All children are foreigners.
– Ralph Waldo Emerson
Posts Tagged ‘inspired’
children
May 17th, 2010Advice for Haitian Boys
February 22nd, 2010Advice for Haitian Boys
“Something like 40 to 50 percent of the population at Port-au-Prince is kids.”
Girls’ skirts will open for nothing, for a song
just loud and long enough to minus out
the scratch of zipper teeth and second thoughts.
Don’t bother with names. By morning, you should be gone.
When brothers die, drink more rum than you can afford.
Cry, if you need. Piss circles around the bodies
and brawl anyone who abuses your right to grieve.
There are no excuses to outsurvive the adored.
Sometimes loss comes vaster. Whole cities fall,
bloodlines sever. There will always be some stranger
to shoo away the dust and flood paint thinner
on the stains. You won’t have to do a thing at all.
O that a man’s reach should not exceed his grasp.
Don’t plan ahead, don’t think it through. Don’t ask.
BaekJul BulGul (Indomitable Spirit) original draft
November 16th, 2009BaekJul BulGul (Indomitable Spirit) original draft
At least we have the dirt. We could
ball it together like table
crumbs and hold it under our tongues
until the soil separates
from the ore of KeumGang San. That way
we’d coat our throats in diamond dust.
They stopped teaching Korean in
Korean schools today. Something
as simple as annyoung
haseyo said in the hallways can
earn a demerit. They’re holding
red pens against our children’s throats
and it’s as good as their bayonets.
When Yeong-Sun calls me otochan
I want to smack her in her mouth
so hard she spits out blood hotter
than the rising sun, or feed her strips
of kimchi one by one. The sour
will preserve her dying Choson tongue.
The missioners taught us metaphor.
Their pahng was so tough it may as well
have been flesh, won’t melt like bahp. No –
When they taught us how HaNaNim said, Let
there be bit but we were still sitting in
the dark, windows boarded against
the street, well, that was metaphor.
God ga ra sa dae light i ssue ra.
Our throats grew warm with the words we’ve saved
since morning, since our daughters were born
into this. I swear Yeong-Sun looks like
a yudeung or a lighthouse when she
recites any passage in Korean.
Sometimes, after prayer, they ask us
what we believed before we knew Christ.
Their voices are soft so we could tell
they’re being polite, won’t turn around
and burn our books on Palgwe or Taeguk.
But still, we’re tired of philosophy
and reasoning. We start to sing:
Arirang, Arirang, Arariyo,
Arirang gogaero neomeoganda.
Nareul beorigo gasineun nimeun
simnido motgaseo balbyeongnanda.
There’s silence. We’re all closed eyes, living
in our own Koreas. Someone brave
opens his eyes first; someone braver
says this dirt will never be enough.
Grace
November 2nd, 2009Grace
When Ali made the shuffle step, he made grace.
When Jimi played Woodstock, he outplayed grace.
The elm in the backyard has started to change.
That color of last summer is a stayed grace.
I wasn’t born with the best of eyes.
Each distant light bends with a grass blade’s grace.
She would defend any Slavic novelist.
Her booty shake is her only paid grace.
God has given you another mouth to feed.
Believe his speech is just a delayed grace.
Everything Illuminated
May 7th, 2009I’ve only heard the story once.
It came straight from the source
but was parceled out through shot glasses.
Mom and Dad were high school sweethearts.
Back then and over there, their high school
segregated genders, which meant
it was harder to pass notes during math class,
harder to schedule study dates that were
glorified excuses for accidental contact.
It also meant their love was more destined.
They grew up in the same building.
His family, being only slightly richer,
lived on the ground floor
while hers took the 3rd.
They had a better view
but were less likely to survive in a fire.
Even though it wasn’t color,
he still had a television
and she, the daughter of war survivors,
feigned envy and walked down
the 2 flights every night
to pretend to watch movies.
She was really watching him.
They came from Hong Kong,
the largest town in China,
and took separate flights
halfway around the Earth’s circumference
only to both land in Chinatown
and move into apartments
just blocks from each other.
In the shuffle, she found another suitor
and to hear Dad tell it,
40 years later and swayed by hard liquor,
he was fat and mean
and ugly.
She went to his uncle’s store
every afternoon and talked Dad’s ear off
while he wiped down tables.
She’d whimper like a coyote
caught in a bear trap
but was careful to cover her face.
She could fake the sounds but not the tears;
Dad always makes Mom’s eyes shine.
She technically didn’t propose.
All she’d do was stand real close
and suppose her only escape
was if she were already married
to someone funny, caring, and strong.
At this point, she’d cross her arms,
study the corners of her eyes,
sigh, and count the seconds
it took Dad to take the hint
by tapping her finger on her Chin.
Notice, she never said she wanted someone intelligent,
just someone smart enough to be good to her.
If God and goodness reside
in the laughter of children
then Dad’s been good to Mom
exactly 4 times in his life:
a daughter twice
and a pair of sons who hold
brightness in their hearts and in their minds.
If Love were a light
then my parents’ marriage would be its house
and it would guide all the wayward ships
back home at night.
Watching Dad passed out
and listening to him snore
while Mom stands in the doorway
shaking her head,
I realized I could never outshine their love;
a matchstick can’t go toe to toe
with a bonfire. But I know
if I could just be a mirror
to their 40 year old lime light
then I wouldn’t have to worry
cause I’d be doing pretty alright.
On the Eve of a Birthday
January 26th, 2009When we lived in New York,
we suffered 3 digit summers.
We’d walk shirtless, shoeless, naked through the street;
only the brown of our skin could survive the heat.
Coming back to that old place,
I stopped on the stairs
where we used to piss away the day
back when my father was jobless
and I was schooless
except for what I saw on television.
Maybe it was the delirium of August
but I saw a ghost appear on either side of me.
They were flimsy in the doldrum winds,
shaky like cereal box holograms
but seemed more real
than even the photographs we used to have.
The ghost of my father drank the dregs of a Marlboro
like it was water from the tap
while my younger self sat downwind,
silent as he struggled to hold his breath.
The sky was marless.
No clouds to shift from horizon to horizon.
The glare of the sun so great
it loomed like a cornea instead of an iris,
refusing to acknowledge the passage of time
because they were the Pillars of Hercules.
Their feat of strength their ability
to stand without words, without touching, for centuries.
There was my chance to change that.
I would be the 1 to topple these pillars
and all I had to do was talk to a ghost.
I spoke like it was a confession,
like we were alone in church together,
the Father and the Son.
I told him I cheated on Calculus
because I was too afraid to admit I couldn’t do it on my own.
He managed to slip words
between the balls of smoke in his mouth
and they were: Use. Another. Karma.
I told him I was responsible for the holes in the walls.
I used to get so depressed that I got angry
and nothing was a faster fix than my fists.
He pushed smoke through his nose.
He looked like a Chinese dragon.
He said, Use. Another. Karma.
I told him I lied. Caught in the shockwave
of a falling trade center, I didn’t call home
not because I couldn’t find a phone
but because I didn’t think he’d remember
where I was supposed to be in the middle of the day.
Burnt to the filter,
he closed his eyes and whispered,
Use. Another. Karma.
What the fuck does that mean!?
He stifled what was left of his cigarette on the ground,
left it, and caught a bumble bee in his hands.
He said: do you see what I’ve got?
He only knows flowers and honey.
Sin is a 3 letter word to him.
My father clapped his hands together
and I expected to hear the crush of a tiny skeleton pulverized
by the hands that used to feed me. He offered
an upturned palm to me and, for a minute,
I convinced myself that he hadn’t finished
his cigarette, that the thing caught between the thunder
in his hands was the filter, not a living animal,
because all there was brushed into the side
of his skin was a fine yellow powder
until I found the spot of blood
on his mound of Venus where the bee
had stung him, trying to escape.
Here. You can have his karma.
Trajan’s Bridge
January 26th, 2009When we were in Miss Guthrie’s class
and had to orchestrate bridges from toothpicks
and mini marshmallows, mine always came out
looking like tepees strung up along fault lines.
The Bengali girl and I would reach into the bag
at the same time and I would always concede.
I’d have way too many toothpicks and nowhere
to stick them (story of my life).
That time I couldn’t see you for tofurkey
and stuffing because Mattappan was too far
from Waltham, I searched for beautiful
on flickr, hoping to find a picture
of the tiny bumps on the back of your neck
where your spine tried to spell kiss me HERE
in Braille. Instead, I got back sunsets and Mona Lisa,
dandelions, violets, and some guy’s 2 nieces.
Someone blogged, Bridges are beautiful,
explaining that suspension cables are like
the 100 shattered arms of the Bodhisattva of Compassion
who holds up humanity against falling.
I registered a fake email address just so
I could call him a freak.
It wasn’t until my commute crossed Rockaway Pond
that I found the majesty God or someone
orchestrated into bridges. I watched cars
drive along the ridges of the waves due to perspective
and the sun crawl up the arches of the Crossbay Bridge
like it was Stonehenge. I can’t imagine how no one’s
ever stopped in the middle of traffic
just to take in the view.
Oaken
January 25th, 2009Oaken
for Gwendolyn Brooks
commissioned by Dean of Students
Martin Luther King Jr. Day, 2008
Up ahead, a traffic light flickers to red.
Cars lined up like army ants
are stopped, gridlocked, and dead.
On 41st street and Lex, to Nuyorican vets,
it’s the same, I’ve seen it:
touristas sweat, summer sun’s more flame
than wick and suits stretch their legs
beneath mahogany desks.
Some young buck sits behind the wheel
of a vehicle trucking 1/4 inch steel.
Trucking metal scraps, he steals
bites from a hero from his favorite bodega,
his radio blasting Nina Sky y Noreaga.
Shadow stepping to the beat on the breaks,
he’s totally tone deaf but at least he’s got the lyrics.
Boricua, morena. Dominicano, Colombiano.
Boricua, morena. Cubano, Mexicano.
Oye mi canto.
Suddenly, something’s out of its place;
he’s bumping but it’s not from the base.
Beneath the skin of the street,
asphalt and concrete, a steam pipe leaks,
shrieks like a banshee
then blows. All that pressure,
it’s a bomb he’s idling on, no joke.
Shrapnel explodes, leaves a crater
like a meteor hit but really the Earth just split,
spit steam so high that the clouds got wet.
He turns to the lady who’s hitching a ride,
says, all this metal’s just a magnet for the heat.
Dear Lord in Heaven, please protect me.
We’ve got to jump, ok? 1 … 2 … 3 …
When prayers are spoken,
gotta be rooted, solid, and oaken,
cause God don’t take bills or tokens
tossed only when things are broken.
No one comes to his aid; he’s the closest thing
anyone’s seen to the plague in modern day,
today. His skin’s dripping in strings;
he’s more humid than human,
and it’s hard to believe but when
it’s 400 degrees, even when water can burn
till you bleed. His last words to a stranger
standing by were, Please, promise me
I’m not going to die.
Wait. Rewind to back when he was 9,
dressed in the blue of New York’s finest.
He stood tall with his cuffs and his shield
while his friends ran pass plays on the field.
By 16, he was a leader of men,
shooting platoons commands,
earned the rank of Sgt. Major, Marines.
He walked the Brooklyn beat but wasn’t
fresh meat from the gangs, too much love
for his moms to disrespect the cross on his neck.
When prayers are spoken,
gotta be rooted, solid, and oaken,
cause God don’t take bills or tokens
tossed only when things are broken.
Now, weeks have gone by. He’s lost
too much time, drugged under a coma,
laying mind silent to spare him
the trauma while nurses scrub the dead skin
from the live. His face is divided, stitched together
from different parts of his body and it’s getting
harder to spot the silver from the cloudy
cause his doctor says he might have to lose
an arm or a leg to stop the spread of infection.
His mom’s shaking her head; she has to
OK the operation.
But she’s keeping the faith in the name
of the Christian; 1 thing she knows for certain:
there’s only 1 life, 1 love, so there
can only be 1 king. Infinite times wiser
than Solomon, wouldn’t put her baby to the saw
without opening extra doors; calls this
a random act of purpose. Hurting this bad,
she’s crying cause she can’t take
her son’s pain away. Not another sheep
from the fold, she’s a mother Mary full blown,
carries the strength of Job in her soul.
Convinced the prayer offered in faith
can make the sick person well,
can save the sinner from hell,
can keep the falling from becoming the fell.
She’s singing, We shall,
we shall overcome
to no one in the halls, she’s all
alone; still, her voice can rival
an entire choir of angels. She’s the reason
we need to believe in less science and
more miracles.
When prayers are spoken,
gotta be rooted, solid, and oaken,
cause God don’t take bills or tokens
tossed only when things are broken.
Latent Evidence of Tim Reilly
January 22nd, 2009It’s the details I’m blind about:
how long ago, who saw first,
which side of your bed,
percocet or pocket knife,
what did you leave behind?
I won’t invent your story
though I know so little
it’s embarrassing.
The ponytail and threadbare plaid said
you were an easy friend
to make. The poetry was B-rated
but it was ours.
Halloweens were when
I saw you the most alive.
You confided in me once,
out of convenience or trust.
It was the weight,
the luckless go nowhere dates,
the surgery that might
have killed you anyway.
I won’t pretend I know
your tell tale heart,
the pounding that pushed you.
I’ll leave the King of Cups unshuffled.
Pica
January 14th, 2009for Tim Reilly
It’s the details I’m blind about:
how long ago, who heard,
which corner of your room, percocet or pocket knife,
what did you leave behind?
I won’t invent your story
and what scarce I still have
is embarrassing to admit.
The ponytail and threadbare plaid said
you were an easy friend
to make. The poetry –
I can’t remember; we were all
bad poets back then.
Halloweens had you
alive.
you confided in me once,
out of convenience or trust.
Your body was your betrayer;
it was the weight, the surgery
which might have killed you anyway.
Ignorance
would be trying to understand
your tell tale heart,
the pounding that pushed you.
I’ll leave the King of Cups unshuffled.
