looking into the well: pessimism and hope

imagine a deep well.  deep and dark, a surface world of dark water, unmoving as it mirrors: a circular piece of sky, clouds, a moon, a firefly, a hint of shimmering light.  

imagine what lies beneath the waters stone cold.  imagine what lies underneath the ground.  imagine the pull, the calling, the fall.  

sometimes

in unguarded moments, we see ourselves, looking up at us from down the well.

to believe again

the exact moment of your coming of age, do you remember? the moment when 
the rosy scales from your eyes fell
and your heart grew a stone
and you finally see

the world is not what you once thought it to be?



                                                                   --on reading college freshmen essays

the roles we play

Linda, who said she can't leave New York there's just so much theater there, said I see her when I could, when she's back, there, or here, or wherever it is she is referring to, as home.  

She said why do I not leave this place.  I said why do you return.  I did not ask do you feel like a stranger here?  I do.  Every time I return, the place has something new.  And I get lost:  the streets

have a habit of changing names.  The landmarks have the habit of changing faces.  Old places disappear, always something new.  When I first saw Linda, she was not 

the picture of the name in mind.  She was otherwise; and warm and bubbly; meticulous about each step of the process.  I was not surprised.  Long years in the theater have a way of creeping

itself into the skin.  In a workshop she tells the participants the cliche among us they may not yet know:  we're all actors playing our lives in roles.  Linda says we are friends, we are lovers, we are

wives, we are children, we are mothers.  One time she whispered I am feeling cold: I think I might be sick.  She asked for a pill and I gave her a glass of lukewarm water with it.  She curled herself 

on the couch, like a fetus.  I turned off the lights and closed the door.
What are we when we are alone?  What role do we play in front of the wall?

a piece of thought in motion

in the middle of writing a post on the concept of line as ****, IT dawned: the ground concept on which to build the reading on ***.  for some months now, the enthusiasm to write about this series has been hibernating; but, until now, there was no particular seed with which to germinate the entire articulation.  also, there were, and still are, too many things on the calendar.  too many projects and legwork necessary.  the near-unbelievable paperwork and the meetings and post-conferences, including the working-dinners over which the more important and sensitive matters are discussed while couched in the trivial act of eating.  i want to mention this concept of the line right now (such is my excitement), but one must not get ahead of things.  i am looking at the clock---as i have the habit of removing my wristwatch, like keeping the phone away, when i intend to have a "breather"---and it says two hours before the need to leave for work.  today, as wednesdays should've been, would have been a writing day; except, for weeks now there has been no writing days.  for instance, two meetings are scheduled this afternoon...i wish to write again through hours that seem to stretch the day and the sunlight; but it is difficult to sit down and keep still to call the thoughts into form, into a piece of infinity entry, in the middle of a deluge.  
 

under a tree

to understand is to stand under
stand under a canopy
of something

bench at the park by the river

how does a conversation between two humans in their bodies begin?
in awkwardness and in pretension.
pretend the body does not matter.
nor the face.  the length and color of hair, of eyes, of skin.
the kind of smile, the crow's feet around the eyes, the even-ness
of teeth, the lips, the lobes of ear, curve of neck, sound of voice.

in conversation, the two humans list on walls of air
their life's achievements:  the various ways they have survived
the onslaught of years;  the ways they have carried on
all the weight of accumulated disbelief; all the personal
histories seen, felt, or otherwise.  how the body
tends to hide behind the eyes.

if the conversation is long enough, it ends with coffee
together with a hundred other things known
on how to keep bodies afloat on the surface.
 
if the conversation is not enough, the two humans, body-less,
stay on the bench at the park by the river
souls talking to each other, both facing the waters.

on questions with no answers

1.

this business with poetry.  almost no wonder why 
poets were sent away from the republic.
all questioning that could, on any day, be meant
to mean subverting  what has been 
a long held belief.  e.g. the world is flat. 


2.

this city is connected to the others by two steel bridges.
mornings and evenings, people fall into long, long, long lines:
all in a hurry to leave at first light
all in a hurry to return by dusk fall.
they all curse under their breaths in between.


3.

in poetry reading class, the students' thoughts
are thick like fabric.  the professor has opened
a window, has let something in: 
postmodernism:  a poem in footnote form;
gender theory:  a poem on the satire of normative roles;
philosophy:  a poem on memory's palimpsestic quality.

the students' thoughts
clutch their bibles, reciting verses.

not one of them has ever seen a firefly.




 

long days

the days seem to have become
longer than the last time they were.
i don't know.  we could easily count 
with several fingers the reasons why 

at the end of the day, we seem to
have become older.  
and older.  wearier 
than the last time we remember.


















 

 

doubt

so it has taken awhile.

you dream again 

of another country, another city, another.  you

remember the scent of spice in the wind.  

of candles, rituals, beads, chanting.

or of silence.  or of sea.

or of crisp of fog.  

remembering not knowing 

whether it is already day, or night

or was it sea waves or sky clouds

you see outside your window.

yet another city, another country, another.

the places where i imagine us

The Places In Which I Imagine Us




I'm not sure how many of them exist. 
Like that cabin in an unexplained clearing
in an island off the coast of Nova Scotia.
The fireplace sounding like a page
of sheet music being eternally crumpled,
as if to say to us: Sit down. Read a little.
The bed is made and we’ll make a bet
to see who gets to ruin its serenity
first. Then maybe I will kiss you.
Then maybe I will step in the shower
and explore the lengthy chapters
of the book of happiness. Then maybe
I’ll get out and lie down and whisper to you
the thousand feelings I cannot name
zipping around my body like molecules.
I will ask you to tell me a story
about your childhood, or ask you to look
outside at all the trees we don’t recognize.
All the colors we didn’t know existed.
All the while I cannot say where you are
in the cabin. Or outside of it.
I have stopped trying to imagine
the entirety of you. Or at least trying
to fit it into a poem. But still on rainy days
I catch myself dwelling there
on the drifting island of my heart, imagining
that somewhere, you are practicing
all the words you know for longing, as I am
doing in the language of poem,
very rarely spoken outside its country
of sorrow. But maybe happiness as it is,
and longing, and love, can make it.
Can be a good poem. Or maybe you have ruined me
exactly the way I wanted you to.

 


by Gian Lao




                

strangers

one of the interesting meetings i've had was meeting at random someone named Albert.  this was in a bookshop cafe while i was waiting to meet a lady friend.  i don't remember anymore how the conversation started; although i do know i didn't start it.  the man was at the next table, one of those extrovert types who, when they find themselves alone, are easy to begin conversations and find common grounds with strangers.  

we found we were both temporarily in the city: his flight out was the next day, he said; mine was that coming weekend.  that also, surprisingly, we were both from the same university; graduates of different years.  the world is small.

we swap university stories:  student organizations we participated in; university places; graduate scholarships.  how we moved forward since then.  when i noticed the book titles he was holding, he said he had done service: twice in Afghanistan, he said.  said he was now in the UN.  told service stories.  noticeable how his books were all about the war; and even though i wondered why he would care to read more about these when he's been there himself, i didn't ask.

so he said he was also once married.  to a jewish woman.  that the divorce was not messy; that they remained friends; that he would still meet her between now and then and give her gifts between now and then; that he once gave her an antique-something because she collects antiques; etc.

my ladyfriend rang, said she was close, walking her way to the bookshop.  i said i'll meet her at the door and wrapped the conversation with Albert:  how we might happen to meet again, one in a hundred, maybe five, given the crossing of latitudes, but who knows? haha! 

she was by the doorway when i saw her.  she must have seen the man because she asked who i was talking with a table away from mine.  and before i could answer, she said, "a military man?"  not entirely wrong, not entirely correct either.  i asked, "what made you think so?"

she said, "obvious from the way he looks."


 

old like the dogs

the boys under the bridge, at the park, are practicing their back-flips.  there are no safety gears, just, their quickness, the agility of the young who believes in death like a miss in a circumstance.  a concept; but otherwise, unbelievable.  except, for a broken elbow perhaps, or a broken leg; or another broken bone.  even so.  their caution remains hung, at the wind.  and there are the skates, the boards, the bicycle wheels.  see them, young wolves in their young pack.  they see only, the distance between, their hands right across their faces.

                                                and life is, a speeding.  all of us, a running.  in packs, in twos, in alones.  and in some days we arrive, in some days we strive, in some days, we long to sit, lay, our heads on the mat, on the rug, on the quiet, of our own doorsteps.

after south (part 3)

someday, i will meet you at the coves
where the cliffs meet the sea
and the sea, the sky

and we will see
all the fishermen with their boats
and the tides that meet

at the line between sea 
and sky.  where the children are
the only versions of our selves 

left after the aging in our minds.
the mornings will be beautiful, 
the dusk

the wind on ears, strand of hair, 
brine on cheeks and tongue.
and at night

the world will be full of stars--planktons
shining on edges of the waters surface, 
fireflies at the darkened trees,

stars on the clear night sky--
and twinkling also, a human-
made satellite

moving like a wishing star.













                                      

loose change

have begun working on the floor.  barefeet.  laptop on a portable table knee-high, legs that can be folded.  

the lampshade appears like an afterglow from this angle.

w* sits beside me, is currently engrossed at the house lizard.

j--'s one-man exhibit is open for a month.  last saturday, thought of writing an essay on his recent works:  abstract, several washes, cloudy effect, beautiful texture, balance, zen, transcendence.

bought a painting yesterday.

the other day, lost my temper.

a couple of meetings tomorrow afternoon.


how these july days burn the skin like summer.

must remember not to forget the affidavits.

dawn these days chanting from the mosque can be heard.  ramadan.
 
still wonder at women and their dysmenorrhea.

come, next-weekend.  a roundtrip flight, a ballet show, a birthday gift for a date.

also planning a trip south at the coves.  still to calendar. 

some days, too often these days, feel old.  hard thai massage, replete with all the stretching, didn't help.  

note for this week: haircut.












   

a coastal guideline

in physics and as in philosophy, through a play of a word, an axiom of relativity.  Yes.  our world, as it is, a multitude of factors, countless, varying context after context.  so that when we stand at the shore, and/or look at the horizon, what we see is an end of our world, and a beginning of another.  perhaps that is why the end signals a beginning.  and what is a horizon but a point of meeting.  a line that as much as it divides, connects, two different worlds and perhaps more.  only the sea waves an ancient witness, tides crossing, touching, one world then another.

and the shell on a daughter's hand, a trace.  how time is a world and in a world itself, folded seventy times seven into a shell on her hand, into a grain of sand, a world of worlds beneath her feet.

supermoon at the edge of the world

when the supermoon happened, what were you doing?

i was out with one of my dogs around the neighborhood.  He likes to sniff his invisible world.  And hide under the warm shelter of things.  Likes cats too.  Likes to sit facing them, and the two of them would look at each other without saying a word, making conversation.

the versions of our selves (after south part 2)

1
I remember R--.  It was many years ago.  I was young, although at the time, stopping to look at posts on the board, I didn't know.  I was about to leave, waiting for papers that shuffled themselves behind office doors, and he passed to stopped by.  R--, visual artist, sculptor, art historian, saxophone player, postmodern-renaissance man.  Stood behind me; and we looked at posts and he said without cue "don't let them take you".  Of course, this wasn't how he said it, except this was how I remember it.  Many years ago.  I was young, although at the time, stopping to look at posts on the board, I didn't know.  And I didn't understand what he meant.

2
I came back a good time after.  A version of a previous self, although this time, stopping occasionally to look at posts on boards and everything in everywhere else, sometimes I forgot to know.  Wondering why every thing felt the same and felt different, yes.  Some people were gone.  The air breathed a different feel.  There had been a great tumult, political, factional.  Palpable in the air.  Papers had shuffled, committees, courts, arenas.  A country I did not know.  R--, too, was gone, in self-imposed exile.

3
In company that night J--  began his retelling of 76.  Geographically away from everything else, every one in company of stiff drinks and beer.  In the background, large grey waves hit the pebbled shore.  Somewhere else, news said there was storm.  But the waiter served us three pizzas complements from the house.  And how the stories of near hits and near misses rolled.  One time we were stuck in a cabin, in the middle of a fish farm, in the middle of a thunderstorm.  One time we were invited to a wedding and we didn't know.  One time... A roll was passed around.  And the stories turned to a driveway of angel trumpets, happy brownies, Mary Janes.  And R--, he said how he tried a certain mushroom once.  It made the world aglow and angels sing, and plunged you into depths into certainty of death.  "Completes the process before it lets you go. Like a spiritual experience," he said.  "Although if you ask me would I take it again, I wouldn't."  


4
We all went to see a certain architecture. Presumably 16th century, coral stones fortified by egg whites and goat dung, 8 feet to 9 feet tall in some areas.  An hourglass on top of a skull on top of an arched entryway.  Presumably, a church for innocents (children who died before baptism).  For centuries, it was buried and when finally unearthed, the walls were found to be have become filled with bees, the coral stones were bleeding honey. 

sun through windows

one goes north, or south, and sometimes it becomes indistinguishable where.  you stay  now east, although 
some parts of you west.  and there remains 
places that maybe even cartographers do not know:

at the end of a shore, bare feet kissed by waves.  
at the edge of a cliff with wind on ears.  
some sky at the verge of waking up at the break of dawn.  
beside a window morning light seeping through. 
hunching over a garden now just before sunup, 
tending a patch of grass before it gets wild.

after south (part1)

someone asked would you want to swim with the whalesharks?  their coast has been calling every one, every tourist from all over.  swim with the gentle giants.  come on.  fishermen in their small motorboats, small paddleboats, will take you there.  not far from shore.  pay minimal fee, see for yourself, where else in the world would you ever see.  you and the whalesharks, see?  you can feed them yourself, come on, they don't do harm.  see, even our mayor agrees.  it is good for people with no jobs you see.  good for tourist economy.  swim with the whalesharks, you want to see?



Yes, from a clearsky head, anyone can see:  an entire town blind.  Domesticating whalesharks who now have learned:  to no longer migrate and no longer hunt as they are meant to do.  To be circus elephants.