for homey

I want to learn more of your soul--your colors, your melodies, your most natural forms.  I want to know your tendencies, the possibilities, and all the kaleidoscopic visions that rage in your spirit's composition.  I wonder how you'll shift or squirm under a microscope?  And how wide would your gaze become in the presence of enormity?  I want to know your zeal, your despondence, your fatigue, and your persistence.  The full spectrum of you.  The magic that trails in your shadow.

Shadow Sites (a found poem)

Shadow sites
are usually
the most visible features
on your landscape
where there are walls
or earthworks,
the raking light of the low sun,
early or late in the day,
accentuates the highlights,
and the whole shape
can spring
into life.

Slopes cast long shadows
and depressions are deep
in shade,
while variations
in height,
vigor,
and yield,
indicate
that a feature lies buried
beneath the surface.


found in:
p. 70 of "Archaeology: Theories, Methods, and Practice" by Paul Bahn

things that are loud but should be quiet

Helicopters, and grandfather clocks. Waterfalls, and gossip.

The T.V. in the morning, and the T.V. at night. Billboards along the highway. Words, spoken in anger.

The off-key singer who doesn't know she's off-key. The one-hundredth reminder about the same thing. Past lovers that can't seem to let go. Mindless revenge, passionless lust, and toilets, when they flush.

Doubt, persisting. Parrots, screeching. Cats, having sex. And awkward silences.

That one cellphone ringing in the middle of a good movie. The intellect who believes we are all beneath him. Gunshots, feudalism, the misuse of power in our courts, people who say "we will not triumph," and the microwave, while preparing a midnight snack.

My hungry stomach during a serious conversation. The lifeguard that tells us not to run. Your eyes when you gaze at me across the room. The passing of time that will never return. My pulse when you lean in for a kiss.

Clichés.

Onward!

All of eternity extends before us,

a deep golden breathing, steadily expanding,

rising, and falling, gently.

Your rhythms overtake us,

and our clean routines lie on the floor,

limp, lifeless, and stale.

But this strange living substance,

your Spirit that draws near,

flowing, pulsing, dancing, growing,

penetrates every shade and shadow

and secret.  And we have swelled

past the point of pain,

past the relentless knife of 

a righteousness that condemns,

and have found

pleasure

in being known 

in the most intimate places.

We have lost much!

But our grief is short-lived,

for we are long-loved,

and all fears dissipate with the dawn

of this breathing--this persistence,

this tenacity

this unquenchable hunger 

for more. And our appetites are sustained,

though never fully realized,

we are compelled forward,

ever forward,

by your providence.

As A Tree Has

(The words from "Trees" by Joyce Kilmer, rearranged.)

Lives, prest, never think that

a tree may wear

poems--and who can?

But that poem,

God made her lovely, intimatey.

Snow-hair, summer-breast,

leafy, sweet, rain-mouth,

make with

earth's hungry bosom.

A! To see a God-nest--a tree,

lain upon her arms--lifts all of me.

I, whose tree is like robins in the day,

whose tree looks in,

I shall pray

against fools only a-flowing by.

Decoding Beauty

What is it that makes someone so deeply captivating? I've searched for answers in your eyes, and am left completely baffled. All I found is the gravity of your gaze, the gentle pull that beckons me to dive in deeper.  Forgive me! For in me is this strange ambition to unlock the code of your Beauty, and to find, once and for all, its proper symmetries and proportions, and to tame it into a more calculable creature.  Again, I implore you, to forgive me! Forgive me for this insolence, this cowardice, this attempt to dumb down your Magnificence into measurable compartments. Know and understand that in my frail humanity is both a deep fear, and a great envy towards such scandalous beauty.  I've feared you for so long, for despite the distance I've tried to maintain, I've always had a keen awareness of your power to change, and rearrange the very fabric of my being! For who can encounter a tremendous force and leave unchanged? If only I could tear it into bite-sized pieces, then I could, perhaps reduce it into more manageable, comprehensible, and--what a haughty ambition this is--replicable forms!  But Greater Wisdom withholds me from such a foolhardy pursuit! She whispers in my ear all that I need to know--that the dissection of Beauty's intricacies would be the death of it--no--the death of me. Its soul is ultimately rooted in the unknowable, the sublime, the mysterious, the Divine. The question is if I am ready and willing to dive headfirst into it--into You--and all your convulsing energies, and accept the perfection of your persisting transcendence. 

Lover

How still you lie

in the womb of my imagination,

shape shifting 

with the tides of my desires.

I try to seek out your true form

and wonder if I've caught

glimpses of you

in my waking life.

Somedays I feel you stir

and am compelled 

to pray in the prophetic.

Have you ever felt

the soft whisper of my voice?

I've blessed you in the Spirit,

I've blessed you through our God,

and have learned to hope

that this faith has sent

ripples

through the pools of your soul.

My affections run deep

but to whom do they belong?

There are those who have come

rallying, claiming, pursuing,

but none have made a home for me,

none have stilled my 

restlessness.

To you alone I send this love, 

a surging torrent of dreams!

But I dare not ask that you make haste

for in this distance between us

lies a strange comfort. In here

is the steady pulse of transformation

from glory to glory

is how we traverse 

into each others arms.

09.24.10

Dream.

We were wading across the shallow end of the pool. I'd bob in and out of the cold water, which would shift from sea water, to pool water, to sea water, as I shuffled across tiles, and sand, and tiles again.

When submerged, I kept my eyes open. The water was clear, save for a thousand bubbles hurrying up to the surface. It was a strange frenzy of those pods and pods of air, those little orbs of void, whose movements were dictated solely by the laws of physics, while I could choose to anchor myself to the bottom, or to bubble up to the surface myself.

It took a while for me to realize that I was not just surrounded by bubbles, but by jellyfish as well. The translucency of their bodies were deceptive. They were only pockets of air themselves, encased in a soft membrane that moved like the skirts of women that men longed for. Each one was only about the size of a small orange. Their color: yellowing.

The waters began to grow more violent, and the jellyfish seemed to multiply before my very eyes. I stood up, and I found myself wading through a thick mass of pulsing, yellowing flesh, being tossed around by the wind. There were jellyfish everywhere. They swam through the air, through the agitated wind, whizzing past trees, and shooting up across the darkening skies.

I climbed out of the pool, and found shelter in a friend's arms. When I woke up from my dream, I had forgotten his face.

10.29.09

Dream

(Or at least the fragments of.)

He spoke of a night he spent alone on a boat, under the stars, in the Arctic Sea, where he basked in the glory of Everything. The entire night, he spent, just gazing at the sky, watching the stars slowly drift through the darkness.

Soon, the sun began to rise and he lay still on the wooden platform of his boat, allowing the gauzy glow of the sun to sink into his bare skin. He let his eyes drift from the slow illumination of the sky, to the massive glaciers looming over him, to the ice-cold water, gently licking the bow, begging, incessantly. He knew what he had to do.

He stood up, and, with an air of nonchalance, walked over to the edge of the boat, then took a step or two back, then drove headfirst into the Arctic. With that one, cold splash, he broke the silence.

♫

There's a song. Stirring. With no words. Nor melody. Nor any sound (that is, at least, perceptible to our ears). But it stirs, nonetheless, in its quiet spirit of restlessness, as it is decidedly there. In undeniable existence. In me. In knots, in rivers, in truth. In a language that transcends all things. And non-things.

It yearns to be realized in full comprehension. To be written. To have all its pipes and parts laid out in chaos, and in form, with Tangibility as its shameless aspiration. 

That is the heart of the song that knows no bounds.

(Feeling impatient)

A dis-ease.  

I am a child who cannot seem to stop fretting over her clothes.  It feels a little too tight here, a little itchy there, quite cumbersome over here, and just impossible everywhere else.  No, I am not quite comfortable in this skin.  Whether it is new, or old, I can't really tell.  All I know is that it's incredibly different from what I had gotten used to.  If it is new, then I suppose I just need some time to get used to it.  But if it is old--that is, if it is the same as what I had always had, but had been worn down and soiled by time--then I must believe that a time is coming when I will finally be able to break out of it and revel in the glory of...

In the meantime, I must keep myself from scratching too hard, lest I wound myself.  Time, and the infinite grace of God, shall be my guide.

September Dreams

1. I somehow ended up in the middle of the ocean, with no land in sight. The water was black, the world was a stifling shade of gray, and I was all alone. I found a speckled dolphin (or it found me) and held on to it for dear life. It dove into the deep where the rest of its family was. Part of me prayed that it would surface soon because I wasn’t sure how long I could hold my breath. The rest of me found a strange peace, despite the subsurface gloom. Perhaps it was the way the water muffled the noise of the coming storm. Perhaps it was the presence of a whole pod of carefree dolphins. Perhaps it was the certainty of my salvation.

2. A bareback ride on an Asian elephant in the middle of a flooded rainforest, in South America, soaked, absolutely soaked. Everything was lush and green and deliciously wet. My elephant meandered through the water with its trunk raised up like its snorkel. I sat on its back in silence; the water went up to my knees.

Outlined.

I. I will not fight it.
II. Sifting through a mess of desires.

A. I want...
B. I want...

C. I really want...?

1. I've been given so much.

a. talent
b. skills
c. education
d. resources
e. time and opportunity (and my youth!)

2. They say the biggest problem now is apathy.

3. There is a God-shaped hole in every heart.

D. I want.

III. The academe demands.

A. I should not be in front of the computer right now.
B. Shall I befriend coffee once more?

IV. Nostalgia.

A. ...
B.
C. We grow up so fast. 

V.  Waiting.

A.  I can't remain here.
B.  The temporary lingers.
C.  Clarity creeps in slowly.

 

11.28.08

Perfection proves to be elusive

and so we succumb to you,

oh, happy flaw of humanity

rest in the hands of the Divine.

Pure Wordplay

Hapless lovers breaststroke down life river,

sunlight shivering on our sleeves.

The rediscovered laugh triumphantly,

and eternity begs to begin again.

Dream (March 17)

Please bear with me as I try to describe the music in my dreams with the limited musical vocabulary that I have. :)

I stood in the midst of yellowing, old buildings.  The sky, the trees, everything, gently curled into the horizon, as if everything was set before me through  a fish-eye lens.  I could hear someone playing a cello from inside the third building from me.  The melody rolled out like gentle waves, with a slight staccato every now and then.  It had the faintest hint of playfulness.  But the cello's voice pulled this close to its chest, to hush it into a sweet dissonance.

As I listened to the sound of the cello, I realized that someone in the building near me was playing the violin.  Its music swooped in and out of the cello's embrace, first harmonizing, and then pulling away into its own world again, only to return for a measure or two, before pulling away once more into a separate composition.  But in time, the violin and the cello fell into complete harmony. Each melody, each voice, was distinct.  Neither became the other.  But their every note, and rest, and swell, and breath, fell into place, perfectly.  I couldn't help but wonder how two different instruments, being played by two different people, from within two separate buildings could blend into one beautiful piece.

I became so lost in the music that now I'm not sure when or how, but eventually, the sound of the violin and the cello both came from within one building.  And they were soon joined by more instruments, more voices, more melodies.  Suddenly, I had a saxophone in my hands, and I knew that I was to be a part of it.

Love was her favorite word.

Love was her favorite word, though she wished that it wasn’t. She fancied that it would’ve been much more interesting if she could say that her favorite word was flamboyance, or Reubanesque, or, delicacy. They rolled out so nicely through her teeth and lips. But then, she thought, why not make shabrack her favorite word? It had such a fascinating sound to it! Or how about tripanosome? Or metasequoia? Or, she thought, how impressive she would sound if she could say that she was absolutely in love with the word aschelminth! But, there it was again. That word. Love. That insufferable cliché of a word! A word that she would hear on everyone’s lips, see on almost every book and blog and journal, flashed on every T.V. show, plastered on billboards, etched on study desks and bathroom stalls, preached on the pulpit, and whispered in gossip. LOVE. The word had become commonplace. What was it that drew her to it? A mere syllable comprised of four letters. Love. She said it over and over again, softly, slowly, in an attempt to understand it. Love, love, love… Her mind raced to find an answer. But whenever it felt like an epiphany was nearing, she suddenly found herself back where she began, back to the whispering of the word, in wonder, in utter stillness. Then she realized that perhaps that was where she would like to remain. Still, in waiting, in the anticipation of the revelation of love.

Painting

The paint feels different today.  Gritty, and tired, the smooth blue worn down to pools of resistance.  It is unsettling.  The paintbrush once drank its fill of pthalo blue with ease.  Now it laps it up desperately like an old mop.  And, still, with the grittiness at every stroke.  I wonder if it's my skin that's different?  Am I the one who's been worn down?  No, of course not.  Never.  It is the paint, it is the paintbrush, it is the water, it is the day, it is many things.  I cope with it, I continue to paint, and I relish the taste of exotic chocolate in my breath.

Clueless.

I believe I am now in the middle of something good. At least, something that will lead me to something very good. But as of the moment, I am now in the process of... getting there, where I want to be, wherever that is, because, honestly, I'm not all that sure about what I really, really, really, specifically want right now. In fact, I'm not really sure about a lot of things. But, strangely, it feels very good to not know. I just know good things are coming. I just know it. I mean, they have to, right?

At least I know what I need to do right now. Sort of. Haha.

But I just can't help but wonder when something really beautiful will happen to me. The Happily Ever After sort of thing. 

Maybe I'm just tired. Maybe I just need a break. Maybe I need to go to the beach, and soak myself in seawater, and get a tan. The sort that makes me look radiant, according to my classmate.

Maybe one day life's going to be simple. Maybe that's what I really want.

But what would it mean to have a simple life anyway?

In Art School

We were told to squint our eyes.  

Squint, to wipe away those minute details that take our attention away from the general picture.  Squint, to forget, for one moment, the intricate parts of the composition.  Squint, and take a few steps back, while you're at it.  How does the picture look, washed of all embellishments?  Squint harder.  Look at the shapes, look at the values, look at the form in its entirety.  In what direction do your eyes travel?  Do they move in straight lines?  In curves?  In circles?  Do they dance about? Can you hear the music?  No? Ah, there is silence.  There is stillness.  There is potential.  Squint harder.  See how the picture shivers?  It struggles to remain as it is.  Squint harder, squint harder.  Until it disappears altogether.  Keep your eyes closed, and wait for an image to burn through the heavy curtains.