Eat your
Vegetables.

Pack the wheelchair.
You don’t need it
Anymore.

A young Japanese boy
No older than 4
Fell behind his father,
Stumbling over the escalator leading
To our train.

First kid in a long time
To return my glance
With a wide-eyed grin.

He even stopped for a while,

Much unlike the ****** trains.

I have never woken up to a sunrise

Instead,
I have watched the walls turn
From gray to orange, and
From orange to white,

Seen the shadows of trees
That never knew the sight of my face,
Refracted light creeping into my bedroom through
The windowsill

Forcing their way through the darkness,
The cracks,
And the creases of my eyelids.

To this day,
The closest I have gotten to sunrise
Wass the musky gray of
Dawn.

But I have woken up to a moonset.

The wind calls out your name.
I remember when I would sing too.

But I also remember that
You'd tell me to listen to what the names meant.
Make sure I wouldn't only be in it for the tune.

With that, my voice closed up,
Shut itself within my throat
And locked the door.
I resolved to praise with my eyes-

My pupils riddled with scratches like an overplayed vinyl

Stuck on repeat, repeat, repeat
Until one would get sick
Of the words and cease to
Understand them.

I'd strain desperately to look
For words that my eyes
Wouldn't let
Slip
Wouldn't let
Skip
Wouldn't keep forgetting,
Wouldn't get tired of.

I searched book after book,
Article after article,
Poem after poem,
Deconstructed story after story,
Dissected psalm after psalm.

When words failed,
I turned to images:

Gaudy images,
Marvelous images,
Sensual images,
Shocking images,
Grotesque images,
Pretty images,
All sorts of images.

I traded memories for pictures,
Most of which have already rot.

When images failed,
I closed my eyes
And started to listen.

Perhaps you aren’t as faceless
as you think you are:

your skin not green,
your face not plastered
with wide-eared grins,
your house neither yellow nor
full of garish trampolines, trapdoors and springs.

This static,
this stillness,
this is you:

Quiet, loud, alone in your room
screaming in whatever tongue you
speak best at, staring back
at reflections in mirrors
that don’t recognise you.

You smile,
measure the gaps between your
teeth and find that they
are a little bit smaller,
check their slant and find
that they lean a little more
to the left,

feel your skin and find
that the green tinge
comes off with a light scratch
of a nail,

and that beneath the coverings,
you still
are flesh and blood.

A young man returns home
To Hiroshima,
Where the bomb's been
Dropped.

There are imaginary lines,
Each for every ripple
Caused,

Each for every poisoned child,
Crisscrossing,
Intersecting,
Multitudes upon multitudes of
Lines—

In the thicket
He stands

Unmoved.
Avoided.

He can't help but
Notice the
Uninterrupted
Lines
Of his shadow

Spread out before him-

A body bag
Unopened.

I find myself staring
At this little girl in the aisle,
Tottering through
A city of sweets.

With small, outstretched fingers
She waddles hastily
Towards this huge pack
Of chocolates
Giggling silently,
Eyes a bright ruddy brown.

Her mother catches her and laughs,
Puts the chocolates just out her of reach.
Her chubby hands strain
To reach it but to no avail.
Instead they find her mother's long,
Graceful fingers and
Her knowing smile:
Deep brown eyes lit up like one of those
Chocolate bars,
Even sweeter.

The morning
Rays filter in:

The hands of a broken
Clock,

Which is to say
My time was up
A long time ago;
Today's a new day.

Though I'm not quite there yet,

I know I'll get by.

As the dust settles in
On the coffee table,
I smile.

The rising sun
Elusive and innocent

Illuminates their faces as they sleep:

My brother-
All stubborn scowls
And groans.

My father-
Weatherbeaten and wizened.

My mother-
Pining and tired.

Youthful shadows creep into our home
On tiptoe,
Grinning impishly.

Barefoot, I greet them.

And he sleeps
Amongst the fisherman,
And the cab drivers,
And he's with me at midnight
Where the devil's hour draws
Closer to the lone sidewalk
And we are all ghosts
And I'm on the edge
Of a proverbial cliff and he's
There with me.

And he is no longer
Jesus of the Chapel
But of the slum dwellers,
Of the motocycle bikers,
Of the sodomites mentioned in
Howl and thought to
Roam the nights unsatiated.

That God.
The one I'm looking for.
The savior with an armsling
And an extensive knowledge
Of *******,
Every position every crack
Every twist and turn.

That God
Who baptized needles pinned
Freshly to tattoos
And made theologians
Out of tax collectors
And Jesus

Whose nails
Were used to tattoo
The words "King" grisly
On his forehead
And he was chiseled
On a cross,
Not hung.

Spurs on his feet licked
Like lapdogs by tongues
Hungry still for love,
Laying at the foot of the
Memory Jesus,
Crying,
All adulterers and profaners
And cheaters and liars all,

Who laugh
And sneer and snipe
In disbelief at his memory.
Ours.
At his clean, pierced hand
Slowly turning to ash
At the weight of our
Ink, face turning to bulletholes
As the chests decay
Into some kind of
Gang war amalgamation,

Tongues swollen,
Organs numb,
***** pierced with rose thorns
And rubbed with alcohol
And lubricant and
Sharp fingernails.

And we weep
As we are transfigured in return,
Each wound a closing scar.

For you

I lie restless in limbo,

Floating aimlessly among wracked bodies
And deadened eyes.

I wake unconsciously,
Ghost-like,
Able to view my own body as it stumbles over itself
Again  
And again.

These repeated loops segue
Into habits,
Dark ruts borne into shadows—

This is my Lion's Den.

Let us rise once more as saplings sprouted from gravel,
by the highways where the mufflers of the buses threaten
to blow us all

away, and sprout none
the lesser and watch for
maya: who may take our seeds and spread them and we

by them survive, strangled as we are by breath, exhaust and
white smoke: teach them with our dying leaves their names,
and let them mouth

it on their tongues, discoloured as they might be by
their birth, and see
and hear once more

the cars’ horned blare
and the tired cackle of gravel,
and the whistles of the trains rushing to: up, forth and

away, farther farther farther farther from the cracks where
they must have heard it, and with that sound pick themselves up
and give chase

to that sound that too
is theirs, but fading
away from where they too were born, and begin to begin again.

At 5
45 my eyes
Have just begun
To slowly
Creep
Into their sockets.

My body
Screams at me
To go back to sleep,

But can I help it
If dawn  
Was the only
Quiet

I've been able to muster
In a long time?

At the end of the sidewalk
Is a ghoulish jig,
Unholy Ghost glaring at those
Who come—
Charlie Parker on the speakers.

He's clad in black with a scornful smile,
Eyes perpetually open
And searching for the youngest Child—
A giveaway:
The unchained dreamer.

Knee skidding the curb, a wince
And he pounces,
Long fingers sweeping
Her off her feet—
A farmer's daughter.

"Hush,"
Is all he says,
Pavement light.

"Hush,"
Is all He says,
Swathed in white.

An old crow does not fly;
        dark, lopped wings un-sing.

His straw men long’d fought,
        are now with stuffing wring.

A lone branch holds his feet,
        claws scratching at its folds.

His caws now echo hoarse,
        his weak legs too grow cold.

His wings yearn but to spread,
        but spread yearn they to die;

To straws he cannot cling,
        hence trust put he to sky.

There is a forgetfulness
To pride that
Will never be cured
By stop signs,

Cold-culled footsteps
Telling you to
Step back,

Traffic stops pointing you
In opposite directions.

"Pride"
Is but a matter of here
And hearing—
Of hear and now—

Of watching the tail ends
Of mufflers blow
You off with exhaust
Smoke and choke
On their spit—

Honking at your pride
And unsure gait,

Leading you into alleyways
Sprawling with brightly
Colored graffiti,
Pink painted faces, misfit

Tongues and a silence
Uncharacterized by
The glamour of the city—

Only this
They deem yours.

Day
Crisscrosses
With night,

Somehow manages
To touch the other's hand
Even if
One is allergic
To the heat
And the other,
A fear of the dark.

There's a striking
Balance in the
Muted gray
Of the groggy sky—
A scenery
Not very much unlike
That
Of a slumbering owl
And a waking wren,

One creature
In cahoots
With the darkness
And the other
Perhaps too
With light.

Both,
Sing very
Different songs—yet
Both
Seem to arrive
At the same purpose:

Which is to see
What the other
Really is made of
Beyond the light
And shroud—

Touch maybe even
Forbidden wings and
Quietly
Sing some more;

In this habitat
Of shadows
They—we—will not be bothered.

So sing, wren,
Your truest of songs:

"Good morning,
"Good morning,
"The day is
"But coming,"

So sing, owl,
Your truest of songs:

"Good evening,
"Good evening,
"The night is
"But leaving."

And so now kiss, night,
The plodding day.

Here. There is no
Sorrow. There is no
Suffering –
Here. There is no
Weeping. There is no
Crying. There is no
Mourning –
Here. There is no
Day time. There is no
Night time. There no
Them, us –
Here. There is no
You. There is no
Me -
Here. There is only

Still,
I rise.

By the power of God,
I sheath
The knife
That was once pressed
To my neck.

That falls to the floor
With a resounding
click.

Rusting. Tetanus shots. God.

Somehow I saw
Jesus' face in the blade's
Own,
Ruddy red hair and
Scraggly beard.

And.

Voice cleaving through
The darkness—
a whisper.

For the first time in
A while,

He spoke to me.
Still,

I rise.

help is in order -
you and i still screaming each other sick
like twin fathers. one

who wishes to surrender his church
to the rust and the other hastening
to restore it:
stone, metal and all.

many nights i
fail to tell apart one from the other,
tell apart the resurrection
from the ruin. i

and you both picking up and
at loose ends of temple rubble
and made to snivel at what
could have been.

there are pieces here we keep
that need be thrown away.

there are pieces here we leave behind
that need be kept.

I heard you tossed sinners to the flame.

I was in disbelief until I smelled my soul roasting on a spit.

I know that purgatory doesn't exist.
Hell far worse than nothingness.

I know that all torture is godless,
Not all pain meant to temper.

As I screamed, you told me to
Look up.

The littler man walks up to the little man and asks for a gun.
"I wish to join you, and fight for justice."

The little man coughs.
"Young soldier, why do you ask for a gun?"

Gavroche, with head held high, answers:
"Because to be a soldier one must have strength,
"And to have strength one must quiet his fears."

Upon hearing this, the little man smiled and handed him a quill.
"Your gun, young soldier. Use it well."

Remember this as you watch him fall.

If we
Stepped back far enough,
I bet we could
Fit the Earth
In the far corners of our hand.

If we measured
The heavens just right,
And picked out the exact
Magnitudes, I bet you
We could do it.

Because I know.
Whether we know it or not
The distance between
Our hearts
And the very center
Of the universe
Isn't all that far.

We just
Have to find the right
Measuring tool for it,
And no,
The telescopes,
It won't do this time.

The galaxy we are shooting for,
It exists only
On the pinpricks of our fingers.
Its standard unit
Is that of closeness and
Of vast quiet.

I'll show you.

On the count of three,
I want us both to close our eyes
And whisper.

1...
2...
3.

See there?
There is home.
And you hold it
In my palms.

"Peace"
is synonymous with
Beatles music and
an empty desk—
i stare longingly
for no reason
but
that of some
Artificial sentimentality;

Quiet purity.

The sanatorium stays.
For people like He—God—
Perhaps sent down
To be slapped in the face
(Morally, of course)
And beaten down.
Cata-
Tonic—Breath
Of fresh air
Sent to
Contort—Heal;

Disinfectant stinging wounds
We never knew were opened:

A canister of misplaced pride.

The sand slashes at your eyes
Like rubbery tires
Except
You aren't rubbery.
It ******* hurts.

They well up in your eyes-
Gouge out the tears.

The words build up
Only to
Break
In the middle of your throat-
You choke

And
Stumble over your own
Two feet

Find yourself
On
Your knees
Hands clasped
In prayer
To God.

Ozymandias,
For once please bear your own weight.
Like you
I am
Beautiful too.

Sometimes you just
Have to
Pick yourself up
Dust yourself off and
Just keep
Walking.

Somehow, despite all the flowing music
Streaming from the tape recorder,
It’s as if someone’s knocked out all the light
In the night sky, and left only these wispy notes.

They run deep through my veins,
Traversing darkness—you could call it “Growing Pains,”
Though it feels more like a chilly field—each note
Like a wayward crow

Stripping away slowly each song, chord by chord,
Till they begin to distort
The words themselves, turn hail to howl
And carve into the fields, their scowls.

Already the field fills with their breathy chirps,
Chipping away at the rhythm that
Gives each song its cadence—
Stripping the whistle from each hum of the wind.

I'm sorry, first of all, because
I couldn't save you.
How all I could do was
Stand there,
Listlessly while
You clung to the hems of
My mother's skirt.

How your little sister
Stood between us,
Pretending if for awhile
To have a real home,

And I'm sorry that
All I could've given you
At the time was money
And that I didn't even
Do that because I
Was afraid of getting
***** looks from everyone around me.

So many unsaid things hanging
Between us like
A foul-mouthed cliche.

How in the midst of
All these bodies for sale
I would've paid for you.

How I would have paid
For your company how
I would tell you
How lively your eyes were.

How I would've made your little
Sister laugh and stare
And we'd make stupid faces
At each other all night.

How smooth
Your brown skin was how
Beneath you
Everyone else looked.

How if you had spoken,
God would have heard you.

You are His daughter
Not theirs.
You are His child
Not theirs.

You are His Pride and Joy and
He loves You.

In this loveless, lifeless world
He loves You.

Please believe that
He loves You.

Both of You.

All of us.

I.
gravity
helps me realize
where exactly
you are.

and newton,
well newton
for all his
hang ups on
the temptations of
eve,

i guess got
it right
first:

what separates me
and you
and the rest of the world
is not
hope or magic

but rather
the pendulum swings of
chance

(arbitrary force)

the oscillations maybe
of a rickety train platform
on which our
footprints
converge, diverge,
and resonate

like naturalized frequencies.

II.
frankly,

i

don't want to talk
about the physics of it all.

i just want to sit
alone,
on the steps of this train
station,

and gently soak in the
clickety clacks
of these intersecting lines.

i

just want to
watch
as their doors open
and close,

and feel the rhythms
of their machinated dance,
and

sort the footsteps
that sift out
according to shape, color,

distance.

III.
as we speak,
i have already begun
to count
how many
stops

still separate

you.

and i.