to the corner of her eye
the duct of her waves
Brush over
overgrown lashes
in soft chants
they drown
The sea sighs in rhythm
on her drying cheek.
6-27-2020
Remembering Dr. Armin Fuchs (1959-2019) at a vantage point of the Bay
Saturday, June 27, 2020
Sunday, April 12, 2020
Bridges
A bridge over
traversing gasoline
caged
a passing string of
wingless flies
on twice as many wheels.
Pebbles move under
distancing mammals
darting rodents
divide
uncaring birds
Engines shake across the creek
beat down high grass
Roofs clutter, spines of open books
"Is this O street?"
Do not speak to the aliens, they look
Retreat to the paved, the known,
the dash-lined.
Strolls and dusty shops are essential,
blocking,
or moving along,
or spiraling into
tight-fit laughters
stacked to the upper floor.
A creek razor-thin
touches
a diluted space of
recognition
Joggers, children, city parks
in paler figures.
A sickening order strikes as
unfamiliar.
Cherries, twisted arms.
Pines, smooth waists.
Mosaic antennae, calling for higher intelligence.
Lives must cross the bridge
to kneel before
lives estranged.
Withdraw to a well-cut corner
undeserved.
A fortress of printed letters.
Islands of
human impressions.
Bridged
and dissolved.
4/12/2020 in Palo Alto
Sketches of numerous bridges nearby.
traversing gasoline
caged
a passing string of
wingless flies
on twice as many wheels.
Pebbles move under
distancing mammals
darting rodents
divide
uncaring birds
Engines shake across the creek
beat down high grass
Roofs clutter, spines of open books
"Is this O street?"
Do not speak to the aliens, they look
Retreat to the paved, the known,
the dash-lined.
Strolls and dusty shops are essential,
blocking,
or moving along,
or spiraling into
tight-fit laughters
stacked to the upper floor.
A creek razor-thin
touches
a diluted space of
recognition
Joggers, children, city parks
in paler figures.
A sickening order strikes as
unfamiliar.
Cherries, twisted arms.
Pines, smooth waists.
Mosaic antennae, calling for higher intelligence.
Lives must cross the bridge
to kneel before
lives estranged.
Withdraw to a well-cut corner
undeserved.
A fortress of printed letters.
Islands of
human impressions.
Bridged
and dissolved.
4/12/2020 in Palo Alto
Sketches of numerous bridges nearby.
Saturday, October 5, 2019
Voice in a river
A voice travels
in a river
scattered, unshattered
at times
pitchers of flashbacks
picked up from the floor
to the clouds
An estuary's
geometric discords
suspending hands over
blank scores
Choirs recast from
exotic swimmers among
graded flavors
Eroding sand piles conducting
water in crisis
to a deeper embrace
humming unfamiliar notes
In a deafening discourse
a voice returns
or not returns
to an absorbing silence
persisting in vain.
- 10/5/2019, Palo Alto
in a river
scattered, unshattered
at times
pitchers of flashbacks
picked up from the floor
to the clouds
An estuary's
geometric discords
suspending hands over
blank scores
Choirs recast from
exotic swimmers among
graded flavors
Eroding sand piles conducting
water in crisis
to a deeper embrace
humming unfamiliar notes
In a deafening discourse
a voice returns
or not returns
to an absorbing silence
persisting in vain.
- 10/5/2019, Palo Alto
Saturday, July 13, 2019
Teacher
A teacher
or a door
to an unimagined world
of strange
and stranger
creatures
of a pink sky
or a blue floor
afloat, marshmallow boats
of choreographed molecules
or enslaved shoes
a brain, in mindless moves
a teacher
or a world
over the shoulder
a disappearing
one way door.
7-13-2019, Palo Alto
In memory of Dr. Armin Fuchs.
or a door
to an unimagined world
of strange
and stranger
creatures
of a pink sky
or a blue floor
afloat, marshmallow boats
of choreographed molecules
or enslaved shoes
a brain, in mindless moves
a teacher
or a world
over the shoulder
a disappearing
one way door.
7-13-2019, Palo Alto
In memory of Dr. Armin Fuchs.
Saturday, May 4, 2019
Journey to the West
They sentence him to death
the murderous
Time
From tail to brow
travelers wander
from water
to stranger water
passing through what was left of
drained veins on a
red skull
In the company of windy thoughts
they were lost
in themselves
the wanderers of the skull
Into the past
of a dream foreseen
where lives could never live
wanderers of the disappearing womb
arrive at the beginning
where they've never been
- 5/4/2019, in Palo Alto
the murderous
Time
From tail to brow
travelers wander
from water
to stranger water
passing through what was left of
drained veins on a
red skull
In the company of windy thoughts
they were lost
in themselves
the wanderers of the skull
Into the past
of a dream foreseen
where lives could never live
wanderers of the disappearing womb
arrive at the beginning
where they've never been
- 5/4/2019, in Palo Alto
Saturday, April 14, 2018
Functional depression
I was in the Student Health Center to get some menstrual disorder checked. That was a winter afternoon of 2011. The doctor first let me filled out a tiny piece of questionnaire, apparently about mental well-being. After the exam, she said "I'm not at all worried about your uterus, but I'm very worried about this" waving the piece of questionnaire and asked me to go to a consultant.
I did not, because I knew exactly what was wrong - I was trapped in multiple situations extremely toxic to my mind that a consultant has no power to fix. I knew it when the depression was getting the better of me. I was almost amused how some remote memories of DSM definitions from undergraduate Abnormal Psychology class came back to mind, "Wow! This is exactly like what the textbook said". But I did not feel abnormal, but thought it was a reasonable reaction to the circumstances. In fact, that was the most sobering experience so far in my life. It gave me time to look at myself, accept what I was, and acknowledge that it was okay to not force myself to be something I cannot be.
If you have a local infection on your body, the body begin to have some inflammation in response, to defend the tissue. The doctor would say "you had an infection" and treat you by removing the pathogen, knowing that the inflammation was doing its job. Now if you are in an environment where you were coerced to do things against your nature, and you had a depression in response, then there's something abnormal about you. People would begin to give you different medical advises except to remove yourself from that environment, because they themselves do not respond to that environment in the same way and/or they believe it's beyond their power to change that environment. Why not just disable the defense mechanism and pretend you did not have an infection?
Over the years, I have seen multiple friends or friends' friends experiencing, what I call, a "functional depression" in response to the situation that poisoned them. That is not to say a functional depression won't have dire consequences, just like a functional immune system may not win the battle over every inflection. There can also be dysfunctional depression, just like a dysfunctional immune system may attack healthy tissues. But more likely than not, the system is just doing its job, otherwise evolution would have eliminated the species equipped with such a useless system.
This is just a piece of my unscientific thought on depression. I have to constantly remind myself that when a friend is in distress, first consider what's poisoning them, rather than what's wrong with them. Because it is much easier to regard "everyone is different" as a trivial fact that everyone knows, than to act according to that knowledge.
4-14-2018 Boca
If you have a local infection on your body, the body begin to have some inflammation in response, to defend the tissue. The doctor would say "you had an infection" and treat you by removing the pathogen, knowing that the inflammation was doing its job. Now if you are in an environment where you were coerced to do things against your nature, and you had a depression in response, then there's something abnormal about you. People would begin to give you different medical advises except to remove yourself from that environment, because they themselves do not respond to that environment in the same way and/or they believe it's beyond their power to change that environment. Why not just disable the defense mechanism and pretend you did not have an infection?
Over the years, I have seen multiple friends or friends' friends experiencing, what I call, a "functional depression" in response to the situation that poisoned them. That is not to say a functional depression won't have dire consequences, just like a functional immune system may not win the battle over every inflection. There can also be dysfunctional depression, just like a dysfunctional immune system may attack healthy tissues. But more likely than not, the system is just doing its job, otherwise evolution would have eliminated the species equipped with such a useless system.
This is just a piece of my unscientific thought on depression. I have to constantly remind myself that when a friend is in distress, first consider what's poisoning them, rather than what's wrong with them. Because it is much easier to regard "everyone is different" as a trivial fact that everyone knows, than to act according to that knowledge.
 |
| Land life |
Sunday, February 25, 2018
The Machine
The giant lies on its side.
Blood spirals into
electric rivers
in a breathing box.
New souls are born on
the plastic prairie
now engulfed by fate,
their feet soldered to chains,
their voice turned into sand.
Were not for a paradoxical thought,
the giant would not have fallen
into silence.
Children watch for a hundred years of decay
waiting to live.
- 2/25/2018 in Boca
Blood spirals into
electric rivers
in a breathing box.
New souls are born on
the plastic prairie
now engulfed by fate,
their feet soldered to chains,
their voice turned into sand.
Were not for a paradoxical thought,
the giant would not have fallen
into silence.
Children watch for a hundred years of decay
waiting to live.
- 2/25/2018 in Boca
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