"shingled" poems
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
All yesterday it poured, and all night long
I could not sleep; the rain unceasing beat
Upon the shingled roof like a weird song,
Upon the grass like running children's feet.
And down the mountains by the dark cloud kissed,
Like a strange shape in filmy veiling dressed,
Slid slowly, silently, the wraith-like mist,
And nestled soft against the earth's wet breast.
But lo, there was a miracle at dawn!
The still air stirred at touch of the faint breeze,
The sun a sheet of gold bequeathed the lawn,
The songsters twittered in the rustling trees.
And all things were transfigured in the day,
But me whom radiant beauty could not move;
For you, more wonderful, were far away,
And I was blind with hunger for your love.
1.9k
Out there with the shingled road
shimmering in the white sun
squinting into the periphery,
burnt ragged and raw retinas
dilation
out there in the slathering of sky
sleeps your soul
Feb 17, 2015
Feb 17, 2015 at 7:45 AM UTC
My father lit a cigarette and smoked the room up
with choked circles,
he rewrites every woman
he sees,
metamorphosis asunder,
because nothing is on tv.
My mom was hauled blindly
away from love to evening's riverbed
--to **** the fear of
correction away.
Birds talk about fish
that fly in airline crusades, gobbling up wise owls.
Blossom talons pluck
--up their words,
the closest a lie can come to the truth
and be set in stone None of them
will be remembered
the way they want to. footnote retribution.
The wandering dead only care about
modeling on the covers
of psychology magazines--hailing reviews that digest indulgence
beautifully,
carving chocolate waists
down
to starvation--we melt away to gnats
in Prozac hives
shingled with academic love papers
& bible covers.
Dear Alice,
you stole our table of tea, our shaved vigil,
our western rodeo,
our alcoholic omega.
Midnight on the dishonored battlefield
with the scythe beneath us,
we murmur love back into
our sheets of high horror.
Your meteorite adultery could not wipe
this hard drive clean--what we would lose...
the things we cannot touch.
Cloud 9 LSD,
its warriors passing
weapons down to the flock's ashes--to wives who fear
the wrath of their husbands. Chlorine gills quit
cold turkey
--sinks overfill under unorthodox skies--the turning of centuries
is nothing like flipping
pennies
into wishing wells.
Mar 14, 2013
Mar 14, 2013 at 3:05 AM UTC
From this island
water and more tiny islands
heavily treed with Douglas fir
landing ground for ocean otters
while orca whales glide by
spout and spray
the beach, broken shelled
puddled wells of tide pools
filling, spilling over again
brown bauble seaweed mingles
round algae rocks, barnacle shingled
here where the air breathes salt scented
water running wild with salmon.
Apr 24, 2015
Apr 24, 2015 at 10:40 AM UTC
Home,
I’m going home,
Words I hear all the time.
Words that I envy,
Syllabic distress…
Jealousy.
What is home?
For you, it’s the place
You’ve lived for eighteen years.
The place where both parents
Welcome you with open arms.
Laughter
Smiles
Hugs
Kisses
That’s not my life.
What is home?
The place where I moved
When I was thirteen?
A brown shingled roof that hides
Hurt, divorce, a mixed family
That will never get along?
Screaming, yelling, fighting,
Something different every time, and
They wonder why I want to leave
Feb 10, 2013
Feb 10, 2013 at 12:33 AM UTC
--To A. J.
A black and glassy float, opaque and still,
The loch, at furthest ebb supine in sleep,
Reversing, mirrored in its luminous deep
The calm grey skies; the solemn spurs of hill;
Heather, and corn, and wisps of loitering haze;
The wee white cots, black-hatted, plumed with smoke;
The braes beyond--and when the ripple awoke,
They wavered with the jarred and wavering glaze.
The air was hushed and dreamy. Evermore
A noise of running water whispered near.
A straggling crow called high and thin. A bird
Trilled from the birch-leaves. Round the shingled shore,
Yellow with **** there wandered, vague and clear,
Strange vowels, mysterious gutturals, idly heard.
1.4k
Their bars are bars there.
It’s just that the taps
have all run dry.
Behind a wall
computers clank, buzz,
dilapidate.
Behind thickened glass
clerical workers
patter like hail
on shingled roofs.
Beyond walls and glass,
sallow-white leaks.
I sit rough somewhere.
Cold, unfeeling stone
everywhere.
A payphone stares
jeeringly at me.
I curl up tight.
Mother and father
surely spite me now.
Brother won’t know,
no, he won’t know.
Others never will.
Don’t comfort me.
I’m in pajamas.
I’m grasping at straws.
I’m falling fast.
I’d like to know
how much is the bail.
“Sixty-thousand.”
My fingers are pressed
on a copier
like those old, dear
library books.
Copied and copied.
Next I’ll be shelved.
Sep 2, 2012
Sep 2, 2012 at 7:44 PM UTC
Kathleen Avenue still has houses,
But people left, and trees were felled;
The canopy across the street
Has lost some limbs
And many feet
Of children
Playing hide and seek.
One house, a brown-shingled frame
Is aging there as are our names;
The front yard doesn't boast corn
That Daddy grew
When first we landed;
Not knowing neighbours were offended
With farming behind green picket fences.
so corn, cabbage and turnip too
were left to rot. Daddy knew to strike
when hot.
The locals weren't too much impressed
When Daddy taught them some respect.
The human smell of decaying turnip
Keeps my nose from turning up.
the front was never farmed again.
Recently, I passed that yard,
The picket fences gone;
And someone has a garden there,
The new arrivals,
If they care,
Really see the wisdom there.
I give a nod
To my Old Man,
An immigrant
Before his time.
Jan 20, 2015
Jan 20, 2015 at 10:38 PM UTC
You are the rain falling from the sky,
Serenading yourself off the shingled roof.
Though I have shelter, walls and a ceiling,
You trickle your way through the cracks.
An empty room gathers dust;
Snow collects in corners of windows;
And my resistance to you
Suffers from your irresistibility.
Jul 11, 2016
Jul 11, 2016 at 7:02 AM UTC
Your shingled roof keeps the sunbeams out of your head
Greasy grime-stained glass windows tint your cracked worldview
Spite dripping from the meaningless words you said
Time and again it rears its ugly head anew
Tiles misaligned by the slow shaking of years past
Rusted doorknob yielding to splintered wooden door
Vestiges of reason leave your mind all too fast
Eaten by insecurities, razed to the floor
Graffiti and dirt lie intertwined on your walls
Fractured wallpaper peels away in strips and flakes
The answering machine inside holds no more calls
The dusty mould on the tabletop swells and cakes
Broken pipes and tangled wires climb up your side
As varicose veins snaking up your wizened spine
All your flaws leak out and there's nowhere left to hide
Groaning in the wind, your voice hissing "They're not mine!"
Your boarded-up middlesection is always torn
Wind-ripped by desolating gusts of delusion
The flight of fancy, the gloried facade you've worn
Hangs from bitten brick, a decomposed illusion
Dec 10, 2013
Dec 10, 2013 at 9:35 AM UTC
I am forever lost among the boys riding bikes
under an orange sunset
On the concretes next to the spires
and the old shingled rolling roofs
to this sparsely populated plaza,
mid-afternoon of Winter
in another hour it'll be dark and rainy
we can taste it in the air
but now I am alone in abandon
singular light casts a singular shadow
because they are no longer with me
I think it's meant to be this way when we grow old~
At least that's how it's always been
Jan 22, 2017
Jan 22, 2017 at 3:43 AM UTC
Tennessee
A quiet cabin in the woods,
selling books and cups of joe.
It sounds to me quite perfect.
Just the place I'd like to go.
Wooden windows, shingled roof,
and floors you have to brush.
A place where time moves slower,
where there's never any rush.
A swing out on the back porch.
A rocking chair, or two.
Your little piece of heaven.
Do you think I could come too?
I'd sweep the floors and chop the wood.
Split logs and farm the land.
If that was what it took for me,
to be with you hand in hand.
At night we'd watch the fireflies,
and count stars up in the sky.
Sharing cocoa 'neath a blanket,
and perhaps some homemade pie.
Our life would be a simple one,
of laughter, love and joy.
A perfect new age fairytale,
how you the girl, met me the boy.
Aug 3, 2010
Aug 3, 2010 at 4:55 AM UTC
When the sun scorched the sand,
I went to Henry’s Island.
The winter came and left the shore
Spring was for a while and then no more
The rains beat the shingled beach
The soothing autumn was within reach.
Yet I spurned these tempting seasons
Couldn’t persuade myself with good reasons
To visit the island in fairer weather
And landed on it in the harshest summer!
The sands bit my feet like burning coal
The beach seemed alone without a soul
To the distant horizon my eyes could gaze
A fishermen’s boat hung in the haze.
The red ***** though found it a fun
To come out of hole to bathe in the sun
When I was close they were quickly gone
The beach was alive and I wasn’t alone.
The seagulls skimmed the waves for fish
The sea was all mine like in the dreamiest wish
Placing all her beauties at only my command
Gifting me a glorious summer at Henry’s Island.
Apr 10, 2013
Apr 10, 2013 at 8:24 AM UTC
This is a poem
made by her hand
a poem of marks
you can read
left to right
right to left
any which way
an ascemic script
it tells a tale
late in the day
beside a river still
sunlit clouds vast
in a Maytime sky
down on the mud
and shingled shore
these found things
arrived at her feet
as they do when
waiting for her
dear hand’s touch
upon their metalled
forms rusted and
rivered by the daily
tides the diurnal
wash and dry of
weather and watered
river mud-coloured
beside boats bedded
in the river bank each
plaqued to remember
thirty wooden boats in all
that plied a river’s journey
there and back once
to and fro now
charged up high
on Pulton shore
a motorized trow
a top-sail schooner
Edith and the
New Despatch
steel and concrete
barges Severn Collier
and Mighty Monarch
lying hard into the silt
a yard at rest
a grave of vessels
Feb 6, 2015
Feb 6, 2015 at 11:41 AM UTC
i grew up in a patch
of green
low rolling hill
tumbling sky
red maple picnics
cool earth
roses at the chain link
spring's surprise
play dates out front
shoddy wooden hideaway
to the rear
woodpile-beware!
sister scarred
angry bees collect
red-shingled horizon
white shack
rear view
laundry-line perimieter
prison yard
beware
invisible fence line
irish drunks
right side
wife shouts
captures best friend
back-rear torment
pup trapped
evil about
boys and bruised knees
cheek kisses
and sunset
bike rides
snack spot
woods of death
the sky fed me
my roots
tightly woven
spanned, undisturbed
summer mornings
on the run
heat like fire
pebbles, glass
walking on
escape, run, be wild
dreams your navigator
loose teeth
mother's hugs
father's presence
marlboroughs
motor, artistically
deconstructed
colored red
powered escape hatch
off-license
long gone
tree trunk porch presence
dead bird picnic
red-slatted bridge
fruit spider visitor
tiny rodent winter traps
screaming zia
e mamma
adniamo
basta!
communion veil
st. albans bound
pappa, look!
gum stuck hair
and
ruined sleeve
tumbled jacks
fruit loop bed
times
mas*h
glass box
from the carpeted
haven
orange-smokey
scent
beat downs behind
the woodstove
hair-dragged reckonings
begging
cries
anger passed down
mother to
mother
to
brother
pray, midnight
smoke
sleepless-haunted
hell
i grew in no-man's land
May 4, 2016
May 4, 2016 at 8:17 AM UTC
the gravel in back
kitty litter
i stop at the door
the spider tucks tight
in his shingled home
i'm not scared
but he is
he has kids
eyes as strange
like glimmering stone
in absent light
illuminate everyone as one
and we'll sit together
writing diatribes
on a porch as solemn
as i
as we
as everything is anything
it begs to be perceived
Jul 26, 2011
Jul 26, 2011 at 12:52 PM UTC
Every third day of the third week in July for the last six years
I would crawl out onto the hot, black shingled roof of our white and gray two story shuttered house
and I would try to count the stars in the southern sky
The course grains of each shingle would burn deep gouges into my knees and hands as if each shingle was punishing me for sitting on them.
But I hadn't a care in the world
For I had a reason and a purpose to be there
You see, that third day was my day, that third week was my week..
It was all mine...the day I would lose myself into the universe
As I nestled into my favorite spot, I leaned against the hard wood window frame, not caring for a second how I long i sat there. At that pristine moment, I just began to count the stars
Each single star I counted, whether it be faded as the night or bright as the day, was surrounded by complete darkness. A pitch black of nothing.
Those were the lonely stars I saw and I breathed once again.
Each single star i counted, was all alone and afraid in the vast deepness of space with nothing to embrace them except for my eyes and my casual memories and I breathed once again.
This is my healing place. My escape from the life threatening complexities that invaded my inner being. I witnessed the thousands of morsels of light in the southern sky as if they were tiny demons millions of light years away, haunting and watching over me each and every night. For they can no longer touch me or break me apart. They will become the broken.
I have found my place of solace on top of that hot, black shingled roof of our white and gray shuttered house. Many peaceful nights I counted the stars, only to lose to count after I reached one hundred. My eyes would glaze over with an undue purpose of peace and I breathed once again as I started to count the stars all over again.
Jun 27, 2016
Jun 27, 2016 at 8:10 PM UTC
Home be my heart
Where you, dearest, reside
Your ceiling be my love
Your floor my care
Your lamp my passion
Your door, my trust
Break not then, that trust
For a ceiling can be shingled
And a floor redone
A lampshade can be replaced
But a door, my dear,
Can only be cut out once
Jan 2, 2012
Jan 2, 2012 at 12:37 AM UTC
Soft light filters
through curtains
drawn across grey skies
as they pour
on the shingled roof
under which I lie
listening to white noise
I swear could be your voice
sinking deeper in
to sheets so smooth they could be your skin.
May 22, 2014
May 22, 2014 at 4:23 PM UTC
Kathleen Avenue still has houses,
But people left, and trees were felled;
The canopy across the street
Has lost some limbs
And many feet
Of children
Playing hide and seek.
One house, a brown-shingled frame
Is aging there as are our names;
The front yard doesn't boast corn
That Daddy grew
When first we landed;
Not knowing neighbours were offended
With farming behind green picket fences.
so corn, cabbage and turnip too
were left to rot. Daddy knew to
strike when hot.
The locals weren't too much impressed
When Daddy taught them some respect.
The human smell of decaying turnip
Turned noses down that stood straight up. The front was never farmed again.
Recently, I passed that yard,
The picket fences gone;
And someone has a garden there,
The new arrivals,
If they care,
Really see the wisdom there.
I give a nod
To my Old Man,
An immigrant
Before his time.
Jul 8, 2021
Jul 8, 2021 at 10:39 AM UTC
Gnarled fingers hold
Gently
The dog-eared photos of youth
Shingled eyes search repeatedly
Among shades of white and ash
Wavering hope yields
Regret for memories lost, trampled
Underneath
Rote recollections
Snapped
This snap shot is…this…me?
Sep 18, 2014
Sep 18, 2014 at 3:28 PM UTC
Shingled roofing caves in quick, the wallpaper all peeled back
The devil walks these halls
The sinner paints them black
It's been a long time coming, the end to all our ends
The night covers misguided deeds
The moonlight shadow bends
To which do I owe the honor, the joy or haunting dreams?
The guardian stands upright
The sunlight through it streams
Jan 6, 2016
Jan 6, 2016 at 3:58 PM UTC