There is no sheet on the bed, it's still in the net, waiting to be stretched over my cushy mattress. The kind that gives extra support for a bad back. At the end of the bed is a mini refrigerator, unplugged because I don't have a lot of food in the house. Next to that, and in front of my closet, is my dresser with the 10" TV on top. I don't use that much either.
The dresser is painted like a house and weighs about that. The lamp behind the TV and on top of the dresser is also not used, and covered with a pink wig I once wore to Youmacon 2007. My closet door is open. A Love Hina! poster is taped to the door, next to a flying dragon puzzle glued onto cardboard and nailed to the wall above my dresser. Next to the closet, and directly across from me, is a corkboard covered with tickets to the Winter concert of the Transiberian Orchestra, an old Cedar Point Admission ticket, two bookmarks, a list of creative nonfiction literature, and blue tacks.
The door is on the left, slightly open with a meijer trash bag dangling from the handle. A blue hawaiian cloth with white hibiscus flower and gold leave print hangs over the doorway. In the far left corner is my open bookcase. I call it open because it has four shelves, but no sides. So the books have a habit of falling off when they tip over. In addition to books, there is also a wooden wolf statue stuck in howling pose, an ugly brown dog from Cedar Point, two mini Pikachus, the 1 and 9 candles from my 19th birthday, which was celebrated in my small Aquinata dorm room, a slinky, two artificial leis--the purple on my Aunty Rachel made--and a random assortment of jewelry boxes.
Against the left wall is my desk where everything important ends up, heaped in piles. Among bills, loans, pay stubs, and forgotten homework, there is a sketcher's statue, stuck in a suave bow to an empty audience. A picture of my deceased grandmother and my grandfather holding me when I was just a baby, with the Hawaiian mountains in the background, is framed with pink netting. Another picture of Sora, from Kingdom Hearts, sleeping with a little Goofy and Donald Duck also sits on the table. MagicL The Gathering cards and random assortment of colored pens also. An old "tropical forest" scent cone sit between the bowing statue and the picture of my grandparents. An opened box of stationary lies discarded.
Next to my desk is a purple lamp I bought specifically for this room. It has two bulbs, one points straight up like a ceiling lamp, the other stops midway and bends like a desk lamp. It cost $15. Next to that is a coat hanger I made, purple, crooked, teetering on four loosely screwed legs. But it's good enough for my two winter coats, hats on the top, and my mufflers.
In the corner next to that are two suitcases, blue. My grandma in California (my mom's mom) got them for me when I graduated high school and went to college. I bring them around everywhere now. Next to that is a box of videos ranging from Aladdin (VHS) to Chobits (DVD). The window is closer, on my left, with the blinds closed. In front of it is a half-foot-high pot of soil, rectangular. The soil is dried out, and the beans that had been struggling to grow are long buried.
My bedstand is next to me, on my left. My bamboo plant needs to be watered. Filled with my favorite manga, W Juliet, and other essentials, such as: Let's Learn Kanji, School and Office Dictionary, The Koran, The Bible, The Missouri Review, and Word and Expression Locator. Along with my Life Binder, which contains everything important about my life: loan info, taxes, birth certificate, etc.
The space in between these objects, in the middle of the room, are scattered and haphazardly placed. Describing them would take too much time and only confuse.
November 24, 2009
November 23, 2009
In and Out
I wish you were making that sound while going into me,
while feeling me--
between the sheets--
In and Out
In and Out
It was harmony.
Not make-believe,
it was ecstasy!
So sweet the memory, I forgot completely
the moment of your kiss
is lost to me.
Why can't you read between the lines--
Can't you see the best of me?
The angry fiery love of my retreat,
as you cheat with hands behind me.
The feeling,
the sweet sweet feeling,
of her hair is fantasy--
a dream inside a dream
that no remedy can unbind thee!
You say "love me"
I say NO with a rage-love
that eats me
inside and out
with the motion of our bodies' heat
rolling around between the sheets
You cry that sound I wish I could receive
In and Out
In and Out of her
and then I understand.
Love so sweet, it burns me.
while feeling me--
between the sheets--
In and Out
In and Out
It was harmony.
Not make-believe,
it was ecstasy!
So sweet the memory, I forgot completely
the moment of your kiss
is lost to me.
Why can't you read between the lines--
Can't you see the best of me?
The angry fiery love of my retreat,
as you cheat with hands behind me.
The feeling,
the sweet sweet feeling,
of her hair is fantasy--
a dream inside a dream
that no remedy can unbind thee!
You say "love me"
I say NO with a rage-love
that eats me
inside and out
with the motion of our bodies' heat
rolling around between the sheets
You cry that sound I wish I could receive
In and Out
In and Out of her
and then I understand.
Love so sweet, it burns me.
November 22, 2009
I don't write poetry
This is NOT a rhyme,
not to a sing-song voice that says "Looooove meeeeee!"
because I TELL my story.
NO
Not an artificial "I'm too sad to cope, so I'll spit my words out by struggling to say what I mean to say by not saying exactly what I mean by meaning what I say only as long as I'm saying it"...
NO
Not a torn-out "I live in the ghetto and got abused by my girlfriend too many times, too many bullets in the head, so many times that I can't believe I didn't realize sooner" I've heard so many times I can't believe I'm still listening
NO
My life is not a beat from the street, not a sad expose of how I turned my life around, not the insanity of being a loner, unwanted, afraid, manhandled, passionate, creative--
All I am saying is
I don't write poetry
I've never seen the sun in the stars or the stars in the moon or the moon in your hair--but I CAN say it's been dyed too many times. So many, in fact, that it resembles the crater-strewn dried out surface of an uninhabitable rock.
My story cannot be stretched out, blown up, used to float through the layers of the atmosphere, layers of belief, religion, living, dying, moral ethics, logical physics, wildly played out fantasies of a person who knows who they are already because
I don't know who I am yet.
Am I a Catholic-Jew-woman-person-lover-hater-fighter-follower-believer-skeptic-critic-dancer-singer-artist--
I can at least be that.
But a poet...that's been overplayed too many times.
I hear "Poetry" and I say,
"Shit! Now this class is going to take ten times as long and make one-tenth the amount a' sense!"
Rhymes, riddles, metaphors, between the lines, between the sheets, love, passion, understanding, hating, reasoning, the image of an image beyond an image behind an image of the man you sat down with on the bench while you were listening to your iPod and he was feeding the birds bread out of a paper bag--
God All Mighty have mercy on our souls!
Because that's not my gig dawg. Thas not how I roll.
So where do I belong, if it's not with the poets?
Am I even a person?
Unable to express what I believe, my personality, my insanity, the reason for my existence, my persistence through life despite the constant crying of WHY WHY WHY WHY am I still alive? Dragging my feet through the marshes of humanity, the surrealism of reality, eternity of suffering through a poetry class without ending, a destination without a beginning, meaning in only what we mean, not what we say, constantly playing behind the covers of a lovers' bed with his (or her's) ex, only to find out later that your lover was also playing the same game, and you feel cheated, defeated, lied to, you're ready to take your own life with the blade of Juliet, but then you realize something!
Your fingers grip the pen...shaking...afraid for eons about what you want to say...finally, you can say what you mean.
Waste Land great Byzantium okay Arcadia intriguing Rent I like the idea Eternity Program in the making Sesame Street good for kids What the FUCK is up with South Park?
Everyone around me everywhere is playing off these misguided spurts of idiocy and framing them as masterpieces--am I the only one who doesn't get it--
AM I THE ONLY ONE WHO DOESN'T UNDERSTAND?!
Left outside of a crowd born to take the world, live it, love it, and die in a rose-scented coffin with a violin playing soft sultry music in the background to the beat of 'I Kissed a Girl' and later 'See You Again'--
NO
I don't want to write poetry. I want to write history.
not to a sing-song voice that says "Looooove meeeeee!"
because I TELL my story.
NO
Not an artificial "I'm too sad to cope, so I'll spit my words out by struggling to say what I mean to say by not saying exactly what I mean by meaning what I say only as long as I'm saying it"...
NO
Not a torn-out "I live in the ghetto and got abused by my girlfriend too many times, too many bullets in the head, so many times that I can't believe I didn't realize sooner" I've heard so many times I can't believe I'm still listening
NO
My life is not a beat from the street, not a sad expose of how I turned my life around, not the insanity of being a loner, unwanted, afraid, manhandled, passionate, creative--
All I am saying is
I don't write poetry
I've never seen the sun in the stars or the stars in the moon or the moon in your hair--but I CAN say it's been dyed too many times. So many, in fact, that it resembles the crater-strewn dried out surface of an uninhabitable rock.
My story cannot be stretched out, blown up, used to float through the layers of the atmosphere, layers of belief, religion, living, dying, moral ethics, logical physics, wildly played out fantasies of a person who knows who they are already because
I don't know who I am yet.
Am I a Catholic-Jew-woman-person-lover-hater-fighter-follower-believer-skeptic-critic-dancer-singer-artist--
I can at least be that.
But a poet...that's been overplayed too many times.
I hear "Poetry" and I say,
"Shit! Now this class is going to take ten times as long and make one-tenth the amount a' sense!"
Rhymes, riddles, metaphors, between the lines, between the sheets, love, passion, understanding, hating, reasoning, the image of an image beyond an image behind an image of the man you sat down with on the bench while you were listening to your iPod and he was feeding the birds bread out of a paper bag--
God All Mighty have mercy on our souls!
Because that's not my gig dawg. Thas not how I roll.
So where do I belong, if it's not with the poets?
Am I even a person?
Unable to express what I believe, my personality, my insanity, the reason for my existence, my persistence through life despite the constant crying of WHY WHY WHY WHY am I still alive? Dragging my feet through the marshes of humanity, the surrealism of reality, eternity of suffering through a poetry class without ending, a destination without a beginning, meaning in only what we mean, not what we say, constantly playing behind the covers of a lovers' bed with his (or her's) ex, only to find out later that your lover was also playing the same game, and you feel cheated, defeated, lied to, you're ready to take your own life with the blade of Juliet, but then you realize something!
Your fingers grip the pen...shaking...afraid for eons about what you want to say...finally, you can say what you mean.
Waste Land great Byzantium okay Arcadia intriguing Rent I like the idea Eternity Program in the making Sesame Street good for kids What the FUCK is up with South Park?
Everyone around me everywhere is playing off these misguided spurts of idiocy and framing them as masterpieces--am I the only one who doesn't get it--
AM I THE ONLY ONE WHO DOESN'T UNDERSTAND?!
Left outside of a crowd born to take the world, live it, love it, and die in a rose-scented coffin with a violin playing soft sultry music in the background to the beat of 'I Kissed a Girl' and later 'See You Again'--
NO
I don't want to write poetry. I want to write history.
November 20, 2009
While Waiting in Line
Characters:
Bill
Mandé
Luis
Clark
Marianne
Tom
Lisa
Hobo
Mugger
Painter
Critic
Act I: (Modern Day)
All characters stand in line at the back of the stage, facing right-stage and spanning across so as to create the illusion of no beginning or end to the line. There is a sign hung above with an arrow pointing right, labeled "Gate 13" From left to right: Luis, Clark, Mandé, Bill, Lisa, Tom, and Marianne. Luis and Clark are both young college men. Luis is spectacled and contently reading a newspaper, while Clark is tapping his foot impatiently and constantly looking at his watch. Mandé is not young but not old and is talking loudly on her cell phone, annoying the old man next to her, Bill, who is wearing an old suit with a bowler hat. Marianne carries a purse and keeps rummaging around in it, seeing if she has everything. Throughout the play she tries to keep the unruly kids, Lisa and Tom, from causing too much mischief. Tom is chubby and is sucking on a lollipop, and Liza is a skinny, hiding half of ehr face behind thick, dark hair.
Mandé and Bill are center-stage and talk louder than the others, who make background noise as to give the illusion of a crowded place.
Mandé (with a southern drawl): Yes, Ma. Can you believe it, engaged to this bum who doesn't even spit out a dime, and I'm the one stuck picking his god damn children up. (pause) Uh-huh. Ma, I'm telling you, even though this guy's a prick, he's loaded! (pause) What? (more loudly) What?! Of course he's paying for the gas (pause, as if in agreement) and the hotel room (pause, nods her head) and the car.
Bill (mumbling to himself, obviously annoyed): That damn woman better shut her trap. Jesus, if Sara turned out that way I would have beat the shit out of her. Yappin' on about things no modest woman would do. For Christ's sake, how long will I have to listen to this racket?
Mandé (oblivious to Bill's discomfort): Yes, last night. With candles and everything. (loud boisterous laughter) No! No! Not here, not now. But I can say that it was a hell of a time. Later this week we're planning on going out to see a play and then dinner. (pause) Well I don't rightly know what kind of play it is, Ma. He picked it. I think it's called "Waiting in a Desert" or the like.
Bill: Back in the day we used to use our imaginations better. Now, everything's presented as it should be, directly, with no hidden agenda or meaning. These young folks wouldn't know a satire if it tied them up and displayed them as trinkets for entertainment and profit.
Mandé: Profit is the idea, Ma. That's why I'm with him, and he looks very handsome, don't you think so? (pause) Well the limp is unfortunate. But it doesn't keep him from (stops herself before saying anything else, and drops her voice to a loud whisper) He's even bigger than Brian.
Bill: When you're an old man, everything shrinks. You lose your hair, your back is bent, and the meat is str-r-r-ripped off your bones. My God, I hope Susan will cook up some Swiss Chicken tonight. (confused pause) Where is she anyway? (looks around vaguely) Damn daughter of mine, always getting lost.
A voice off-stage yells "Next!" and the line moves one position forward, Marianne vanishing off-stage to appear at the end of the line from left-stage. In this way the actors circle about constantly. Now Mandé and Clark are together in center-stage. Mandé forgets to take a step.
Clark (checking his watch again and stomping his foot): Fuck! Can this line go any slower? I have to be in New Guinea by tomorrow, and it's midday already. As an executive Boaring member, I have to be there for the eight o' clock meet and greet. Hey, hay woman (shakes Mandé's shoulder) take a step already.
Brittany (to Clark): At least you didn't have to wait yesterday--Nothing Ma, just talking to a boy complaining about the line--
Clark: Who says I wasn't waiting yesterday? I've been waiting for years! The stupid bureaucracy of this country astounds me, can it go any slower?
Brittany: For years, right? (uncertain) I don't remember seeing you at all.
Clark: I was here, I assure you. This very spot. Behind you and before him (points to Luis). I was here yesterday, and the day before that, and the day before that.
Brittany (to phone): He says he's been here forever. (to Clark) Well I'm sure I was here first, or else I wouldn't be in front of you.
Clark (softly): Unless you cut.
Brittany: What was that?--hold on Ma--
Clark (loudly): Unless you cut in front of me!
(silence)
Off-stage voice shouts "Next!" and the line moves forwards one step.
Luis (in a casual tone): Clark, why are you being so noisy?
Clark: This bitch over here is saying she's been waiting longer than us, when I believe she just cut us this morning, and--
Luis (turning a page in the newspaper and inspecting it in interest): What does it matter, really?
Clark (taken aback): What?
Luis (still reading): We have been waiting forever, and will continue to stand here no matter how many people are in front of us tomorrow or the next. Might as well enjoy the journey, not worry about the end. It's the way the Chinese see it, anyway.
Clark: You're always lazy, Luis. You don't want to go anywhere in life. It's all about the destination, or else what have you got to aim for?
Luis: Happiness. (flips a page)
Off-stage voice shouts, "Next!" and the line moves forwards another step.
Marianne (checking her purse): Okay, I have my cell phone, wallet...photo ID. What about Lisa's--oh here it is. Some crackers for Tom because he eats like a horse. Oh no, where did I put the birth certificates? (searches frantically)
Clark (reading out loud from an article): "The nervous mother worrying about her baby shows it even to the unconscious child at her breast. When the child is older she still shows it, until the little one knows as well as it knows when the sun is shining that "mother is worrying again." The worrying wife does not keep her worry to herself; she pours it out to, or upon, her husband. The worrying husband is just the same. If it is the wife that causes him to worry - or to think so - he pours out his worry in turbulent words, thus adding fuel to a fire already too hot for comfort."
The off-stage voice shouts "Next!" and the line moves forwards a step-and-a-half, and now Tom, Lisa, and Marianna are in the center.
Bill
Mandé
Luis
Clark
Marianne
Tom
Lisa
Hobo
Mugger
Painter
Critic
Act I: (Modern Day)
All characters stand in line at the back of the stage, facing right-stage and spanning across so as to create the illusion of no beginning or end to the line. There is a sign hung above with an arrow pointing right, labeled "Gate 13" From left to right: Luis, Clark, Mandé, Bill, Lisa, Tom, and Marianne. Luis and Clark are both young college men. Luis is spectacled and contently reading a newspaper, while Clark is tapping his foot impatiently and constantly looking at his watch. Mandé is not young but not old and is talking loudly on her cell phone, annoying the old man next to her, Bill, who is wearing an old suit with a bowler hat. Marianne carries a purse and keeps rummaging around in it, seeing if she has everything. Throughout the play she tries to keep the unruly kids, Lisa and Tom, from causing too much mischief. Tom is chubby and is sucking on a lollipop, and Liza is a skinny, hiding half of ehr face behind thick, dark hair.
Mandé and Bill are center-stage and talk louder than the others, who make background noise as to give the illusion of a crowded place.
Mandé (with a southern drawl): Yes, Ma. Can you believe it, engaged to this bum who doesn't even spit out a dime, and I'm the one stuck picking his god damn children up. (pause) Uh-huh. Ma, I'm telling you, even though this guy's a prick, he's loaded! (pause) What? (more loudly) What?! Of course he's paying for the gas (pause, as if in agreement) and the hotel room (pause, nods her head) and the car.
Bill (mumbling to himself, obviously annoyed): That damn woman better shut her trap. Jesus, if Sara turned out that way I would have beat the shit out of her. Yappin' on about things no modest woman would do. For Christ's sake, how long will I have to listen to this racket?
Mandé (oblivious to Bill's discomfort): Yes, last night. With candles and everything. (loud boisterous laughter) No! No! Not here, not now. But I can say that it was a hell of a time. Later this week we're planning on going out to see a play and then dinner. (pause) Well I don't rightly know what kind of play it is, Ma. He picked it. I think it's called "Waiting in a Desert" or the like.
Bill: Back in the day we used to use our imaginations better. Now, everything's presented as it should be, directly, with no hidden agenda or meaning. These young folks wouldn't know a satire if it tied them up and displayed them as trinkets for entertainment and profit.
Mandé: Profit is the idea, Ma. That's why I'm with him, and he looks very handsome, don't you think so? (pause) Well the limp is unfortunate. But it doesn't keep him from (stops herself before saying anything else, and drops her voice to a loud whisper) He's even bigger than Brian.
Bill: When you're an old man, everything shrinks. You lose your hair, your back is bent, and the meat is str-r-r-ripped off your bones. My God, I hope Susan will cook up some Swiss Chicken tonight. (confused pause) Where is she anyway? (looks around vaguely) Damn daughter of mine, always getting lost.
A voice off-stage yells "Next!" and the line moves one position forward, Marianne vanishing off-stage to appear at the end of the line from left-stage. In this way the actors circle about constantly. Now Mandé and Clark are together in center-stage. Mandé forgets to take a step.
Clark (checking his watch again and stomping his foot): Fuck! Can this line go any slower? I have to be in New Guinea by tomorrow, and it's midday already. As an executive Boaring member, I have to be there for the eight o' clock meet and greet. Hey, hay woman (shakes Mandé's shoulder) take a step already.
Brittany (to Clark): At least you didn't have to wait yesterday--Nothing Ma, just talking to a boy complaining about the line--
Clark: Who says I wasn't waiting yesterday? I've been waiting for years! The stupid bureaucracy of this country astounds me, can it go any slower?
Brittany: For years, right? (uncertain) I don't remember seeing you at all.
Clark: I was here, I assure you. This very spot. Behind you and before him (points to Luis). I was here yesterday, and the day before that, and the day before that.
Brittany (to phone): He says he's been here forever. (to Clark) Well I'm sure I was here first, or else I wouldn't be in front of you.
Clark (softly): Unless you cut.
Brittany: What was that?--hold on Ma--
Clark (loudly): Unless you cut in front of me!
(silence)
Off-stage voice shouts "Next!" and the line moves forwards one step.
Luis (in a casual tone): Clark, why are you being so noisy?
Clark: This bitch over here is saying she's been waiting longer than us, when I believe she just cut us this morning, and--
Luis (turning a page in the newspaper and inspecting it in interest): What does it matter, really?
Clark (taken aback): What?
Luis (still reading): We have been waiting forever, and will continue to stand here no matter how many people are in front of us tomorrow or the next. Might as well enjoy the journey, not worry about the end. It's the way the Chinese see it, anyway.
Clark: You're always lazy, Luis. You don't want to go anywhere in life. It's all about the destination, or else what have you got to aim for?
Luis: Happiness. (flips a page)
Off-stage voice shouts, "Next!" and the line moves forwards another step.
Marianne (checking her purse): Okay, I have my cell phone, wallet...photo ID. What about Lisa's--oh here it is. Some crackers for Tom because he eats like a horse. Oh no, where did I put the birth certificates? (searches frantically)
Clark (reading out loud from an article): "The nervous mother worrying about her baby shows it even to the unconscious child at her breast. When the child is older she still shows it, until the little one knows as well as it knows when the sun is shining that "mother is worrying again." The worrying wife does not keep her worry to herself; she pours it out to, or upon, her husband. The worrying husband is just the same. If it is the wife that causes him to worry - or to think so - he pours out his worry in turbulent words, thus adding fuel to a fire already too hot for comfort."
The off-stage voice shouts "Next!" and the line moves forwards a step-and-a-half, and now Tom, Lisa, and Marianna are in the center.
November 16, 2009
BRB
Be right back.
I don't know how this is going to go, but I'll be driving down to Cherry Bomb, on Cherry St., to see who I can meet. So until that time has passed, and I can write at last, I'll post this for now as a marker for how I almost got to post something insightful--hopefully delightful--today.
If you know about it too, I hope to meet you there so we can share all the things we don't want to say--but say things that we may or may not present--during the time we spend together... Perhaps we'll find that it was more than what we bargained for. For now, I'll have to say:
brb
I don't know how this is going to go, but I'll be driving down to Cherry Bomb, on Cherry St., to see who I can meet. So until that time has passed, and I can write at last, I'll post this for now as a marker for how I almost got to post something insightful--hopefully delightful--today.
If you know about it too, I hope to meet you there so we can share all the things we don't want to say--but say things that we may or may not present--during the time we spend together... Perhaps we'll find that it was more than what we bargained for. For now, I'll have to say:
brb
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