Poems & Etc.

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This piece won honorable mention in CSUEB's annual Donald Markos Poetry Contest, and will be published in the 2015 edition of Occam's Razor. An homage to Matthew Arnold's "Dover Beach".

No reprinting and all that jazz, aye?

More work. A little rough around the edges, but finalized (for the time being).
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Just enough to drown you by

It’s been a while since I was last here,
following a trail worn more by my shoes
than yours.
I take care not to slip:
It's a steep drop onto the rocks below,
and poison oak hides among swaying ferns.
Softly—across a frayed carpet the color
of late autumn,
while cicadas still sing of summer.
Even here, so many metaphorical miles
from the city,
did we find its presence in the stealing dark:
The treehouse now rooted to the ground,
the chain-link fence on its side,
bridging the gap between two worlds.
All of it overlooks the creek.
In the afternoon slowness
it runs cool and clear,
where algae cannot rest
and water striders dash themselves
against the current,
moving close but never touching.
We spoke often of coming here.
Now I walk to the water's edge,
knowing too well that to drink is to forget.

I don't feel like posting my extremely dark depressing stuff here but...

Open Windows

upon the passing of ice ages


I actually envisioned these more as song lyrics. I'd compose music if I knew how.

Yeah, I'd say so as well. These are a little sparse for poems; even if you're working in the minimalist spectrum, you would still need to add some more information.

I've barely written music - for a few class assignments, certainly, nothing more than that - but I can say with a reasonable degree of confidence that reading music isn't actually too bad. Things get complicated when you start switching between time signatures and loudness, of course, but basic letter notation can be learned in about 15 minutes (faster with the aid of an instrument). Once you start attaching sounds to symbols, I imagine it's only a matter of time before you can start writing coherent songs. Perhaps you may want to give it a shot?

Another piece, this one ekphrastic. A response to Greg Martin's "Dancers", and the delicate curvature of incense smoke.
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i n c e n s e | s m o k e

Against the night sky
they sway,
sweet sandalwood curves
like unraveled
satin:
a ballet
to the rhythm of each
rising strand,
adagio in aerial silks.
they know they will die
like this,
their bodies stretching
into thin air;
but in time
there is mastery,
and so they reach
and they reach.

Some idle translating work. Originally composed by Li Bai, the "Immortal Poet" of the Tang Dynasty.
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- 静夜思 -
床前明月光
疑是地上霜
举头望明月
低头思故乡
（李白）

bed front / moonlight
suspect (v.) is / ground / frost
raise head / toward / moon
lower head / think / home

- Quiet Night Thoughts -
Not frost but moonlight before the bed.
How high the moon, how far the hearth.
(Li Bai)

Tooling around some more in a foreign language.
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- 春雪 -
新年都未有芳化
二月初惊见草芽
白雪却嫌春色晚
故穿庭树作飞花
（韩愈）

- Snow in Spring -
A new year, and still no bloom;
February's grass buds startle the eyes.
White snow usurps late colors of spring:
Through courtyard trees, a flight like blossoms.
(Han Yu)

I absolutely adore this, and it's captured my love for the night sky and everything it contains perfectly.

Here are some of the poems that I have written recently.

1. This poem is a true story, I wrote about a real person and my feelings for him.

2. This one a lot of teens can probably relate to, but just like #1, this is also referring to a real person in my life.


1. Afghan Boy

From Asia to Europe,
Australia to Costa Rica,
You made your decision,
to settle in North America,
Canada, land of democracy and freedom,
A diverse country too,
But little did they know,
That a Canadian girl was falling for you
Blue eyes blonde hair,
A pretty face, a piercing stare,
That Afghan boy, she fell for him hard,
He never took the hint,
Remained happily oblivious,
And she was heartbroken.

2. Tick Tock

Tick tock
Tick tock,
I'm sitting at my computer,
Staring at the clock,
Time is passing by,
I'm tapping my feet,
Waiting for a reply,
I sent the message 4 days ago,
But why does it feel so long?

Tick tock,
Tick tock,
Goes the clock,
You were online the last hour,
But replying to my message takes you forever.

This is my first attempt at poetry writing (I'm more of a visual arts person!), so please don't judge too harshly!

Went AWOL for a few weeks - quite shocking to see responses here which aren't mine. Feedback forthcoming.

Meanwhile, something from the deep end: a short excerpt of a much larger animal, still in progress.
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Tuesday 8:02 pm

Today is Jackson's birthday, so we use it as an excuse to go drinking on a weeknight. I nurse my corner of the bar, watching the others roar over retellings of frat parties and senior pranks and the latest from the technologically inept to wander through our support desk.
—What're you up to?
Amanda is tipsy – illegally, of course, but nobody minds. She's graduated from milk, winked Jackson, before sliding her a shot glass filled with something dark and spicy.
—Drinking, I grin, and raise my mug for emphasis.
She laughs. —No sh*t Sherlock. What other deductions're you gonna make?
—Well, Jackson’s going to outlast us all. That Irish blood finally about to do him some good.
—Speaking from personal experience?
—And all the hangovers that followed.
Amanda laughs again, a little higher this time, and I soak in the sound. It is nice, to follow the beat of a conversation, and to offer a witty response at all the right moments. It is like belonging.
In between her giggles and the good brown beer, I sketch triangles into the countertop. Like this, I think, and this: tracing a finger through dabs of alcohol clean as fresh paint, concentric arcs sliding here and there on the wood, angles within angles.
—What're you drawing? Amanda asks.
—The best damn line in my life, I say. And it's true, it is the best damn line I have ever drawn in my life, and tomorrow it will be not just a line but a painting – a whole painting, a f*cking masterpiece of a painting, the best yet – tomorrow, tomorrow, tomorrow.

And feedback still forthcoming. (Perhaps a Soon™ would be necessary?) I find less time these days to write up long, thoughtful critiques of anything that isn't an essay draft; still, it remains on my mind.

In the meantime, more work. An expository exercise.
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The afternoon is long.

“Do you need any help?” she asks, hovering—expectant—by the shelf I am browsing. Her staff tag reads “Cal State University Long Beach”; I do not register the name. “No—thanks,” I say, and smile politely. Relief slides down her shoulders and she returns to a stack of cardboard boxes, textbook covers peeking over some of the flaps.

The bookstore is a necessary evil: with no stable mailing address for Amazon purchases and just a day before classes, I found myself drawn there as a matter of convenience. It is small even by state university standards—the only ones who need help navigating its shelves are freshmen, wide-eyed and still dressed for high school. Some, by the second quarter, learn better; textbooks are cheaper when exchanged online or through previous owners’ hands, aside from the rare (and frustrating) campus-specific edition. It seems the sole value of the bookstore lies in its ability to stock a few of the stranger course titles: Susan Steinberg’s Spectacle, or Mark Siegel and his Sailor Twain.

The Great Gatsby is not one of these titles. It came unapologetically bundled with a text on critical literature theory, and I grimaced when I saw it as required reading: of the great American novels I was assigned in high school, Gatsby was one of the least enjoyable. It was a bland, detached affair; inoffensive at best, but vaguely irritating when given some thought—like a new car-leather smell which lingers too strongly. For two days I left it alone on my table, not quite willing to commit. Then—the night before the first class on theory—I decided to at least skim over the first chapter and see if, perhaps, my taste had matured a little over the past eight years.

Scent floated off the pages. Milky sweet and maidenly, like hypoallergenic lotion; it was so unusual that, for a moment, I was taken aback. I held the book closer, wondering how yellowed newsprint could smell of well-cared skin. Did it come from the bookstore staff, who just so happened to smear Dove lotion on her hands that day? Or, perhaps, the previous owner of this book was a young woman; there are notes jotted down on the page margins, all oblong curves and hearts next to favorite lines—evidence of a sensitive hand rubbing aromatically into the paper. For a moment, I forget about Nick Carraway’s narration.

I read through the first chapter and discovered, pleasantly, that The Great Gatsby was much less painful than I had remembered from so many years ago. This may have been a kind of pretense; would I have thought highly of the novel if it hadn’t smelled so agreeable? In a way, I would like to think so—but when I cracked it open for chapter two and leaned in for a sniff, I found only sour newsprint.

If not for CloudFlare and its CAPTCHA, there would be an over-analysis of poems here. As it stands, however, feedback will have to wait - at least until the system sorts itself out.

Another draft. Revisions local and otherwise likely - I may turn it inside out - but here I wanted to play with color, see what came.
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Expression with knives

This arm poised on knife’s edge—
a canvas not to hack
or to slash,
but to trace:
Follow the green
ley lines as a pilgrim would,
through earthen shades of
adipose yellow and capillary pink,
past the bends, the forks, to the stem
of the river:
no suicide notes
or cryptic messages.
Just
this red, rising
like seaweed in the tub,
the pain over pain.