Dear Almighty,

Thk you

For keeping me alive for another year
For giving me the best birthday gift in my parents
You've given me way more than i've ever deserved
Help me get on the right path
I don't want to be a candidate of your wrath
Please keep my parents and all my relatives healthy and happy
Help me achieve all my dreams
Help me give back to my parents those years of sacrifice they've done for me
Give me the strength and courage to help others
Help me become someone worthy of being called a man
Always help me stay humble
Always help me maintain my dignity
Always help me remain strong

I don't want cars
I don't want money
I don't want houses
I just want peace of mind

With your grace and mercy,i hope to see another one next year

I was sitting in the dark
While the dog started to bark
But I was so lost in my mind
That not even the dog interupted my mind
I thought of how my life is about
I thought of my country and it's where abouts
I though of my people who suffer for food
And how I am hopeless to to lift off the load
I wanted to give them hope
But I could not lie to make them feel good
The world have no mercy
Not even a human life is considered worthy
Hate is the new fashion and selfish is our passion
Give your heart and you are weak be kind and you are stupid and people let you weep
You know it's hard to live like this
But I hope you and I can change this
It is difficult to accept change but it's the only way to make people live safe.
To love each other even if it's the only way
Cause in the end we are all the same
We are made from the same sand and mud
We should love each other and in God we should trust

No jingle bells ring around here
Since you've gone away.
White snow blankets ev'rything in sight,
But I don't wanna play.
I don't feel the merriment, the mirth, nor cheer,
It's not like Christmas at all
When you're not here.

It's not like Christmas at all,
When you're not here.
I don't feel like celebrating
When you're not near.
When you were in my life
I never did know drear.
It's not like Christmas at all
When you're not here.

A wreath adorns the cold front door,
Your somewhere on the outside,
Frolicking in the wonderland,
Your world is unfurled and wide.
You will never have to know
A life spent all alone.
You will always find somebody
You can call your own.

It's not like Christmas at all,
When you're not here.
I don't feel like celebrating
Without you, Dear.
I keep hoping by some chance
That in my door you'll reappear,
It's not like Christmas at all
Without you here.

The ornaments, tensile, and lights,
Hang on the evergreen.
The Yule log burns, and warms the harth;
The carollers, outside, they sing.
I can't face the new year
By myself, all on my own.
Things haven't been the same
Sinse you've been gone.

It's not like Christmas at all
When you're not here.
I don't feel like celebrating,
When you're not near.
Come back for the holidays,
Then stay all year.
It's not like Christmas at all,
When you're not here.

(Nobody's under my mistletoe -
I won't cuddle when the night is cold.)

It's not like Christmas at all
When you're not here.
I don't feel like celebrating,
When you're not near.
Come back for the holidays,
Then stay all year.
It's not like Christmas at all,
When you're not here.

you never see a ghost
except inside your fear
what you see at most
is an apparition unclear.

flickering lantern lights
casting shadows on the wall
were your childhood frights
in the half lit nightly lull.

you couldn't tell them lies
tales that grandma spun
glowworms were ghosts' eyes
that closed with morning sun.

they made a place in your head
broke all your resolves weak
eerie patterns moonlight made
wind's howls in bamboo's creak.

when the nights came
clock ticks gave a scare
you had to believe in them
you knew they were there.

are they now all dead
fantasy of child's mind
monsters below bed
footsteps heard behind?

some fears you still own
strangely hold them firm
and when you are alone
seek grandma's safety arm!

The red flower centered
between exotic curled lines
evokes the smell of old Jaipur
the Hawa Mahal ~ Palace of the Winds
where the maharaja’s women once peered
from pink honeycombed windows above streets
overflowing with painted elephants, camels, turbaned men.
A river of color, movement, sound
from red-dust shrouded sunrise
to ember scorch at the horizon line
the desert broken only by the organic rise
of dung and mud-bricked houses sheltered
by one denuded tree, a mirage of shade.

A cobalt hurricane spiral or vine’s end
worn smaller than its origins
its story, the shelf on which it sat
perhaps a fragile immigrant, hand-carried
from the old country by someone’s mother’s mother.
Whole and admired for a century before
its demise, told with regret-laden mouths
mother to daughter, daughter to mother
Oh, I wish we still had that blue bowl
great grandmother dropped
when she heard about Roy
a circle of memory, come to rest
on this distant curve of beach.

The cream and blue striped shard
could be my grandmother’s coffee cup
rimmed brown and lipstick stamped
sip, then drag on the Raleigh cigarette
always attached to electric-tipped fingers.
The cup was most likely broken in the war
that raged until death parted my grandparents
maybe it sailed harmlessly past my grandfather’s shiny
head and hit a rock near the creek, exploding into pieces
a small token of their shattered marriage
a lifetime of regrets carried to the sea
grievance-scrubbed, muted by the journey
this sliver must be handled with care.

The largest fragment found
tangled in the eelgrass at my feet
delivered on a tide of need
at the ebb of an unexpected storm
a perfect cross, soft edges raised
on a rough slab of terra cotta.
The fragile sun had warmed
the worn shape nesting
in my palm like a missing piece
as my restless fingers traced
down and across, across and down

asking questions, seeking answers.

That you take my old bones
often clinging like wind-chimes
at the old Kansas windows,
will always be a sadness

A sadness that stretches somewhere above and beyond all the colors in the sky

Something that consumes me
Starting with a lump in my throat
I wish I could spit, I wish little by little
it could leave my insides and end up on the pavement like third generation gum

But instead Im left with a feeling of dread
that casts away into the ugly orange sky
of a day dying

Time is the ugliest thing of all
it will see you and let you fall
cracked staircase after cracked staircase of soon to be
demolished houses
paint chipping off walls like leaves scattering in the fall

Tooth decaying
world greying

And you take my old bones
often, clinging like wind chimes
and you watch them dance in the dusty sky