Rambling, Dog Fights, Manila Ghettos

I saw the newsreels of dog fights in Manila ghettos. I saw the footage of the dogs as they grabbed each other w/ their teeth (fur raised) Their skin bleeding red and even pink. Probably salty sweet tasting and tough like salt water taffy on a 100 degree summer day.
A summer day in an amusement park where children pay and learn to close their eyes when the big hills come on those gigantic coasters where height matters as much as the sound of clanging, and the pulling of the long train on the wooden tracks.
This is how we all learn to close our eyes. This prevents us from seeing the dog fights and the daily news.

MORE POETRY?
---BED---
this is what you contain
softness, warmth
echoing kisses on finger-
prints
crisscross patterns of
this year, next

we don't think about
these things
when we're wrapped in warmth

then the cold hits
shocking, bitterness
it pulls us away from
soft kisses,
echoing
we hear the sound
the silence of the frost.
sing w/me!
as we find out what we contain
like young musical notes
scrambling to make sense of the scales,
the prison of melody.
hoping for a remedy
to end the
quandary
of
dishonesty, pride, inaction
these questions are just filler words
We listen, but we don't hear their meaning.
these words fill up the empty spaces:
"I love you" but "I need this more"
"Now, thanks to you...
I feel empty."
Thanks to you.
This is what I contain: oceans, rivers
ever-moving bodies of water
there's no solid land.
the water's sometimes rough
sometimes running high, low
warm kisses on finger-
prints
crisscrossing, colliding w/ the history
of the melody
so soft, so torn.

this is what we contain.

hitting things

he likes to hit things
that are no longer working

the speakers hum instead of
sing.
they're in for a treat.
he beats them.
he throws them onto the ground
they shatter into particles of wire, glass
sound.
they hum as they collapse
as they dismantle, and disassemble

they no longer belong to him
they belong to the ground
broken, free.
they make music.
they sing of destruction
of premature love, of death
And, the unyielding power
of the universe.
the universe
so deep and wide
opens like young love
before all of the ugliness
the half closed doors, the eager good byes.
The parts lay apart like stars on a map
of the sky.
he calculates the difference.
He renames the pieces.
He moves them around. He plays with their shape.
The speakers are broken.

RYAN ADAMS knows how I feel

Movin' like the fog on the Cumberland River

I was leaving on the Delta Queen

I wasn't ready to go

I'm never ready to go

Twenty-seven years of nothin' but failures and promises that I couldn't keep

Oh lord I wasn't ready to go

I'm never ready to go

Let it ride

Let it ride easy down the road

Let it ride

Let it take away all of the darkness

Let it ride

Let it rock me in the arms of strangers, angels until it brings me home

Let it ride Let it roll Let it go

NOISE/ TRAFFIC

The city's loud today. She speaks in high pitched tones and deep murmurs. I listen. She speaks of you. "When I think about you my heart looks like this ... <3 SHH, "We don't learn she thinks we remember if we're lucky... and look everything is turning into something else. (And this is true) Once I held your face in my hands, I saw through space." She speaks of life and death (Dylan style.) She says, "I have not lived. I've died a few times." She speaks of peace "I still believe peace has a chance (World peace, inner peace is impossible). Because, I will never get what I want." Manila speaks of emptiness. She defines it. (Ginsberg style). "Truth comes in silence not in sound." Today she discovered truth in an old handkerchief decorated with the embroidery of yachts sailing on oceans. She found it in the smoke growing over the mountains in the distance. Her high rise buildings welcome the sun by cutting through the thick smog. She learns that smoke moves (and we like smoke always changing and moving). She asks, "Do we ever realize that we are changing?"

Bob Dylan writes:
"I live in another world where life and death are memorized,Where the earth is strung with lovers' pearls and all I see are dark eyes."

Oh but still, he says:
"Time passes slowly up here in the daylight,We stare straight ahead and try so hard to stay right,Like the red rose of summer that blooms in the day,Time passes slowly and fades away."


Manila speaks and her words hit like lightning. I feel like I've been shot in the back by "a fallen leaf."
I am listening. I am listening still.

poetry, proof-reading, tutoring

I am all of these things:
a. proofreader for Filipinas Heritage Library
b. English Tutor
c. Homesick for winter and OHIO (for the first time in my life)
d. watching SIX FEET UNDER
e. GETTING DRUNK TONIGHT ha

OLD POETRY...

the reasons I won't be staying

you say
good morning, again
then we
close our eyes
together
the smallest things
excite us
good morning, love
you see
the milk expires on christmas
day but you drink it before this happens.
you toss away the empty milk carton
watch it. It'll be something else in a moment.
you see
we're not afraid to close our eyes
we stop believing that nothing will ever change.

watch it. It'll be gone in an instant

It'll change into someone looking for
a place with no ghosts.
floating,
asking: Why do you throw it away before it expires?


you answer: because, I am not afraid to close my eyes
because, I run clear to the ocean. I have no idea
where you are. but you have no need to hide anymore.

It changed while
floating,
asking: Why can't you watch the milk curdle and age?

you answer: I don't want to waste anymore time.
only you know how long, till it becomes empty,
pungent, undrinkable.
FORGET IT, everything expires some time
and you are not merely unknown to me but unknowable.

in all of the old and familiar places

I found a photograph today. I've been looking at it alot. It's beautiful for alot of reasons.

My LOLA (grandmother) is so young and innocent and fresh ... I didn't recognize her at first

I had to be told. My father told me, "She is your LOLA. Look, you have her lips."

Her lips! How magnificent!

man-eating cats, jet lag, chocolate bars, and boys who like boys who like girls

It's true.
Once you make up your mind to get rid of something, there's very little you can't discard. -HM

I discarded a bunch of things today.
things discarded/ falling apart/ disregarded etc:
a. old books
b. old cds (spice girls, BSB, Hanson SNOWED IN, but I kept "THE RESCUERS OST" for obvious reasons...)
c. old clothes, old shoes, old old old...
d. diaries, notebooks, old photos (mostly of me with people I no longer like to think about--- we all have these people! THEY ARE TOXIC!)

Diffusion and Osmosis are (now) two of my favorite scientific processes. I like this idea of movement, of constant reaction, and of constant pulling through, or coming out of.

It is raining here. The streets are wet. My hair is ridiculous and huge and not worthy of a mirror etc.

And, now I am listening to disco and HIP HOP. I am not going out tonight. Paryting is a no NO when jet lagged.

I like Calvin Harris:

Get some colours on, get some colours on

Now I don't care what you dress like

Or what you wear

But please make sure baby

You've got some colours in there

Facebook About ME section...

FROM about a YEAR ago...

I am a shock wave from Shanghai.


also. I like you.
I like it when you smile and then my heart feels like this:
[ ♥]


and. i sang one armed scissor at karaoke with jamie. maybe, we're a little crazy but we rocked hard.
and so on...

I haven't changed much. Except, now I have decided to publish all poems (whether unfinished, sort of finished, never-will-be finished). SO here's one, I wrote it recently (on a plane, some where over Alaska, and only to re-read it somewhere over Russia.)

I don't like it.
I don't know what it means.

OR

Its bone cuts through the clouds and

wind on its way home

from some unfamiliar place

The cuts make sounds like the ocean colliding with the wind

producing white caps

Yes,

Quite dreadful, unpleasant

You’ll hear it soon.

“I really want to see you tonight.”

You hear it, now.

Before you’re ready, you kiss its lips.
you move (OSMOSIS)

from someplace quite wretched and

unpleasant

to a place a little less wrecked and untidy

Yes,

I want to see you tonight.

You redefine “it”

Home,

see it evaporate into vapor.

It’s gliding through space

breaking through

bone

on bone

from someplace, unfamiliar

only to

be come disjointed

and unrecognizable.

... (unfinished... so I am not sure how to do this... more to come?)

poetry sort of about AFRICA

This is old.

See the poppy seeds

start wars in east

Asian countries

on little islands where

solders smoke numbness

through wooden pipes

The smoke funnels

like the roots of a tree, into the air

into the porous skin, into

the tropical rain clouds overhead.

They beat and fluff out nicely.

They see lucid images of

little girls in sari’s floating around a fountain

of red wine and of fingers playing on

guitars weaving through space

at a hundred miles an hour.

They are recorded by

scribes on papyrus

as they sit under the stars on a clear

night where the Junks

are out on the bay. Little lights, strung up on their masts.

See the wind, colliding with the sail.

They swallow wind.

They butcher

water.

They smoke numbness

through wooden pipes in east

Asian countries where

there are Neolithic pots decorated

with cowrie shells from some place in

Africa where numbness does not live.

They float around the mud huts.

They jump ditches that protect

their cassava and peanuts.

They see lucid images of

a tumor breaking through skin

Like the head of a cauliflower,

vomiting small amounts of blood on its horizon.

They eat through skin.

They beat and

fluff out

nicely.

After I fell, before I was saved

I found this. I wrote it for a creative writing class a while ago.

My Lolo always said, “I create my spirit.” His spirit liked sucking on fish eyes steamed with ginger and green onion. It snacked on sugar cubes sandwiched in salty rolls. It went to the Fish Market early on Sunday morning to get the cheapest catch. His spirit described love like an ocean filled with swimming turtles and tiger sharks. It taught me how to say “thank you” in Mandarin and “You’re welcome” in Filipino.

His spirit belonged there, among the thousand Islands, in between the skyscrapers, surrounded by the ocean.

His body died there, among the fish eyes and salty rolls, sitting at his kitchen table. His fish soup was still warm when they found him. He smelled like aftershave and garlic.

Manila liked the smell of garlic. She liked to talk about spirits in garlic smelling kitchens, filled with warmth and superstition. She went to cemeteries on All Souls Day with guitars and picnic baskets filled to the brim with fruit salad and sweet spaghetti.

Now, Manila likes to talk about how Jesus saved her from hell. Before she was saved, Manila lived in a house made out of natural wood and palm leaves. Now, she’s wants what she can’t have. She lives in a skyscraper with twenty eight floors and an Olympic size swimming pool. This is the Manila I know. She’s superstitious and seductive. She’s where my Lolo’s spirit lives. I imagine it roaming around, dancing between the skyscrapers and swimming in pools.

My Lolo always said, “There’s nothing more important than paying respect to the dead.” We paid our respects to the dead. We visited cemeteries on All Souls Day with our picnic baskets filled to the brim with fruit salad and sweet spaghetti.

Now, I don’t have time to pay my respects to the dead. I like to talk about how Jesus won’t save me from hell. Before I fell, my favorite book was the Bible and I knew what I wanted. Now, I want what I can’t have. I live in an apartment in Ohio, with florescent lights and centralized heating.

Ohio doesn’t talk about his dead or the existence of roaming spirits. He likes to talk about his unpredictable mood swings, and his Grandmother’s chicken noodle soup. He worries about his brother who is stationed in Iraq, fighting against terror. He doesn’t like the taste of garlic.

My Lolo always said, “Listen to your elders but never stop asking ‘why?’” I liked hearing him talk. His stories took me far away, to villages in China and to nature reserves in South America.

I heard every word, but I am not sure if I ever listened.

Now, that I’ve fallen I wish that I had.

ilike my body when its with your body.its so quite a new thing.

i like poetry. Oh! ee cummings!

i like my body when it is with your
body.  It is so quite new a thing.
Muscles better and nerves more.
i like your body.  i like what it does,
i like its hows.  i like to feel the spine
of your body and its bones, and the trembling
-firm-smooth ness and which i will
again and again and again
kiss,  i like kissing this and that of you,
i like, slowly stroking the, shocking fuzz
of your electric fur, and what-is-it comes
over parting flesh . . . . And eyes big love-crumbs,

and possibly i like the thrill

of under me you so quite new

Thoughts: i think there maybe an art to kissing all day long. the world record for the longest is 
31 hours The official rules:  

The kiss must be continuous and the lips must be touching at all 
times. If the lips part - the couple are immediately disqualified. 
The contestants must stand during the attempt and cannot be
propped together by any aids, such as pillows, cushions or people.
No rest breaks are allowed.

The record holders: 
James Belshaw, 26, and his girlfriend Sophia Severin,
23, from London, shared an unbroken kiss for 31 hours, 30 minutes and
30 seconds. Throughout the event they were not allowed to sit, or
fall asleep, could only take sustenance through a straw and had to stay
kissing even while visiting the toilet.

These people are incredible. What would ee cummings do? hmm...

emotion road

I can't get this out of my head. Also, I am doing Laundry. I hate doing laundry

Gil Mantera's Party Dream - Emotion Road

for once in your life give us a break
think about something anything other than (???) dinosaurs
and then sure as the sun will shine and the moon will turn
i will piss on every piece of knowledge (???)

one two three four eight nine eight
this is the way we celebrate
no more monkeys jumping off the bed
grab a piece of chicken (???)
no more monkeys jumping off the bed
no more monkeys jumping on my head
no more monkeys
no more monkeys
are you with me?

now ive learned my lesson well as you can tell
buffalo gin has invited us all to his very own private hell
with a serious lack of thirst plus bloodthirsty carnival burst
im with jimmy snapping necks, the best you ever heard

one two three four eight nine eight
this is the way we celebrate
no more monkeys jumping off the bed
grab a piece of chicken (???)
no more monkeys jumping off the bed
no more monkeys jumping on my head
no more monkeys
no more monkeys
people, are you with me?

we all gotta do what we gots to do
we all gotta do what we gots to do
we all gotta do what we gots to do
we all gotta do what we gots to do...

Now, I gotta do laundry.

the random colors of water

I like art like my grandfather likes art. We like art even if we don't know much about it.
Today, we went on an adventure (as my grandfather called it) and explored the movement and the vibrant colors of the impressionists. My grandfather doesn't like the impressionists, or the cubists, and (DEFINITELY) dislikes WARHOL (and, all types of pop art).

He went with the idea that brush strokes on canvas NEED TO MAKE SENSE or, they're not ART. Apparently, portraiture and classical landscapes are the only types of painting that fall into "real art." With these types, the spectator (Barthes uses this term and I might be misusing it here) sees the reality of the subject. According to my grandfather, this is what "real art" does. "Real art" reveals the truth of the subject by revealing its truth. Based on this definition, we find art's truth in the reality of its subject.

We looked at Monet's landscapes--japanese bridges, weeping willows, water lilies, etc.
I looked at the broken brush strokes, and followed their movement. They spoke to me in rhythm and emotion.

Oh, they read like poetry:

See how the grass blows in
the breeze. See how there's nothing for
miles but endless
fields of dismantled color,
restless strokes
and purple poppies.

Art feels like this. If art can feel like anything, It's truth comes out in feeling. Barthes would say that it "pricks" before it educates. But, art educates too. It teaches us. It says, "HERE, you see this? This is what it means to feel, to be free, and to be human." "Oh," you say "I didn't know that truth could be this painful." And, then you realize that this is its truth--PAIN.

Art captures life. It tames life into segments divided by color, shapes, movement, etc. But, life doesn't stay tame for long. Then art starts asking questions. In Monet's case, "WHAT IS THE COLOR OF WATER?" I don't think he ever gives us a straight answer.

Monet frustrates my grandfather and enlivens me. I guess this is the difference between generations. When he owned his own drugstore, he used to sell coffee for 5 cents. Now, when I visit a coffee shop, I spend 3.00 on coffee. My grandfather would never do this. It frustrates him.