JoJo Nguyen

JoJo Nguyen Sep 2018

My existence Transparent
Yellow perch precariously half eaten
On ledgers of our Life
Win/Lost columns
Love as defeat
and Possession as Victory
or a slab
underneath which
Death sums up

I don't really think you were a defeat, but then what are you? Someone I will never see again in this vast world, someone not on my networks anymore, someone who's Voice I will never hear again. You have disappeared and have become a ghost.
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Becoming Ghost by Cathy Linh Che
Things Keep Sorting Themselves by Jane Hirshfield

JoJo Nguyen Aug 2018

A Joke and any Jake

I hear a great Joke
The punchline comes
And I understand wit's dagger twist
It's too funny
I laugh, laugh and laugh
I'll remember the Joke
so that when I meet another Jake
I can decide whether
to tell the joke or fall in Love

I fell for a big Jake
the punchline came
I understand life's dagger twist
It's too sad
I cry, cry, and cry
I'll remember Jake
so that when I hear another big Joke
I can decide whether
to fall in love or cry laughter again

JoJo Nguyen Apr 2018

Song #16

Save me in Preservatives I trust
Something like vinegar or briny Word extending me
As an add-on to faint hearted lands spurting
blood offerings to the massive goodness flight

Bad airline brands are barely mentioned while
I fall pass small screen shots on back headed Seats
to our Heritage sure room

I find good advice under glass
blessed plumage from a Jurassic age
that guide our voice controlled nights

My right hand justice isn't interested in Absolute
but hopes with Mama heart and soul

Leave me outside the mechanized church
underneath our short coated lives to flash
Joy and her sister Faith
pleasuring our cheap tomorrow

JoJo Nguyen Jan 2018

The Cadence of She

There is a Soldier I know

Her short cadence
with military precision
is always careful

At every bridge she
breaks step
to avoid foolish
oscillations a peeking midriff jog
pounding shoes
on asphalt pavement
hard could these send infatuated
hopes to destructive swing

Who knows what chasm
fantasized are crossed
Who knows what war
wages and what broken
battle of bulges lost
Why burn another Leader
ego living in some
Downfall Bunker

There is a Soldier I know

Her short cadence
in boots bare run faster
than legged strut

Every night she comes
through a backroom window
protected by a silver
Spoon at best
and every morning she
survives as golden tongue
poetry written on
our wired cages

There is a Soldier I know

Her name is Eden
and her hands are hot
with Dante's inferno

Her adolescent face is cool
and on each ear
a ring of Blue Herons

Every day her short cadence
brings rouge life
to our clay complexion
and every night
her milky whey
lips wonder lost
in our King Lear
kabuki song

JoJo Nguyen Dec 2017

Traces

.symbol

A child traces animal ghosts on a cave
wall Left
pictures we had before
our memories and youth
were in them

.family

We dig down Trees in primordial
dirt Left
hidden as roots-- a Dad our Moms
found still loving us diverging
green offshoots

The furrowed brow on an infant's
face Left
impressions within a big sister's
emerging intelligence the natural
heir

to an ancient
matriarchy Left
here full of media streams
saturated with siblings
nieces and cousins

.network

Will social constructs
connections Left
on neural networks firing
locally across our communal souls
be remembered?

JoJo Nguyen Nov 2017

Hello Poetry

Enjoy the Saturday
in our Frigid
air

Conditioning response
as our Kevin
touches

Bill and Harvey's name
on our wall
white

washed

clean

20171111

JoJo Nguyen Nov 2017

healing scar

The golden egg
congeals
on a car after our
mischievous
midnight's vandalism

It leaves a trail of pubescent
nonsense
yellow stains marking our
English
classroom past

We find childhood artwork
pinned
as a patchwork of our
Hester
scarlet badges

Down the historical spinal
cord
mini trophies become our
reactionary
silver astrocytes

who make scar and transgression
fasciculate
into fuchsia bundles in our
new
Hope homes

A Technicolor Dreamscab
preventing
the regenerative return of our
plastic
polymer Messiah