... I try

when clarity comes
It seems to do away with my best logic
I always thought clarity would reinforce practicality
But it doesn't
Clarity speaks truth to you whether you like it or not
It says to me “you are linked"
And I think of the great expanse between you and I
Between this earth and these stars
and I am humbled but saddened that you are not here

I compose poetry on the subway
on my phone

People think I am texting

I think they are texting
Maybe they are writing poetry, too

It started as the smallest of seeds,
it sprouted in the corner of the garden alone
outside the periphery of the herbaceous border
its roots deep and moist
with the desire to grow

The soil ends at my skin
How could any other human being not be found
amongst the traversed path of that tie
You tell me where they begin
and I end
and I will place the ground’s earth into your hands
and kindly smile at you
There we will become two kids
standing over the blacktop in our neighborhood playground
awing terra firma

There is so much beauty around
that I crack open all the time
let its’ light loveliness fill me
For if not in this lifetime when
when will the flowers sing to me ?

I reached a point where I felt “I can’t”
but you know
I found that “I can’t” isn’t a wall.
There is a space after “I can’t”.

I don’t know how to describe it
but all of a sudden I just couldn’t cry anymore
and I wasn’t overwhelmed with anger anymore.
I just felt like I was done.
I was done mopping, burning up, and feeling bad.
So,I just started doing.

The sparrow's songs blossom like azaleas
until they  become an open chorus sung in rounds amongst the trees
ever circling and deepening
they remind me of what life is truly like when we venture back
away from the illusion of thoughts

I touch the insects bites
that have swollen up
and become bumps
on my right arm

I run my middle and index fingertips
over them and trace the Summer Triangle: Vega, Deneb, and Altair

I think to myself
It’s July, I should be able to walk outside at night and see them shine brightly in the sky

Little specks of flora
how they bloom over every rock
and color pink and white the *****
and the cervical mucus

i cannot move the clouds, cannot clean your perception nor open the window’s curtains: you chose the best narrative to keep me in shadow– in life there are tragedies, thing we ache for that the arc of our lives will not give.

yes, that is me on an overcast day under the shadow of your weather, where you have put me in our mind

but as soon as I exit your set; I am the sun

You emerge from the summer’s heat
sun kissed–
the short warm nights
and the long hours of daylight
have given you ample time
to spread your toes and your thoughts over the grass
Soon, it will be solstice
And the sun will command the skies

the sun and Curicaueri watch a small phoenix falling to the ground
and they know she is dying and they know she will be strong
and they know she will burn

                                                     ...

the sun is bright and enough for me to see
the broken pieces on the floor their sharp edges glistening

...and slowly to the chirping of the birds, I begin to pick them up
I believe I can melt these pieces
and use them to make a beautiful stain glass window

in this lifetime I will make something of beauty
from all the wretched & unkind things
from everything that left me in pieces

the sun is bright and enough for me to see, I shine
even when scattered and left unwanted
when  no longer deemed useful
Bright enough for me to smile while picking up the shards
enough for me to see myself as worthy of being thrown into the fire
and being remolded

                                                  ...

­the sun and Curicaueri watch a small phoenix fall to the ground
and they know she is dying and they know she is strong
and they know she is burning
incinerating slowly with her flesh and fears all around her
as the flames rise they know she is closer to life than she has ever been before, so they wait for her patiently
                                                  ...
t­here from the distance  the sun and  Curicaueri watch over her
as does the wind, the brooks and the hidden moon

My heart’s breath smells of  life and of sun
in the days when heat is inhaled
The zephyr inside refreshes my existence

Outside the moon, moon
is in glare

Today Lorca dies again
and the mantle covers more than one face
in more than one country
under this same moon
We live

Today in front of the monitor, the desire to have Kaufman's ships set sail
exists deeply in the sea of ​​our collective consciousness

In your heart exists a breath and a life with a sun.
The zephyr moves ships.  
It doesn't matter if the moon, moon rises

Let me tell you of how frequently I sit wishing you well. Of how many times, I calm my heart when it starts to race, too fast. Of how deeply, I wish to be by your side. I want to take walks with you during the golden hour.

When I see the sun race over my
parent’s house and set. I know daylight is on its way to greet you–and I smile at the thought.

There is nothing wrong with being sweet
When all the grass around dries up and the harvest is sour
it is the sweetness that restores
what was perceived long ago as lost

The second time, you took out a glass cup, you took out the only glass cup left in your kitchen cabinet. For the second time, you  poured into another glass cup your hot tea and again saw the crystal crack and give way to a tiny flood. The first time should of been enough, but somehow a second time was needed to gain a proper understanding of what entails care.

The things we dare to do are magnificent no matter
how insignificant they may be to others

The things we dare to do
are magnificent
as simple and as noble
as opening our hands

risking blistered feet and the very possibility
of being hurled to the cold floor of our own cynicism
but there
where hurt and the outline of despair arise
the sun still seems to make its trajectory across the sky

and although nothing seems in place, the things we dare to do quietly are in awe of us
as we gather all our hanging parts, and lift our heads

The thought of you
disarms me

I do still love you
this mushy heart
this messy hair
and these small pointy lips
just long to talk to you

“When we are trees are we dead?” my niece says
“no, we are trees” my little nephew tells
me over video chat
I smile so deeply that I shatter passed the notions of “ me and tree” and I wish my life as a tree offers as much shade from the harsh sun as I hope my life as a human does until there is no sun, no we and we are one

the flower blooms towards the sun
the coral reef becomes the home of the little fish
the path the water threads as it makes its way to the sea becomes the drinking source for all creatures below
all things show their love and appreciation
all things give, in one way or another  
when they ask me about you
I have to pause

how do you show care and appreciation ?
what’s your way?
I am eager to know the ways you bend
and soften
the ways you freely give
curious about your hair in the dark
or your hand holding mine in the light
patient and curious to know you
and the way you love

I have the urge to buy a glittery pink jacket and a turquoise hat
wear one personality and then wear the next
loosen up the ego

My early birthday gift was a plane ticket
in your direction, the North Pacific Current will carry me there.

The world does not revolve around me
this earth
this multitude of people
must be nourished too
Other stories
other ways of living
so why do I deserve to have it my way


The simple answer is because everyone deserves a chance at true happiness

Be well, see today and pick up the freshness
of the day with the scent of  blowing lilac
trees and if they has lost their fragrant  flowers then touch the trunk

walk until your pace gets faster and find your body gliding, a morning or evening run set to your pace

bend in yourself what needs to be bended
you are the surgeon and the medicine man
mend what needs to mended

Let the wind whisper to you and let the earth hold you. Go out!

There a is wound...

–and the salt over it  
and four hundred years suspended over us
and tired hands that keep laying brick for tomorrow

and hymnals passed down to give strength
and blood flowing as naturally from the bodies of men as it does from the bodies of women  
and silence that is wise telling us this is wrong –one man's knee over another man's neck
and justice screaming from the window at its home
that its real name is "love"–

and we must heal it.

what song can a bell make
that does not pierce the heart

(what melody can I sing when love entangles me to form
music does not need to be seen, so why do I gulp at the thought of their deaths)

For L

You were wild. They were not too keen of wild womyn and less of wild girls. I was rather reserved. Quiet but always strong willed.

If I said I would come, you knew I would show up
And you, your sister and your mother loved me
–and I you

the first time I moved away you came to help me pack
I kept the picture we took on that day  
Your short purple hair and my frizzy locks
Everytime I am home you embrace with so much love I forget time has passed

For KJE
She is wild too. they tell her to love someone else and she says no. While riding her  bike she came to the realization that loving another womyn, and choosing to spend her life with her was testament enough that she was “not so bad”. She could have chose  something easier, something as simple as marrying a man. But she chose to live in the land of the morning calm and ride her bike though mangwon- do with her love

For NL
She is the quiet kind of wild, closer to mine. She does not talk much but she feels the world as if it were an extension of her. Her long golden hair. Her love of animals and her gentleness soften anyone in the vicinity. Countless times I have been in awe of her depth. I swim there with her and she swims there with me. We grow expanding like two foam growing capsule lizards. Who knows how much we will grow but we are willing to find out

For AC
Car rides, records stores and synchronized dancing to “Yo La Tengo” running through sprinklers in the middle of the night
swimming
concerts and sketching, Co-op sandwiches and poetry readings
She call herself a full time goblin. She embraces what others think makes her un lady like and she is not apologetic for being who she is–a force of nature

For DR
You are firm. You are the kind of woman trees envy. The kind that is rooted and grows evermore into her own beauty. When you dance your eyes light up and you giggle and sway your branches.

“That is how they are”
they are? That is how we are if we had been raised here
that is how we are if we would of had their upbringing that is we

there is no “they” ...” they” allows you to be a selective towards which people you care about
turning on and off your heart and compassion

They only try when someone else wants you. When I want to sit next to you, they pick up the slack and show more love. You become like a fish in a pond they isolated you in. Then, they proceed to reel you in year after year. Every time they sense another they throw in more bread crumbs and you swim with hope that dethrones your gut. But  if they were sitting there in same house as you suffered without offering to lead you to the ocean do you think these love bomb crumbs they start to sprinkle into the water make up for more than a decade in the pond of never good enough,  never pious enough, never quite right as you are so they have to change you? Does it make up for all that sorrow of not being who you truly are?

They say there is no beauty there
but I want to challenge them
tell them “ here, let me lend you my eyes”
they say I do not see reality
but they do not understand that what we push for becomes reality

They think people should domesticated with culture. They think that someone having the audacity to be who relax and be natural to be who they are is wild. They think wild is nature and  they think everything will fall to pieces of it left to be wild and natural,but the flowers still bloom and spring still comes in harmony accomplishing it all
–no chaos, balance–
that is the way through balance

( the mind cannot take you there)

After sitting and pacing for a long time
after going for a walk and pondering if to sink into sadness, longing, anger or defeat, I found all of these unfitting, and so I sat on the aluminum steps of a slide in the middle of a playground full of love. For what, for you.

Don’t laugh at me. But I do love you, and I want you to be happy.big ole smiley face emoji with teeth sticking out joyful, blissed out happy.😁
I love you even if your life includes me or excludes me either way I must honestly confess that wish you always well.


2.
May you always be full
of dreams and passion
                    and the courage to be what you are which is nothing short beautiful.

May you not overthink it; You are
a beautiful soulful human being.
                      Just breathe it in, let it soak
like water into you,
When you’re driving alone or accompanied on streets or in the evening on a Friday or Saturday night with the highway lines stretches before you, just remember :a beautiful soul abides in you

I have started saying "I don't know"
when they ask on what page it's on
Although I know, I have begun not answering
question and letting silence take to the air
but I know the response,  mentors
friends and life have so kindly given to me
the letter with the answers, I don't want to pretend
to be dull-witted--I do know
it's all blood and scrapes and great heaps of
love to know, not haughtiness --

We should see each and think brother, sister– earthly kin.

Love our kin so deeply that when they survive
the unkind acts that do unfold
in life we sit with them and cry

May we love our kin so deeply we become even more courageous and emboldened
to stand in the door way if they wish to seek revenge

Walk them through their pain
to understand their hate and sorrow because the wick of  hatred will burn them distort & corrode them burying
the thread between the world and them melting away
their peace–their heaven on earth surrendered
if they walk through that door

the stitchery of the past lifts off
and circles like Angeles the crown of my head
I follow the morning and
I peek into a 9:00 am mass to listen to prayers. I try to find my grandmother so I look at the same row she would sit in. In a different city, in a different church, in another bench but instinctively look at the third row on the right. There is an other women bowing like the others as the priest cues with his words. She is not my grandmother. They are not my grandmothers but they are someone else’s   If I had opened my eyes here
on a hilll in Haebangchon as did
my dear friend 15 years my senior
Then one of them might know my name
but they smile as if they do

There is no better breath
than the breathe
I breathe now

This fragile mass
sways through this living
loves through this living
moves guided by your light
you hold me up
in the memory of every cell
that gives me form

I could carry two suns on my back
and walk across the galaxies tread the universe
I am your dream of life

this heap of words is soft
like old sweaters piled up
warm only where my body presses into it and molds
valleys of fabric and wrinkles of textile undulating
the shape of my hope
curving the scent of far waters
like a fountain spouting out and quenching
my mind with stillness
not far
but here in my palm
I hold patience

May the mind quiet
drift off
as the body does need sleep
and there is no need to hang  more weight
on a passing thought

My name short was uttered with reluctance in a room in which I was not in. Why ?

I wake up in the morning, and I understand why.

She would take me horse back riding through her small ranch and through town.

I remember the way men would look at her riding
my aunt’s quiet composed tough exterior
as her horse galloped through town
she was unimpaired & confident
her dad had taken her riding since small

My grandfather believed a women should be strong just as worthy and just as capable as any man
and that was unheard of in small village
but he was older when he had her and he had made enough mistakes to be wiser
a better father the second time around
and by the time
I came to be
he was soaked in spirit and soul
and he told me
to keep digging within that
that’s where I would find my treasure





He was right
My aunt and I
reek of love and it because he was


he was flawed
he was humble
And he took responsibility for how he was

and I do not want to forget him
I keep the picture of him and I
him and his white loose shirt
me and my old Led Zeppelin t-shirt

It comes in waves
the sorrow, but I have sailed those waters
many times before

It comes and I steer
despite the hard winds calling me by name
like they do with many others
out on the high seas

It comes,
this storm in my direction
and I am far from home
but I chose the boat and I took the risk
and still, I would not change a thing

I took a leap of courage and I took a leap of faith
and left fear and left pride  
for my dream was worth the risk of shipwreck
and these tides of sorrow that come and go

Time became too painful so I rid myself of it
took its coat and hat from the rack and walked it out the door