Save Burma!!

“It’s Important (Final Battle)” by Htoo Ein Thin, Sung by Moon Aung

It’s important, everybody
With blood flow, let’s get united
For the history of our generation, we write with our blood
Given our blood dedication

For our country, our lives won’t matter
let us die, we’re peacocks, bravely marching forth
For our country, our lives won’t matter
let us die, we’re peacocks, bravely marching forth

For Freedom and Peace
The Final Battle we will win.

Heart on My Sleeves

I wear my heart on my sleeves
almost once swallowed it whole into my belly
so constricted I nearly choked.
Wouldn’t it be funny if I had died
from a full heart that refuses to be broken?

I would tattoo this heart on my wrist
if I’ve had the guts to bear the pain
but the stomach is too bloated with
undigested nourishments I was overfed with.

So I, chew my words well, drink my spit
and hope the gag reflex will work its wonder
place my heart back to where it belongs
right above the radial artery throbbing endlessly.

tree

you are naked
and your beauty gleams
in the sunset
on a windy winter day
as your leaves dance
in earnest delight
gold and ruby glitters
and soundless bells jingle

unclothed, your body is
the holy goddess earthed.

Spiritual Inspirations

Inspired by David Usher and his many beautiful songs, such as “Leave It Alone” and “And So We Run”…this is yet another poem dedicated to him. I probably have quite a handful of those by now. But he is …quite something. His art is quite something. And he makes life so real, and pain so comforting, and the uncertain so safe. He holds me. For that I am grateful.

you are

you have the kind of chemistry
that a baby elicits in his mother
your vulnerabilities laid out
bare like a newborn’s skin

you are not afraid of god’s eyes
only of the loss of touch

your particles’ charged energy
is the force connecting you
to the transformational object

you are the thought unknown

nostalgia

you escape my lips
when i tell our story

i did not feel your absence
until your presence was remembered

and when you were recalled
there was no re-collection

shards came piece by piece
with no strings to thread

fell one by one
each a sandbag
from hot air balloon
rising only higher
away from ground

come home, i call
come home

when i never was home

memoirs: Road from Mandalay

The train from Mandalay chugged its way along century old tracks. The swaying of the coach that lulled my sister and I to restful naps woke us up. Trees and grassland bid farewell from the windows even before they were greeted. The green appeared dry like the flat brown. The quiet trance of repetitive sounds from wheels on track and engine humming felt lonely amid the rows of passengers secluded in their own preoccupations. It was time for a stretch of the body, after having been confounded to a hard bench for several hours, so my sister and I decided to have a snack at the dining coach.

We stumbled our way through the moving vehicle to the next coach, and found a table that was empty. The curtains on the open window ballooned up lightly with the breeze. As we sat down as comfortably as we could across from each other, the server immediately attended to us with the same Burmese humility and servitude that beseech our forgotten distant royal bloodline. Having very little cash with us, we each ordered a cup of Molvatine, a hot chocolate drink that suggested a taste influenced by Olvatine, another enriched chocolate beverage, and Horlicks, a milk and malt beverage. As the server left, my sister and I indulged in our favorite past time together – the imaginative stories of the people around us.

We saw a couple sitting behind my sister in the next row. The man looked to be in his late thirties, while the woman appeared much younger. He was dark-skinned, with chubby cheeks and a fat nose. She was fair-skinned, dressed up very tidy, with her hair tied into a ponytail. Her demure disposition contrasted with his possessive stance. I had a full view of this couple that sat so tightly next to each other on the bench by their table. His arm was resting gently on her waist, while her shoulder leaned into his body. Their faces weren’t touching as he was taller than her, but they might as well be. There was a certain intensity to their whispers to each other. They bore the weight of their story and how they happened to be sitting on this train.

“I bet they eloped,” I told my sister. (Eloping was a common answer to lovers’ problems in Burma.) “I bet their parents didn’t want them to marry because he is so darn ugly and old, and maybe even poor.”

“But they seem so much in love,” I added. “So intimate how they sit close to each other. They look so at peace in their place.”

The server appeared again. He brought with him two plates, each with a burger on them, and placed them gently on the table in front of the couple. The woman, whose hair had now fallen loose and wanton over her slim shoulders, peered into the top and bottom pieces of her bun. Her eyebrows furrowed, and her face cringed as she turned her head up to look at the young server. She asked, “What is this?”

“A cheeseburger,” he replied.

“This is not a cheeseburger. I ordered a cheeseburger, but this is not a cheeseburger.”

“Yes it is,” He insisted.

“But where is the burger?” The woman was perplexed.

“See, there is the bun and the cheese. It’s a cheeseburger.”

“No, it’s not,” exclaimed the woman. “There’s only the cheese and the bun. There is no burger.”

“The cheese and the bun is the cheeseburger.” The server looked very acertain at his answer.

“The cheese and the bun don’t make the cheeseburger. There’s got to be a burger to make the cheeseburger.” She was trying hard to be patient at this, but her voice sounded upset.

The server was truly confused and at a loss for words. He did not know what the woman was talking about, because as far as he was concerned, this was what was true to him. It made complete sense what a cheeseburger was supposed to be composed of. What was this woman asking of him?

The man shook his head and waved his hand hurriedly as he dismissed the server. He shrugged the whole incident with a sigh and coaxed his woman to make do with the cheeseburger as it was. He picked up his hamburger (with meat patty in it) and munched hungrily.

There was much for my sister and I to hold ourselves back from so we wouldn’t burst out in hysterical laughter. Our own bafflement of the scene before us had dumbfounded our responses. We sat wide open-mouthed at each other, and could only release secretive giggles. The warm Molvatine that arrived soothed our tickled nerves. The breeze from the open window blew the absurdity away. With the wind, our fanstasy of romance flew along.

memoirs: Road from Pegu

We woke up earlier than the morning fog could lift its head from the marshy grounds. In half drowsy state, my sister and I took a quick cold bath from the concrete water tank located in the backyard of my mother’s friend’s thatched house. Wrapped only in cotton sarongs, we dragged our sleepy feet to the bathing area. It didn’t take too long for us to wet and scrub our bodies before returning to the comfort of our shelter so we could dress our chilled skins.

As I waited for the traveling party to load the white pick-up truck with the necessary supplies, I stared at the sandy dune in front of me. It was only last night that I watched two groups of men, three in each team, played one of the most fascinating tournament in this dune. The village athletes were competing in a game of chin lone – a particular type of volleyball game using a ball made of woven rattan, which the players tossed using only their legs, feet and thighs. Their splendid toned calves and muscular thighs shone in the moonlight as they flipped and juggled the ball in mid-air. Half the village was at the courtyard to witness the friendly match. Such handsome men, hidden away in the daily mundane of hard labor and rural life, transformed into heroes of the night under the starry sky.

The engine of the truck roared and I joined my crew in continuation of our journey up north into the plains of Burma. The mist was still lingering when we stopped at a roadside eatery for some warm pea leaf soup (and I heard that they plucked the leaves right out of their backyard when we made our orders) accompanied by a little bit of light curry with steamed jasmine rice. It was never too early for a nice substantial meal in Burma. The taste of the pea soup was the highlight of the breakfast. Its gentle bitterness of the leaf was complemented by the sweetness of the pea in a concoction of light garlic infused broth. We ate with hands, purposefully mixing the soup and curry into the rice, adding our own humanly flavor into the mix, and delivering the savory meal piece by piece with our fingers into our mouths. The server was attentive and when we finished our meal, she provided a bowl of water for washing our hands.

As I waited for the elders to freshen up in the restroom, I watched the tranquility of the morning over the stream that ran parallel to the road. The fog hovered above the murky green water that was as still as a mirror. Once in a while, the stillness was disturbed by a herd of ducks swimming downstream and a boat rowing upstream. I absorbed the untouched beauty of the village border.

We were on the road in fair time. When we entered the dusty highway full of bumpy rocks, the fog had already left, replaced by the cheerful sun and humid air. Sitting underneath the canopy in the back of the truck, with only blankets as cushions for our sore buttocks, my sister and I brought out bags of sunflower seeds roasted in garlic, which my cousin had thoughtfully included in the travel supplies. The three of us young ladies shared the bountiful snack. The crackling sounds of teeth on kennels and slurping of seeds with our tongues joined the ruttling of wheels over rocks. The mothers crooned over gossips about relatives beside us, while the men chewed tobacco and exchanged words in the front of the truck. I couldn’t make out what the men were talking about. The glass window was not thin enough.

I had another flashback to a time before this trip. My friends and I were in this same pick-up truck and we were driving about town. We stopped over for a water break and I was left alone with my best friend, who later on became my first boyfriend. As we exchanged our own words of intimacy that was closer than friendship but not quite yet romance, our friends sat behind the glass window and cooed at our budding first love. They laughed at us as they watched our shared silent embarrassment from their jokes. Silence felt so intense and meant so much in those times. The noise of a traveling party felt so different in comparison to the quiet chemistry of two hearts.

The dirt of the road began to stir up a storm as the truck rolled into the drier part of the region. Soon there was a fog of orange dust filling the air, suffocating our nostrils and throats. The men rolled up their windows while the women took cover under blankets. My sister, cousin and I continued our feeding on sunflower seeds under the dark safety of the covers. This was another form of intimacy among sisters.

I was not sure how long we were sheltered under blankets but the slowing of the truck and an echoing shout from my uncle’s throat prompted us to emerge from the darkness. We saw that the dust storm had subsided. We were free to breathe again. As we shook ourselves loose of dirt and grit, a bus approached the side of our truck. It was crowded with travelers on the inside. Then we saw something moved on the roof of the bus. The blue tarp that covered the bus roof from front to back rose itself and revealed the congregation of travelers sitting on the top of the bus. They too struggled to shake the orange dirt off their cover. The image was quite maginificent. It was like a lid from a can of sardines was rolled back to uncover the organisms underneath.

We cheered at the travelers on the rooftop and they greeted us back. As if jealous of our comradeship, the caravan roared out of sight soon enough, leaving our moving vehicle as the only souls on the highway.

Chalk Dust

My Intentions are clear -
how I relate to you to me to you
is written on the chalk board,
which you gave as a farewell gift.

What am I to think of that?
Where the only reminder of you is me
left with chalk dust and eraser
to wipe off random scribblings between us.

It couldn’t last.
My fingertips, or spray splattered
from our verbal jousts, could so easily
smudge poetry on the board.

Here we are
trying so hard to keep the writing
when all we have left is rid away.

Trying
to speak as softly as chalk dust
blowing in clogged windpipes.

Trying
to make story out of fingernails,
their screeches are our voice.

Trying
to be real when all we have
is waiting to be eradicated.

Trying when it is
time to say good-bye.

The Mystery of Milk on the Table

There she sits on the marble table top. Shiny curved container filled with liquid white substance. Her sweet aroma is thick in your nostrils. The coffee waits for her visit, while the lady in the furry sweater and a black jacket ponders upon what to do with her.

“You could grab it and run,” says the man with aquamarine eyes. His voice is a dreamweaver, rich with possibilities.

“Drink it,” whispers some stranger at the next table.

The stainless steel miniature jug looks at the lady, pleading for a reprise.

The lady looks up at the man and tells him, “It’s not what I should do with it that I’m wondering about. It’s how it got here that I’m curious about. There used to be a puppet on this table. What happened to it?”

The man is baffled, and shrugs his shoulders. The stranger at the next table is just as clueless so he looks away. The coffee is disappointed so it turns cold. The milk? She remains a mystery.

fairer faucet

the plumber was not licensed:

after a clear drainage of cash flow
and a peek at his fat stubbly butt crack
all that remained was a pool on the kitchen floor
a leaky faulty faucet connected to a web of
contorted disjointed eradicated pipelines
footless behind the cabinet doors.

FYI: I’m sick. I caught a cold. I just went through a whole bunch of stuff last week from a burglary, numerous visits to the pediatrician for my baby, and ups and downs of work. I think my body is finally paying the price.