelchair handles mirrors.

Is it her static lethargy
loveless silence, or
the portrait of her final loss?

* * *

Beauty in Death

I don’t remember what she ate,
all I recall was

yellow—
because there’s no point of
embellishing the color of vomit. It was
dark, viscous with grains of rice
cascaded down her mouth. Eyes closed,
not cringed,

there wasn’t enough strength
to hold back.

She let it happen
almost naturally, hardly gagged
just small coughs to clear her airway.

Strangely pale and
violet-analogous, her lips
almost the lavender on the shirt
she was wearing, loose and
rippling as her stomach contracted,
purged
complementary colors—
pain
in such beauty.

* * *

Carriage

I don’t want to die—

my grandmother looked at me;
her tarnished
sclera, and eyes moving
like rusted gears.

Three months,
the doctor said
like somehow he saw
her life mathematical;

the angles
of her twisted body looking
for a point of comfort,
and the decline of her body weight
exponential—

I cannot hold her up,

I told
the mother who sought help
carrying her child up the stairs
today at the subway station,

I didn’t even look at the baby
fearing that in those eyes,
in those involuntary
blue inquiries, I would see
just how little life my arms could hold onto—

I don’t want

her loose skin
and lightened bones,
I don’t want to hold her
up, closer to the sky and feel
how quickly
she’d ascend—how
easily I would break…

If only
I could tell that mother
every time
she asks someone to carry her baby,
that she takes a moment
to remember how light her child is, and
how quickly she will become impossible
to hold
in her arms.

* * *

The Emergency Room List

The doctor’s face.
Needles and five vials of blood.
Crushed white pills.
Green fluid in plastic cup—30ml.

My grandmother’s face.
The nurse’s face.
My grandmother’s face trying to swallow the medicine.
Water spilling from the side of her lips.
Her teeth in a grimace.

The salvia and sweat in her cough.
Stained white hospital sheets.
Crumpled hospital sheets, no longer clean-smelling.

My grandmother’s breathing, short and labored.

The electrocardiogram, blue electrodes, ten.
Her body, unblemished.
Her breast, white, healthy-looking.
Her stomach full.

The skin around her eyes, wrinkled and loose.
Her eyes, yellow and bloodshot, staring up.

The intravenous, slowly dripping.
Her gown, parted.
Her buttocks sagging onto the bed sheets.
Her buttocks, soft.

Her smile—

* * *

Her X-rays

She had me feel her stomach
once, at home, when she first complained
about the discomfort. It was warm,
too warm, as if
it contained the body heat of two people.

She said something angry
is growing inside her, impatient hands,
small and multiple, pushing against the
skin, almost stretching it—

The x-rays showed
images of her chest,
her abdomen, her pelvis,
and the spots,
more spots than what I remembered
three months ago.

Her belly a garden
of many self-pollinating flowers, black
and white,
each blossom a hand
of pain growing,
spreading.

Perhaps cancer
is like having a child,
there is
the surprise, the wait, the pain,
and the hospital ward.

What is different
of new life,
and that which now grows inside her?

The part separating from the whole,
a consciousness
inobedient to what the body—the mother, wants.

In the end,
don’t we all wait
for the relief of deliverance, and the spirit
waits for ascension?

* * *

Body/Fear

Grandma
didn’t want my hand,
without lifting her head
she said it was heavy and
burdensome. How
does love become
a burden? The weight of
tender body heat; my hand
on her back caressing
suffocation—

As I lie in bed after
we fucked, I asked
him to climb
on top of me,
outside the sky has turned
dark, his chest heavy
against mine, my hands
pinned in
supplication,

but not suffocation—
I could not
recreate that cold, black
of dying
where even warmth, body,
and love, are frightening.

Blowjob for Warm Body

2010-01-03T07:11:00.000-08:00

When you pushed
your dick against my mouth
saying shh, shh,
I whimpered
my lips closed, wet
from your saliva, your sweat,
or your pre-cum;
I don’t know anymore
the difference between
your tongue and your sex
stabbing me,
no more soft warm kisses
just me shivering,
head whipping on your
white sheets crumpled and
sticky with the gel from my hair,
as if saying shh, shh,
made sense
when the last thing I wanted was to
open my mouth, to
let you in-
I did,
only because I said before
to negotiate,
a blowjob for your warm body
because it was
too cold
in your air-conditioned room,
but you’re too big
and your aftertaste too salty
for my cold lips
chapped
and bleeding.

Soft Lips and Listerine

2010-01-03T07:04:00.000-08:00

The first time I kissed
those lips,
you came
up to me
in midst of all the bodies
and their loud music,

you said, come,
and I did with you
to the corner of the bar
where the middle-aged men have been
staring at me from
the moment I came,

but that doesn’t matter, I was
with you just kissing
before we made out
each others’ names;
your lips were
so soft, so cold
and minty that
I was freezing from
the beads of sweat on my forehead
from dancing before

I held you
closer, tighter
without questioning what that
familiar sweetness from
your mouth was…

The next time I kissed
those lips
I came
to your apartment,
no more bodies
or loud music,

just you and the same
minty breath in candlelight
not bright enough
to see your face,
only your tan tinted
by wicker glow,
and we kissed
more this time,
with tongue
and everything began
to melt-

my shirt, my belt,
my pants, my skin,
my penis
you kissed
and I came
unseen by our eyes clinched
so tight,
and cold…

Later you kissed me again,
with lips fuller
and you mumbled,
as if you were careful not to spill
words,

there is mouthwash
in the bathroom
if you want.

Journal p. 529 (preview)

2009-10-13T20:54:00.000-07:00

A clip of the amazing Rachel Pletts (Rahc El) performing "Journal p.529", lyrics written by Jesse Ko and arranged into song by Rahc El.

Rahc El: http://www.myspace.com/rahcelmusic

Still writing!

2009-09-22T20:45:00.001-07:00

Sorry for the idleness, I'll be updating again soon.

サムライ

2009-09-14T16:54:00.000-07:00

静か雲
夕日花びら
変わる時、
空がばったの
飛ぶツバサ歌。

shizuka kumo
yuuhi hanabira
kawaru toki
sora ga batta no
tobu tsubasa uta.

When stoic rain clouds are dyed
by the red petals of the Pacific sun,

The sky dissolves
into
songs of young grasshopper wings
against the dews of morning perspiration-

Ascendance.

Martyr

2009-09-14T16:53:00.001-07:00

There is a dead rat in the train
tracks,
sprawled in between the rails,

doesn’t look like he died from trauma,
head still intact, no
spilled brains or intestines—maybe
poison, can’t be
hunger in the New York City subways;

that
was three weeks ago,
today he was still there;
is he really dead?

Did he know
the consequence of dying
there, alone,
unreachable, no
sanitary worker to pick him up, no
burial.

How can he, whose bones
I can now see revealed,
by his right leg, still white;
whose fur still grows blacker with dust
and whose form grows
more unrecognizable;

How can a body of
decomposing flesh be dead
when it’s still transforming, feeding
carnivorous bacteria
new life?

Sign Language

2009-09-14T16:52:00.003-07:00

I dove
into the shuddering horizon blue
of your eyes,
as your pupils dilate in the dark
eager to capture all of me,
taking me in-
taking me

into space,
the great vacuum
once
I remove hearing
from your ear,
you can’t hear me talk
but you can see my lips
move for your attention,
and my tongue
licks the moist air to form
words-

they’re physical
a poet once told me,
now I know what she meant.

There is more than sound,
it’s the way my lips mould
against yours
and the fluidity of our tongues
that directs a
discourse,

my breath against your face
means more than the guttural vibrations
on your eardrums;

how sexy it must be
to have enough silence
to feel my fingertips’ whispers
pushing against your heartbeat-

that’s communication
uninhibited.

Echoes

2009-09-14T16:52:00.001-07:00

After the shower I threw my towel
lazily on top of the pile of laundry,
it made a noise against
the old metallic wardrobe—my god
grandmother’s—how did it get here?

I’ve never seen it when she was alive,
it was inside her room, I’ve only been inside
a couple of times, it was always dark
with the smell of baby powder
accidentally scattered on her soft grey
carpeted floors.

Everything seemed soft back then
when I was in her apartment with my mom;
her rouge sofas, the many plants she has near the windows,
and the cold air blowing from the air conditioner…
even the skyline
from her window was delicate.

But I don’t remember the wardrobe,
I wonder if it was used, or
did it sit alone like her,
widowed with only spotted-skin history
as her company.

This wardrobe that I’ve never touched,
that I’ve never paid much attention to,
it’s so heavy now;
with the dead air of her apartment,
the dead carpet, the dead plants, and her
living voice in the hollow
forgotten space within;

I wonder if it waits
to be touched,
if it was the caress of my towel
that made it chime,
almost
a whimper.

Landing a Waltz

2009-09-14T16:50:00.000-07:00

Find the moment when
space, air
agree to lift and embrace
your descent;

remember
softly,
kiss the ice toe
to edge,

anticipate
like the first time
your mother, father,
let go-
as your first step

shoulders forward,
don’t look back

trust the seconds of comfort
of knowing
they are still behind you
watching

your feet,
let them
a moment of hesitation
to listen,

the silence
of your blades slicing
through vacuum,

even if you fall
and shatter
no one will hear you cry,

so give in to your arms,
your legs-
they want to move on
outwards;

let them
this disconnection
as if to say goodbye

before you descend
unsupported, boundless
as freezing water
eager to become one
with the ice beneath.

I can be your Harajuku girl

2009-09-14T16:46:00.000-07:00

Watch,

I can be prettier than those girls you saw.

I promise,
no coarse yellow skin
after the opaque whites
I put on,

my sex
will not show through
my rippling gowns.

Pull open
my eyes,
if you don’t like them almond-shaped

they can be big and feline
in time.

And my deep voice
I’ll let you muffle,
just imagine one that fits
with these lips,
painted
small and quiet enough
for you to kiss.

Even my stubborn cheek bones
I will try to hide
in the shadows of my laced parasol,

if you are afraid to get too close
just close your eyes
and you can

touch me

like a geisha
and more.

Jeffrey

2009-09-14T16:45:00.000-07:00

Not Jeff,
I never called you that
in fourth grade,

over a decade ago
you’ve become my habit;
your spiked-up hair, your thin
baritone voice, and the scent
you leave behind in my house
every Saturday-

you’ve indulged me,
corrupted me
with your sarcastic meanness;
I can no longer walk past
a fat lady without laughing,
remembering the things you’d say.

I even remember the marks on
your face like a constellation,
celestial like your Chinese name—Jin Yu,
brave universe; it fits
the devious boy I grew up with.

You are not my best friend—you are
my brother,

I miss the Yu that wears preppy polos and
pajamas that look like rags, I miss
the way you smell without cologne,

every weekend
when we’re at Uno’s
while you made fun of the waiter,
I’d take a deep breath
and relax knowing you’re comfortable
as yourself with me.

But things changed since
you moved away,
now every time I see you
I’m surprised, not

by your four hundred dollar sneakers;

There are no more
sad stories about girls
and no more cigarette smoke
to drown out tears that
you don’t want me
to see.

Even the constellation on your face,
the one I memorized, the Yu,
erased
by laser surgery.

My textbook said, it’s okay

2009-09-14T16:38:00.000-07:00

Imagine
not just flowers,
but a field of green
growing out,
that’s it-
it’s a gradual,

you can’t rush it,
it doesn’t work that way;

hold the blade
against your skin,
something you’re comfortable with;
choose something,
a matte knife or
a box cutter-

you will need to grasp
something
with a handle,
nothing too light or too heavy.

Run the back of it down
your skin once
or twice,
get to know it by
unzipping the top layers,
opening to new skin-
the pink, that’s what you want-
intimacy.

Now turn the edge over,
touch your skin with it;

deep breaths—cut
into it, one motion,
not too hard
just to see a bit of red;
don’t worry
the hue will intensify.

You’ve create a stencil,
use it-
pick up the blade and run it down
again, and again,
don’t stop,

don’t even look,
just listen to your body,
you will feel the trickle of blood
but that’s not the signal to stop,
not yet,
keep opening it;

Stop
when you feel yourself pull
the blade in,
when your skin becomes willing,
don’t indulge it.
Tease it.

Take a look,
the red on your complexion,
don’t cover it,
your wound is gasping,
feeding-

there will be blossom
soon,
flowers, trees, and rivers;

let it grow
slowly, slowly.

Reflections: Latter 2007

2009-09-12T09:36:00.000-07:00

This set of poems entitled “Deconstruct” contains the poetry encounters I made under the guidance of contemporary poet Jan Heller Levi.

This writing period was one of my most revision-intensive experiences in poetry. The sense of “self” from my previous set of poems is still heavily present in these poems, but here we have a “self” that is beginning to open up and reaching out to other bodies. It is yet another transitional phase; the body goes from internal, private dialogues with the multiple personae of “self” to learning to communicate as a whole with outside influences… Extensions, and learning to feel, understand, and finally come to terms with the existence and barriers of other consciousness outside the ego…

Jan Levi was unique, but relevant to my previous poetry mentors. Her images and her metaphors are living, breathing proof of existence—they are in the “present tense”. She has a tendency to immediate reactions, to approach subjects/matter head-on. I think from that I have started to explore my own encounters, and to yield power from moments of awkwardness.

“His Pillow” was a favorite of mine within this set of poems. The revision process of this poem showed a lot of “deconstruction” of layers and contradictions, as shown in this previous draft of the poem:

(Draft 4)

We are not stigmas under the sun
Only when our breaths are covered by
Midnight shadows and
Cricket cries;

Your grey sheets are not enough.

Like tattoo-regrets on
The shivering body I denied you,
I want to be unwritten
With inkless pores,
Ones that will not spill even when embarrassed,
Frightened

I am,

Because you only get annoyed by my laughter-
Joyless and thickly accented
With the echoes of you on my tongue.

I wonder if you knew
Your hazel eyes
Asked whether I care to be
(Unloved),

Just seconds ago.

The language in this previous draft was definitely less concrete, and the images are a lot more metaphorical. There is a lot of “covering-up” in this draft, as hinted by words like “tattoo-regrets” and “unloved”. There was clearly not enough here to propose the feelings of jealousy, reasons for insecurity, and the “alternate” who’s been plainly outlined in the final draft of this poem.

A lot of thoughts needed to be revised to push out the underlining meanings. The speaker here was just a bit too self-involved and he failed to reveal the persuasions of the outside forces and other consciousness.

Now look at the changes in the final draft.

Notice these lines and their enjambments:

“You want me only\on your side of the bed;”

“Your grey sheets are not dark enough\for my scent?”

I was trying to work with the awkwardness of the situation—allowing the reader to pause for a moment and imagine the reaction, the face of the person being addressed.

The idea of “his pillow” also became more important, and further explored. It brings up the presence of “another” throughout this poem, a third person perhaps.

He is not physically present, but we know he exists, and he exists for the sake of the poem. It’s the idea of the body, an impenetrable body that we can’t fully understand but need for the feelings to work. Structurally, the appearance of this “third” becomes the poem’s turning point in terms of focus. If you noticed the pronoun usage, it is clear that the beginning of the poem is more concerned with the “you”, whereas the latter is more concerned with the “I”. But “his pillow” also acts as a thematic turning point, setting the point of climax for the poem.

This process of finding meaning through revision became an important part of my craft in poetry. It’s almost as though I was sifting my words through revision and finding things that I’m most concerned about.

Let’s look at the revision process in “Father”:

I was actually quite shock at the direction this poem took through the revision process. Perhaps the subject matter was had always existed subconsciously, but its appearance definitely came as a surprised.

One can see the difference in this very first draft:

Testicles are hard
to draw;

You need to be open minded,
See pass the obstructing penis

And imagine
The smooth white surface resting shyly
Against the scrotal sac.

Your hands trying to form the delicate shapes,
You want to touch them,
feel them slip
Into shadows, curves,

Your fingers dig
Deep into the tubule mass,
The complexity that frustrates
The pencil, you no longer care for.

Only the velveteen encircling,
The union,
A blossom.

The origin of this poem actually came about while I was at the Metropolitan Museum of Art working on drawing studies of various body parts of Greek statues. I remember I was struggling with getting the appropriate texture—the discrepancy of flesh to stone. I was conflicted between representing the sculptural forms as cold, hard, and lifeless objects, or to allow them to pulse and breathe on my page. This conflict is evident in many parts of in this first draft. The speaker begins by establishing his struggle, and proceeds to describe very factually what he comprehends visually on the surface. Something happens after the third stanza however, a barrier is breached and the speaker is no longer just observing, but “touching” or at least thinking about touching the figure. The subject of the poem is thus created. This “touch” has breathed life into the inanimate object of the poem and thus creating a new focal point for the reader as well as for poet.

Let’s look at a later draft:

(Draft 6)

I cannot draw your testicles.

Even in my hands
you harden and pull away;

I just wanted to feel what I never understood-

Why you never held me as closely,
as unconditionally
as your enveloping scrotum against my cold fingers.

I want to see beyond the brown skin,
the black hairs,
to break the pale white shells
and spill the reason why
I exist.

But it’s your silent indifference
that never allows me
to look, to ask,
to dig any deeper.

Notice that in this version the “object” has already been given a persona.

Notice the images:

“…you never held me as closely,\as unconditionally\as your enveloping scrotum against my cold fingers.”

“…the brown skin, the black hairs…”

The speaker is no longer looking at just a lifeless figure, but exploring it (or him) underneath. The speaker is searching for a soul to speak with almost. It took a few more revisions and some conversations with myself on the page, but eventually it just occurred to me that the speaker should be addressing his father. And I say “should” because it was a conscious choice, and I believe this poetic authority was definitely something I discovered during this revision period. It is that ethos that upgrades a person who writes in his journal into a writer, and that ethos that transforms scraps of free-writing into poetry.

It is as stated in “I keep a vase of dried roses”, it’s what and how the poet has decided to make the speaker do which makes his actions poetry-worthy.

Thanks again for reading!

Remembering

2009-09-11T20:59:00.000-07:00

I found this journal entry I wrote 8 years ago on this day, I was... 14

"A day of Sadness
A day of Sorrow
A day of Anger
A day of Hatred
A day of Fear
A day of Emotions
A day of Confusion
A day of Frustation
A day of the Unexpected."

Peace.

I keep a vase of dried roses

2009-09-02T20:40:00.001-07:00

Sometimes I pick one out and smell the dust gathered
between the brown petals,

Then I lick the thorns to see if that love still hurts.

Blue Eyes

2009-09-02T20:36:00.000-07:00

Take a picture
of your blue eyes for me-

I lied,
I love everything that is different,

and I love your eyes,

the blue, green, amber,
black
for your pupils only

but it’s all I have in mine;
no brown that I made up to be more like you,
just silent black.

I say that I like dark eyes
because they haunt me if I don’t,
they show me my
eyeless reflection,

I don’t need see myself,
I’ve gotten used to being
quiet in shadows.

But there is no black
in the light of your eyes,

and no dusk to tell me that
I don’t like to smile,
anymore.

Father

2009-09-02T20:33:00.000-07:00

I have your testicles
in my hands,

please do not pull away,
it would hurt less
for the both of us;

I just want to see what I never understood-

Why can your scrotum envelop my cold fingers
Unconditionally?

Is there a father within
those pale white shells,
pulling my fingers tighter, closer-
They feel ready for my warmth
my forgiveness,
but you don’t,

You have been too proud and silent
to ask,
even your face seems frozen,
unmoved by pain;

Are you afraid to rupture,
to spill the reasons why
your seeds never became

Your son.

Marble

2009-09-02T20:31:00.001-07:00

I love the sound of a marble rolling,
the slow humming agitation, the
quiet urgency-

it’s the sound of a child
and his pair of hands
whispering

small breaths that land
momentarily on the cold surface
leaving only the heat of
an evaporated smile

scattering the lights of
fascinated eyes
that peer through inverted images to
magnified his laughter;

There is no self or form in a marble,
only a shadow brightened,
embraced, leaving only
a mere silhouette of edgeless

translucence.

I didn’t speak Mandarin on the flight to Shanghai

2009-09-02T20:22:00.000-07:00

“Do you want rice or noodles?”

I don’t understand her but
she is expecting an answer;
should I be offended?

“Do you want rice or noodles?”

I’m not sure what she said,
her accent is too heavy;
she is still expecting.

“…”

She gives me noodles.

. . .

She comes back later
and asks the man next to me
if he wants chocolate or vanilla ice cream.

She places a chocolate on my tray,
without asking.

目覚め (Awake)

2009-09-02T20:20:00.000-07:00

もし冬に
雪なしの風、
孤独音。

Moshi fuyu ni
Yuki nashi no kaze,
Kodoku oto.

If winter’s wind
Dances without snow’s presence-
It’s a lonely sound.

His Pillow

2009-09-02T20:17:00.000-07:00

When we are not under
midnight shadows and cricket cries,

You want me only
on your side of the bed;
Are you afraid that

Your grey sheets are not dark enough

For my scent?

When I am
on his pillow,
whose words do you see
tattooed on my body-

I denied you

Because my pores are not inkless,
I blush and spill,
and I stain

Every time
Your eyes look
at the lock on your door
when we kiss.

Reflections: Early 2007

2009-08-30T18:41:00.000-07:00

These set of poems I entitled “Linger” were worked on in the beginning half of 2007 under the guidance of the poet Donna Masini.

While the poems of 2006 dealt a lot with the feelings of “distance” and “fear”, I feel like in these poems I began to face many of my own taboos. What I mean by that is I started writing more into the subject of the “self”, regardless of whether it’s myself or the “self” of others.

Donna Masini also played a big part in inducing this poetic change for me. Masini is a bit less of an “image poet” as Gabis (in my opinion), in her poetry I think she tends to focus a lot more on the energies of physical interaction. “Words are physical,” she said to me once, and that poetry is something that she reads with her heart. I think during that time I interpreted her styles as working with a kind of muscle memory, to convey emotions through bodily reactions to matters.

Let’s look at “Your Carousel”.

This poem was interesting for me to write because it’s on a subject that I have thought and written about for a bit of time. I was addressing a friend of mine who passed away in high school, while remembering my fascination with the gothic and macabre. A lot of the images I used here are very meta-physical, and by that I mean they were created from memory but of association. This probably sounds a little weird, but in a way it can be seen as embellishments to my memories, but to me I feel like I wrote from an interpretation of the physical feelings I have felt for the situation.

When I look at the images I am sometimes still a bit surprised at the things that I wrote. Things like:

“the black lace parasol you used to hold in the rain for an excuse to drown.”

or

“children running into your unlit carousel”

and even

“silence only for the occasional tears rolling down powdered faces”.

I think I was mostly inspired by my friend’s character, and kind of her perspective and her approach to sickness and ultimately death. The syneaesthesia I created in the poem was almost like my answer to her suffering and her passing, the beauty that I believed was involved in her pain.

The process of writing this poem was very different from what I had been doing previously. I think I allowed myself to be more aware of the part of me that was still grieving, letting my subconscious speak in metaphors. It was almost like I was establishing a “self” out of that side of me, a persona if you will.

I never really noticed how this “period” of my poetry explored the different facets of me. Another piece that I found to be very important during this time was “Exhibition: Self-portrait on Canvas”.

I’m not sure what went through my head while I was writing this, but it probably had something to do with that Plath that I was reading. (Typical, I know) Masini was big on Plath, and the one thing that she always talked about was her ability to perform on the page. I was actually getting into the idea of performance art during that time, which may have contributed to this poem as well. But I digress…

This is not a poem that I am very proud of; I wouldn’t say it’s a finished piece by any means, but I do enjoy the roughness it brings. The poem explicitly explores a bodily relationship, an empathic connection between the speaker and the subject. The speaker is deeply affected by the physicality of the subject, and he/she is eager to understand the causality of the subject’s actions.

There are lines that suggest a strange kind of intimacy between the two:

“Screaming helps him concentrate” “…trembles at the sight of blood”

But also lines that suggest distance, criticism, and unfamiliarity:

“Thick red syllables\That clog too quickly” “Skin rips, his stroke angry and\Too verbose for the canvas”

The speaker narrates the every action of the “painter”, and the poem ultimately gets lost in a whirlpool of the speaker’s obsession and the subject’s passions.

I find the discourse in this poem quite intriguing because it is an attempt to understand a “self” by indirectly addressing it on the page. It is almost as if the speaker is attempting to crack the subject even though there is no direct interaction between the two, and it’s more than just an address, there is the desire to redact.

. . .

I also started writing tiny poems like “Before” around this time. They are almost like imagery exercises, and they’re great for learning to compress language, I think. And again, this poem is clearly very egocentric, and contains a lot of physical eros (as Masini would say).

I think overall there’s a feeling of daring desperation in this set of poems, especially compared to the work of the previous year. Even Masini had told me to “relax” in her comments, and I think she had seen the impatience that I wrote with throughout this course. It’s as if I have been imprisoning many voices inside of me—capturing moments, images, voices, as I have in the past and then I finally decided to let it all out to speak for themselves.

A bit on Donna Masini

2009-08-28T15:40:00.000-07:00

Donna Masini

-Born: December 13; Flatbush, Brooklyn.
-Grandparents from Italy; Paternal (Florence), Maternal (Potenza).
-Mother came from a family of ten, Father from a family of four.
-Came from family of four; being the oldest.
-Neither parents finished a college education.
-Attended Catholic elementary school until 4th grade, then Catholic high school; only child in her family to go to Catholic school.

Education:

-Hunter College BA Phi Beta Kappa, major: Honors, concentration in English and Classics.
-NYU Masters in Creative Writing (Poetry)

Quotes from a 1996 interview:

“It wasn't until I was writing--in the very politicized atmosphere of the eighties--that I tried to figure out what "class" I came from. Indeed when Adrienne Rich blurbed my book and called me "working class," I was upset. I felt branded, dirty, exposed. The underlying assumption that my work would be less intelligent. (This of course despite my love for the work of many other working class writers)”

“Despite the fact that I write about my family, oil burners, etc. I was always afraid of being found out. At Hunter College I was afraid teachers, other students from educated families, would sense I was an imposter. Ironically, one of my most important teachers at Hunter--James Wright, who is from Ohio--appeared to me to be so refined that I would never have suspected his background, and in fact took pains to hide my own from him.”

“I am primarily heterosexual (though of course one can always “visit”…)”

Communion

We called it “receiving,” and each of us in our bridal
white, walked down the aisle toward the Body
of Christ, our poofy dresses and veils floating, crowns

on our heads, clutching our rosaries and bouquets—those
carnations we'd lifted out of green tissue from the florist’s
box.
(Does any flower have a fresher smell?) I led the procession

with Kathy Creamer, rows and rows of tiny brides.
We had not eaten. We had not drunk. We had confessed
the day before. We were pure. We would never be so pure
again

once the body had entered us. We made our way back
down the aisle. I held the disk my body
had prepared itself to carry, lightly on my tongue, careful

not to let my teeth graze the host. I know I smiled an idiotic,
beatific smile.
Later I’d say it was because I was receiving
the Lord (I’d bow my head and say the name) Jesus,

but even then I knew I was acting, faking it, my spirit rising
above the aisle—looking down on the rows of us to see how
I looked
now I had received. Maybe that’s why, back in our pews, we
were told

to put our heads in our hands—to keep us from drifting.
To keep us in our bodies. We knelt, face in hand, and
waited.

Or maybe It was too much to see that very man—the
incarnation

stretched before us—naked but for the floating cloth—
those beautiful legs stretched across the altar and we girls,
having received,
kneeling under the groin vault. Or maybe we just couldn’t

let anyone see our faces when finally, after years of waiting,
we held it in our mouths—Corpus Christi—that first time,
that first man we took into our bodies.

1) Where do you put the line between poetry and fiction?

I think that when I’m working with a poem, technically… sometimes I stop thinking about the people or the subject matter and I’m working with the play of the dynamic of line and syntax, the dynamic between what the line is doing and what is the sentence or fragment or what the crumble of syntax is doing.. But I can say that about fiction too, I mean the character is right there… I had a funny thing happened to me recently where somebody recognized a character in my book, it was a minor character and it was a complete projection on her part because the only thing that was right there was the red hair and a name… which was funny to me, I had a very different picture of what that character was, but people bring to your work ideas about you or their feelings about you.

2) How has Catholicism affected your writing?

I think it would first of all be the sense of mystery… I mean that this psychic gate of growing up Catholic at that particular time… there was a real sense of mystery of transformation, or someone who died and resurrected, and that you were a witness to the mystery of self, the examination of conscience. Fear, all those things are kind are very palpable darkness for me was connected to what my father did, he repaired oil burners, he worked in basements, he was in the muck of it, those two things were both mysterious to me, and they were both transforming… Catholicism was about the transformation and the spirit, but yet to a kid it was very much about fear, guilt and fear… and beauty… also confession, the making of a narrative, of what you had done… atoning for that, all of that was really intriguing and frightening… I think it’s where my imagination was forged…

3) To whom are you writing?

Well I sent an email this morning to… just kidding… it depends…

In poems, I don’t really think about who I’m talking to, I know some people think about that a lot, I’m just trying to see it, I’m just trying to get it down on the page, in some ways there are certain things I love, a diorama, a particular jello mould, just silly things, or memories of something, and I just want to get it on the page, I just want to make somebody see it. So it’s really, I guess there’s a reader that I want to see it… different poems will have different kinds of address…

4) Please name several poets that are important to you.

Gosh… Audre Lorde and James Wrights were like parents to me… June Jordon is a dear friend…

And poets who I read and are really important to me… that shifts from time to time, there was a time when Lorca was huge and Neruda, I would say Elizabeth Bishop, and of course Whitman and Dickenson… I think about poets I teach a lot, they’re not always poets I love deeply, Hopkins, Elliot, Frost... I’m starting to love Frost more and more.

For more contemporary poets… Brenda Hillman, somebody I love, Anne Carson. Of course Mark Doty, I read him almost exclusively for a period of time… I think he’s technically brilliant and a really important poet … you know and then there are close friends whose work means a lot to me…

5) You allowed yourself to become more vulnerable from your first book of poetry to your second, would you disagree?

I think you’re right… I felt a real difference between the speaker, I felt connected to both speaks in both… I think that there was a way especially when I was working on that first book and was really under the sway of Whitman, I remember Li Young Lee saying me to me once… “How do you manage that large voice?”, we were doing a reading today, it was a huge voice, and I don’t think I always quite inhabited that voice, it let me say certain things, and let me write about certain things like Vietnam which was something I really wanted to write out of I guess I would say, Vietnam was something I really wanted to address… but I think towards the end of that book… I came more to a daily language, less incantatory, and I was really interested in particular versions of the self in Turning to Fiction, self and story… so you’re absolutely right, it’s a different register in a certain way.

6) How has becoming a teacher affected your writing?

I have to learn a lot more when I become a teacher. There was a lot I had to teach myself about how to, I think my dynamic with people is good, but you know you want to help people with their poems, so I had to learn how to help different students get through to their imagination. So it was a lot of technical things… I really feel privileged in a way to be working with the imaginations, the inner lives of so many different kinds of people, and actually be able to in some way service that or help that, it gives you that kind of intimacy… It has taught me a lot about people, the differences between people. I’ve also seen extraordinary imaginations different from my own. Now I can say that about my friends certainly and with other poets, but with students you’re almost fostering their own relationship with their imagination and I’ve also been amazed by the kinds of breakthroughs people have had, I’ve been challenged by my students… It’s interesting to me, on the other side of it is, it’s really hard to maintain an intimacy with my own imagination while I’m teaching.

Before

2009-08-23T15:03:00.002-07:00

I have acid
rain on my lips,

taste it.

Umbrella

2009-08-23T15:03:00.001-07:00

I loved the rain
Once,
On the Saturday evening

I left my house
Throat sore from screaming
At my mother
And deaf to her cries.

Just as I thought I couldn’t hear anymore
I heard
The rain drop to its knees
Onto the broken pavement,

It lied there
With no words,
Only a reflection of me
Three years old in an ambulance,

The flashing red and my mother
Next to me as I lay inside,
The siren keeping awake-
It was raining then, too,

I think I was drowning,
I couldn’t hear when the tires screeched
And crashed into a lamp post;
The light dimmed, I felt the glass.

But that ending never happened,
And that rain was no longer breathing
Next to me;

It never stopped running.

Your Carousel

2009-08-23T15:02:00.001-07:00

I cried
The rain that fell last December
Hoping to wake your sleeping heartbeat、

I sat there waiting
Thinking of the black lace parasol
You used to hold in rain for an excuse to drown;

I wonder if that’s what you felt
When I called
And your mother had to hold the phone next to your face
So I could hear you breathe.

Then, with my wet hair and eyes
Left uncovered by your hand,
But by another type of black above me
I was forced to sing your eulogy.

A song of static
Sleeping adults, unaware of their screaming
Children running into your unlit carousel,

Breaking the unmusical winter that you adored,
Leaving silence only for the occasional
Tears rolling down powdered faces
Onto your grey skin;
You’d laugh

At my nervous pulse
Trying to recreate your laughter,

I was merely breathing
The hypnotic lullabies
That effervesced from the black porcelain eyes
On your wooden horses;
The kind of ebony you could not fall asleep to-
I smashed them,
After I smashed my own eyes.

Yet、
My hands,
They started singing, too.

Wings

2009-08-23T15:00:00.001-07:00

I was lost in the sky this morning,
Watching the sun melt away the clouds

Until a plane broke through
My stare, behind it she was
Running

With the five year old me,
In the playground where I chased after sparrows
And she was always a step behind
Just watching;

She had given up her voice
Just so everyone could hear mine when I was born.

She was a slave that never tried to get away
Even when I wanted to climb on her;
She never ran,

She couldn’t,
With a leash around her neck
Instead of my arms.

The summer I left
I had my Gameboy and
Comic books instead of her
In my backpack,

Without goodbye;
I knew she’d be here, waiting

Until today
We met again but I didn’t say hello;
I wanted to see her run,

With me in her shadow

Crying as she surpassed me
Finally,
With wings.

Warm Ashes

2009-08-23T14:59:00.000-07:00

Kissing you
Is like licking an empty ashtray;
I wonder if that sting
Means more than just the taste of ash.

What are the stains on your teeth are trying to
Tell me,
Am I more than the cigarette smoke
That darkens your breath
For a second.

Look into my eyes and ask why
They’re brown, not green; I know
I have to be like you
To enjoy the taste of the tobacco on your tongue.

And tonight,
Will I fall asleep with you smoking
Only to wake up to blue-grey ashes,
Breathless and scattered
On a street corner.

Blowing Bubbles

2009-08-23T14:58:00.000-07:00

You didn’t hear me
Come in,
My sticky plates had your attention
Splashing in the water.
You submerged them in a sea of bubbles,
But they want to float and
Be held by

Your hands,
Where white porcelain blossoms
And sings to the brilliant glass
That my lips have clouded.

Yet your wrinkled hands only dim as I
Grow iridescent-
They’ve become the silhouettes of your grey hair
And the shadows on my face,

I knew
My tears will no longer reflect
On your tired fingernails.

But I had to ignore
The sweat on your forehead;
I didn’t want these bubbles to stop
Dancing on your hands.

Exhibition: Self-portrait on canvas

2009-08-23T14:52:00.000-07:00

Notice the artist’s index finger
Kissing the razor blade,
Stroking-
His eyes rolling
Into its bleeding white;

Screaming helps him concentrate
His finger on the rough cloth
Which trembles at the sight of blood
Digging in, pulling out
Thoughts; he never liked sharing words,
But he’s letting himself pour
Thick red syllables
That clog too quickly-
His eyes roll back again to direct another kiss,
They won’t return until they find the right tone
Running from the middle finger
Hissing to the world,
He paints his eyes, lips, not ears;
He is tired of hearing questions
And hates the people who ask-

Skin rips, his stroke angry and
Too verbose for the canvas,
Unusable;
Only a peck this time on the ring
To get those fine lines-
Red hair for passion,
An invitation to see the lies he kept crawling
In his head,
But not over his eyes
Left open to see your reaction;
And the pinky too he bites
For the blurry blush touch up before
Picture time;

Wait!

A saliva finish,
Tears
For perfection.

Reflection: Poems of 2006

2009-08-22T17:28:00.000-07:00

2006 was the year when I finally decided that I want to pursue the craft of poetry.

The poems I have posted previously were all works from the first poetry workshop I took in college, under the guidance of Ms. Rita Gabis.

It's quite funny to look back at all these poems, to see the "fear" on the page that has now become so apparent me. There is a lot of reluctance in these poems, a lot of distance between the words, the speaker, and the poet. I remember the transitional phase that I was going through while writing these poems, it was my masked persona phase as I would call it. I was trying to tell stories, to illuminate matters and subjects through a masked speaker. It wasn't so much where I was refraining from becoming too personal in my writing, but in all the poems there is a sense of reservation coming from the speaker.

Take the poem "Chase" for example:

The speaker imagines the relationship between the subjects of "Lightning" and "Thunder", but the intents of the speaker is not quite clear. There is obvious sympathy present in the words of the poem, but it's unclear why exactly he/she cares and ponders about this situation. The poem is mainly observant and lacking perspective, which I think creates an interesting reading of the situation. It's almost like an intentional sensory deficit.

I think the poem also reflects a lot of on the transitional phase that I mentioned before concerning this time period. Take a look at the previous draft of this poem:

Chase

I hope for once,
Thunder can catch up
To the swift lightning.

For I lament thunder’s curse
Of his eternal step behind
His careless lover.

And every time
I, too, cry

Along to thunder’s downpour
When he misses her footsteps.

Notice how the "I" has disappeared from the earlier draft of the poem. It's almost as if there was a certain difficulty in admitting to the personal in this poem, and the focus has changed from the speaker's pathos to the subjects emotions.

In (what I'd like to think was) my break-out poem of 2006, "Persona", you can see the start of the moving-away from the impersonal speaker, but the feeling still lingered.

There was clearly a lot of displacement in this poem, through the evocation of Homer's epics, and mainly through the secondary subject of the father. The idea of the mask is a literal concern in this poem, we have the uncertainty of the speaker and the gestures of the father, both serving as a kind of metaphor to describe the desire of both parties wanting to shield themselves from the impending awkwardness.

Now let's look at the first draft:

Persona

You insisted
On a bedtime story,
It is not my habit-
But I shrugged when.

You took out Homer,
(Thanks mom)
From the bookshelf

As you read
About Odysseus’ reunion with Telemachus
You smiled
So hard, you almost cracked the cement
Of your face,

And you cried
For Priam’s plea,
But your tears were bland,
They were not salty like mine.

I soon fell asleep
To your bad acting.

Again, there is the transition from the direct address to an indirect address. In the earlier draft it's apparent that the speaker is more blatantly concerned about his own well-being and opinions, but after revisions the father gets a lot more attention. I think while working on this I became more aware of of the "other person", but also became more scared of this "other person" and so this displacement occurred. To say things through the other person's actions, and to harvest the discomfort that comes with the surrogate voice...

(Oi, I'm getting sleepy writing this, probably not a good thing, haha.)

One of the things that Ms. Rita Gabis said to me about this set of poems was that "The fact that these poems are "in process" does not distract from their power and promise", I think I can agree with that now that I have reflected upon them. I have always found it embarrassing to look at old writing of mine, but I think the discoveries I made today taught me that it can be worthwhile. I think though these poems may be a bit unpolished, the awkwardness and the reluctance of my then-voice ultimately gives it a bit of a hindsight beauty.

Thank you for reading!

Hot Chocolate

2009-08-21T20:55:00.000-07:00

It started snowing at midnight
As I walked down the empty streets, shivering.

The snowflakes fell along the
Half-asleep street lights,
Almost floating amidst my hollow thoughts;

I had forgotten why I am out here
Treading the frostbitten fields of insensitive civilization,
Going as the traffic lights told me to
Stopping when

The cold wind pushed against my face;
Now I remember
The same sting, and the palm of your hand.

Your voice still echoes in the vacant sky,
Finding its way around the crowded snowflakes
Just to tell me
You don’t love me anymore,

You don’t love me because
I am different;
The only black snowflake falling,
Tainting, and obscuring the white of your eyes,

They are no longer reflective,
And you can’t see that

I am still trying to reach you
Before my breath fades into the silence of December

Discourse

2009-08-21T20:54:00.001-07:00

I almost forgot about
The experience of walking into the woods.

Was I barefooted
Or with shoes?
It doesn’t matter,

For I was greeted
By the dance of falling leaves;

Inviting me to rest with them,
And decompose
Into the earthly ground

I found myself

Transcending-
Perhaps just peering through
The language barrier
Between me and the blooming flowers,

And my kiss became memories,
Clinging on as
Morning dew on a dormant leaf,

Hoping to evade
Evaporation.

Chase

2009-08-21T20:53:00.002-07:00

Lightning emerges,
Her form twisting in agony
Over the slumbering body of Thunder,

Her fingers ache to touch him,
But her coyness holds her back
From waking him;

She is too afraid
To confess her love,
And she leaves

Not knowing that
Every time, her voiceless departure
Leaves Thunder crying
In his awakening to her continual absence.

Brilliance

2009-08-21T20:53:00.001-07:00

A translucent rubber ball bounces
In the palm of a boy,

Its new home
For twenty-five cents

From the vending machine,
Shining like the boy’s eyes-
A glimmering aquamarine

It was, to the child,

Until it carelessly slips
Out of his hand’s embrace,

Falling
Into a murky puddle,

Its brilliance obscured
And abandoned.

Blessing

2009-08-21T20:50:00.002-07:00

I tried to pick up the tea kettle
Only to have my fingers scorched by the harsh porcelain.
“I can’t.” I said,
With tears covering the shame in my eyes.

You smiled,
And picked up the kettle yourself
To serve
The tea.

I wondered
Why it didn’t burn you the way it burned me,
No fair.

You continued to smile
While watching me sip my tea;
I was angry with it,
I didn’t get what was so funny.

But now I know,
The kettle was just as hot against your wrinkled fingers.

Just that
You knew I was eager and impatient.

Lullaby

2009-08-21T20:50:00.001-07:00

No one sang me to sleep,
Footsteps,
My only lullaby.

Feet bound by shoelace,
They cannot feel
The insensitivity of their steps.

Agitated
I am, in a reluctant embrace of body heat,
Breathing through my skin-
The blemished cement.

There is no room for complaints,
My thoughts are flooding into storm clouds,
Ready to shatter

In response to the nocturnal lamp posts
And their vulgar brown lights
Pouring over my head like hot coffee;
Baptizing me into insomnia.

The night sky hovers,
Staying dark even with this brewing cacophony;
I hate its bed of stars and mockery,
A sarcastic grin of
Tantalizing sympathy.

I thought about suffocation,
I will wager my awakening for a moment of rest,

My eyelids are heavy,
But I can’t put them down
Because I am floating
On a bed of broken words.

Persona

2009-08-21T20:48:00.000-07:00

I remember your face from that time
When mom told you to read me a bedtime story.

You came into my room
And took out Homer fearlessly
From the darkness of my bookshelf,
I wondered if you even cared that

I was scared.

But then, you sat next to me
And I saw
How different your face was from my impression.

You opened the book, and I was mesmerized
By the wrinkles that folded along your face,
Sketching your visage
Like the front cover of a used paperback novel-
Dried and discolored,
But you didn’t notice and
Continued flipping through the pages.

When you read
Your voice chilled me like the blank of your eyes,
Unmoving, I couldn’t see my reflection in them;
I wonder if you saw me

When you read about Odysseus’s reunion with Telemachus,
I hoped to see you smile
But no, you were afraid to crack the cement of your face,

And when you read about Priam’s plea
I wished for you to cry,
Because I wanted to ask you

Dad,

If your tears are salty, like mine.

Hello Hello

2009-08-21T20:37:00.000-07:00

Hello reader,

I will be posting all the poems I have worked on since 2006 in chronological order.

In addition, I will be reflecting on my writing process in my poems/group of poems while discussing the long-term/short-term changes I have made in my revision process.

I would really appreciate it if you can leave a comment, no matter how long/short, after you have read my pieces.

Thank you~

Jesse