Below are poems I wrote from sometime in 2000 up to now. It took me a while to decide I was willing to put them up here. I don’t really need your thoughts on them, but I hope they provide some diversion from everyday life. – David
I wished it all again
It wasn’t the trees I remembered
or the smell of them.
It was the light and shadow they cast
on the ground and the way we felt that day
we talked.
We didn’t have anywhere to go that day and really nothing
much we wanted to do.
And in that time with weather wise and the talk a treat,
I wished it all again.
Drift
Clouds drift as quickly as the eye can catch them.
Time is denoted by units,
And my memories by space.
My perception is acceptance of realities
And acceptance of others’ realities.
People standing alone in their own world,
But together in each others’.
Oak ash
The smell of Autumn.
Cool breezes – burning wood to noses
Cold with moisture-hanging.
Flannel hugging warm arms
And cold hands.
Long auburn hair tossed and tangled,
Woven with bits of leaves.
Red, orange, brown and black
Rolling down hills slick and wet.
Waiting
Waiting for something that may never happen in a black, split bus station chair,
Something that if it does happen could lead to more
waiting.
If I wasn’t waiting, what would I be up to? How might the rest of this day pass?
How could we use that which we already have?
Instead of waiting, we should call
it stillness.
Time for bed
May be my brain should shut up
and let my body do the talking for a while.
I will care in the morning.
Another time to sleep,
followed by another time to wake.
Like clock-work.
Oh well, we need it.
We just wouldn’t be the same without it.
That’d be a shame.
Shell of myself
It would hurt me to think
that you don’t feel all I have for you.
My heart is much bigger than it may seem,
but it has been clogged from time and troubles.
Don’t mind that,
it is merely a coincidence.
I want things for you and from you
that are simple and complex
I want you to be happy
but with me.
Sometimes I want to fall into you completely,
I want you to swallow me up,
I want to be inside you so I can let go
Let go of the wholeness of my feelings –
not just words.
Sometimes I am quiet about my feelings,
but that’s because I don’t want to misrepresent them
with emotion.
Basically:
If I’m dying, I want you there
If I succeed, I want you there
If I’m struggling, I need you there.
These times at night
alone
before I sleep are the worst.
They are the worst because I think.
I think about where I was not too long ago
and where I am now.
At times I feel lost.
But knowing you are there I feel much better.
You are the songs of my soul,
the object of my desire,
and the source of inspiration.
Without you I would feel empty ,
like a bag of skin with no owner.
My love is dedicated to you.
It is whole and it is pure.
I work hard to keep it that way.
Star people
So many spread out across the globe,
looking up to the sky from their night balcony
or looking down into their empty cans of beans.
Both so similar in their relationship with life
and they don’t know the other is there.
Imagining a better life
or at least a better time in their life.
May be it was in the past
or they can see it in the future.
Either way,
it’s not now.
Enough
When music had meaning
When calm moments were left untouched
and the loss of humans was lamented.
When emptiness struck cords and made
loud sounds
So that everyone knew where it lay.
Emptiness attractive
Silence detested and avoided
Music touched with a cracking smack of hatred.
Only the direction of hatred
is the variable
in a list of factors
too long to compile
and too dark to illuminate.
To whom do we owe
the response?
How surprised are we
when we are the true “subjects”
of our greatest prides?
Running away
We all run away a little
whether it’s the exec with his meeting
or the quiet family meal hanging with tension.
The prospect of true emptiness always pushes towards fear.
Both the simple philosopher and the engaged student
battle on the same field
suffering the shock of a life unrecognized.
Just want to write
I can’t even write it down.
Not enough words, not even sure of my own
thoughts.
Just want to write.
I’m a little sad, but so what.
Keep going, I’ll get distracted soon enough.
Simple as that.
I don’t want to complicate it.
Sell out
Trying to sound good takes
too much time.
It’s much harder, too.
See, I wanted to say “alot,” but I said “much” instead.
Still trying to sound good.
Not me though.
Nice try, not really me.
Untitled
I get tired of it
So much standing still.
At times so little movement.
If I don’t move, what are you
going to say about me when I die?
I thought, well,
that’s pretty boring for a funeral.
I need to think less and do more.
It’s easier that way.
Tack-tack
Click-clack, click-clack.
Constant pattern, much like lives.
I won’t write about the pattern itself.
You probably know it.
Seems like we only have a limited number of chores
in between.
I don’t like that,
but can I change it?
We’ll see.
It would be nice.
The Tie wears the Man
The tie wears the man.
It holds him by the neck,
choking his throat,
causing him to utter streaming
piles of acrobatic, fragile language.
The tie is comfortable in the way
glasses are comfortable. Their place
on the body weakens while providing confidence to those
less safe in their own bodies.
The tie is straight and clean.
Its lines hang beautifully down-
distracting all away from the
beaming eyes and flapping mouth.
Untitled
Why does it seem that the
most miniscule and mundane activities
take up most of our time?
Tiny details swimming in a sea of lost
minutes and hours.
Furious phone calls and hateful arguments
on a canvas of minutiae.
If time was vengeful, these moments
would be first to get the knife.
The Itch
The itch is any want
any urge
that takes its time fading out
and who leaves behind burden of desire.
The best way to get rid of it
Is to do it. Do it. Do it.
Live it and want no more.
Love is a word
Love is a cheap word
We use on birthday cakes
and t-shirts.
It blows through
your face at the
back of your brains.
It breaks you and makes
you, and takes what it can.
It is the sacrifice of your happiness and desire
for the gamble of someone else’s.
It gets into you like an invisible bullet,
lodging into any empty space it can find.
And then boom.
From the kitchen table where I sat
From the kitchen
table where I sat
where we sat
and stand together
at the small lamp.
There it all started
and continued
keep it up
keep it up
searching
and ploughing
through head-high
grass where villains
sat ready.
Never thinking
that one time
and maybe more
I’d be in
the grass,
waiting.
Thoughts are clear
There are some whose thoughts are clear and distinct.
They have less of them, but their lines are clean
and the paths are singular
and well charted, like
a sail in the sea.
These are the thoughts
I wish were my own.
Sometimes I think
I hear people’s thoughts.
But they are not like
strings before a symphony
or a blast from a boat’s horn.
They are like awkward
and confused shapes
bumping and knocking
about and making a mess
of the air.
Time can move
It can move
and sink whatever
you don’t own.
It’s bits of scenery
and sound
will be the last things you see and hear
when it comes
to an end.
Then you must decide
which ones to keep
and why.
David and Lam 