"chopsticks" poems
Maybe it's the way the national flag flies so high
Despite the country's imperfections
Maybe it's the way we're united
Not separated, despite the difference in cultures,
Believes, traditions, languages
Maybe it's the way you see an Indian eating with chopsticks,
The way you see a Malay in a saree,
The way you see a Chinese making ketupat's for Hari Raya.
Maybe it's the unity you see,
Maybe it's the goosebumps you feel when you say Merdeka,
Maybe despite the hate you have towards history,
Deep down, you know how grateful you are to be Malaysian.
Maybe it's the way you walk into a mamak,
And say
" tauke tapau roti canai 1 milo ais 99 "
And maybe,
It lies in diversity,
Beyond everything else.
Malaysia, tanah tumpahnya darahku.
Aug 30, 2014
Aug 30, 2014 at 1:27 PM UTC
candlesticks caught up in your wristwatch grip bundled up burning chopsticks not frostbitten yet, flashlight to toes happy it still shows your glowing red interior
Nov 17, 2014
Nov 17, 2014 at 12:24 AM UTC
I'm half asian so everyone thinks I speak 'asian'
Which just goes to show their ignorance, thinking that's a language
Another strange causation because of my 'asianness' is that I:
Can always win arguements with Wyatt by stating this fact
Was declared a ninja even before my skills were proven
I surprise people with my appearance and when I reveal my ethnicity as they believe initially that I'm mexican, italian, or spanish
Was assumed to have gone to the same church as all the others
Am considered strange, exotic, weird, genius, awesome, and stupid
Am endearingly called a 'short asian woman/lady/girl' by friends
Oh and I love love love love chopsticks, rice, and spicy foods.
Pass the srirachi and pepper please
Dec 6, 2012
Dec 6, 2012 at 11:47 PM UTC
Poetry is like sushi.
Sushi contains
Rice & goodies
Wrapped in nori.
Both are combined rolled
Into cylinders
Then cut
Into rolls.
Poetry
Is sounds & tropes
Rolled into images
Each poem
A unique
Experience.
When you
Eat Sushi
With chopsticks
You are too eat
the rolls
with just one bite
Sampling the wholeness
of the taste
and presentation.
May you
Devour
This poem
On the chopsticks
Of your feelings
And sample
The flavor
In the ink.
Apr 18, 2014
Apr 18, 2014 at 1:59 PM UTC
We walk the smoke-thick winter street of sweet 'n' sour aromas
amongst a throng of oriental shaded faces (such gentle souls)
who crowd little pushcarts selling scallion pancakes.
Overhead, red talismanic paper lanterns bob, enticing us
to the tap of percussive chopsticks.
We sit in awe; snack on duck-tongue; roast pigs hang
glistening; fat-fresh, ready to fry.
Waiters wheel trolleys piled high with steaming shrimp noodles
past tables of golden oranges and watermelon seeds.
Our Chinese chef prepares shredded pork in garlic sauce.
He smiles and says:
"More guests means more happiness."
Mar 19, 2010
Mar 19, 2010 at 6:35 AM UTC
i.
the poem has a beginning exactly as you’d expect it:
pa in sweatshirt, ma with purse; the funny thing is
i never used to call them those names:
“pa,”
“ma,”
always found them too cowboy-ish,
too un-me, un-like
us: who held chopsticks before dinner time and shared
stories of how grandpa came over from china.
ii. (at the dinner table)
there is no symbolism here. there has been none
for a while now. this household eats and
eats in quiet. my grandmother is a poet but their
books all burned down
back in ’45 when mao stormed into fujian and
all her uncles could eloquent on was that
“the communists were coming!”
“the communists were coming!”
and instead of poems took with them their
children, and their gold to pawn
and their clothes on their muddy
mortar-stained backs
and the japanese
iii.
my grandfather now comes twice a week to the
hospital for chemotherapy. it is a nice hospital.
good view of the cleanest part of our *****
city. there are lights and white folks now. two things
my dad said did not used to be there. they
used to be spanish. they tilled
our rice fields and spent the money on living rooms
with lots and lots of space to sleep. we on the other hand,
worked. he claims.
your grandfather and his grandfather and i
iv.
awake every sunday morning at precisely 8:30.
made to go down to the temple in kalesas
and told to fetch the office paper for
noontime reading. see we weren’t spoiled: grew
up just next to the pasig river which back in
the 70s did not smell as bad as sin only
sweatshirts
and the sweat we soaked them in we reeled along
steamed fish heads and chopsticks for picking at them with
and bowls of rice we never really ate with spoons.
v. (back at the dinner table)
i listen to my mom and dad
sweat profusely in the evening heat only we can have here
he in his sweatshirt and she
with her golden purse,
preparing to leave - a wedding party awaits -
an jacket draped over his shirt just like grandfather used to do it
in a sense,
but gripping the chopsticks delicately for all us
to see:
“pa,”
“ma,”
v.
it is not cowboys that give us our names.
Feb 11, 2016
Feb 11, 2016 at 11:55 AM UTC
Contemplating life
over a hot bowl of soup,
my mindful mentor
passed me
the pleasure of oyster
to mix in with
the pain of chilies
stirred together by
chopsticks held in my hands.
There he taught me
the lesson of humanity
and the person's potential,
pointing at me
and then back at the bean sprout,
fiddling it in his chopsticks
as if he were God,
mentioning to me
"This sprout and you have plenty alike..."
"What do you mean?
How am I like a vegetable?"
He smiled and nodded to disagree,
"Life is not always physical.
Think for a second,
open your fragile closed mind.
Imagine this soup not just a bowl
but instead a cauldron,
the mixing of different elements,
sensations seared by heat
to create the luxuries we call
the world where you
are a mere bean sprout."
Looking at the small, colorless
tasteless, inferior plant,
I wondered, confused and asked:
"Am I so inferior in this world
that I cannot compare
to the rich flavor of beef,
to the nurturing noodles,
to the accenting spices,
but instead am no more
than a flavorless root?"
Yet my mentor laughed,
and patiently passed:
"You worry too much young one,
too much on yourself you blame.
Instead, take upon consideration
that the bean sprout is small,
fragile, tasteless like water;
there is nothing you can change
other than size and color,
but lower it into the soup
and patiently stir,
allow it to soak up the world
and obtain its potential."
I repeated his actions,
placed myself in the world,
sat patient and absorbed its essence,
and then removed it,
placed it to my lips.
Surprised that what I later discovered
was not a bland taste of disappointment arose
but instead what lingered to the tongue
was the sweet taste of near perfection.
Apr 6, 2016
Apr 6, 2016 at 11:50 PM UTC
Along the sidewalks of Somerset Street
People pass upon purposeful feet
Rice and noodles up for all
We each hear the call
Come! There is much here to eat.
From the western end we embark
Just near where we usually park
On the street's sunny side
Past diverse shops we stride
Windows hung with ducks roasted dark.
To the place we were aiming to get
A table with chopsticks is set
There we eat such a meal
That it fills us with zeal
A lunch that we won't soon forget.
Oct 13, 2013
Oct 13, 2013 at 2:01 PM UTC
Someone once asked me
questions I would answer blandly
they weren't what I wanted to answer
Questions of perfect dates
and perfect people
when simply
I wanted them to ask
"What is you favorite flower?"
I could respond with my fascination
with these tiny
white petaled
flowers
ones that made me smile
so wide
eastern Europe could see my teeth.
I wanted someone to ask
about my favorite food
So i could respond
with this amazing blend
of rice and fish
and seaweed and other ingredients
but I'd add
that I only eat them with chopsticks
I would look at them and ask
If I was to fall in love with you
could we share these things
and face the world?
but I couldn't do that
because who wants me,
the girl who wants Sushi and daisies.
Aug 8, 2013
Aug 8, 2013 at 3:36 AM UTC
apple
did you imagine red?
so did I
which is weird because the apples I eat are kind of yellow
asia
I said asia
not China
I remember the time
my history professor told my class to imagine asia
I thought of an exotic
country
with arab sheiks
and snake charmers
the Chinese
the Japanese
chopsticks
and the orient
it was then that she pointed out
"haven't Western ideas just messed with you?"
and it was then that I realized
"Wait; I'm Asian. I've lived in Asia all my life."
how come I saw it as something foreign
and strange?
I've never even seen the things I imagined.
I remember when I watched Big Bang Theory
and the four friends sat down to Thai food
Raj made the mistake of asking, "where are the chopsticks?"
which led to Dr. Sheldon Cooper saying
(in this paraphrased version:)
"they don't use chopsticks. They use spoons and forks.
The fork doesn't go into their mouth.
They use it to push food unto the spoon, which then goes into their mouth."
I sat there thinking..
well that's weird
when a couple of months later as I watched the episode again
I realized
that's how my people eat!
that's how I've always eaten..
the houses I picture in an average neighborhood
are two story
concrete structures
with shingled roofs
cul-de-sacs
and oak trees
my own house
is one story
of brick and wood
it is beside a highway
and surrounded by guava trees
and coconuts
I don't even know what a picket fence is.
Sep 14, 2011
Sep 14, 2011 at 8:19 PM UTC
She paves the path
Of dynasties carved
With buckets of sludge upon back;
Bent, not unlike her mother’s limb,
But under shinier red flags,
Cloth coated, with lesser blood.
She’d had a hint of gray
She’d not had last time,
She had a newer limp
She’d not had last time,
Her ***** furthered from firm,
Reaching for the ground, a promise,
In years to be wed with,
And yet the underneath
Of it all remained as radiant
As any sun’d ever been;
And come the cloudy day she leaves,
Even mine own eye
Will remain far from dry
As I’d remember freshly cured bacon,
And her tender chopsticks offering life;
She’d saved me once, she’d save me again.
Aug 1, 2015
Aug 1, 2015 at 10:05 AM UTC
Eat the fourth cookie.
Bring back that fuzzy green sweater with lint ***** so stubborn
that even the strongest lint roller couldn’t break the bond they have with the sweater.
I know you pick your nose in public.
You stutter every time I ask who lives on Mamaroneck Street.
You have burping contests with yourself while you’re on the toilet.
I don’t care how you clip your toenails on today’s newspaper.
I still read it after you’re done.
I love that you paint each nail in a different neon color,
eat chocolate chips and green tea for breakfast,
and salt your apples.
You cry every time you watch Titanic.
I agree Rose should’ve moved to the side and shared the plank with Jack.
You rap to Baby Got Back fifty nine times in a row.
I wish we danced to it more often.
I wish you would tell me what you write in your red book.
I know you pretend you’re Beyonce in concert while working out,
and think Michael Buble wrote haven’t met you yet for you.
I love that you keep the ticket stubs from every single movie we see in the tea jar under your bed.
You smell of cologne every time you walk into the house.
You don’t know how to whisper. You never have.
You tell me you’ll be back by noon but don’t come back till 7 p.m.
You use your knitting needles as chopsticks when we order sushi,
And don’t stamp any of the letters you send your mom.
Even though you have seven wallets, you keep all your money loose in your bag
and throw away all the pennies in the trash.
You pretend your belly-fat is a puppet that can talk and sing,
And you flirt with the waiter for extra hot sauce.
You hate it when I use your cell-phone
And every night you kiss him goodnight at the train station.
Dec 12, 2011
Dec 12, 2011 at 11:19 AM UTC
We were kids.
You shut the door on me in the pouring rain.
You had this wide-eyed, crazy grin on your face
all the time
amused with yourself
and that was enough.
How did I know
how to tell a boy I liked him?
I just knew your breath smelled like
listerine when you got on the schoolbus
in sleepy half dawn
You sat behind me and sometimes,
if I peeked my eye through the crack between
the seat and window, you'd smile
and share your headphones with me,
a simple song or two from The Postal Service.
On brave days, I'd scoot back to be closer
and breathe you in
in tentative girlish awe.
You laid your head down on my lap
to nap the rest of the trip
and I'd watch you, holding
my breath,
slowly playing
with your orange curls
spilling
through my fingers like sunlight.
Almost a decade later,
I've forgotten the schoolbus.
We're reunited with a group, eating
sushi, laughing until we cry
at my spicy face and the clumsy
way I can't hold chopsticks taunt.
But reaching past you, I brush
your hair on accident and stop short,
the sensation tingling my fingers,
remembering how
more than once I've
gazed at you in wonder.
Oct 27, 2011
Oct 27, 2011 at 4:52 PM UTC
Morning:
how to undo a bra-strap
(almost-girlfriend).
Afternoon:
how to use chopsticks
(former drama-teacher).
Evening:
how to know if she hasn't yet let go of her baby
(mother).
Apr 22, 2015
Apr 22, 2015 at 2:46 PM UTC
O Toro, my Toro!
You bring me no sorrow!
Just you on a plate,
O my taste buds can’t wait!
Atop a small mound of rice is where you beautifully sit perched,
I know that my whole life it was for you that I’ve searched!
The light dances off of your gentle pink hue like a star,
A phosphorescent culinary delight is what you are.
I embrace you with chopsticks, eyes closed, and place you on my tongue;
And your flavor ********** that proceeds keeps me feeling young.
You’re creamy and buttery in all the right places!
You ended up here with me only by God’s good graces.
Onto my tongue melts your morsels of fat,
Rich decadence coats my mouth and my inhibitions go flat.
I can’t ever get enough; I want more, I need more!
Your soft savory texture hugs my mouth and warms my core.
I swallow you wearing a smile unlike any I’ve worn before,
Your gentle ocean tuna taste lingers and leaves me wanting more
O Toro, my Toro;
You leave me and my appetite so Zen,
And I’ll be dwelling in our memories until we meet again.
Jun 15, 2015
Jun 15, 2015 at 3:10 PM UTC
chinese chow-mian
little brown worms
wriggling past soya sauce
skinny dipping into sizzling sauté stew
lavished with molten eggs
strangled by wooden chopsticks silently
heavenly.
May 9, 2013
May 9, 2013 at 6:05 AM UTC
and we put our hard earned dreams
in a wooden beach chair
and set sail
cross the blue blue sea
using seashells as hats
using palm fronds for tea cups
and get em all mixed up chasing paper doilies
sing you a song that stretches all night long
you spend the dawn clapping and calling for an encore
so we all join hands
and get another chorus goin
because that smile you gimmie honey
midnight and she stepped to the edge of the road
with a rubber duckie in one hand
and a lethal dose of reality in the other
she will use one to make you laugh
then she will administer the other one
cause that's what she thinks is funny
but that's the thing
reality checks always bounce
got rubber duckies on the brain forevermore
sneak down her road
with her hand in mine
and all the mister naturals in the world
couldn't be wiser than the cherry eating
little gnome in the movie usher outfit
sitting by the exit
charging admission back into the world
cause its exactly as advertised
its stranger than freakin fiction
and its heavy brother
sing you a song that stretches all night long
you spend the dawn clapping and calling for an encore
so we all join hands
and get another chorus going
because that smile you gimmie honey
they ain't got too many passion moments left
let em get on with their
neon green VW bug and its
fifteen clowns waiting in the trunk
cause if all else fails and she needs distraction
you can set up a tent and sell tickets
to the sunrise of her surprise
at how easy it is
but deep down inside you know its heavy brother
so you pick up a guitar and start to play
whatever tune comes to mind
and while chopsticks is better on a keyboard
your heart is hungry and chinese sounds good
she lights a kerosine lamp and holding up to the sea
all the lost sailors hoping to find their homes
stop in for tea and a biscuit
it all sounds like romantic gibberish to me
all this play for pay
food for gain
sing you a song that stretches all night long
you spend the dawn clapping and calling for an encore
so we all join hands
and get another chorus goin
because that smile you gimmie honey
Oct 5, 2013
Oct 5, 2013 at 1:01 AM UTC
when i was born,
you cried to our grandmother
because you wanted a brother
and got stuck with me, instead.
and what a turn of events that became.
when i was a baby,
i busted the back of your teeth out
with a bottle of perfume,
most likely contributing to your
repetitive dreams of your teeth falling out.
sometimes i think of this when you say your "th"s.
when i was a child,
you would pick peppers with our dad
down the street and hold eating competitions
while i squashed berries in my little tyke car.
we played mouse trap on the floor.
when i completed my first decade of life,
you packed your bags, got on a bus,
got married, and were deployed for the first time.
i don't remember much of those days.
i only remember the first phone call,
"yours truly, from iraq."
when i was eleven,
you came home, war torn and ragged
and divorced from an army wife
who was never really a wife at all.
you moved on, in some ways
more than others.
you were different, changed.
when i became a preteen,
i met a girl, and looked at our mom
and i said, "he's going to marry that girl."
and marry her, you did,
and had your first child, too.
when i was a teenager,
you taught me important life lessons
like how i act when i'm drunk
and how to do sake bombs like i belong in asia.
you taught me to eat with chopsticks.
through babysitting, i learned to wait to have a child.
and now, at twenty years old, everything is different.
living down the street from me, then in the old house,
and finally in our mom's house with me,
the dynamics changed.
we became the best friends we'd
always tried to be, but were too distant
to maintain. we gained trust and inside jokes.
you finally gave approval of my boyfriend.
we wreaked havoc and stayed up way too late.
but then you moved five hundred miles away,
and every day my heart feels ripped into pieces.
i miss all the jokes, and you waking me up
to our favorite songs.
i miss my brother. i miss my bubby.
i hope one day one of us will go home.
Sep 6, 2012
Sep 6, 2012 at 2:30 AM UTC
Chopsticks and Friends
Chopsticks and Friends
Chopsticks and Friends
Chopsticks and Friends
Chopsticks and Friends
Chopsticks and Friends
Chopsticks and Friends
Chopsticks and Friends
Chopsticks and Friends
Chopsticks and Friends
Chopsticks and Friends
Chopsticks and Friends
Chopsticks and Friends
Chopsticks and Friends
Until when are you going to write random things?
Haha.
Mar 31, 2017
Mar 31, 2017 at 9:54 PM UTC
Chinese Firecrackers
Celebrate New Year with firecrackers|
lunch time is good
the smell of food mixing with gunpowder|
loud noises
drown out the clack of chopsticks
red paper
strewn around is all that's left
apart from the ringing in the ears
Malcolm Davidson Feb 12th 2013
Chinese New Year
Chinese New Year is all around
red lanterns hanging from the trees
people laughing, boisterous
everyone goes home for the holidays
to share rice together
one big family
you can feel it in the air.
Malcolm Davidson Feb 1st 2013
Dec 6, 2013
Dec 6, 2013 at 9:12 PM UTC
nestled within
this ocean of tranquility
with its zen-like decor
they sit for hours
in total silence
a smiling Buddha
sole witness
to the arrow-like exchange
of amorous glances
each glance
an implicit confirmation
of intimate liaisons
from lives past and present
the odd tap
of wooden chopsticks
picking up sushi
the only music
time
dare not enter
this oasis of love....
as eyes keep
rapidly exchanging words
while lips stay silent
© 2019
May 12, 2019
May 12, 2019 at 2:20 PM UTC
outside, my
professor lights a pipe beside the daffodils,
and we make small talk about the cigarette butts in the dirt
and the history of natural science.
He travelled south in a small blue wagon,
for no particular reason
except the summers are dry
and the air is silent,
….
inside mould grows on glass
windows, wood rotting damp
dissipates the rain through its splinters
cracked rooms containing muses, alight
with the glow of creation, reinvention
I am taught to eat with chopsticks at a fast food restaurant
each Friday night; I learn
to break them in two before I eat,
dissect myself in certain manners of precision
indulge in cakes with sprinkles
spires
lining streets
the lamps in the evening
dull for flashes of traffic
souls in sachets about to be added
in a hot drink, or instant frappe
we dissolve
into particles
about
the place in
certain manners of precision
break in two before
we indulge
impart
chromosomes collaborate
in the rooms,
in the mage’s quarters
dollar bills are sniffed and sorted
LSD and Ecstasy crossed, contorted
butterflies have patterns in conversations
on their wings, in teacups, sipping Spanish ***
drag my son up a hill to **** him,
in the ash tree foliage, faces in the sky
and ask of grace
deliver me to the divine class of men
what am I if only captive to contagion?
After all, I spread across windows
like mould each hour multiplying
to become sporadic, spatial,
discovering the heart’s variation
insofar as we are variable
asking Sophie, my daughter, to empty
the dishwasher, I pray she wonders
why we have cups
of coins in our pockets
why we ache
atoms
about
the place in
certain manners of precision
break in two before
we indulge
impart
chromosomes collaborate
Sep 25, 2013
Sep 25, 2013 at 8:36 AM UTC
Like bears gnawing at the wood
And swings that go about
They sit and cross another
For that bark would even bite its brother
Apr 2, 2014
Apr 2, 2014 at 11:57 PM UTC
I walk past the old woman
who wears unflattering red lipstick,
vivid as cartoon blood,
and jeweled chopsticks in her hair.
We meet haunted eyes,
full of defiant sorrows.
The pudgy little girl streaks past,
pigtails askew, sandals mismatched
by herself or a harried mother
she is either running to, or away from.
The boy with the closed face,
like a letter that no one opens
for fear of what it might hold,
reaches for the same book I am reaching for.
We smile at one another, surprised.
Such small things bring recognition.
We are the same inside.
Apr 29, 2014
Apr 29, 2014 at 4:50 PM UTC
The seven day prayer candle burned out
seven days ago, and the twisted blinds
are held together with chopsticks and moving tape
after snapping in an unresolved haunting.
The nights enter like gemstones and exit like rabbits.
Truth sequestered from skin; I get a haircut
instead of another tattoo.
While shaving my neck with a straight razor,
the bald Albanian barber asks me:
"Which is scarier: people or mirrors?"
Before I could reply he shook his head:
“Trick question. They are the same thing.”
Walking home, I tore up the if-I-die note I had hidden
in my back pocket, and taught the pieces to dance
to the silence of buckshot screaming into a black hole.
The choreography was as patient as pregnant pauses
breathing into paper bags.
To the neighbors, smoking cigarettes on their stoops,
the shredded paper just looked like litter.
Jan 15, 2013
Jan 15, 2013 at 9:45 AM UTC