spit
spit in the pit
Thursday, February 23, 2023
Open book
Monday, February 20, 2023
Red-eyed trees
warm night
she did not sleep
the red-eyed tree.
Saturday, September 10, 2022
Imagined
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