Posts Categorized: Poems and Such

Mon Histoire

 

Multilinguisme est le meilleur cadeau
qu’un enfant peut recevoir
pendant les années formatrices

J’aurais dû parler le français et le suédois
comme mes principales langues familiales

J’aurais dû, mais
le déni de langue de mes ancêtres a traduit par
un monde fermé dépourvu de capacité à communiquer

J’aurais dû, mais
la pression de l’homogénéité
anéantit la langue maternelle des citoyens américains
génération par génération

Mon arrière-grand-père franco-canadien
et mes arrière-arrière-grands-parents suédois
étaient les immigrants les plus récents
qui cherchaient une opportunité
dans le mythique rêve américain

Je suis un Erickson paternel

Ma grand-mere n’apprenait pas ses sons suédois
car ses parents et ses grand-parents ont jugé
être en sécurité pour s’adapter

Ma grand-mère, effacée de Suède,
a marié
mon grand-père, le fils d’un évadé Canadien

Je suis un Longe paternel

puis
elle a légalement ajouté l’accent aigu
en héritage pour mon père

qui est devenu un Longé

Elle espérait que cela inspirerait
moins de mauvaises prononciations
d’un beau nom de famille français

Malheureusement
l’accent n’a fait qu’ajouter
de la confusion à un système
exclusivement anglais

La pression des États-Unis
pour une langue singulière
opprime et supprime
maintenant mon inclination à rêver
dans un nouveau tonalité

J’ai toujours senti les échos français en moi

La langue flotte
sa résonance et sa percussion
comme un colibri
en remuant l’air

Longe (nom) : corde, lanière

Mes lignées ancestrales de France et de Suède
ont été dépassées par la fierté enracinée au plus profond
des sols de la Révolution américaine
paradoxalement anglaise

Longé (passé composé de la verbe longer) : aller le long de

Comme c’est ironique d’être marqué
comme quelqu’un
qui suivait
qui allait
qui roulait
la longueur de l’itinéraire assigné

se rendre complice de…

Seul un sous-ensemble de personnes pâles
sur une petite île
était destiné à maintenir l’anglais

Mais il s’est manifesté dans le monde entier
grâce à la colonisation, au génocide
et à une extraction culturelle plus poussée

L’homogénéité n’est pas naturelle

On ne le trouverait nulle part
dans le réseau interdépendant complexe
et dynamique de cette planète
des âmes
de la végétation
des éléments

Notre société humaine, elle aussi
bénéficie de la diversité en équilibre

Poussez quoi que ce soit trop loin de chaque côté
forcer la singularité là où elle n’a pas besoin d’exister
et la vie intelligente exige à s’égaliser

En apprenant le français, je découvre
la racine pivotante sous tant
de mots et de phrases en anglais

Je tire et creuse, creuse et tire

Je suis une ligne à l’autre
chacun empêtré à chaque intersection

J’aurais dû parler le français, mais
c’est le gâchis actuel
de ma lignée atrophiée au langage.

 

 

Best Part of Waking Up

A cup of coffee feels right even when it tastes like a dirty dish. Wafts of earth emit from the dark crumbs before I submerge them in a soupy soak. This pour-over extracts, ounce by ounce, alertness and cognition. Gravity leeches flavor and function from the floating aroma.

A cup of coffee always feels true for a couple of cold hands with purple fingernails, no matter the hour or caffeine level. It’s a learned measure of comfort once associated with great-grandparents and an owl painted on a 1960s mug. I never expected coffee to adhere to my own morning routine like the ringed stain permanently visible within the owl’s cranium.

A cup of coffee feels necessary now, despite the tea packets’ yearning for a turn of their own, for a drinker who grasps at verbal pathways once trod yet (temporarily?) vanished. That betrayal of confusion and cloudiness is too baffling to comprehend. Someday this cup of coffee will reveal its quaffer’s grounded spark.

One moment, two versions

1. the experience, as a free-write dictation in December 2015

5 am sunrise in Napier:

The horizon flips to keep the night sky in the ocean. The sorbet lining between shades of blue. Birds chattering like 50 alarm clocks sounding at once, overlapped and enthusiastic. Dawn is so far underway that only one star/planet is visible despite my strained search of the clear sky. Two. I thought the first was an airplane. One in the east, one directly opposite in the west. The east star looks like two linked together, which I vaguely remember from either the Sydney observatory or my friend’s telescope.

The dark red amber transitions to gold, revealing a ship in the distance. It’s just the birds, ocean, trees and pathway, and myself. This is my morning ice cream, crisp to the touch. A bicyclist chirps “Morning!” as he passes in a whip of wind.

An enormous log lay beached on the sand. Did the ocean toil all night to birth you there? The waves gently lap and kiss you, to bid farewell after a tumultuous separation.

Gold brightens further to yellow. The clouded horizon softens and blurs, the cloud wisps above sharpen in contrast, cotton candy striped in orange-pink-blue. Impatiently patient. The log is a prehistoric jaw curved upward with a great warthog tooth.

The west planet now barely detected; the eastward sisters shine through bubblegum candy floss. Another greeter of dawn walks the footpath. My form is further exposed in the light: bare feet shoved into untied shoes, baggy pajama pants, ski coat, haphazard scarf. My wild nest of hair untouched by smoothing eyes or fingers after the pillow worked her night shift.

Bubblegum taffy evolves to neon orange, soft cotton of the baby blue blanket further beyond. The horizon light pales, stripping itself of depth and character. The whiteness/witness of the pastel yellow bores. Yawn. How ordinary.

I am a mountain on these black pebbles. Firmly planted and aligned, growing every breath. Tall with light and energy, casting shadows around my periphery. The she-ocean crashed along my toes, tickling to entice me away from my foothold. The foamy sirens eager and clambering for their mother to take me for herself.

A red belly grows behind the skirt of smog, the glowing orb pushing its way up from the golden-lit water at the extreme edge of the earth’s end. Then it’s lost again in thick congestion. The neon cotton bleached white in the wake of approaching sun, paled and perhaps by fear or apprehension, or cowering in reverence.

Ah, this is the bulbous glow that stretches now beyond the reflected windows, over the deco rooftops. A concentrated light forms backstage, ready for the 5-minute call.

The clouds deceived. Morning glow emerges as a surprise, catching the earthly circle off guard. The radiance is all colors at once, so intense only short glances will keep your irises intact. What a grand entrance. Swift and steadily, as if the pulleys were freshly tested and mended for this grand spectacle. Hello, Sun. Good morning. Your rays push blush to my face, carve contours on my outer layers. It won’t be long now, for you to suspend for another seven hours, leaping higher across the convex arch. I’ll see you then. Now I go, return to the woven blankets and threadbare bedding. Tell your night’s journeys to the ocean; she’s eager for company.

2. shaped into poetry or lyrics in April 2020

NAPIER’S FIVE A.M.

Multitudinous avian alarms chime and peal. The main holds the night sky in a flipped horizon.

Sorbet slices between shades of blue. This is my morning ice cream, crisp to the touch.

Deep red amber kneads to gold.

An enormous log lay in the surf. Did the sea toil all night to birth you there?

Her waves gently lap and kiss you, to bid farewell after a tumultuous separation, your prehistoric drift jaw curved into a giant warthog tooth.

Gold brightens to pale yellow.

The clouded skyline softens, blurs while wisps sharpen, cotton candy stripes canary-orange-pink.

Impatiently patient, shining on my wild nest of hair untouched by smoothing eyes following the pillow’s night shift.

Neon orange shifts to bubblegum taffy.

Shadow mountains cast on beach pebbles, firmly planted and aligned.

Skyline pales and strips its depth and character.

Soft baby blues beyond.

She-ocean crashes toward my toes, tickling, enticing me from this foothold; foamy sirens eager and clambering for their mother to take me for her own.

A red belly grows from within smog’s skirt, the glowing orb pushing its way up out of the earth’s extreme edge.

Ah, this is the bulbous irradiance stretching now beyond reflections, over the deco rooftops. What a grand entrance.

Swiftly and steadily, rising true, as if his roped pulleys were freshly tested and mended for this canorous spectacle.

Hello, Sun; good morning. Your rays blush my apples, carve contours in my creases.

Your suspense will expire, leaping higher across the convex arch.

Sing your night’s journey to the sea; she welcomes your camaraderie.

The storm…

…is upon us
Tears precipitate
in grief and gladness
millions of souls
echo the fury

Generations snap to attention
The uprising
is striking
jolting into focus, to see
what is essential, what is
valuable, what is equitable

Wind forces open
room for new fires to ignite,
fresh oxygen at the ready.
Inevitable stages:
treaties and negotiations
that mock progress and intelligence,
denying lived experience, and
more denials of lived experience
more denials of lived experience
more denials of lived experience
more denials of lived experience
proof branded as true scars

At this moment
finally
we fight for the benefit of everyone
the fight for peaceful treatment of Black bodies
is a fight for peace within white bodies
Humanity is fed up
with the divisiveness
of racism and white supremacy
That air is poisonous,
like the rising heat of our global crisis

Rock the boat, crack the hull
release the tides
swarming for tangible freedom

Starving severs patience
Have you ever been so h-ANGRY?
Change is on the menu

It’s one fight for all
that is loving and plentiful: life
the fight against greed, corruption, violence, dis-ease,
theft of time, energy, livelihoods,
looting, pillaging, exploitation
of autonomies and resources

Demonstrate whose lives you render dear,
whose light you know to be luminous.
Hearts are bursting open
allowing the pain to penetrate
and resuscitate
sense

For universal well-being
the balm prescribes a new pulse,
to harmonize
with resounding drums
once clattering in opposition,
now in opportunity, hammering
ancestral longing, and clapping
in new music, revolutionary rhythms

Pledge your allegiance
place your window signs
stand with the majority:
the people of color, the global majority,
the elders of land protection,
the creators,
the direct production workers,
the cultures smothered barely recognizable
by melting pots

The thunder baptizes
the blessed
flames
fulfilling destinies
centuries of oppression
getting what’s due
today

This is the moment
— in movement —
after hundreds of years’ messages
“Wait for it” and “When the time is right” or
“Later…”
of promises emptied

Redraw the root of power & live
Life, abundant with gifts, balancing
the great ideals: liberty & pursuit of happiness
not at the cost of another being’s existence

Life isn’t a zero-sum game.
Fabrication of the negative-to-one creates only
Haves and Have-Nots

Capitalist deception spins myth
around scarcity & competition,
making us peck at each other rather
than the rooster (that cock of bull)
manipulating smoke & mirrors

How dare we willingly believe
and throw our wealth of self
to those who sit heavily upon our labor,
who hoard and claim that nothing’s left
to go around, save the discard scraps & bones
eat up

Pervasive fears
feeding fear
and untruths unfold
insipidly slithering, scale by scale

Old placations lose their grip
on wild, fuming lightning

When bus drivers refuse to transport cops & their arrestees
when the people who truly run society uniformly & unilaterally
take ownership of their sovereignty and
make the decision to interrupt the machine,
those who think they own & operate that society look really foolish —
with somewhere to go and no way to get there

An outdated handshake
wove the reluctant agreement
a bond, unrequested
and manufactured
for protection in trade of work, but
the contract nullifies
when their promise
is indeed slaughter,
only a pretense on guard
of white “from” Black
when the reverse is necessary

Patriarchy chips away significance
dents and bends the truth
into gnarled roots of control
by violent elimination

Let’s buck the insistence
that some lives are second-rate, at best
of a duty to cower and kowtow
to a false sense of superiority
and insecurity masked as purity

One crises layered upon another,
holding isolation in new light —
it’s all the same fight for justice;
everyone trod upon
fights for the same future:
another day on this planet
Life choosing Life
in times of chaos and upheaval
it’s coming; it’s happening

(and where are the imprisoned in all this clatter? Are they locked down by the watchmen, for lest they drink of the rage waging war on the corrupt police state of this country, and create an uprising of their own, to destroy the cage doors once and for all?)

Time to rip up the rules
written for us, not by
or on behalf of us

We vibrate, breathing
into our instrumental essence
for this storm.

Reparations must be made
for us to reconnect.
After so many repeat inflictions, restrictions,
invasions of boundaries,
healing requires honest and thorough action:
every defined and refined proclamation,
proven in motion.

Blazes sweep through, so we look to the horizon for elements of rebirth and renewal

for return to the tree of
knowledge with open curiosity, with hearts forgiven
and instead bejeweled by beams of compassionate clarity.

Time to paint your door frames:
signify your support
sign your contract
in the cause and effect
we’re fighting for
peace, and
violence is the only language
understood by oppressive power

Today’s fight is to redesign equality,
on the heels of barricades and obstacles
forcing flight from foes,
and place power in the hands of the people
where it’s belonged this entire time,
yet has long been robbed & extorted

This storm erodes every past provision, and
draws green trenches in the soil for us to imagine anew
Permeate, refresh, rejuvenate;
The environmental fight is the people’s fight is the right fight
Hurry to this space before we outrun and overwork the pace of earth to tread

Hold us sodden in stillness and self-reflection
to see and be seen exactly as we are:
flaws, mistakes, regrets, injustice, hurts, monsters, injuries…
Wholeness of selves
best lit from the shadows
of creation’s image;
which warrants a little more care and effort
in listening
for signals of distress

The storm is upon us —
for a thorough drench of possibility,
nourishment, reprieve,
exaltation, and exhalation.

Time to improve the rules
without chokehold trade-offs
It’s completely possible to have
every essential met and supported by
and within the society.

Grasp hands, link into unbreakable
chains of universal liberation–
when one is free, we’re all free
from the bondage of suffering
That celebration is ours to share

We’re supposed to be together
as accomplices
to survive and thrive
in life’s mundane profundity

Let us traverse, two by two billion,
arm in arm, united as one,
repairing the brokenness of the original sin:
the kidnapping of innocence

Mend the pernicious wounds with a deafening demand for justice.
Flip the switch.
Create the effects.

We are the storm
the collective deluge in countless drops
pounding the pavement and prairies
from sea to shining sea
and then some

Roar, clap, echo
the demands of a people for their freedom
once hung to dry
let the flag fly
drenched in this monsoon of clasped hands
raise the call
announce the arrival
of the great tempestuous reckoning so
we may revel within an unsuppressed, non-oppressed
undivided resonance
forevermore.

Musings of a Wanderer

I lift my gaze from the sidewalk to lock eyes with a beautiful, petite red-headed baby who’s maybe five or six months old.

From the bundled confines of the stroller, their entire tiny face stretched into a bright smile: toothless mouth agape, brows raised high.

We simultaneously exchange an inaudible, “Wow!”

The Story of Tonight

YHA Wellington

 

“What were you showing our young American friend?” my Kiwi hostel roommate Linda asks my Dutch bunkmate Marian in a scathing tone with a sideways glance. She’s trying to change the subject and reinsert herself in this accidental trio, a fellowship of traveling artists of varied disciplines. Linda sips from her latest mug of wine while Marian and I silently negotiate how to work together as allies. We sense that she hasn’t sufficiently finished with her share of the conversation.

I’d seen Linda alone in our four-bed dorm a few times throughout the past five days, perched with her back to the room and her feet up against the window, a mug within reach on the sill. She’d laugh obnoxiously at her favorite YouTube videos or other loud phone-sourced entertainments. I’d quickly learned that she warms to attention and screeches at disdain.

Linda appears irritated that we’ve momentarily excluded her to revisit and wrap-up our private conversation, which had been interrupted moments earlier by Linda’s own grand entrance and announcement that she’d just walked out on a longtime friendship: “I’ve had a falling out with my Asian friend from Singapore!” It ended over an argument at dinner regarding whether Paris had changed. Linda said she “wasn’t trying to win,” per se.

Before Linda dramatically entered with a swath of wool cape and champagne hiccups, Marian had shown me a printed catalogue of her textile paintings. I’d connected with Marian almost immediately, after an initial day of gauging her distant niceties which she later admitted to, explaining that it takes her a couple days to truly converse with hostel roommates because they’re just strangers she might never see again. Per Marian’s prescription, our fourth roommate was often absent or silently buried opposite me in her upper bunk; it was a frigid week and I suspect she was nursing a cold.

This evening, it’s just us three in the room, duking it out in an intense conversation about the state of the world. The intensity is facilitated, of course, by Linda. A quick sample of Linda’s gem one-liners: Giving thanks is what it’s all about. . . Argentine Tango is the only one. … What’s your inner passion? Your inner journey? … Far out! … We had the chance for self-sustainability, and we sold ourselves to China. … I wouldn’t dare ask for a refund. … America should fucking well mind their own business. France should — do you believe Bush blew up the twin towers?

To answer Linda’s present question, Marian politely offers her the catalogue, and she refuses it with a back-handed wave: “What would I do with it.” Marian asks Linda why her newly-broken friendship affects her so much, if Linda is in fact not sorry that she’s called it off forever. When Linda thinks, she turns her head over her right shoulder. “…Love, peace and joy,” she finally declares with her hands clasped.

Linda is a self-proclaimed “researcher of the heart.” “When you go into the heart,” she waxes, “it gets bigger and bigger. You see the city skyline, but that’s not reality. And you think, far out, how much more space can my heart…? When you go within, you want to burst in tears because there’s something you need to express.” I think I follow. She’s a heavily-buzzed, far more eccentric septuagenarian version of myself.

While Marian and I pack for our next day of travel, Linda goes on for her captive audience, reading passages from her Santiago guide book as if it’s beatnik poetry. Her head falls back, eyes wide, jaw open: “Far out!” She practices her posture for tango, arms clumsily swinging around for balance. She tips into the bars of the bunk bed. This woman, who’s researching the heart and her capacity to feel and “take-in the enormity of the world,” haughtily and unapologetically blames “the Arabs” who “cheated her of 10 Euros” because “they’re Muslim.” And this is the woman who thinks Gone with the Wind is an accurate account of how “slaves must’ve been treated well.” She enjoys talking in stream of consciousness, particularly about herself, and immediately forgets what she said a mere moment ago.

Exeunt. Out she goes. Marian and I take a breath. I have a chance to jot down a few more diamonds from the rough: I was so tired after ten kilometers, so I sat at a cafe and a voice said, “Have faith.” Faith is the answer. … Mustard seeds and mountains — I’m still trying to figure that out. … I have one fault, and it’s drinking too much wine.

The truth is, I agree with Linda on several subjects and levels of thought. There’s something about her manner and privilege, though, that turns me off. I see her through a gated fence, one that occasionally opens for tender moments, and quickly closes again when my lip curls in disgust at her blatant prejudice and lush qualities. Linda is deceptively poised and proper despite her display of wine-drunk contradictions and flamboyant gestures of attempted grace. She’s certainly a curious spectacle to behold. I have an empathetic taste for the dysfunctional family she briefly mentions: “I’m the one who flew. I’m the black sheep.” I feel sorry for her, too, and I’m in awe of her choice to exclusively travel and live in youth hostels for three (or more) years. That’s a long time to function as a socialite out of a suitcase, especially when one is quick to put people off the moment one opens her mouth.

Linda returns with a clean blue mug. Never mind the stack of collected red mugs on the desk, sticky with rings of dried wine. I field more of her blunt, abrasive questions about America, consistently followed by more ignorant assumptions based on her one-time reading of Gone with the Wind. It’s shocking to remember what little is taught to other countries’ schoolchildren about US history (and that’s true for the other way around), in addition to the humbling reminder that accurate and multi-perspective US history is scarcely taught even to US schoolchildren (based on the prevalence of biased books and lesson plans). I try not to voice my disgust in reaction to Linda’s poorly-informed opinions. She goes to the bottle again to top-up the petite mug.

The hostel’s fire alarm takes a turn to interrupt. Without a word, Linda instantly disappears. After about thirty minutes outside, while everyone huddles in the wind-tunnel of a driveway, I finally spot her darting to and fro among the college kids. When we three reconvene in our room, Linda explains, “I survived the earthquakes in Christchurch. You learn to take the essentials. Warm clothes and GO. I felt guilty for bolting and leaving you to be trapped in the elevator.” Marian and I exchange a subtle head tilt.

Marian embodies an admirable level of grace and compassion, particularly when Linda refocuses these vino-fueled eccentricities toward her. (Linda eventually tired of my lack of satisfactory participation). I detect Marian’s growing annoyance when Linda refills again and carries on for another forty-five minutes at least. By the time she’s reached the end of the bottle, Marian and I are clearly tucked in and ready to fall asleep. I catch a couple of Marian’s glances up to me as if to say “Is she real?” during Linda’s inexhaustible laps from the window (city lights) to the desk (last drops).

Linda is “overwhelmed by the world” and “the size of her heart,” yet she “doesn’t let the world into her heart.” NOW she’s speaking to me, the innermost me…except for that last bit about not allowing the world into her heart. I don’t know what she means by that. Then she asserts: “I’m not religious. Sickening.” I try not to spit-take my water at that surprising delivery. She exalts, “Even I go in a cathedral and stand agog.” I get a top-row view of her pageant-esque reenactment of cartoonish reverence between the bunk beds (transformed into miniature flying buttresses of Notre Dame). Linda deliberately turns to each of our four walls, one by one, to repeat a ritualistic display of encompassing arms and gaping mouth. She’s pleased with her performance and concludes, “Humans forget to look up.”

Before the resonance of her pithy observation fades into silence, Linda snaps off the light.

 

Cheers to you, Linda and Marian, wherever you are today. Cheers to a new year of wonder and compassion, connection and patience, inspiration and purpose. To more chance meetings. To new perspectives. What will you see?