None of the guys
ever asked me out
they teased me
or just froze me out

I wasn’t stuck up
I was shy
I came from China
that is why

I didn’t know the styles and trends
or even where I should begin
there wasn’t much that I could say
I never talked much anyway..

so I sat there
and read

I was an incredibly
epic fail

To all the guys
who called me names
that tagged my locker
and tried to shame me

I wasn’t snooty
I was shy
I’d just come from China
that’s the why

I didn’t know the styles and trends
that let a new girl fit in
I’d never even used the Internet
I was as lost-in sauce as a girl gets..

so I sat there
and read

Which eventually
got me into Yale.
.
.
Songs for this:
*Conversation by X-Cetra
Simply Couldn't Care by Tracey Thorn
Human Behaviour by Björk

it's pale light
still glows
with a low hum

the knobs still clink
when pulled and with
a dollars worth of quarters

popped into the slot
you can choose

happiness
sadness
or the candy bar

wrapped
in silver and gray
what was it called

Zero

I think of Harlon Rivers, poet,
and go to my corner to
contemplate modesty and
idiocy, or both, that is, to say,
my unique combination of both

and repost one of his jewels

SEE BELOW

The day was long and greedily waited,
in near unspoken secret - like a thing
delightfully and enchantingly wicked.

We are reunited - simpatico - my love, lover and I.
We ravish each other and lavish each other
with flattery, endearments and entire pleasure.

We live sweet centuries in those tight hours.

Happiness changes the tenor of things.
Rains of feeling combine in torrents,
like the tinkling notes of a harp make symphony.

Our minutest nerves are instruments of joy.

Mornings start with exquisite excitement and
the dense reel and stagger of intoxication -
because we’re drunk with the fullness of life.

Leaves on trees called chestnut, linden and hazel, stir
gently in the breeze - those faint shoos and rustles, times
nature’s fractal design - blare, in effect, like terrific trumpets.

At night, as we walk together under cooling summer skies,
the stars in the far-flung firmaments, seem to huddle together
and whisper, like sisters, of life and the mysteries of earthy love.

We are the dust of those constellations - are we but spies?
.
.
Songs for this:
Thank You My Angel by Over the Rhine
Perfect Day by Povo
Goodbye Sunday by Everything But the Girl

Manon (Mary) and I, sat in the Tuileries gardens, by the Louvre Museum. Her 7 month old daughter, Devyn, on a blanket in the grass, was earnestly practicing a roll from her tummy to her back - of course, we coo’d and applauded each success.

We’d been girls together, years ago, in 5th and 6th grade - we were ‘like thieves at a fair’ back then - playing ‘la marelle’ (hopscotch) and pétanque until the boys, in early exercise of their ‘penised privilege’ ran us off the court, scattering us like birds.

She wrote me off a few years ago. But to be fair, I was missing. Growing up, my family moved around like we were on the run. I’d come back to Paris some summers and we’d check-in, but summer schedules are ephemeral and years turned into distance and a seemingly permanent silence.

Her last voice message, from 2017, is still on my phone, her voice bright, cheerful and expectant. I listen to it every once in a while, holding my phone to my ear, like a private seashell.

I was moved to China, where I’m told - thank you, Grandmère - I picked up a brash, incisive, Cantonese, ‘overly-direct’ manor, while Manon,went on to Institut Villa Pierrefeu, a finishing school in Switzerland.

Her hands move like ballerinas, her voice is as clear and refined as
Baccarat crystal, her look - bixie-cut chestnut brown hair, a white, Fontaine Zuave shirt over black, ME+EM Italian Linen Wide-Leg Trousers with Keds canvas sneakers, is Parisian simple and elegant and her posture is effortlessly perfect - she makes me feel like a scrub in my black Beatles t-shirt and jeans.

I passed Manon on an escalator, two days ago in Le Bon Marché.
I was going up, she was going down, with this little Devyn doll on her hip. The little firecracker I’d only seen on Instagram was dynamite in person. Her little expressions are bright-eyed and somehow familiar, their laughs - mother and daughter - are the same, rolling, lilting trills I know by heart.

My watch showed 69°f as we sprawled picnicking on a tree-lined embankment of the slithering green Seine. Rain clouds were gathering to the south - the river acts like a compass -which can be handy. Looking back on friendships is fun, but now we’re looking forward - which feels like home.
.
.
Songs for this:
New Toy by Lene Lovich
My Old School by Steely Dan
Angel by Sarah McLachlan

Love has flown, and I'm left to ponder
The dark facets of Life's mysteries,
While a tangled web of emotions
Keeps me tethered to Love's memories

I'm grateful for solitude's shelter,
Amidst crowds I hold my head low ---
I keep my heart's anguish well-guarded
From  prying eyes. They've no need to know.

And for sudden cloudbursts I'm grateful,
My tears are concealed by the rain;
I can bravely hold my head up high
Without fear of revealing my pain

I'm grateful for hours that pass quickly,
They say Time heals a broken heart;
Yet with each dawn Time breaks its promise . . . .
. . . . . the healing has yet to start

I'm grateful when sleep numbs my senses ---
For a while my mind is at ease;
O Time, I need your healing essence . . . .
My heart is sick with memories!

Rounded by salt and
Water rolling from
Tide to tide

Inviolate cipher of
All time
Fallen from molten skies

At the beginning

Holding all
Within your elliptical
Mystical mound
Of stone

As a child, the backyard was
my sanctuary and my
playground.
I climbed the soft
pine tree and crawled to
the top of the garage.
I stood and gazed at all the
houses and streets.
I felt rich.

My mom had a brown
jewelry box shaped like
a treasure chest.
It reminded me of
pirates and adventure.
I filled it with
football cards
gum
candy bars
family pictures, and a few
coins.

I found a small shovel
and buried it in the
backyard close to the
pine tree.
I pretended to forget
where it was.
A week or so later, I
suggested to my best friend,
Wally, that we should
search my yard for buried treasure.

Of course, we found it.
I acted surprised.
We celebrated.
All these years later,
I realize that my treasure,
then and now, is imagination.
I'm a wealthy man.

Take me back to a time
when a vow
was the color of
everyone's tomorrow

Take me back to a place
where a promise
never led to
man's great sorrow

Where the breeze
would linger in the grass

No one ever questioning
how long it would last