Sweet Oriental Angels

with your cloth-thread harps

play your song on dizi flute and

mandolin echo soft

in the foreground

to the cruel industrial drum

of a new world.

This palace orchestra scrawled on scriptures

now a specter of labors

and dawns coated in smog.

Veasna Ta Kvak recording
playback
over Chinatown cafe again
while recounting recent events
to journal pages
muddled from frequent
exchanges bag to bag
(Been to Taipei airport, Bali, Vancouver, most
recently)
blind fate
blind fate
shower me with Indian daisies
and photographs of Railway
New Delhi!
Hanoi Old Quarter/
Vietnam monsoon/
evening on balcony/
Darjeeling water boiled
and filtered anti-malaria
golden drink for honeylungs and
spring-soul morningtide
under moonlight canopy
of Avalokiteśvara
the fruitful
Bodhisattva!
English lessons
and future
hourless
comely chimera
in sleep phenomenon
Benares phantasmagoria YELLOW
(near Mata Anandamai Ghat)
speaking to Aghori
prophecy
Kala Bhairava
FIERCE ILLUSORY APOCALYPSE FAMILIAR
WHERE IS YOUR NOOSE?
the Ganges is full of lice and flowers
candlewax melted into holy water
sickness
equal to
harmony & jubilant
eyeclose and mouthcurl.

The future mysteries in
Mexico City poorboy
$2 mystic orb jade green
reflective underneath
dirt now in North American
bottom white four floor house
basement suite coffee table.
Visions indivisible
from the Viridian roundly haze
but surefire in their accuracy
I'm absolute
and universally formed
for the next few cacophonous
decades!

If I was a king of Asia I would give you all the gold there is
But I'm not even prince of Persia, all I have is love and dreams
Let me show you land of legends, land of honeymoon and rising sun
I am not as rich as Ali Baba, but I promise we'll be having fun

I'll take you to Bali the gem of Java Sea
Then we'll go on to safari a little south of Abu Dhabi
I'll take you to Maldives to swim in coral reefs
We'll enjoy the sweet papaya on the islands of Pattaya

I'll show you lake Baikal, Tibet and Taj Mahal
We'll see Macao, Yokohama, Hanoi, Jeddah, Jaipur, Jakarta
I'll take you to Dubai, Dushanbe and Mumbai
We'll spend some starry nights in yurts near the city of Yakutsk

I’ll take you to Tashkent where melons got their scent
We will taste all sorts of apples in the city of Almaty
I’ll take you to Beirut we'll go nuts on dried fruits
And the coffee with vanilla we can try it in Manilla

I'll take you to Kashgar to shop at old bazaar
Then we'll fly a magic carpet to the markets of Qatar
We'll see ruins of Karakorum the old capital of Moguls
Then we'll go to Kathmandu and then Karachi and Kabul

We'll discover caves with treasures, make three wishes all at once
All at once will turn to a fairy tale, like in one and thousand nights
Let me show you feast of colors, take you cross the dunes in caravans
Even if I don't look like Alladin, I sure know a thing about romance

I'll take you to Taipei to see its lovely bay
We will sip on Coca Cola on the silky sands of Goa
I'll take you to Shanghai where towers touch the sky
And the best of architecture we will see in precious Petra

We'll go to Ashgabat, Bishkek, Busan, Baghdad
We will see Great Wall of China and Cambodian Angkor Wat
We'll see the Everest, mount Fuji, Gobi Desert
And it's certainly my pleasure to take you all around Asia!

It's 7AM in Taipei, I haven't slept yet.
Jetlagged and jaded.
I travelled a long way to see her
strung up on a blood transfusion.
Whimpering like a poor rabbit,
the nurse reminding her
that fresh blood curdles in four hours.

I was motivated a few days ago,
but those feelings come and go.
She'll drain her osteomy bag,
I'll hold the jar but
I'm not really worth anything,
I'm not strong or smart, and look
at her wasting away to nothing.
I should be doing something.

I'm distracting myself by smoking,
dipping in and out through the hazy rings
drifting lazily above my head.
Dreaming of *****. I've never tried it,
but I bet that poppies smell sweeter
in January when it's grey.
I'm thinking of a blue eyed boy.

Maybe he thinks of me, here in Taipei,
where it's ten degrees warmer
and 7AM. It's midnight to him.
There's so much in the world to see
maybe he'd hold the insides in me.
And maybe pain cuts through my discipline,
but I do have plans, honestly.

In China, 666
Means things go smoothly

My time in Taipei
Did behoove me

To learn from others
Love foreign movies

Yangmingshan
(feeling groovy)

1 tonight for my boys
1 at Taipei 101
Un pequito Espanyol
Un pequito Midnight Sun

Time tick tocks
La Florida for fun
My Mr. Spock socks
See how they run

      Only just begun ...

Taipei taxi twilight
      young sons sung
                 101

Poems in the night
      Taipei taxis
              101

i have trouble accepting the ends of things
relationships, each day, my life

i miss my Beloved Dead
i sing Cuts Like a Knife

the Buddha saw the transience
Nothing Gold Can Stay

2:22 all alone
Bangkok to Taipei

Krop Kun Kop
Xie Xie

The poems like a diary
This is how I am
Except that I reach out
Me, dad of Cam Cam

I read David Markson
Several thousand times
Quotes and aphorisms
Zapping my May mind

7:25
Postal work today
Longshan temple
Tenderly Taipei

Lois Lowry was written by a Trappist monk
Intriguing to me
Searching. Searching...
For Elsewhere

I taught the Giver in Taipei
Utopia websites
Excellent students
Intelligent. Black hair.

Jonas y Fiona
Seeing Beyond
Gifted.
Rare.

The struggle to awaken
We more than I
I more than they
Aware

          Do and Dare!

A lot of Spanish in the USA
Colorado, Florida, burritos
Tecumseh in Detroit
My parents in Toledo

Detroit, of course, is French
As is New Orleans
Chicago in the winter
And I read Things Not Seen

John Brown raided Harper's Ferry
Nat Turner led a slave revolt
I spend some time in Baltimore
Saw the Ravens not the Colts

Trappist 1 discovered
Water? Alien life?
Silver Spring, Maryland
Thai wedding, my half Thai wife

The fight is on for dear Taiwan
Please wisdom in the strife
I taught the students about Islam
Taipei 101 at night

                  Be alright!

Taipei taxi twilight
birth: middle son
           101

Glow of neon signs, tall buildings ahead
Commotion
Hopes of reaching a particular destination
Intense smells rise through the air
Noise, crowds, can’t move
Time stops

The oasis of a bright yellow taxi
Watch as the scene fades into memory
Time stops

Out and up the stairs
Higher
Discarded trash lingers
Fading into darkness

Water drips quietly down the hill
Orchestra of chainsaws echo throughout
A monkey peers out
Time stops

When I traveled in Taiwan
I often took the train
I remember the typhoons
Relentless was the rain

Passed and prayed a Dragon Temple
Daily on my way to school
The students most respectful
My sons a-swimming in the pool

Taiwan an island in the ocean
Some say the South China Sea
The Buddha and Confucius protect the people
Asian islands inside me

Early morning sirens
Daybreak emergency
I lay awake awake
Grey to blue the light

Carolina Inn
Postcards if I can
I hope I get the car
Batman's human flight

Jeremy in Hong Kong
My eye still on Taiwan
Ah! those Asian rains
Vegetarian delight

Emptiness compassion
Respect. Intelligence.
Courage to Taipei
Interior insight

Against death alone shall he call for help
In vain
San Francisco, California
Avila, Spain

Yes, I do love words
I sing Purple Rain
Stand By Me
Stephen King in Maine

Death will be release
No more mental pain
No more anything
But the moon will wax and wane

I'm in love with the moon
My mother was Sally Jane
Taiwan when I was 2
Adam Raised a Cain

        Taipei Train ...

Advent at the Dollar Store

The *****, roachy desperation of
the unswept dollar store’s cellophane dreams
At Prices You’ll Love boxes of oilless
popcorn poppers deep-fat fryers massagers
to sweeten generational desperation
behind the counter cigarettes locked up
We Cash Work And Welfare Checks can’t afford
Lives collapsed so we console ourselves with
electric hair-curlers and boxes of chips
singing NFL coffee machines
shiny new bicycles to be stolen
before the end of January or
left out to rust in the February rain
dusty plastic holly shiny CD
players for the administration of
anaesthesia Jumbo Bargain Gift Wrap
for Your Happy Holiday Shopping Pleasure
No Shirt No Shoes No Service No, No, No
Hyphenated Industries of Chicago,
Tokyo, Seoul, and Taipei wishes us
a Merry Christmas

Taipei taxi twilight
     birth of second son
                  101

Taxi twilight from 101
     Yangmingshan,  Din Tai Fung
               gracefully, my newborn son

Pettigrew Hall
Center for Jewish Studies
White flowers, Pink roses


Grateful memories
Of Gary and Meegan

      Xie Xie, Taipei!

            (I pray)

Wandering Taipei 101
          Taxi twilight
              my son!

Hello there lord in heaven! (the florist)
selling peoples the bouquets of
insanity
and psychopathy
raging
RED
and
******
and
BORING
Hello there lord in heaven
(the taxicab driver)
who's kids have been
gone a long time
and plays the classic rock on
the radio making poor jokes
and passing poor homes
with $3 in his pocket 1994
windshield wipers
sliding sobs
of tears/rain
back & forth.
Why is city so upset?
Tummy rumbling for
chaos and evening news-
-****** boiling in that
fever stomach deterioration/
sufferings/
***** on ****** reaper crazies sidewalks
where Vicky is walking her dog
(who died some years ago or never existed in the first place who's to say)
people yelling
“VICKY!!!” she's seen them
a few times,
two outta three wanna
**** Vicky but she's not having
it today.
Wayward man (our lord in heaven) on bus gazing from back window
eyes O P E N
playing games with nobody in particular and in silence
“count the needles!”
8 on one block.
He's by himself on the bus/at home/at work/at the park on his way to job/
in his sleep he's married
to a girl (dark hair)
who's a fictional fantasy fairy
and leaps from balconies at the end of all his dreams
signaling-
DIGITAL ALARM ON HIS BEDSIDE TABLE WHICH RESTS BESIDE AN OLD FAMILY PHOTOGRAPH AND A STACK OF HENRY MILLER
/STAND STILL LIKE THE HUMMINGBIRD/
AND A SMALL STATUE OF THE BUDDHA.
Lord in HEAVEN
(the office girl)
who's tapping her feet on the elevator up a few stories
to Electric Light Orchestra
and has a dog at home
who loves her like
THE SUN
ON A SUNDAY!
(name is Phillip, after her overdose 2002 brother)
oh that MR BLUE SKY!
“How CLICHE!” she thinks laughing to herself
at the small things.
Lonesomes of somewheres are begging for another cubicle
like her cubicle or a lover
like any lover
praying to that LORD IN HEAVEN
for tiny material wants in
tiny material churches.
LORD in heaven!
(Mundane MUTT *****)
pretending he has Schizophrenia
and conning a middle aged autistic woman
residing in a small Canadian town
out of her government cheque
(1300!!!)
later arrested and
SPIRALED INTO PRISON BY THE LEGAL SYSTEM
AND NOT SOON ENOUGH FOR A VAMPIRE LIKE HIMSELF
to be mangled by
iron bars and
PEOPLE SHOUTING IN THE MORNING
another one for our tax money. He wins in the end, I suppose.
LORD IN HEAVEN!
LORD!
ONE ABOVE
AND BELOW
AND  IN LAYOVER PLANES
HOWLING JETSOUNDS OVER
TAIPEI
TO VANCOUVER/
AND ON THOSE RATTLING BELLS
OF INTERSECTIONS
PICKING OUT OF
TRASH CANS MUMBLING
THE PROMISE OF ETERNITY TO
THOSE NOT LISTENING/
MY BIBLE
IS A FIST FULL OF COINS
PRESET FOR THE COMMUTE TRAIN HOME
AND LISTENING IN ON
BIRDCAGE CONVERSATIONS
OF THAT DISCONNECTED
SYSTEM OF PEOPLE
INFLICTED WITH
A SIMILAR PAIN AS ME
WHO MIGHT NOT LOOK AT ME
BUT UNDERSTAND.

LORD IN HEAVEN!
The leprosy
humanity
going from here to
there
and trying to learn a little
while they're at it again
F
  A
    L
      L
        I
         N
            G

                 A
                      P
                         A
                              R
                                 T

The professors are pretenders
Though it took me long to see it

Ain't got no *****
They never want to be it

I taught in old Taipei
I went to Confucian temples

Not sure what to say
The students were an example

I'm ambiguous
And I have few true friends

But I'm gonna plant a mustard seed
Before my strange tale ends

Religion is sacrality
And religion is pretends

Maybe Jacob Von Hogflume
His time machine to me lends?

i will remember you

(i)
in your onitsuka shoes you were wearing when we reunited at taipei main station after three weeks of silence

(ii)  
in your old hoodie walking back toward me resiliently in the rain to give me an eskimo kiss after i repeatedly told you to leave

(iii)
in your skin that you slept in till dawn while beside you i wept from sheer fear of losing you

(iv)
in your spontaneity leaning into me leaning into you while we sang our thoughts to the waves crashing below us

(v)
in your unbridled passion when you kissed me for the very first time in the dark

*i will remember you

Taipei taxi twilight
      Day is Done
            101

The kind nurses who heal my boy
In typhoon Taipei, Taiwan

Their kindness lingers on

And their soup:  won ton.

Leonard Cohen saw the Future
Maybe I did too
Little prayer for Taipei
Carolina blue

Vegetarian tacos tonight
Edamame for my son
Rieko held him newborn
At Taipei 101

Sometimes profane the sacred
Sometimes revere and cherish
I do pray to the statues
But do not attend the parish

My ordinary life
Boring, but gratitude
My joy in my three sons
In my solitude

                     3!

Tienmu means motherly heaven
              young son sung
                    and today

                             11

Protect him from the terror in the night
And the arrow that flies by day
Basketball is my holy hope
Californ I A

Gratitude for Andy
Stars come out to play
Picasso's Guernica
Live to write another day

I like miso soup
Summer rolls, spring board bops
No need to get suspicious
No need to call the cops

Beautiful blue morning
Exoplanet Sky
Un Escritor, Mr. Rodriguez
Why, Judi, Why?

           I Thai Fly

Sartre said, Man is a useless passion
But I don't like Jean Paul

He became a Maoist
I lived in Taipei after all

The passion is the poem
The poem comes from flight

Her beauty in my memory
Her gentleness delights

                 Inscape
                 Insights.

I took a plane to Taiwan, today.

I like it here.

It's nice.

Dear, I do travel a lot.

Oops.

Maybe, next time I'll take my friends,

Zǎoshang hǎo, ài.

What do you do when you’re alone
Feel the necessity to indulge in something
A drink or a cigarette
Always blowing away the ****** in swirly smoke
Or downing your business deals in ****
Maybe if it’s your birthday
You’re still alone
Probably because you’re a businessman
You may occasionally take hashish trip
And imagine yourself on a minaret
There are plenty
You could choose the one of the three Pagodas
That resemble the Taipei 101
Or the CN Tower
If you’re looking for something modern
But after your escapade of solitude you need a routine for your return

People take advantage of me
I don't think it's fair
I try not to let them
but
If I don't do the work
who will?
certainly not them
because of them
I only sleep 4 hours a day
and when the weekend comes
I'm extremely tired
but I still try to enjoy
going to my friend's party
going to watch a movie with my family
but I can't
I'm always planning stuff
planning my summer vacations
sometimes to weird places like
Nepal
Sri Lanka
Taipei
planning my future
where I'll study
where I'll live
what will I drive
how I'll contribute to the world
with all of this
i still make time to enjoy
study,achieve,have fun
and it's very tiring
I can't live like this
with the pain in my body
my legs,my feet,my head,my back
but so much time has passed
that I've gotten used to it
maybe because of my life
I sometimes think
"how it'd be great to live up to 150 years?"
maybe because I don't have time to  live my life now
and I'd live it when I'm older.

Right now i don't have time
to live life one step at a time.

It’s a funny sensation and I crave conversation
‘Cause lately, I’ve been suffering from disassociation.
So let me sum up my train of thought from yesterday:
Why did I think it would be a good idea to move to Taipei?
Nowadays I can’t recognize my own reflection
And hide behind a glass of whiskey’s protection.
After work last night, I went straight to the bar.
The place was clean but a little bit far.
The signal was bad so I cursed my phone carrier.
Then quietly cursed myself for this language barrier.
Can somebody flirt with me?
Better yet, hurt with me.
To sit down and eat a slice of dessert with me.
I just need someone to hold me.
These few weeks have been lonely.
“I just can’t trust you,” he recently told me.
With my eyes glued to the screen of my phone,
I promised myself I wouldn’t be alone.
I called up a friend to distract me from my questions.
He threw my way a couple of suggestions.
I can’t be left with my thoughts for too long.
My feelings are valid but my head’s ******* on wrong.
I stumbled outside, left my purse and laptop behind.
Luckily, the bartender caught up to me in time.
Thank you to everyone who listens to my rants.
I’m just proud that I got home before ******* my pants.