Letters, to my children.

Dear Children,

 

You are both little jesters with wings to soar from my heart, whizzing pass my ears and chest before crashing into the gorge between my thighs. There you linger, like roots from a tree growing at the edge of a cliff, wrapped contently at the crevice where you were born. Your endearing voices calling my name, Mummy, Mummy. It reminds me of the museum counting book you love to read – page 3, picture of 3 mummies. I am a mummy wrapped up, with ties that bind me to you to me to you to me. And on and on we go to hold the elixir of life that is you. My immortal love.

 

Dear Joey,

 

You, my boy, loved “spicy” even before you arrived. In my womb, you asked for all the flavors of home that I can taste. All the glorious ways you represent the land of your maternal blood, while your curly  mane and your eloquent football holds make no mistake where your fraternity lies. You skip when you run. You prance when you walk. You dance when you stand. What a joy to see you. Your acrobatic feats draw loops of heart beats into leaps of faith. Love is infinity.

 

Dear Mei,

 

You, big girl, love Mummy, because you just do. You spell them out in pictures on turkey tails at school, on certificates, and studies of figures on paper. Rainbow crayons draw out our family, one after another after another. One day I am blue, then I am peach, and some day I am green. We are a family, you’d say. Your athletic heart crosses the field of corny jokes, piggy hugs, and musical stories.Your dancing feet patter gently into the corners of my spirit. You are my family, child. You are a beautiful angel of the new land I’ve made home in. Love is the horizon.

Published again.

Four of my older and newer pieces have been published in the latest issue of the Haight Ashbury Literary Journal, Volume 29, Issue 1. You can order them to get a copy. Subscription information is on their website. The poems selected are “Part Three: Parting”, “tree”, “Pin Drop” and one untitled piece about conversations with myself. I have to thank Julian Esteban Torres Lopez for that last piece, as it was his comment that inspired the reflection, and the inevitable creation of the poem.

The new writings come drop by drop. I have accepted that this hiatus is part of the process, and in time, the phoenix will rise again.

By the way, here is the link to some of my spoken word/poetry reading recordings in the album “Dirty Laundry” published by The Writ, several years ago.

Going Public

In some way, writing and its pal Publication are way ahead of our capitalist money market age of companies going “public” (invariably termed “IPO” which I have yet to figure out what the letters stand for). To put one’s work out there on print, in publication, is to go “public”. No, there isn’t much money to be made, as it was way back when as it is now. Perhaps some royalties, but nowhere near the returns of a stock market when a company goes “public”. Still, there is something about launching off, going “public”, being printed, published, that does feel like a growth, a maturing.

So in that, I have taken a step to be published again. I once was active in it but I think I sort of just fell into the “public” sector when I became involved in a community of writers. Now I am actively seeking publication. Though like anything else, it comes in waves and phases. I submitted to two journals, one recommended by a dear poet friend, and another invited by the editor of the journal itself. And I’m waiting to hear back from the latter. The former has been released, and is now live online at San Francisco Peace and Hope:   http://sfpeaceandhope.com/5.html .

Check it out when you have time. I enjoyed many of the other poems on the site too so don’t forget to read the whole site.

The force is beckoning

I made a new year resolution to write again, as regularly as best as I can. But I don’t think it’s just the resolution that is opening up this flow lately. I’m nowhere near my past proliferate self, but words do come more easily these days and I am creating out from them more readily too. As I write a few pieces, I realize, there is a theme. For now, I call it “What I Want”.

I’ll post them later. Superstitious as this sounds, I do not want to jinx my creative flow by making the poems public.

Gibberish

What comes out of a mouth empty of
mindful thoughts or heartful chicken noodle soup
home cooked in my mother’s kitchen
where reside warm tingly feelings of
times when I was ten and we went on these
trips along the peninsula. Riding on wings of
childhood imaginations to a land we made reference to
as ‘freedom camp’ sprung from Brazilian soap operas on TV,
our ideas of romanticism and world travels were born from
the seats of our sofa in the rental apartment
behind locked grills we didn’t consider as prison
until I came to the Americas  and found out there is
life beyond the iron doors of safety.

Just like, there is more gibberish that comes out
of this mouth, this heart, this body that calls itself me
yet I cannot remember a time when I was so full of junk
waiting to soar out from the seat of a catapult;
I have always been pure from day one when my mother
warned me with a wooden laddle and a bamboo cane
about being too much my unbridled self, bubbling out
from every orifice the disgusting likeness of me,
steam unwilling to let the restraints of high society pin me down
until I held myself down with my own foolish insecurities.

So I could now only murmur gibberish forms of poetry
spilling out like guts into gutters, phlegm into spit pots,
spliff into pot pits, hoping for one more, just one more
intoxicated trip, words as my dope, memories in place of imaginations,
on my solo journey to Freedom Camp in the cavities of my reason,
the spirit of my intellect, the instinct of my soul;
I want to quench my addiction to the liberty of non-sense, and since
mother is no longer holding the spoons and sticks in her hand
I am remembering only of times she had went down on her knees
in front of authorities, of offsprings, of altars, of ego and tradition,
to grant us the immunity only a mother’s love could give.

Thoughts incoherent, jump jumbled like flea on a cat’s neck
asking to find grounds to plant roots in and suck the juices out of
virtuosity, so that my virtues as a woman dry into mudcakes of
morality. Forget about my mother, my infancy, my independence,
ideas have sprung life of their own to dominate this rambling
of emotions on legs skittishly scampering around the cluttered room
searching blindly for an exit, but I have no eyes to see with anymore;
I lost them when I wrote the first line. I see only what I choose to believe
and I no longer recognize the cave where my faith dwells in.
I have built the bars to my own penitentiary
and thrown away the keys
when I ate up the words to my poetry.

Poetry

i dive into sea of letters
where two of us
intertwine

intoxicated with lyrics
we wrap our bodies
with volumes of
pitch, tone, composition
rhythms of pulsations
throb in our organs

art is sex
the fucking of senses
arousal stimulated by
flirtation of ideas
we exchange our vulnerabilities
in language of pre-verbal space

deep within the womb
we inhale our auras
and expel creations
that tip-toe their way
between the lines
our dreams come alive
nightmares and fantasies

i don’t have to speak again
i don’t have to come out and entertain
this is foreplay
never so intimate
as this moment we pause
to catch our breaths

the exertion comes on strong
perspiration is dew
on our temples

i worship the spirits
that carry me away
and give birth to the ethereal

I thought this piece deserves its own blog entry. It was a flow of various ideas and inspirations that was revisited and then re-edited after quite some time since its original creation. Like much of my poetry, it feels incomplete and perhaps it speaks to the creative energy to keep spinning verses and weaving lines into poetry.

Some new writings

My attempts to create is still sparse. But I do come up with some verses every now and then. Here are some below:

Dawn

She is a rose blush
amongst the grey-blue
a golden tinge of reflection
from emerging dawn,

underneath her
a large body of depth
beats itself against
core black rocks
tough in their porosity
and creamy soft sand
that encapsulates feet.

She turns pale,
color drains as
the sun rises higher.
It is only moments between
underworld and wonderland
where radiance breaks through.

1325666 CA Exempt

dear mr police officer
messenger from 666
you are so unfortunate

this residential speed limit
drags you down on the road
to hedonistic endeavors

ah! your car shines
so do your boots
mighty bright those badges can get

though i do not see them
for we are in separate vehicles
and i cannot surpass yours
in fear of a penalty

so off you go
man in navy blue
while i
dressed in shades of blue
go home safely
into the arms of my loved ones
and to the slumber
i shall seek.

Finding Mother I

I cannot find mother
in these words
no cooing
no babbling
no giggles
to soothe the yearning I seek

my connection to you
has been lost
on the surgery table

cold hard instruments
sterile
lobotomize memories

birth isn’t supposed to be like this, mother

i wanted so much
to be delivered by you
not the hands of intervention

i rather be a still born
than one that is born still

you have not left me
i have left your body
and i long to return
to your womb

where just the sounds of your belly
lull me into Piece.

I was just reading some news on my homeland and it saddens me, about what’s going on there. And then I pass by some sound, sight, smell that remind me of home. This is another nostalgic verse.

In Hibernation

I have been in hibernation with my writing and from this blog. My attempt to return to the poetry and art scene is still sketchy at best. I promise myself I will submit to two invitations from two separate literary ‘zines that I’ve gotten so far, despite my MIA from the poetry community. But will I really get around to it? There is more than just a busy life that is in the way. I am not sure what. I’m on the path to discovering and unraveling all that.

not a halloween poem (otherwise untitled)

am i resurrected? i am thirty-one
still less than halfway to my grave
yet i feel my bones sift through dirt
slide the heavy lid off my coffin

i rise
at midnight
i rise
from a long sleep

not a zombie as i was
when i was living in daylight
not a vampire as i was
when i was seeking for fresh blood

i wear my decay on my skeleton
accept it as my skin -
it is not filthy
not unholy

for jesus rose from the dead too

i am broken, naked,
clumsy, disjointed
and my bones clutter as i walk
i may never walk a straight line

still, i push wildly through the mash
eye sockets empty in my skull
who needs sight in the dark
i can feel my way with my bones

bones don’t cut easy
so the dangers that lurk
won’t tear me into pieces
my skeleton is my armor

i want to tell you
i am stronger now
without the bodysuit
nothing to mask the core

i am stronger now
i rid myself of
these diseased organs
replaced them with space

i can breathe so easy
the air comes from all directions

i am so much more grounded
the dirt has touched my core
coated me with earth, my mother
one who nurtures me

so i will not wipe the decay off my edges
i wear it with pride

this is me:
the skinny, the bare, the filthy, and the ugly
i am the shadow that evokes life