Thursday, February 23, 2023

Open book

Follow the crooked ridge
Here's a path in an open book
a story
a score
with few bifurcations

read forward
then backward
a crab canon

a moderately embellished climax
involving a locked tower
shaking with each interrogation

a walkthrough
monotonic almost
punctuated by minor switchbacks
a few hours
on slowly drained legs

through the tickets though
lies the unfathomable plotline
the loom and gloom
the smeared out smoke 
of clouds
of mountain range

a tap on the shoulder 
reader,
attention to the chorus of the leaves
a crescendo of an approaching drizzle
a soft hum in your ears
on your face

A cliff
like a death wish
hides behind lowered curtains
an invitation
a destination
a mountain
is a book.

- 2/23/2023 in Asheville, after a drizzly hike in the great smoky mountains. 





Monday, February 20, 2023

Red-eyed trees

For the toss-and-turns of a
warm night
she did not sleep
the red-eyed tree.

Not delivered
the bleach-white cooling sheets
from dusk to midnight
from midnight to...
What is this?
An itch of a dawn
at her feet
yearning
peeking
yellowish green

Is this eternity then?
With her eyes wide open.
Is this undulation
a matter of fashion?
Or is she forever condemned
without resolution?

She thought about Antarctica
about icebergs
eternal nights
the object of fantasy
then repaid
with eternal sobriety

As she looks on
she contemplates
the river of puzzled gaze
Is this sympathy then?
Of the red-eyed riders
Engulfed by presumed destiny. 

- 2/20/2023, recapitulating thoughts driving into Asheville, NC


Saturday, September 10, 2022

Imagined

A moon imagined
Behind whimpering clouds
Relieved from the gaze of
Lamps and rooftops

She must be round and plump
With her earth-born goddess
And her magical rabbit
With a Sisyphus
And an undying tree

She must squint at the sun
Blinded from her better reflections
On unscattered clouds
From remote messages
Sent before she was born

She would rather put on some shades
Or hide her face
But that would be
Half a moon away

She would tune in to a blue rock
To its vibes and tides
To occasional chatters
She would think with the back of her head
Of people imagined
With a verse about her. 

- 9/10/2022 at Carrboro, a cloudy, rainy midautumn festival.

Wednesday, May 11, 2022

Eight hundred miles

A broken side mirror

puts the present behind her

en route

to eight hundred miles of goodbye


to a kingdom of gentle palms

lifting all wings

to the sun


to a bookmark at each laugh

or quarrels too

buried

between the seas


to the eyes of truth

cornered 

yet undefeated


to an open book

of missing letters

of pressing riddles

with each mission unfulfilled


to a wound 

that irons a dream

onto a legacy


to a love

to a memory

to a catastrophe. 


5/12/2022 at Carrboro NC

In memory of my beloved mentor, Dr. Emmanuelle Tognoli (1974~2022). 

Monday, November 1, 2021

Montage

She hears the speed of the wind

as a chatter through the banquet

in slow motion

pressing upon her path


She turns around and sees

faces from the future 

into the past

feigned stability


It is fragile

like all consistency

that shatters in your hands

bleeding through

the dream you once again

wake up from


to put it together

a curious montage

silhouettes

she does not identify

yet, recognize


to let the chatter pass

she becomes invisible

let the fallen leaves be her mind

rest in the season.


11/2/2021, Carrboro

devolved thoughts from a hiking trip

Sunday, July 4, 2021

Variation

Turkish coffee in wine glass 

A brief cringe on an imaginary face 

Yet a perfect collector 

Of precipitating fate 

Tasted 

But not swallowed.


7/4/2021

An excerpt of life







Sunday, December 27, 2020

Resurrection

It's been nine years since she died. Or that's what we thought.  History, memory, time came to a full stop where she could not adapt. She was given up, folded, archived, black and white pictures in the bottom drawer of an empty desk. 

I was the empty desk. Life anew. "You are exactly like her," heard a strange personality masquerading among her acquaintances, a covering projection of an imposter. Her friends, though, mourned and accepted the substitute. Sometimes they pulled up the archive to point to a page or two. Sometimes they missed her presence too. 

But she was only dormant. Her unresolved characters flare up into the cold space on occasion. Torn, fragmented images adrift in thoughts and actions never quite find their way to each other. 

Nine years was but a cycle to an eerie familiarity. A maybe inadvertently crossed the mind leaving a crack in the shell. No longer solidified, she rampaged through the surface, engulfing what she scorched. That was me allowed her resurrection. 

Nine years fill a desk. Is she taking over now? Would she survive it this time? I misjudged her intention. I have missed the weight of time bearing down on the strained legs and the sore heart. A slow, imperceptible accumulation of moments verges on a collapse. She would take me with her at the implosion to a minuscule desk with a minuscule drawer. We would be once again closer. 

How many times we must play the dying and the resurrected in this recursive game of life, we wondered. The final level may be reached asymptotically but with escalating difficulty. Buried tracks and conjured up figures are the clues. Living in a backed-up dream, we rest for the next round.


12/27/2020
in Palo Alto