"after all..."

after all that i've made
after all that i've lost
after all that i've miraculously won
there's still so little that i can offer you
except for a solitaire confession:
tonight
under sinking stars
i know nothing

i know not about your grace
nor about tearful faces, your outworn clothes
wind walks, and the sky in goblets to drink from
i know not about the morning star brushing your eyes

i know nothing
and i sacrifice so long wondering
until the day comes:
i wake up
with a want for electricity and torrents
in the alcoves of my skin
but i lack the fury in me
so i lean my head against my window
and wait and wait
for the light to come

this is life, they say
our floors are so full of crumpled time

i have to remind myself to
live suddenly
live suddenty and feel the motion again
i need to move i need to move
until i'm swallowed by another mid-autumn dream

but
i have a disobedient soul
who asks
with a tremble and a thirst
who are you?

"not in my words"

not in my words
but somewhere in the space between them
you'll find your name

maybe it's on this very page
you dive into the translucency of my words
like a sailor in the sky
don't let the wind
let you dissapear in the starry sea
don't go
without your name
these poems are songs without melodies
words with nothing
in between them

"i don't know what"

my tongue can't get enough of the abstract poetics
no don't get let go
of the reasons caught in the desperate drop down of words
look out below
gibberish will bounce up
a tower of babble
just listen for a moment
one day it'll be clear
i don't need to make sense
for you to understand me

"filled with songs"

there are times
when i'm too scared to turn on my discman
let all my songs do their beautiful dance
each note carries a weight
a dream
and the melodies flow through my ears
into my veins
and fill my heart with a beat
a music
a reminder
of the things i wish for
and they feel so much bigger than i can be
i'm left still
afraid of the songs' drifting unattainability

but there other times
when i turn the volume up so high
fill myself with songs and songs
until i can't even hear myself say
'let's rock"

[luca and jimmy, we had good ice cream.]

"to feel alive"

breathe
breathe because that's all i need to do to feel alive
i don't mean just the "unfeeling unthinking walking aimlessly again" alive
i mean ALIVE
the feverish leaps out of bed every morning
the shower songs echoing throughout the apartment
the torrents and typhoons in the things we say and do
the incendiary
the inflammable
the hot hot heat
of conversations over cereal
of swing dance smiles
of massages with a mission
you know what i mean: ALIVE
to sleep well every night
with silly thoughts
pulsing humming drifting
throughout every inch of the body
to wake up every morning shouting
listen world
today
it's just
you
me
a debate
a dare
a dance
and
let's do coffee and crossword puzzles later
let me feel alive alive alive
whistling haikus on hikes to class
wrestling the wind wherever it goes
wearing always eyes wide open as badges of courages
let me feel alive again
breathe
breathe because that's all i can do
until the moment
you give me life

"poem unsaid"

a poem calibrates our dreams
when a dream dies when a dream rises
a poem is here
a poem is here
beating against our chests scrambling up our throats
twisting turning trembling tumbling so tumultlously
until the words
are finally ready to break out
of our hesistating mouths

a poem is here
i don't say it
but
a poem is here
unsaid
twisting
turning
trembling
tumbling
as it calibrates
my dreams

[today was first general theatre rice meeting. it's so weird "directing" the group through the various game activities. i have to put my "game face" on and turn up my energy up up up. where do i get this energy anyway? do i pull it out of some magic Felix the Cat type bag somewhere in my soul? is this my hidden mutant superpower... to have seemingly unlimited energy at any given moment? because if it is, i'm a little dissapointed. i want the power to float. not to fly. to float.]

"When one man, for whatever reason, has the opportunity to lead an extrordinary life, he has no right to keep it to himself."

"huh"

i've been dreaming for a long long time


[i'm tipsy at ben and marques' place. dude. marq and i just spent, like, an hour laughing at ben's picture presentation screen saver. we're childish dummies. i might just sleep on the floor and crawl out of here sometime around dawn. nah. i miss my med. bed.]

"let's catch up"

i don't follow new year's resolutions. too limiting and ordered. i say, just go with the flow, trite, i admit, but that's how i feel. continue to push what i believe. do what i love. if i don't know what i love, just keep on doing what feels right until i do.

mom is out of town so i have the house to myself. i'm sharing it with my brother Jeremy and ol'An. it's a nice little living arragement. we all just be lazy together.

dope ass people are coming to LA this weekend: jimmy, sara, brian, kathy, amorette, and more. i really hope this TJ adventure works. i like adventures. if it doesn't work out, we'll just make other adventures.

i haven't been feeling myself lately. let me feel raging and quiet and bouncy and passionate and stretching and stammering and wild and dorky again. no. better yet. let me feel ready. let me feel ready even though i don't know what it is that i can do. feeling mellow is cool and all but the emo music is starting to bore me. let's rock out and throw out our break dance stances.

i read an interview with Spike Jonze today. he directed "Being John Malkovich." he seems really freaking cool. awkward and shy but hiding all these little secrets.

no poem from me tonight... ol' Bao Phi is the man and i'll let him speak instead

"can I afford
to deserve you?

Isn't it true
that the one thing history is afraid
of teaching all of us
is that no man
has ever deserved a woman?
Isn't it true
that men have only been lucky
or allowed?

And when it snows on the railroad tracks
under Chicago Avenue
when it snows on top of the parked car
above an alleycat whose globed pupils gleam green
from the headlights of a passing car
when it snows on top
of my neighbor's rusted barbeque grill
the brand name long faded off

and when it snows here
when it snows here
when it snows here
to teach us all
that no one
is above a blanket

won't I have your warm hand
and won't it be enough?"
- Bao Phi from "Ghetto Woo"