Body of flowers
November 28th, 2008
A friend once described his cancer experience
as taking a dump in public,
I’m at the sauna watching a little kid skip off
just having flushed a semi private toilet
I wonder if this is a Western description, or
an age marker of how we see our body
There’s a woman in front of me
belly dancing with the water,
an old gal not afraid to show
a baseball size lump above her kidney
and another whose facial wrinkles juxtapose
the taut lean muscle of her torso
watching a medical procedure on tv,
much like my own, holds everyone in fascination,
Each culture has a unique relationship to their body
from what they choose to put on to what they choose to take off
how that skin, an organ that’s both dead and alive,
is worshiped is then unique to the individual
I look at my abdomen often,
like I look at my grandmother’s house in pictures of my childhood,
like I look at every apartment I lived in, before I turn in the key,
like I look at the gardenias in my mother’s garden,
Temporary and beautiful simplicity to cherish,
Everything will be okay.
Hug me in silk and kiss my tears away
November 26th, 2008
The trees are completely bare
and the rain brings a foggy blanket
of soft yellow contemplation
and hair thin strings of light that enter my room.
I feel lonely.
For the next three weeks
a 10km walk and weights
will be like sleep to a soldier mid war,
making hospital preparations
makes me want this feeling to be so temporary,
but it’s not.
I feel like a cat on a hot tin roof,
like the surgery is broad casted on everyone’s mind the second we meet,
not knowing what to do but not wanting to be touched either
knowing I just want a hug and a kiss
but just don’t have anyone to ask it
so why be uncomfortable with a thought deferred?
Why do we make ourselves suffer?
The things that make me happy are many,
wearing bright color clothing in winter, taking photos,
writing, deserving a shower after a good workout,
loving the little things like a facial and learning every day–
I know friends by the language they speak to me
I want a partner as good as the friends I have.
In my quiet resignation and protest,
I throw myself in the wind, vacation message on:
China, Canon and Claudia on my mind, saying Nihao
to the land of the Terracotta army, Tiananmen Square and Great Wall.
Hope it hugs me in silk and kisses my tears away,
The world is big place to conquer.
Reading dusk in Chineese
October 11th, 2008
The writing once shaped by the efficiency of reading scrolls,
The serenity of living high in the mountains,
The challenge of a culture and a language I assimilate into,
Many are the songs and praises to God’s glory,
Many more there will be,
I stumbled into mountains of beauty and grace,
I walk tall and in peace now,
Forever in love with Korea,
Forever singing praise be to God.
If you want to see a budding photographer’s view of the world in over 3k images, check out my flicker account by clicking any of the pictures, or go here. Sorry but the search feature is off… not all of me is public.
Cause life is just a bowl of cherries: “You will always be lucky if you know how to make friends with strange cats.” - Colonial American Proverb via Quotes in Can
add to del.icio.usSwordsmanship
September 20th, 2008
I’ve often thought of lies as an act of getting dressed in the morning,
and truth as a milkshake full of sharp volcanic shards
to be drank like a cold glass of water on a hot summer day:
everyone lies.
Though lies are misinformation,
the color of lies are the most interesting part.
No lie is white but there are many with no repercussions,
the black cancerous make you question who is pained the most: the receiver or the giver?
but the flesh tone color lies are sins of ignorance,
why or how one does not know themselves is beyond me.
Flesh tone lies question things you know,
like never trust a man who lies for a living
turns to give him the benefit of the doubt.
I wonder if I am more ignorant for giving unearned space in my life
or for not leaving when I see discrepancy.
Cutting truth is a skill:
an imprecise cut leaves pain and no resolve
too deep of a cut
is a sure sign of immaturity, blinded by rage
for the code teaches loyalty, as much as compassion
and success is measured in the eyes of those affected
and not inside those doing the action.
So how do you strike that balance?
How do you become invested enough to search
but unaffected enough to get detracted by emotion?
How do you search motive
without being an executioner?
Do you pursue the color of the lie,
even when information is denied?
Like superman, we all want to see our perfect selves
unhurt, unscathed and shining bright in the eyes of others
It’s in the judging of ourselves
and wearing the skin of others
that we find wisdom and understanding
that the art of telling the truth, is not how right you are
but how successful you can educate.
Rain on My Feet
July 2nd, 2008
Land has a way of stamping itself into memory,
working its way into psyche,
transforming itself into an emotion
manifesting as normal abnormalities in an organ,
sometimes an extra palpitation, a scar,
a drop of sweat that appears,
depending on time, place and mood.
Sometimes it’s my heart,
looking below at a blanket of sparkling lights
uneven terrain of my birth crib,
wooden houses testing faith
or mimicking the unequal societal balance,
that limits the middle class,
that’s Cali.
Sometimes it’s my skin,
stretching for countless flat miles
on hot, humid, melting asphalt road
that jumps free at night,
it doesn’t hold make up,
it doesn’t hold water on flooding roads
it just keeps the pot holes on the road
and the scratches of where I once been,
that’s Houston.
Sometimes it’s my eyes,
engrossed in detail and architecture
rebuilding images in detail
jumping from painting upon painting
upon rooms full of rows and columns
buttress that bend like majestic trees
inside churches that make me weep,
that’s Italy.
Sometimes it’s my vocal chords,
quiet when I eat, quiet when I watch
quiet in the evening sun setting on Hun roads
quiet inside temples of golden Buddha
loud when it sings to the elephants
and talks to the people
bargaining for gold that no one else notices
that’s Thailand.
Today it’s my feet,
the one that follows the sounds of the gushing stream
on uneven road in spring monsoons,
runs to the top of the temple
that blesses the rice fields below and roots beside
moves past the bonsai nursery,
sitting in the middle of a cricket symphony rice crop,
the clay tennis court beside cabbage fields and houses
and the elders that built it on the land they farm
keeping a quiet tradition and identity for the community,
running past the curtain of trees that limit the wind
to the garden of a thousand flowers where
a landfill use to be…
that‘s Korea.
I used to think that I should have asked for a different city,
Somewhere that pays more, closer to city, has more room,
I used to think that I was here to forget
and change all the regrets there were about me.
I use to think it was difficult to be quiet and alone.
Reality: Learning means you can’t forget,
on the border of the city and the country,
smiling at cloudy and moody mountain peaks,
on a border land that challenges space and time,
looking ahead, working inside with sounds and words
I’m exactly where I was meant to be.
Mountain Heat
May 26th, 2008
Living midpoint between the valley
and the peak of a mountain
means you’re still in the shadow of the giant
feeling tall on a troth;
It’s like standing on the plastic rim of a tupperware
disfigured with evaporating heat
waiting for the snow kissed winds to sweep
dropping heat and eyes to sleep
on this somnambulists hot night.
It’s one o’clock in the morning.
Waiting for the curtain’s to animate,
I hear my neighbor across the street.
Tonight, he has a soliloquy,
performed on the paved hot road
with quarreling cats and swindling rats,
Drunk and missing home, he says, drunk and missing home.
He’s a teacher too, but we’ve never met
first impressions should be coherent and content,
so I just listen.
Zucchini is in season, so I have five
Funny how this raw vegetables looks
on the palm of my hand:
reticent and protective,
porous, listless and dry–
Sometimes I think that sadness is a dried heart
if not too skinny with lost affection
too plump walled from affection
Like Zucchini, soak in hot water and right attention,
the core will get thick and heavy,
soft and present,
gliding aromatic wave of playfulness,
sweet and semi crunchy talkative invitation:
“Dance with me, dance with me!”
The wind is back,
The rats scurry off to the sewers,
Heat that revives is different from the heat that hangs
Cold that dries is different from the cold that sooths.
