Haikus (Not Haikus)

1
I sat at the beach
To watch the sun setting down
But rain came and poured.

2
The world is a stage
On which we play our roles
So perfectly realistic.

3
Trapped inside this room
I'm reduced to wall-paper
Wanting to peel off.

4
Hear butterflies' wings
Flap against each other
And sail through the wind.

5
See the waves crashing
Against the hot sandy shore
And coolness rise.

6
The falling leaves drift
Past me red and gold and
Brown crisp like my soul.

7
Blueness rising up
Makes me creatively free
To explore this life.

8
Warmness seeping through
My skin into the depths of my
My body cooking.

9
Lounging in this couch
In this paradoxical
Library, I write.

10
Warm wind whispers we
Must make moments in the now
Lest we 'll live backwards.

Shut Eyes

The mind's eye sees what you physically fail to see.
The wanting vision, envious of the mind tricks you into thinking it isn't real.
Around you you feel spirits move
Seeking retribution, redeclaration of worth.
They appear a creation of unreality-
Reality bent to suit the resentment of the eyes.

To unbent, recognize the power of the mind.

Dusk Thoughts

Dull grey replacing the unforgiving brilliance of day
The darkness slowly swallowing the light
Certainly conflagrations wrought upon far away lands
Are now merely reduced to risen smoke and a few glowing embers.
Great tyranny abated to such trivial remains.

For Homer
Upon finishing The Human Comedy by William Saroyan

You were the first to learn that your brother had been another casualty of the war.
You were supposed to deliver the telegram to your own family.
You did not know what to do, your father died only a couple of years back
And now your brother!
You were angry and you had the right to.
You thought of your mother, your sister, your brother's fiancee,
Your little brother Ulysses, who is only four years old.
How could you have brought them this notice of death?

But they already knew.
They have felt it in their bones, another one of them gone.
They've obediently accepted it, embraced it
Like it was God Himself.
They've recognized this relinquishment as a part of His greater plans.
And who are they to protest?

You on the other hand made it no sense.
Only fourteen and yet you've experienced more loss than most adults.
You asked, Why should I learn of war, pain, death?
Why should these happen to me, to my family, to Ithaca?
I ask you now, Why should it not?

Grocery Lists

Pen on paper, mind on creating list of what is lacking
In the cupboard. You'll always find cans of soups
And bottles of spices, except for that one
That perpetually manages to be missing
When you need it. Write down that one.

Go to the grocer's, want to go in and get out as fast
As you can. People, cans, boxes, bottles, freezers, shelves,
Shopping carts stand in your way. Hastily you grab
The items on your list, stand in the checkout line,
Wait for your turn.

Hand on stirrer, eyes on list of ingredients left to add
And settle on the name of that elusive spice you fear is not
In the cupboard. Again. And yes, fear confirmed
As you scavenge the fat but wanting cupboard.
You remember you neglected to look at the backside
Of your list the last time you went to the grocer's.

Un-longing

I want to seek shelter from this cold in your arms
But the warmth of you will only leave me colder when all is through.
I want to fill your heart into my cavity
But the beating will only be replaced by a resonating aching
After you've gone back to where you were before we started all of this supposed madness.

I can't settle for a little piece of you,
For only a little time spent each day with you.

I want to search for you
But I can't let myself go through another arduous wait
Only to realize it's really not you I've fallen into
But another ominous bait.

Prayer To The Great Artist

The wind The sky The soil
I live and prosper
Within these realms together
With my fathers, my brothers
The leaves The clouds The seeds
I interact with and use
Their quiet wisdom to come up with these
The words The thoughts The poems
They offer to me greater depths than I have known
The birds The rain The worms
I pray you'll come and use these forms
To come to me
And penetrate my thoughts.

Plea For A Fast Salvation

Hard times and I need a hand to hold in mine,
Find a liberation. A storm before the calm
I believe it is or else if this would go on like this,
I wouldn't want to be me.
I need to believe that there'll be an end
To all the misery I am enduring;
A justification or perfect retribution
That'll lift me from the dark pit of unchanging ways
That I am struggling in.

The dark, it makes the coming of the light sweet
But not if you've been in the dark for so long.
The light instead of letting you see what you failed to see before,
Blinds you, plunging you black into darkness once more.

A Mistake

Not enough I say,
I want too much to be comfortable in my own skin.
But what good will this bring
When it just makes want to sit and sing
In the corner, the dark of the room,
The room that I want to be the center of,
Make everyone gravitate to my field
To remove this shield
I hold up to prevent a mistake
I would choose to take
Once I be granted the opportunity
To leave this place
For good.

Monotony

The things I suppose I had wanted
Are all just things that didn't really serve any purpose except be taken for granted.
The words I used to write and search for
Are all merely just letters put together now that I've yearned for something more.
The life I live lacks the fullness I once thought it had,
When I thought I was satiated.
Guess everything just seems less and less than it really is worth
After a while of having them, using them, and then letting yourself get bored.

Indian Summer

The fan full blasts hot air towards my face.
My hair, I run my fingers through, feeling the stickiness,
This humidity settling in.
My cavities they throb with the pain caused by the overload of warmth.
I try to cool myself with this big glass of iced coffee
But to no avail.
I'll just have to resign to the fact that I'll have to endure this for another month or so.

Between Slayers And Vampires

Modern day Romeo and Juliet,
He took her hand and she began to feel the flow of tears
And her cheeks became wet.
He told her to try to stop to love this forbidden
Wanting, needing of each other
But even he knew it wasn't enough to remove the aching
This was causing to make leaving be tougher.

But it's not what should be anymore.
He knows and she knows what's done was done
And can't be unraveled anymore by the cautious slipping
To meet each other and try to be just friends
Amidst the growing feeling that that can't be uncovered
This love forever will always remain unconquered.

A Poetry of Acceptance

If I stay here in this stillness forever,
Would the world even notice that I was gone?
If I remain in this desolation,
Would I be assured by my solitude
Or would I miss the world even though they don't know me?
How I wish I had a river
Flowing to you and your security
So I can sail away from here and into your arms
And I shall be healed, I shall believe
That everything I want to have is in everything you give to me.
And my heart will forget all the resonating aching,
The emptiness I feel with every throbbing
That'll only be filled by your affection and caress.
Oh, how I wish I had a river
Flowing to you and your tenderness

But I don't.

Pre-conclude

I walk on dirt,
On dry withered leaves that crackles,
And long decomposing carrion of organisms,
Which could (and would) someday be us.

From The 23rd Night Of February 2000

As I lift my head up and see the twinkling of millions of bright stars against a dark sky and barely hear the rustling of leaves because there is no wind-- The night is still!-- I think of how life could be if I would just lie here and look at the shifting of the stars forever.

Subjects Of Re-invention

Melancholic streams of consciousness burst forth me
Over a flicker of light and a gush of wind,
Gleaming with sullenness I write.
I burst with energy released through the tip of my pen
Over the smell of caffeine on my breath and on my hands,
With a dance on my bed and a song on my mind,
I quantify these thoughts into words
On a page of my life.

Hey Janus

Hey Janus,
How have you been?
Division of self
Making seen the unseen.
Is it just a game you play
How you live your life each day?
Hey Janus,
Signify the end
And beginning of this new year.
Reinvent your name.

Miracle

I listen
As the wind whispers
Live and be happy,
Try to see the goodness in people
Instead of their darkness.
I stand facing the setting sun,
I stare at the huge blinding ball of fire,
I try to turn away
But I can't;
I'm bewitched by the sweet pain.
If I stare long enough I might even go
Completey blind.
But still the brilliance and radiance
Fill me with this great awe and hapiness.
Rays of light shimmer out and seem to touch me.
I suddely realize
Such sweet pain it truly is
The miracle of life.

Non-verbal

Many words resounded
Through the silence between us,
The silence that lets the world see,
The silence that lets us ourselves see
That we did mean something to each other
At one point or another.
The point before hurting words bounced off our lips
And entered our hearts
Further thwarting us apart.
And many apologies reverberated in the air,
There was no need to speak:
We knew our stares would be all the communication we could handle.

Invade, Pervade

Odd stares you throw
Towards my thin shield
That you permeate,
And subdue
The calm rationality in me.

Tempted to say,
"None of your business,"
I instead just bite my tongue.
(You are not worthy of attention
From anyone.)

Invasive questions
I will not submit to,
My life will not be prey
To your circle of idle talk.

So before I retort,
"None of your business,"
Gather your invasive stares and questions
And point them towards the other direction.

Pip To Estella

"Pip, will you never take warning?"
"Of what?"
"Of me."
-- Great Expectations, Charles Dickens


I hunger for you, for your hand
To touch my cheek and be assured
That all the aches and pains of this man
Will someday cease and I be cured
Of this fright to love you.
The fright to love and recognize
That your love is not intended for me.
Rather, I've conceived half-lies
To redeem the glory taken from me
By your half-hearted attempts
To stir my emotions, the words unwritten
And redirect them to fulfill what you meant
When you said that my sentiments you cannot comprehend
That when I said I loved you, you knew it as words but nothing more.

The Burning Bush

The clarity that settles within me
Everytime I pause in chaos
Can only come from this.
The miracle that my thoughts
Release from my pen
And enter the consciousness of others
Is truly amazing.
Yet I feel not worthy for I cannot comprehend how.
Still I will heed Your call
To be great and amass greatness
Through these words.

A Poet's Ranting

The words I write just want to disappear beneath my white sheets and be lost there forever so that no one could read and think he knows me and the way I think for I don't need any analysis to ensure myself that I am who I say I am rather I'd appreciate it more if you just leave me and let me be what I need or wish to be.

Birthday Suite

If I could I would
Go down into the depths of madness
To see if creativity will
Surge back within me if I did.

Rather bored (and frustrated) with this mundane everyday,
I want to try but hold back
For fear of not being able to return
Once I find it too much for me.

Maybe I should just be content
And sing and dance and write
The same old way and retreat
Wistfully into my birthday suite.

Remedial

Trying to write early in the morning
I fail to come up with something worthy of publication.
Inspiration always comes to me late in the evening
And leaves by daylight's dawn.
I'm battling to remedy this strange condition;
Trying to revoke this block I've been given to work with
I fail. Immensely frustrated, I write about my remedial
Hoping it would come to me in the process.

The Virtue Of Dysfunction

Half-asleep, half-dead,
The monkeys are again jumping on my bed.
My head it feels like a thousand bricks,
My heart it feels so distant from my body, a trick
I've learned from my significant other,
My lover who's always there but never really bothers
To save me from all the misery around me.
As hell like a mad house,
My situations arise from the bottom of a pit
Of fire as cold as my soul when my life started it.
The panic, the calm, then the panic again.
It's not what I intended to say when I meant
To say that it did my will good,
To undergo all this and end up having understood
The value of this life and this struggle.
The pain, relief, then pain again
Increases my appreciation for the relief
When it comes to me again.