The photos help Ama recall our names, Resemble us as we no longer do, Suggest these strangers' strange persistent claims To know her eldest son could well be true. But how could such divergent tongues be kin? Unspooling Japanese in silken threads, Untangling my beginner Mandarin, And giving up for English knots instead. The strangers unpack gifts but do not stay, Recede into the cars from which they came; A stranger to the strangers leads the way: A room that isn't hers but bears her name. She might accept it sooner if she knew-- Her visitors today, they bear it too.
Excuse me, do you speak English? . . . by Error732, literature
Literature
Excuse me, do you speak English? . . .
A long time later, I would speak to you:
at first, polite rebukes to right your wrong,
and later, more indignantly, "Of course I do,"
and sometimes just: Ching chong, ching chong, ching chong.
We've met before and since. The kid who asked,
"Are you Chinese?" when class had just begun.
The client who saw almond eyes and tasked
a different English tutor with her son.
And, by the way, my English is superb;
and it would fucking floor you to inspect
each litotes and each subjunctive verb
in all my flawless, midwest dialect.
But you don't care, since you've forgotten who
this Asian was, not that you ever knew.
I tell the heathens, numbers are a tool
for Google, Space X, phones, and GPS.
The heathens nod, lament their time in school,
and find some classroom failure to confess.
But I'm the one who's sinned. My words portray
the gods as harmless, pleasant, painted lanes
like algebra, where numbers go to play
and all the flat geometry of planes.
My penance is a proof of the abstract
with detours through topology and curves
with no known applications to detract
from a priori truths that math deserves.
This proof won't send an astronaut to space,
but, when it's done, may send me in their place.
Give me forty-five seconds with you,
undisturbed, at the loneliest place
yet outside of your half-open heart,
at the zenith, horizons in view,
with the ether and earth face-to-face
lying jointly and standing apart,
and I bet even you would agree
to spend forty-five seconds with me.
If stars must set and faith must fade,
it's best they be denied,
to plot a course without their aid
and find some other guide.
If winds must wane and love must leave,
it's best to strike the sail,
that oar and arm at once relieve
propulsion bound to fail.
But should a star lie next to north
or faith be based in fact,
should storms beget a better breeze
and love remain intact,
then take my words where next you go
and take my fondness, too,
and take my breath away--it's yours;
I'm holding it for you.
It's been a while, but since those days died out,
The images most vivid in my mind
Are these: a deck of postcards, strewn about,
A pause with twenty fingers intertwined,
Recitals for an audience of one,
An overdue reunion in July,
A second year, a twenty mile run,
A kite to rend the rainclouds from the sky.
A conflict seeded weeks before a fight,
A conversation drowning under screams,
Systemic wrongs refusing to go right,
Contempt supplanting love, the end of dreams,
The entrance of another I'd prefer,
And all the other things that never were.
In my perfect, flawless, selfish world,
Your eyes would fade to grey.
Your skin would luster slate by night
And bitumen by day.
In my perfect, flawless, selfish world,
You'd cease to smile or speak;
Your mouth would neither conjure words
Nor stretch from cheek to cheek.
In my perfect, flawless, selfish world,
Your limbs would freeze in place;
You'd stiffen straight, forget your feet,
Lie still in my embrace.
In my perfect, flawless, selfish world,
Your body would lie flat,
A cutout of your former self
And monochrome, at that.
In my perfect, flawless, selfish world,
Your heart and mind would grieve;
You'd cease to comfort, ch
All ships, take note:
My anchor floats.
My iron kedge bobs on its edge,
Stands tall atop the sea,
And bears its chain quite regally
As though not chained but free.
When pulled to port, our stay is short,
Just long enough to mock
The curious, eccentric flock
That sails beside the dock.
And should some other buoyant kedge
Dare flaunt its floating flair,
My anchor pulls ahead, and then
It floats upon the air.
All ships, take note:
My anchor floats.
We stood about in circles,
Endless circles, wide and round,
And, turned to one another, bathed
The world in circled sound.
I don't know why or where we were
Or how we came to be,
But, by some force, we stood about,
And she stood next to me.
So in an endless circle,
Endless circle, endless loop,
She turned to me and asked what makes
One happy in a group.
"The persons to your left and right."
She asked if that was all.
I told her yes, and she agreed,
Within that circled wall.
And in that private circle,
Endless circle, closed and kind,
She kissed my cheek in thanks and then
She left the loop behind.
My bike is a vintage 1973 Raleigh handed down to me by my father. The steel frame I use to bike those forty miles to and from class every day is the same one he used on his campus, way back in the Bronze Age. Sure, I've replaced the brakes, the shifters, the chain, the pedals, the wheels, and about half the rider, but the core of the thing is unchanged.
It's only natural, then, that I was replacing the brake cable when I discovered them. I'd been inserting a Dremel bit to cut some sheathe when I thought to wear eye protection, and what should I find when rifling through the mess called my father's garage but a pair of glasses that could h
The photos help Ama recall our names, Resemble us as we no longer do, Suggest these strangers' strange persistent claims To know her eldest son could well be true. But how could such divergent tongues be kin? Unspooling Japanese in silken threads, Untangling my beginner Mandarin, And giving up for English knots instead. The strangers unpack gifts but do not stay, Recede into the cars from which they came; A stranger to the strangers leads the way: A room that isn't hers but bears her name. She might accept it sooner if she knew-- Her visitors today, they bear it too.
Excuse me, do you speak English? . . . by Error732, literature
Literature
Excuse me, do you speak English? . . .
A long time later, I would speak to you:
at first, polite rebukes to right your wrong,
and later, more indignantly, "Of course I do,"
and sometimes just: Ching chong, ching chong, ching chong.
We've met before and since. The kid who asked,
"Are you Chinese?" when class had just begun.
The client who saw almond eyes and tasked
a different English tutor with her son.
And, by the way, my English is superb;
and it would fucking floor you to inspect
each litotes and each subjunctive verb
in all my flawless, midwest dialect.
But you don't care, since you've forgotten who
this Asian was, not that you ever knew.
I tell the heathens, numbers are a tool
for Google, Space X, phones, and GPS.
The heathens nod, lament their time in school,
and find some classroom failure to confess.
But I'm the one who's sinned. My words portray
the gods as harmless, pleasant, painted lanes
like algebra, where numbers go to play
and all the flat geometry of planes.
My penance is a proof of the abstract
with detours through topology and curves
with no known applications to detract
from a priori truths that math deserves.
This proof won't send an astronaut to space,
but, when it's done, may send me in their place.
Give me forty-five seconds with you,
undisturbed, at the loneliest place
yet outside of your half-open heart,
at the zenith, horizons in view,
with the ether and earth face-to-face
lying jointly and standing apart,
and I bet even you would agree
to spend forty-five seconds with me.
If stars must set and faith must fade,
it's best they be denied,
to plot a course without their aid
and find some other guide.
If winds must wane and love must leave,
it's best to strike the sail,
that oar and arm at once relieve
propulsion bound to fail.
But should a star lie next to north
or faith be based in fact,
should storms beget a better breeze
and love remain intact,
then take my words where next you go
and take my fondness, too,
and take my breath away--it's yours;
I'm holding it for you.
It's been a while, but since those days died out,
The images most vivid in my mind
Are these: a deck of postcards, strewn about,
A pause with twenty fingers intertwined,
Recitals for an audience of one,
An overdue reunion in July,
A second year, a twenty mile run,
A kite to rend the rainclouds from the sky.
A conflict seeded weeks before a fight,
A conversation drowning under screams,
Systemic wrongs refusing to go right,
Contempt supplanting love, the end of dreams,
The entrance of another I'd prefer,
And all the other things that never were.
In my perfect, flawless, selfish world,
Your eyes would fade to grey.
Your skin would luster slate by night
And bitumen by day.
In my perfect, flawless, selfish world,
You'd cease to smile or speak;
Your mouth would neither conjure words
Nor stretch from cheek to cheek.
In my perfect, flawless, selfish world,
Your limbs would freeze in place;
You'd stiffen straight, forget your feet,
Lie still in my embrace.
In my perfect, flawless, selfish world,
Your body would lie flat,
A cutout of your former self
And monochrome, at that.
In my perfect, flawless, selfish world,
Your heart and mind would grieve;
You'd cease to comfort, ch
All ships, take note:
My anchor floats.
My iron kedge bobs on its edge,
Stands tall atop the sea,
And bears its chain quite regally
As though not chained but free.
When pulled to port, our stay is short,
Just long enough to mock
The curious, eccentric flock
That sails beside the dock.
And should some other buoyant kedge
Dare flaunt its floating flair,
My anchor pulls ahead, and then
It floats upon the air.
All ships, take note:
My anchor floats.
We stood about in circles,
Endless circles, wide and round,
And, turned to one another, bathed
The world in circled sound.
I don't know why or where we were
Or how we came to be,
But, by some force, we stood about,
And she stood next to me.
So in an endless circle,
Endless circle, endless loop,
She turned to me and asked what makes
One happy in a group.
"The persons to your left and right."
She asked if that was all.
I told her yes, and she agreed,
Within that circled wall.
And in that private circle,
Endless circle, closed and kind,
She kissed my cheek in thanks and then
She left the loop behind.
My bike is a vintage 1973 Raleigh handed down to me by my father. The steel frame I use to bike those forty miles to and from class every day is the same one he used on his campus, way back in the Bronze Age. Sure, I've replaced the brakes, the shifters, the chain, the pedals, the wheels, and about half the rider, but the core of the thing is unchanged.
It's only natural, then, that I was replacing the brake cable when I discovered them. I'd been inserting a Dremel bit to cut some sheathe when I thought to wear eye protection, and what should I find when rifling through the mess called my father's garage but a pair of glasses that could h
There is art in plucking out an eyeball,
seen not by poor Gloucester, but Cornwall
pulls apart the lids, slides fingers in,
socket invaded and left empty,
the exposed orb removed gently
enough to be preserved while Gloucester, unnerved,
hears it drop to the floor and fall beneath
the destructive solidity of Cornwalls feet.
And repeat.
I had always hated the walk up to Dr. Shapacia's building. Not the act of walking, mind you, but the walkway itself. It was one of those cement-tiled walks typical of medical buildings, constantly twisted and intersected upon itself and the walkways to other buildings, with a few artificial plots of grass or saplings planted here and there. The problem was, the tiles didn't line up rightly. Because of the way they intersected, there was always a tile that was cut off by another, a triangle where there should have been a rectangle, a trapezoid where there should have been a square. The pat
. . . since my last update. Uh, sorry. I admit I haven't been busy the entiretime, but at some point I stopped making time for writing. Back in the saddle, I suppose.
. . . of the radical minority of Americans who genuinely believe in the oppression and murder of strangers based on arbitrary differences of birth.
What was already a memorial to some of the darkest acts in human history is now host to the first steps toward their recurrence, a blind violence motivated against hatred individuals of an imprecise and trivial category, judged not on sight but before it, indeed, before even full knowledge of their existence.
Stupidity may not be a virtue. But ignorance is far more defensible to me than the outright refusal of understanding.
. . . still alive. Had I more to post, I would, but I seem to have had a writing drought this past (egads!) year. Apologies, as always, for delayed responses to friends and feedback. :P
It's August 7th which means it's that time of the year again and your special day is here! We hope you have an awesome day with lots of birthday fun, gifts, happiness and most definitely, lots of cake! Here's to another year!
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