There will never be a final iteration of "Carry You"

It still hurts,
That damned hour when mother found out
She no longer held a uterus but a tomb
And the mausoleum of her clasping hands quivered
Like broken windows thrown against a porcelain-tiled floor
The sound of an unspoken hail Mary
Flowing down a drain
And I hope the water guided you out of those sewers
You are too clean to be born in purgatory

This is my faint wish upon a star-stumbled embryo

Final Iteration of "Carry You"

“Carry You”

We are a strong family, a closely knit constellation strung together by our bloodlines
We wanted you to be the banner of our floating ship
A spectacle among the cosmos and believe me,
Your parents, they shot for the stars when they dreamed of making you
But they missed the carriage, and I’m forever sorry

You were an embryonic ball of stardust channeling light years into bone-marrow
That either ran a few smiles short of keeping you lit
Or maybe the halos tracing ventricles didn’t spin fast enough
But even though your mother was the only world you knew
Never forget that you come from the stars

I see you look lost among this interstellar mall
I will take you by your bright little hand
And we’ll have the Milky Way’s customer service desk announce your name via megaphone,
God’s vocal chords,
And we will stand there forever if we have to
I will not leave you until the galaxy’s lights shut down
And the lowering cages leave us nowhere else to go
But back to our mother’s womb
But at least we lived in heaven once
Mother has a piece of heaven living inside of her
And it’s about this big

I know you lived there and remember the songs she sang you
And how she fed you spoonfuls of lullabies
Bedtime prayers
And birthday with photographs
That sink into your exposed heart like promises
All for the first time
And everything tastes so sweet

Mother adored your little body before your limbs
Could develop enough to grasp this concept of love
So no one can ever label you as “doesn’t belong” or “never was”

I even wrote directions to home for you
‘starts on the top of these eyelids
Where you will find a herd of peacocks
Show them the complexion of your shadow
And they will fly you down to the tip of my nose
And I’ll breathe you in like a spore
Feel the touch of the everglades as you make your way
To the back of my throat
Climb down the rungs of my windpipe very gentle like
So as not to wake me up
Crawl under the redwood brow of my collar bone
And you will find a cellar unlike any other cellar
This one has five chambers
With an extra one storing our bloodlines in glass bottles

I will awaken you from your stillborn slumber
I will plant you through the soil of my flesh
My veins will pour needlepoint memoirs in your pupils
My lungs will whistle 3000 proverbs through you nostrils
And when your voice sprouts
Your first birth cries
A harmony of 2 sapling seeds
One sibling body
I will carry you home

Enclothed in the ivy that hemorrhages from these bones I will carry you
The way horizons carry daybreak
I will carry you with arms spread
And we will shine brighter than a Mercury zenith
Our shadows drowning in the glare of their own rebirth
We are invisible again

I will carry you the same way our father carries his last name
In his sleep, in his wake, a signature of veins lies written across his chest
When I find you I will carry you the way you always wanted to be carried
And don’t be afraid to show yourself
So I can reach into your formlessness
Find your face
Lift up your chin
And show you your name:

Julian,
When you finally come home
You can share my birthmarks
If it helps you feel that much more alive

My Message to the World.

Lift your shadows from the concrete.

Fireworks

Does she ever wonder
if I will abandon this smell of sulfur after being
blown inside out?
Or does she enjoy seeing through these crispy holes?
I wonder.
Wonder if we can still transfix light into foliage
the way we did.
Does she normally adhere to the soundbites
of visionary evenfalls
or does she pick them from an expanse
like grapes in a vineyard?
Tonight I have sought to discover

as into the tides of the night's chasm,
I vertically toss this message in a bottlerocket
written with a language of burst and crumble
to a gypsy of fluorescent gambits
with a shape as timeless as her name:

To My Beloved Ultraviolet,

The alchemists and the stargazers never knew you were a woman,
much less- single. Not until last night, early July, when I dared
call you down from your star spangled balcony. I cunningly wished to
join the people in their jubilation of hazard. Little did I know that
you humbly dared answer back from your lofty heavens. You are a
beam of celebrity, an adorner of skin tone, and you accompanied
me at the expense of countless galaxies.

We danced in our own chromatic edifice that
we built with fire and thorns. I twirled you with rocketing thistles,
the ghosts of manmade missiles, and you answered back
with a doubledutch wavelength grin. The taste of your cherrybomb
lips left me deaf and shrouded in smoke. If my buddies ever knew
that I have fallen for Ultraviolet's rays they would laugh
in my face, say you are too good for me. I don't need to be
reminded. But if the silence from your balcony is to be taken
for regret and wariness, then what is to make of the fiery shells
we have broken or the sizzling rose petals?
Our affection a cursive matrix of amorous distortions.

Let us recollect avenues of woodwind atmosphere. The glowing
serpents hissing cyclonically down streets. Let us erupt together,
leaving dead galaxies behind us as we guide ourselves with
nothing but Roman candle light.
For by dawn we are white clouds and diamond gleam, by noon we are
blue lips and circumzenith smiles, by night we are thunderclaps
and fireworks and why do we love fireworks so much? A poet named
Langston Hughes knew why. Fireworks are just dreams in reverse:
first they explode and then they defer! I dream of making fireworks
with you very soon. Be the fuse of my forevers, Ultraviolet.

Signed,

Your Favorite Shattered Twilight of Twilights

This Dream is Real

By the time you read this
We'll have already danced on the sky
And bent space-time with our heels
And you'll find that this dream is real.

Leaking

I didn't know until it rained last night that when it rains on the softest part of your head you never feel it because it falls through you. And that we can always smell water when it's nearby because the very tips of our noses have little dousing rods inside them.

My Island

Back home my family wakes up to the smell
of coffeebeans and the jolt of birdsongs.
I know they're safe because God is within arm's reach
like the coconuts and oranges.
To those who ask, I can say I've been before, whether rich or poor,
puerto rican, early morning seeking folks, feel the open
seas in flow the trees and coated leaves that breeze in homes
because my island only has two seasons: hot and steamy.

My island's ancestors can be heard in the tropical midnight croaks,
their marrow fills the webbings of amphibian feet.
My island shimmers like rich portals
with strips of mango spilling from the shockwaves in its iris.
My island's dancers have curves that sweep the coastal currents,
they move with tree trunk legs
that shapeshift into rainforests when they dance slow enough to be seen.
My island's women have lips that kiss softer than citrus fruit,
food that nourishes souls and supply the moisture in our hair,
because the best bananas in the world are not yellow.
My island's people go to plazas and pray,
letting the blessings fall from their open palms like loose change.

Our waters steady the burn of our pulse with its rumbling Atlantic blue.
Drop the white star of Bethelehem in the middle and call it our national flag.

I sing of the contours of paradise that pride themselves on
the haloes that light our earth-toned shoulders,
like angels posting treetop vigils with their machetes at their sides
next to hefty bottles of sunscreen.

We hear the songs of celebration a thousand miles away
in the streets of Manhattan, with tumbling voices that all shout the same anthem
"Our population may be small but our genes always dominate."

My island's kings resurrect every year to testify
the camelback gospels in the crowded villages.
My island's natives live in the clamor of our bones,
they rise from our bloodstreams and beat the earth with their fists
just to show the world how loud and alive they still are.

When our ears savor the cracks of rocketing baseballs
from stadiums residing at every other street corner
our mouths roar like the lions painted on our walls
it is the sound of an army of mountains
holding a grudge match against the tsunamis,
it is the sound of generations being born
when we hear it we parade the streets and shake the bleechers with our feet.

Come feel the sun breaking from his coyness
to gently hold you by your chin
on this sanctuary of reinita bird feathers and relampago waters,
this solar meridian oasis of the ages.

I come from a harvest of blooming faces
and rooftops that color the hills with their sugar milk walls
my family, we envelope with love for this world and all its people
like the last days of the elderly
and it is so strong, that the waves fight amongst themselves
for a chance to grasp the hibiscus-colored gems of our sandy throne.

A Poem Love

When my eyes first found an empty space
for me to hear myself think
I thought of poetry and confused it with love.
Not one poet who speaks in love boasts his love
he shares it with his voice.
When poets get a poem published they feel the wings in
their hearts keep their leaden stomachs afloat
because the poem is as official as a ring.
A poet tries on her new published poem
and sees how it looks on her.
It feels gorgeous and new.
A poet must be in love to an extent when he writes a poem.

The creation of a poem is the most exciting part.
Because for a moment no one else in the world knows about it.
And we boil with anticipation.
Like love.

Drizzle

The first sign of rain was a drop felt on my lip. Rain was falling and it was hanging on to me with a kiss. Purest kiss I've had in a while.

A Piece of Sibling

Let’s escape the grass like fireflies
and submerge our spirits into the sky.
We will wrestle our way through the clouds
As our youth drops javelins of light on city streets.
I will show you my house where my sister sleeps
motionlessly in her window frame portrait.
When you get tired we can sleep on our bed like newborn twins.
I will wake up, scratch my eyes
and feel the dust you left behind.

Carry You

We are a strong family, a closely knit constellation
strung together by our bloodlines.
We wanted you to be the banner of our floating ship,
a spectacle among the cosmos.
And believe me your parents,
they shot for the stars when they dreamed of making you.
But they missed the carriage, and I’m forever sorry.

You were an embryonic ball of stardust
channelling lightyears into bone marrow
that ran a few smiles short to keep you lit
or maybe the haloes tracing ventricles didn't spin fast enough,
but even though your mother was the only world you knew,
never forget that you come from the stars.

I see you look lost among this interstellar mall.
I will take you by your bright little hand and we’ll have
the Milky Way’s Customer Service Desk announce your name via megaphone,
God’s vocal chords.
And we will stand there forever if we have to.
I will not leave you until the galaxy’s lights shut down
And the lowering cages leave us nowhere else to go
but back to our mother's womb.
But at least we lived in heaven once.
Mother has a piece of heaven living
inside of her, and it's about this big.

I know you lived there and remember
the songs she sang you.
And how she fed you spoonfuls of lullabies
bedtime prayers
and birthday wish photographs
that sink into your exposed heart like promises
all for the first time and everything tastes so sweet.

Mother adored your little body before your
limbs could develop enough to grasp this concept of love.
Who is to say you are not a member of this family?
Who is to say?

You were even given a name very early in your conception,
and when I call upon this name your shapeless shadow moves
like a squirrel through my peripheral.
I want so longingly to play with you,
you handful of marbles,
but I would never forgive myself if I were to lose any part of you.

I know that homesickness has kept you away
in its talons for this long,
and tragedy has miscarried you to the pits of oblivion.
But I will find you and piece you back together.
I will take up the red shards of new beginnings that you are
because it’s too early to simply call it remains.
If I had the power to bring you back like Lazarus
I would do so before you could say “Big Brother.”
But all I can do is hold you up.
I will lift up your unfinished body
like rubies, and I will cradle you into the lake of my heart.

I will plant you through the soil of my flesh.
My veins will pour needlepoint memoirs through your pupils.
My lungs will whistle 3,000 proverbs through your nostrils,
and when your voice sprouts
your first birth cries
I will carry you home!

Enclothed in the ivy that hemorrhages from these bones
I will carry you.
The way horizons carry daybreak,
I will carry you with arms spread,
so when noon comes I will see you at your brightest
and pause time so I can keep you there.
I will carry you the same way our father carries his last name
in his sleep, in his wake, it is written by his veins in signature
all across his chest.
When I find you I will carry you on my shoulders
like you always wanted to be carried
and don’t be afraid to show yourself
so I can reach into your formlessness,
find your face,
lift up your chin,
and show you your name.
Julian,
when you finally come home,
you can share my birthmarks
if it helps you feel that much more alive.

Carry You - first draft

I celebrate today as if it is your birthday when my loneliness
starts to crumble from above.
Cousin, I have been living to meet you.
I called upon your name and the negative space
cracked but remained intact.
I want to play with you,
you bag of marbles
but I would die if I were to lose any part of you.
However I breathe more blissfully knowing not your shape or laugh.
Yet I call a name that has never crowned you, cousin,
and your shadow moves like a squirrel through my peripheral.
That is all I can get.
Your mother adored your little body before you could
grow limbs to know what love feels like.
She was all around you for a while it felt
like an eternity of a warm golden bath to live in.
I understand you are homesick and life has outgrown you
too quickly.
I promised myself that it was your sneeze I heard when my mind
drifted like pollin at the thought of your allergies.
Sneeze followed by faint chuckle.
Mid July we hoped you would dive jubilantly into hands
that would hold you like jewels.
And I still hold you like rubies because you never departed,
were never disposed of.
I continue to hold you and will caress your kindling spirit with my cheeks
some day.
But I'm still here for you, holding your name on
the edge of the cliff of my lips,
occasionally damming the tears with fingertips.

Wet with Summer

The soaking jubilant screams of the soluble youth
Reflect the voice of the sun
As they slip and slide into a pool of delicate dreams
Baby Suzy's bikini skirt is a carousel of strawberry shortcakes
The circus tent hangs from a drop in little Adrian's eyebrow
And the storks fly above their freckled frenzies
The neighbors on the other side of the towering fence
May as well be foreigners as seen through the margins
Of their barracades
Milo leaps at a platinum moth like a direwolf
And the sprinklers punch through the beach ball which
To Suzy and Adrian could be its own world of stories
What could possibly make a child's day more amusing?
"Koolaid's on the table" says the voice of an angel

Words pt2

Words want to be treated like bullets
So I aim words at people’s heads and fire away
I want to open up your mind with words
Because words can be treated as ammunition for the talkative
Musicians to rock with
They build up like resin in my bottomless denim jean pockets
So the second I reach for the credit in my wallet
Words dangle from my fingers like ants
Before you think they’re gone they repopulate
But words just want to be unleashed
So I open up this can of words and hope it doesn’t scare you
Too much
They’re just words

Bang

Your casket was drowned in shades of gray
Like the streets you thought you could own
As if the streets were a gun you could set to safety
And tuck behind your belt buckle
Without fear of it backfiring

We were soulmates
You were a soul I used to walk side by side with from bus stops
A soul who had toys, basketball cards, and a mom
We tried our hardest to stand next to each other in class photos
You would always try to find me before church started

We grew up
And now that soul is gone and I walk alone, next to no one filling your void
But a 6 foot storm, a vertical cloud of black dust
It reeks of worms and the soil you rest in
And I get scared every time I see it and pretend it isn't there
But it's hoping I look up and make eye contact with this demon
This walking scourge of poisonous flashbacks
A plague of disorders that wants to convince me
That my world is in a hellish vacuum
And I am burning with it
And I try to outrun your pitch black placeholder
But this thing always waves to me and
Promises we'll meet up later

We were freshman in high school and we took a walk in the woods
You told me of the new friends you made
You pulled out your 9mm and fired 2 aimless shots
And I saw how narrow and fast your life was going
As BANG goes your GPA and BANG goes your dreams after we graduate
I told you with the honesty of a saint
And with the grace of an angel's plea
That living by the sword meant dying by the sword
And I reminded you that the rule applies to guns too
I even prayed for you and I felt like those prayers
Were shot dead before they could make it past my roof

I don't know what thoughts or chemicals were going through your head
When you embarked on this suicide drive by
With a gang of gargoyles wearing blood on their sleeves
A lifestyle of half reality and half maelstrom

And I’ve known you long enough to know
That my warnings and prayers kept cycling
Through your head like wheels going 40 mph
Yet you kept driving and driving even though
God put signs along the way telling you to stop

But the noises of gunfire deafened your remorseless ears as
BANG goes the beer bottles laid against window sills
And BANG goes the slumber of sleeping children
And BANG goes the ripping chambers of an unsuspecting heart

Your life was marked like tombstones
An hourglass of imminent devastation
Barely balanced over your head
Where there once was a halo
You were missing for weeks until the night of your death
For weeks you were a ghost before you became a corpse
Until the night you turned the corner that led to your fate

As BANG goes your life
BANG goes my friend who could have been
BANG goes a blowhole through your family portrait

A teardrop leaves its mark on paper
And blurs the margins
A message for you kept safe by its sender forever

Let's Candle

The candle attracts the children's laughs in the middle-aged.
It illuminates the smiles in our wrinkles.
For the day I forget what it means
to love one another
will be the day when flames stand still.
Come around old friend,
if you've got a candle in your heart.
We can laugh at the nights
and be back in time to bottle up
the fireflies before they retreat to the spirit world.
Bring your dog with you too,
because Lily's been gone for 4 days
and I miss her stealthy wet nose
smeering its way across my hand.
I just want to find some kind of ghost of her
in your new companion's stride.
I want to see if he'll stand up and clutch my
palms in his paws, I want him to
pinch me with his sharp nails
to feel if there are any daggers in his swagger.
Let's get on your roof so we can show him
what it means to howl
from the bottom of our balls,
above the lights of civilization,
and hope it doesn't cause another freak accident
like the last time you tried to scream a candle to death.

Words

Words have a tendency to haunt me with their affection
For they all strive to liquefy and become real
I look for a place to be alone
And words scurry past my feet on my way there like bugs
They buzz with wings and creep with their numerous legs
They slither and whisper like sisters with their peculiar sounds
All diverse, each word its own species

But words don’t know words they disperse
And hum melodies until I sleep
Night and day I breathe and drink words
And I wash the germs off with water and words
When I am with words I teem with their fragrance
But they alone have no smell, no face, no mothers
For the word celibate can smell like the word peppermint
And peppermint can look like pelicans
And pelicans can drink tea with the word etiquette
And etiquette feels like rhetoric
And when I assemble these words together
They tend to sound like the word relatives

For words beg to be stripped from their roots like fruits and twigs
They beg to be seen and heard and known
I often write because I can release these words like prisoners
Into the majesty of dawn
So they can dance in its rays until sunset takes them away
To the edge of the earth with its rosy chariot of molten gold
And maybe find a warm human heart for a place to call home

Oasis

I wandered down a busy street looking for something to eat,
and by the street corner I found a woman in a booth serving shish kebabs.
She wore a shawl and I was curious
"Where are you from?"
She told me "Egypt" and smiled
I asked her if it's always hot over there and she could only
repeat her first answer and nod.
She cooked for me like I was one of her children,
ignoring the greasy sweat on her high cheekbones
that were round like empty bowls.
Her smile stood out to me, not because of the gaps between her teeth,
but because her smile erased the parts of her that we would name ugly.
And I saw the spirit inside her revive her body and repaint it
with tear drops and sandalwood incense,
so within these strokes appear a Mona Lisa,
wearing a sapphire cloak, her face like amber stained glass
handing me the juiciest chicken kebab I've ever tasted.
I thank her with the widest smile in years
and leave her to greet her next customer with her gapped teeth.
She occasionally wipes the Nile rivers off of her eyebrows with
her shawl, black like a rosetta stone of
maternal love decipherable by those who care
to give love in return.

Nectar and Ambrosia

We witlessly drink beer as if it
makes our bones stronger.
Perhaps it quenches our wish to one
day drink gold and become Greek gods,
so that when I finish downing this cup of riches,
I am impervious to any amount of
physical or emotional harm.
I can also sharpshoot this ball into your cup of
fanciful grudges,
regardless of where you strategically place it.

Sunburst

Something draws your gaze
Into the brushstrokes of this exotic face
Like it was parchment
And my features were mystifying to look at
Like ancient symbols
Whispered in forgotten library sections
Storing books whose pages
Have not tasted the sweetness of sunstruck
Autumn air and can barely breath
Without asthmatic strain.
And when you see these pupils,
You see the brittle bindings and
Little tying together of the spines
Of Old French romances
And Sanskrit love lyrics
That garner their golden letters
For one last sunburst through the pores of my smirk.

And we haven't even spoken yet.

This Ledge Here

I know of a humble little ledge
That overlooks the wet walkways
Past the pile of bricks and glass beneath my feet
Beyond the streets and the concrete
Beyond mp3s and wifi connections
And into the distant, lampless fields

I sometimes lay on this quiet ledge

If you're a person like me,
Then hearing nothing but the sound of your own breathe
Is a pacifying serenade you can almost slow-dance to
If you are curious like I am
Then you've stared up at the ceiling in your bedroom long enough
That things start to vaporize in the glitches of your optic nerves
If you behave like I do,
Then you have stolen a gaze at the sun,
Ignoring the pain to see a curdling circle
Of boiling rays that vary in shades like a sonogram

If you're a person like me
Then
1. One congrats weirdo
2. Just kidding
3. This ledge was meant for you, because you and me,
we would get along well

On This ledge right here I lay-
The air is cool as I lay flat along the border of
A 30 foot drop

My left knee points towards a Gemini Star
As nighttime queries beg to be quelled
By a sonorous lullaby
So I ask the black sky if he knows any good ones
...And I, take his silence as a no

For I can do nothing,
But hear the voice
Of an old and distant Nana, my Gramma.

Her feeble eyelids await their deadline,
When her soul will wriggle its way out of her nostrils
But for now they are packed with plastic tubes.
I look back and see miles of my materialistic homeland
Where life is less coveted than youth,
And I know,
That many do not deserve to have
What they think matters most

I know God won’t instantly make things fair
But I do ask him again
If he can spare a little comfort
And I hear a voice,

“You are not meant to live in this world,
You are meant to inhabit this universe`
So walk like gravity does not define you,
Like the inertia between your dream-like musings
And free flowing crystalline atoms
Is amassed by the square of your potential to grow

Every single one of you
Has a name transcribed in the highest of heavens into calligraphic star clusters

So live like the stars are spotlights crowded to get a good look at you
Like your tomorrows are
Shaped by the ethereal bonds between your heart, cerebrum and soul
Because they are”

Over this ledge I peer, well comforted
The light on the wall below me illuminates countless names
The marks of self-aware wanderers
Who touch their essences into
A wall of bumps and crevasses

I realized that every cigarette I've ever had
Has merely gotten in the way.

I grab the moon with the space between my fingers,
Admiring this ball of glow once more
This is why people visit this ledge
To be with no one but the cosmos, and the names

As my tribute to this concrete ledge that sustains me
I find something sharp (to write with, of course)
I find a blank space
And I voice my mark in stone

Everything I Need to Know about Sex is in Rock and Roll

My father once said to me, "Son, watch Jim Morrison purse his lips,
With a sliver of breath between him and the microphone head
Watch him gently kiss the notes into its every orifice
Now he rarely opens up his eyes, because he can't help
But see through women's clothing
Watch him clutch the curls of the mic chord like lady locks
Watch the mic stand drips with skin juices
As he wraps his hands around her neck
Watch his loins sweep her off her dome-shaped base
When he slowly swings his left knee around her slim body
Watch as the multitudes shake their tails to the rhythm
Of Jim Morrison rocking the mic
Rocking, rock hard
That, my son, is how you treat a woman"

They call it devil's music
But Lord knows I'm no Voodoo Child like Jimi Hendrix
I am but an overflowing cup of hormones
A puddle of marrow and a trellis of veins
A puppet of bones wrapped in dust
Jamming to the pulling and twisting of guitar strings
If sex is a song then it was written by the first man,
Passed down by songsmiths, and experienced by posterity
If sex is a dance then I only know how to let my limbs
Move with the sonic waves of eroticism that pulse through me
Because up to this point, my ability to rock
Has been mostly self-taught, fine-tuned and furnished,
Ready for the next foxy lady to emerge from a purplish haze


-------------
image credit http://flyingplasticmonkeys.blogspot.com

Landmarks II: Slamified

I know of a ledge that overlooks the wet walkways,
Past the pile of bricks and glass hanging down beneath my feet,
And into the distant, lampless fields.
It is a place for the ones like me who only desire the smallest of things
Like hearing the sound of their breath
Or seeing the motions of clouds
Whether from the sky or cigarettes
Or to forget that tomorrow everyone will be awake.
There is no one else around
But a few names etched
To keep you company in the night.
The trafficking voices in your head are put to sleep
If but for a few moments.

A certain Eli scratched his name on concrete
Just near the edge of the 30 foot drop,
Where my idle body now lays flat along the border
My left knee pointing towards a Gemini star.

This is where Eli remembered the face
Of an old and distant Nana,
Her feeble eyelids awaiting their deadline.
This is an aging homeland
Where life is less coveted than youth.
He knows that many don’t deserve to have
What they think matters most.
But it won’t stop him from savoring
What could be the last few words
Whispered from his loved one,
Despite the hours that separate them.

I lay here on this bed of cement
Peaking down the dark meadows
And this cigarette is only getting in the way now.
The lamp on the wall below me illuminates the carvings
Of those who, like Eli,
Were gifted with an hour to realign,
A place to be with no one but the names,
A breathe of relief,
And some freakin peace.
As my tribute to the pacifying stillness of this ledge right here
I grab something sharp (to write with, of course,)
I find a blank space
And I voice my mark on stone.

While Guarding his Laundry

Lee checks his facebook
Debating whether he should add a certain mistress
Or keep eyeing 587 images that contain her
He can see video footage of her singing Ghetto Superstar

If he really wanted,
He could identify her religious creed to sexual preference
To favorite vegetable to who appeared in her dreams
The night before April 6th, 2007
With more accessible info on one person than FBI files,
Lee taps and taps the touchpad in relentless shame

Landmarks

A ledge that overlooks the concrete dew
And the distant, lampless fields
A place where the meddling curious
Can find a few names etched
A place that diverts the temporal burdens
Rolling around the edges of Eli's thoughts

An old and distant Nana
Her feeble eyelids awaiting their deadline
In an aging homeland where
Life is less coveted than youth
Others are bound to gain
What they believe matters most

But some have their landmarks,
The sights of a peerless view,
A place to see a name,
An unbroken hour to realign;
Acknowledging the pacifying stillness,
They voice their marks on stone

"Shiloh"

This is the complete story that is based on a previous poem. I think this will be the true form of the story. The poem "Shiloh" that I wrote before was more of a lazy outline with several metaphors and imageries that came to mind but did not become a full prose until last Thursday. Enjoy.



This must be what fate looks like. If it should be this way, let it be.

His eyes opened after a measureless duration of sleep. A torrent of images and colors solidified and became a natural haven for his time there. The illuminated grass blades tickled the sensitive interior of his right ear. The chirrups of some nearby robin rang in his head. It was well enough he can enjoy them with his stillness, letting the notes ricochet in his head. He did not understand at the time that those birds he heard were not quite real, but existed the way ideas, concepts, and thoughts do. At the peak of a deep breath, he rose to one foot, then the other. There was little he could remember, a place, a brother, a face; only broken windshields and perhaps a name. A name that lies on his tongue, caged inside the walls of his mouth. Haen. That could be it.
“Haen” came very close to his true name. He arose to a world that owns no place in his memory, and scanned every cloud hiding chunks of the stygian sky, the ripples of the pond before him, and the house on the other side. He viewed his environment with composure and acceptance, as alien as it was to him. A grassy field encircled the deep lavender pond. Around this field stood maple trees skirted with a restless mist, but not quite concealed enough to hide the unfinished emptiness behind them. It was as if the world beyond the maples was abandoned in the middle of its creation, like a painting with extra space to fill.
The maple trees stood together shoulder to shoulder; each was the other’s twin, with slim, slithering branches displaced evenly from top to middle. They came down just low enough that there was only one approach to climbing it: the thickest branch at the bottom for him to jump and clasp his arms around. Once this was done he would have several ways of mounting up his whole body. They involved pulling his legs up and clinging to the branch as he struggled to bolster one side of his torso up the top side, finishing with his chest lying uncomfortably flat. When Haen got older he could more successfully swing himself and use one of the interstices of the tree as a quick step, landing on his bottom six feet above the ground.
A certain amnesia clouded the smooth storm in his head. His convoluted mind tried to scratch at a wall of hardened memory, but could not draw anything; just pictures, clips and pieces of unfinished conversations. Haen looked up for a moment. He watched the barely flickering stars; the constellations he may have known. Haen tried to make a picture out of the tiny lights, and eagerly gazed at the light crimson star that slightly touched the far right tip of a cloud. What seemed to spread from this rosy star were arcs of stars from either side, forming two celestial curves like the shape of a wishbone, or a person’s cheeks. His mother’s hair color was red. Yea, it was beautiful I can picture it I think. Was it natural though? I’ve never seen it any other color. It was puffy too. Just above the dryer in the basement was a portrait of her holding me when I was a baby. She had a curly red fro and was in her shimmering black dress, with a million of those scaly octagons that shine like black marble. Her face though, I can only see her cheekbones, how they were exaggerated by her smile. They had the color of walnuts, sprinkled by a light patch of freckles. Why can’t I see the eyes though? Just high cheekbones, puffy red hair and a black 80s dress. I’m really sure I loved her too.
A warmth rose in his belly at the thought of loving someone. Wherever he was, all of his past occurrences were locked somewhere in a harvest of consciousness that is not for him to grasp yet. But his crippled memory stayed with him. In this state of loneliness the love in Haen did not abandon him. He remembered how good it felt to hug someone for the first time in years. He felt the sensation of looking at a familiar friend not only sharply in the eyes but seeing every small muscle movement of her grin, and the way the strands of her hair would lightly swing over her forehead with the tipping angle of her neck. Another image arose of a day in his adolescence. As he walked into a building filled with exuberant song and dance, Haen witnessed a room of people with their jubilant mouths open, uttering beatific words of a spiritual source so foreign to him. Love, he felt, was a good and safe thing. He pronounced the word softly. It had a sweet lick to it every time he said it. He stressed different parts of the word as he repeated “love” and listened to what effects they had. There was a pacifying repose in his breath as he exhaled it. Love.
He walked down the gradual hill to the still waters that invited him. A sharp rock pinched his heel, making him take a glance underfoot as he picked a rock and clenched it in his sweaty palm. His bare feet tipped the very edge of the surface, the light ripples tracing between his toes. A faint maternal voice rang in his ears. “Sweetie, don’t get too close to the water.” But for a second time he would not listen. The voice died as quickly as it came. He couldn’t help but peer over the oddness of the lavender pond, and at the colorful ball that slowly spun as it floated on it. This ball of his had a multicolor fusion of neon green, deep blue, hot pink, and lemon yellow, like some distant planet made of candy. Haen kneeled and reached over the water for it, casting a reflection below him; an inquisitive child staring back, with an outstretched arm dwarfed by his own. A little taken aback from the way the boy returned Haen’s glance with his right eye, then with his left, Haen dared to look further, not noticing that his balance swayed him onto the water. The slight splashing caused a steady bounce to the ball and distorted the boy’s face into ripples, so he began to take softer steps. He felt as if he were walking on soft wet glass as he approached the center of the pond, gazing at the stones and the paddling guppies below him. Haen’s fingers loosened, releasing the rock he carried, and watched the little fishes scurry away when the rock pierced through the liquid and sank to the floor.
Perhaps at that point Haen realized this world was slightly more real than the pictures that flickered when his eyes were closed, but not quite stable as the world he came from. In the old world he recollected that pain was a recurring form of suffering. He remembered the crushing of his cranium and the bruising of his bones to be the sharpest pain of his life, just before his body crumbled to a mangled heap. A pain was so acute that it pushed him away from his body into an ethereal pipe dream. He couldn’t hurt himself if he wanted to, but the body his soul rested in was worn and lived in. He hoped that he might have done something to put an end to the pain forever, if he could not remember what he did in his life. Haen crossed the pond as if it were a rain puddle, with only his feet feeling the cooling wetness. In front of him was a red house past the shore with lighted windows. Haen heard the voices coming from inside. The music and laughing piqued his curiosity as the glowing silhouettes mingled about. He felt the presence of family who had been gone for an immeasurable amount of time in this place he lived in. A dark trail of blood followed his feet up the small, white steps. He noticed the leaking crack in his forehead and the feeling of his body’s passing, as if it were telling him to finally move on to the next realm, place, or state. If the love in Haen was what preserved him, then he knew it will stay with him forever. If there were any fears of his destiny through the borderlines of existence, love would transcend it. Love. He especially hoped to see his mother again, and perhaps clean the dark stains on his clothing. Maybe he could learn to love her as he once did, which he did not think would be difficult if he could see her lush, red hair again. The doormat read in calligraphic letters, “Knock and it will be open to you.”

If here is where I am led to be, then let love see my way through.

Box 4129

In laid a card from Mr. and Mrs. Ramirez.
It began with "Dear Son,
I meant to tell you
lots of things
before you grew up
and began your journey
into the world..."

Peculiar, I thought. What held this person from
telling me these things?
The letters were calligraphic tendrils of gold,
On the face of blank printing paper.
It was folded and buttered with ink, to produce
The veneer of worn spiral notebook paper.
Silhouettes of bronze lilies hung behind the margins;
A message from a feminine source.

"There are things
you must hear,
words that'll only
come from someone
who's seen your face
from your first breath.
Someone who relives
the splendor
and momentous meaning of this day
every year..."

I seemed to wonder why she waited so long to tell me.
I withdrew from the message and underhandedly scanned the back
The name Hallmark was centered, donning its signature crown.
This author effectively maintained her anonimity
Despite her maternal angst.
My stomache hardened at the thought that I was given up for adoption.
This woman, my true blood mother, gave me up to the Ramirez family
because of her lack of financial support.
Until 20 years later she earned a job at Hallmark
So she could finally reach me.

"I want you to know
you're deeply loved now
just like you were then.
And in your life's course
my love will forever be with you.
Happy Birthday"

Love Mom and Dad, my surrogate parents wrote in pen,
As their way of saying, "Pretend these words came from us
And not a professional writer."
When in reality they thought they would cover a hidden message
To be their own.
U.S.A. 3.59
Canada 4.59
I may have other brothers out there.
I wailed on my beanbag with tears,
Wanting to know more about my distant mother
And where my true family resides.