The wind in drift
the leaves rustling
The sounds of creeks
pouring like their water
into my ears

Here we are on the other side of the moat.
“Beware the lucid dreaming of the starved” they whisper

deep in the lagoon of your mind, cross the moat
this one is a wide ditch filled with empathy
This one is the one
the one you hardly cross beyond

“Some things are obvious” they whisper

“I guess we’re all crossing the lagoon”  I say

It is raining   and it is Christmas in L.A
the home       of paramount pictures  and the home        of skid row

Each drop multiples         heavy
like the narratives             given
to justify                             why
some deserve to be           out on the streets

on day like this when the water pours and seeps into their tents   bridges cannot hide or cover                         our collective apathy                           (shame) as we cross  
into the next decade    “i am not to blame
if he/ she / they            don’t have a home
what a shame.”

I am want to say many to you but I keep them in the corner of some obscure cloud of internet. There are some things I do not want to burden you with.
Some ideas that come and go and some that stay.
Some of them are foul
some are them are daring
all of them are human

I type words to help understand what I am feelings. Why I love, why I hurt, why reach for mending, why I need to keep changing my understanding of life, but sometimes I circle back to the same thoughts.

In the coursing hours of the night
when all thoughts sieze their cloaking chatter
I find the wholeness of myself
lilting the words "thank you"

with a cadence so simple
it feels innate
like the rising of the sun over our cityscape

In the sprawl, we both call home

the city sings in colors
what it couldn’t speak before

I hear the crooning,
the two soft syllables
every stranger finds in your name
every time you exchange a “Hello”
and I am immediately back
right next to you

I hold my knees and rest my head upon them
Then I begin to shift my weight back and forth
to slowly loosen my skin

Maybe if I take it off, this weight, these perception –I can come to clarity.

I to see clearly what you are here to teach me.

There is something sweet about the way nothing can take away your ability to create your inner climate

fear arrives,  hold it and then release it  
anxiety knocks, call into the house by its name
and then send it off

Hope, feel it in your heart
and let it expand

You, You pick how sunny it is.
You pick the wind temperature
and what plants are in season.

Nothing outside lays claim to anything inside. Release the bad so that
from below the warmth can peer through the veil of victimhood and you can see that everything  you dream of is still in your reach

No delay is infinite
All things come with time, you decide how patient you will be

I pull back the first layer
carefully, making sure not to be harsh

I pull back further
until this layer comes off

one by one
until I am no longer naked
but clothed by it all

One of my mother's best friends lost her mother.  She told us she would have risked the flight home but would have been quarantined for 14 days, and thus she would have still missed the funeral. Instead, she'd hold a service at a local Buddist temple in Long Beach, where the monks could help move her mother to the next stage.

...
We drove 20 minutes on the 710 Hwy to the temple. We pulled into the parking lot, walked to the entrance, took off our shoes, and then proceeded to look for her among the mid-sized crowd.

...
We met eye to eye and exchange greetings. Her slender frame and thin arms joined ours as we embraced.    

Simply, nothing could be said. Silence. No words from my mouth.
I could not think of a sentence that could alleviate her sorrow or could raise the landlocked wings of the jetplane she couldn't take.

...
My friend's mother is strong; a passing stranger on the street could easily mistake her petiteness for fragility, but as she walked back and forth aiding the monks and helping the staff at the temple prepare the food –her strides told you otherwise. It was clear that she mustered all her strength and kept it on her like a coat completing task after task. Someone else that might have kept their face stoic or pushed it all down, but she allowed herself to be all four seasons,as she continued to make her way through the temple.

...
White taped 'X''s spaced six-feet-apart over the carpet told you where to sit; we inclined our head and prayed, hoping the intention of our words would coalesce with theirs; that our Spanish could shed its cultural coat and join the energy of their prayers in Khmer.

codex painter
have your hands rusted
is this world not  as vivid
as the one centuries ago
the one
that bore the same tint,
rich in intent to serve,
to devotedly work
head inclined
over the flaming light
and under the celestial stars

pictograms
are what I now reach for
from the vessels tucked behind my ears
from the smell of copper
and the tastes of adobe pots,
simmering with memories,
to the corneas anchoring my vision

because I must have a vision
the "it" becomes what we intend
and I intend "it"

give me your codices
unfold the fibers of the agave plant
and let me paint again
this world
larger
this lifetime kinder
for I have always been a scribe and
a painter
and my heart rejoices in service
to an existence expanding
to meet itself in the eyes of all
who I dare draw

Tectonic plates of memory crash
close to the filament of a blooming
rose that sits with its three sisters over
over the midnight flora, as I prepare
to rest my head over a pillow they collide

My mother would always argue with me. “Why can’t you look nice” “here wear this”

I would smile and wear her dresses with black combat boots. My dad would always laugh.

Bickering. We bickered always over that. She would utter “you are a locked combination box
whose combination I cannot find”
then she’d proceed to laugh and let me out the door with my black lace up shoes.

Aveces mi corazón cómo un cometa
sale de mi pecho y se desplaza con amor

sobre tu estancia temporaria
con tanta alegría que se

que el vivir es la jornada del verbo amar

We chew over a small wooden table
Chew bell peppers and drink old fermented tea
wonder how many more breathe until the stomach stiffens in regret and says
no more to all the veggies we must eat before they spoil in our fridge

We chew the small thoughts and the big bad memories tucked in the thinnest most transparent of thoughts
so translucent it took us most of our  lives to recognize them as just thoughts painting boxes, stacked to create an obstacle

We chew playing dalgona with our minds
trying to keep the only the portion of through a we want.

We chew and concentrate and then there are no thoughts, just the veggies I stir fried to sweet from the wild flower honey

Your sentiments are as sweet as confections
that I lick my fingers just to make sure not a single crumb of it
goes unattended by these languid taste buds
which my mouth has engendered to be critics of flavor.
Each word proves sugary
and each phrase seems to be dripped in agave syrup
making you a confectionist by heart.

correct all the mistyped words
with correction tape
bestow upon me the click of the roller as you turn it
with volition
yield me the appropriate inches
of mental space -margins
as I type a new year of life away on an eternal canvas
let me place them as numbers over a birthday cake
so that all the thoughts are eaten by the white space over  a rainbow sprinkled cake

I ate fire
and I swam with it
in my belly splashing
my arms around

beneath my feet
the ancientness
of dirt called
for the wind
that once helped
cool the magma
that became long
stretches of continents

(The firm rock under
my floating forehead)

“Tomorrow I will wake up and cry out of joy or sorrow when I check the election results”
“Tomorrow morning I am going to cry”
“It’s so close”
“It will be interesting to see the voting demographics“
“It will be too close to call”
“Poles close at 9:00pm “
“We won’t know tomorrow. They have to count the mail in ballots”
“Let’s not stress ourselves thinking about it”
“I know, but I just wish it wasn’t”
“I don’t know”
“I wouldn’t be surprised anymore”

curls that unravel and some that remain wavy unable to coil expansively over the field of hair follicles stretching across my cranium

Has there ever been a desert this wide
and hands as dry as mine
my feet are calloused but still keeping on route
nights of anticipation are betrayed by the rising over dry ground on the next day
nowhere near the destination

In the absence of water
sadness is beginning to fill my mouth
and in the heat, the mirages start to take human form
they speak to me of the treacheries of time
and the intervals of fate

am I, too far to know
or am I willfully bind
no, I close my eyes and I hear
the low voice
propelling my limbs onward
through the haze

Has a desert been this long
has it caused any other such an arduous
and throat-knotted journey with self-designated phlegmatic feet  

I thread forward with my two palms placed over my heart
And I speak to it “if this desert takes my mind, let it at least not take you and the hope that lingers in your chamber”

They pick circular crowns of flowers
recalling their loved ones’ favorite colors and their quirky inclinations to dress using a certain shade of green or purple.

Lulu died as a baby so, her mom,
my aunt Hermelinda and Lulu’s younger sister Licha add her to the list of people that need floral crowns while counting relatives on their fingers.

Generations of loved ones equate to my small statured aunt, taking multiple trips from the florists’ shop to her car.

the full moon is a fresh cut catalina
mariposa lily that you placed in a vase
next to your virgencita de guadalupe
(the one you hung by my little bed, I'd yell
when you'd ask me to dust off stuff)

in the childhood  blanket of my dreams, the inquiry glittered

I could never put into words until now
the warm sensation of menstrual blood trickling down my hand
or the smell of dried blood stuck to public hair
and how every time I walked passed the butchers or deli department at the local grocery store
I could recognize the smell of blood dripping from tissue left on white sheets displaying the cuts of meat
sheets the same color as the toilet paper I use every month
to examine the clumps of the ****** that flow downwards
to be born life-less much like a flank stake behind the glass case

Your smile warms me.
But I simply tell you I like it
“it looks good on you”

I write you sonnets and free form verse
where in my mind’s eye you are present
and well within reach
until I can come and sit by your side the photographs
and the 15 mb are the closests I get

I want to turn my head and catch  you grinning
at the daily happenings of life
I want to figure out what things slowly weave joy onto your arms
so that I can appreciate them, too

I sit with my feet dangling into a circle
whose edge I rest on
as if it were a window sill.

From here the earth looks ancient.
It’s pull mothered by the curvature
of spacetime.
The spring blossoms curving
when they fall.

Our fate floating out there: intangible–
outside this circle where my toes abide
Our fate floating in us: tangible–
The place in which my torso resides

The debate seems fresh unlike the sagely soil. My limbs alive –life giving life– emerging like the pistil from a bellflower
unconcerned with philosophy.

I have been well positioned by your love
picked up and delivered over my own fire’s hearth so close I was fanned
by your bellow into the firebox and that is why I am warm
my flames powerful and controlled
enough to set afire the thin veils of deceit
I practice cracking and melting fake plastic trees
I watch their flames burn dark. dark. Darkness leaves my hearth it no longer stays

Dear love could you see me with new eyes too
could we clear the slate and I could I love you
as I have always longed to love you
I forgive and I wish to walk down the narrow streets with you

Dear love,

I am hoping you bloomed in spring
and that this summer has given those around you
the sweetest fruit picked from your orchard

See I dream
and still long to love you;
fear is drowned out by the promise of fall that offers trees new cover

I miss you
I'm a branch of the tree
that fell into the water
on the top of the mountain

segment going down with the river
following the current
towards your whereabouts

from here the day looks long
but I've never been afraid of
the torrent or the prolongation

if time does something
it is to deepen what already exists

Lay down the thoughts that are like smoke
hiding the reflective mirrors of doubt.

Rest your mind well
and ease the racing predictions,
scenarios of doom and possible gloom
that chip away at good things.

Soften your glare,
here,
there is no need to worry,
life has already been so much worrying

This is the point you rest, rest deeply
in your hope

Soy de las flores
de ahí nunca me mudé

my tongue feels heavy,
like to write is to drag one heavy damp
rag across a desk that's getting dusty

do I still make sense
because it surely doesn't make sense
to use a wet rag before you use a duster

le dije que ya no muero
que algo en mi despertó

que siento la vida surgir desde mi costado
un punto definido y la totalidad de la inmensidad
a la misma vez uniéndose
enlazados en la misma cosa

mi ser está en este mundo
mi cuerpo sobre esta cama
pero yo no me habita la habitación

es que desperté del infierno y desperté del paraíso
desperté
es que desperté un mañana profunda, una mañana clara, una mañana sin ninguna ilusion desperté de un gran sueño
dónde todo estaba dividió ahora
todo es

I sit in front of a glistening lake
so beautiful but so deep
I am almost scared to reach in further
so deep down that I tremble
but I want to look deeper at myself
I don’t want the things I push down to rule me so I do not wait for them instead I call them
“ what ever abides there within, rise so that I may hold you. I am stronger now and kinder and my compassion is wider. Now, I can truly see you. Please, come. “

Were there a better way to soften your pillow,
I would
like a massive online shopper at the drag of a mouse and at the click of a button I would choose to check that box

Sweet being your face has changed so many times
do recognize me
in disguise?

Donde esta tu ánimo
algunos días aquí en mi pecho
otros días rondando senderos
¿Donde esta el tuyo?

aproximando montañas
o navegando por aguas ajenas
descendiendo finales hacia comienzos
¿Donde esta tu ánimo ?

Don’t forget your bright eyes as you tilt your head up
and that soft smile that curves over your lips when the warmth of the day penetrates
into the deepest chamber of your beating heart
don’t forget to renew your mind
there is still so much to see
and still so many moments tucked in our experience of time that gifts us this wondrous existence
and this chance to look again upon
life’s kindness
Please  don’t forget to bring them
their brilliance lights up the dark

Don’t die. Listen to new music. funk’s electro baby phonk. Donate your clothes. Get some bright shirts and some daisy socks. Read a book.buy a nice triangular pencil. Get said pencil scribble,write and draw on restaurant napkins. Add  a new city on your new list of must visit before I croak. Turn up the dial to an idiosyncratic volume on commutes. move your arms a little no penalty will be given for dancing. Smile at the stranger next to you.  Be as indifferent as the sun to whether stranger smiles back or not .But don’t die not from old age. At least not that kind of old age.

Come closer. Listen. The heart pumps the same. Don’t die as an antiquity. Buy an old vintage scarf and make yourself new. Hug your friends like you have always been a hugger.

If you look away from the horrors of war, if you ignore reports, personal accounts told, videos of children with amputated limbs, the dead, the dead and many more dead children, and a whole family lifeless on the street next to their car as they tried to flee with now only mosquitos alive circling the camera man who found them–know that what is rotting is not them. It’s our society’s humanity. It’s the lighting of the Christmas tree at square with the reporter standing on a roof instead of on the ground because the area was filled with protesters. That calling for end of  g e n o c i d e when you continue to watch the dying and hear the mourning calls is not anti- anything is simply who continue to watching thousands of children die. Inside the rumble rotting are our values of justice and freedom for all, our great dream of democracy, they push towards the West Bank as they pushed towards the westside of the what became the U.S. manifesting cruelty this story too old and too fraught with river that runs red. Inside the rubble of the past and now the present– along side that dead will lie our humanity and our soul if we look away, silent.

Do you believe there is no renewal?
not of the mind or of life
do you believe we don’t deserve to change
are we always to be bound to the past
instead of aided by it’s wisdom

think deep
what do you really believe ?

I can
always feel you
in the center of my chest

    I can feel your longing
and I can feel your sorrow
as-well as your love and joy

Don’t you know— I ask you to be well
because I can sense you
             less than hour ago you were here
at center of my costal

la forma en la cual te decapitan
es normalizada igual que el esplendor
del sol, a cual le llaman cosa cotidiana

la forman en la cual callas sin saberlo
es naranja siendo pelada
mas no la muerdes la regalas

la forma en la cual una pandemia te desboca
es dentista jalando muela
y despues hasta le tenes que pagar

la formal la cual la estacion apgujeong no te facina
es la misma forma por la cual hollywood y vine tampoco

trabajadores en rumbo hacia todas direcciones para
no morrir de hambre

she brings them out coffee when they come to buy meals at her mom and pop’s restaurant
without charge
that’s just the way she is my loving M

she tells me it’s so cold
and that those folks need to stay warm
And I think of the times that I walked to her home as an adolescent because it was too cold for me to stay in front of the school and wait for my dad

every bridge that collapses is an abutment
of hands and elbows tumbling  over

every hurried step urgently taken out of the office pasture,
is from a cow readied, conditioned and willing to get its **** pulled for the milking

every time I see them depart it saturates the pastoral painting
begun during my youth, the base for the subsequent layers never dries

the picturesque manifest destiny  propaganda of the early 1800's
with "California " spelled on it.  
sit next to the paper with a bounty for put on native heads
over a poster of the runaway slave


"the pursuit of happiness",  that is the name of my painting
but the underpaiting never dries

so much turpentine but it seems most people never arrive there, laboring at drugstore or at a big warehouse si

never getting to use the linseed oil  

how savory some of us must taste
I weep at this thought
what is there not to weep for
if life is still sold
you and I headed like cattle



how it is too easy

My friends say that I am like a solitary monk
that I am a hermit
a recluse and sometimes
I believe them like I believe the calendar that tells me it is April

Who really knows what “April” even is
the name of months are birthed from languages’
named just as babies are named
and in their vowels and consonants can be found  
nestled
a promise of life’s yearly renewal
cyclical forgiveness,  do-overs

but I do not know what April is I just agreed to it like the rest of us and do not know what a monk is so perhaps

The closing of your eyes is the clashing of clouds and their thunder for-tells the lightning of dreams