Beautiful Sleep and I am poems

Every now and again I like to post old poems of mine. These poems are a part of me and I reflect on them again and again because to me they capture bits of me. The following three poems are no different.


A Beautiful Sleep
The words came late one night
when all dreams come
to close old doors,
“Don’t you know what life is?”
I thought it sounded like poetry:

a line that never ends,
a hallway of opening doors
where we must enter.
We turn strange handles
because a future is waiting.

A promise of life once given
is never taken away.
All doors are passageways:
the black door, like an eyelid.
There is an awakening.

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I love this poem and remember it often because the first stanza did happen. So I'm a pensive guy, but random questions like that do come to me every now and again. And then the whole concept of this life almost like a beautiful sleep from which one day we will wake is an alluring and powerful image to me. I love it.

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I am
I am the blank slate and pad of paper
pages fluttering with the chance breeze;
I am the smooth stone thrown into the river
that skips before it falls away;
I am the large crowd quiet in an auditorium;
I am the large family talking together at breakfast;
and the group of friends, laughing by the mall.

I am the first to say I’m shy,
I am the second to arrive early,
I am the third option,
and the fourth in line.
I am even the fifth of September.

I’m the strange boy in the classroom;
and I’m the girl who sits beside him.
I’m the woman walking at dusk
and the man
on the moon
in the reflection
in the dark
on the road
in control
but on the fritz
and on the edge
and even I
am ready to say
who am I?

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This poem and the next have a lot of "I am" statements. In both these poems, this blog can't get the spacing as I would have it, but oh well. If I remember correctly both came from exercises we did in a poetry class and I think both turned out well. Both are meaningful to me, at least. I especially like the flow of the middle stanza and the first two lines of the third. I hope y'all enjoy them too.

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From the Year of Dragons
I am from a land that I never knew
upon whose mountains, I am told, I first crawled.
I am from the old and scratched blue station wagon
bought the year I was born
the year of dragons.
I am from the large warm hands of my sisters
and my older brother’s prayers.
I am from the cold bathwater, dripping and wet.
I am from the absences of my father and his age
and the ages that my siblings had long before I was born.
I am from a playground in Japan
and the boat which took me there
from the other side of the world.

I am.

I say I am
from the death of my grandfather
who died washing dishes
which may not be surprising
to some.
To some, I am from the airport in Atlanta
and the waiting room there where I slept
elevated by two chairs
while snow fell from the blackened sky.

How strange to believe, to realize, that I am from that snow
again dripping and wet with one eye throbbing
with leafless branches above webbing the heavens
as the new year’s bonfire burned to ashes
and I am from the snowball that hit my eye
and knocked me into the cold, cold snowflakes
where I lay, waiting for midnight.

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I enjoy this poem because it holds so many memories for me, and memories that I've been told. I also like how the last several images lead into each other. Who am I? Read the poems. :)

The Mexican Fireworks Story!

Okay, so this has nothing to do with a story about mexican fireworks, rather I didn't want to title this entry as "Some Random Poems", so I took the main bits from each of the three and combined them. Here's the poems:


The Mexican in America
I met him across the counter at Taco Bell,
me, ordering three hard taco supremes
he, working hard at three low-end jobs.

His accent asked me if I wanted a drink with that,
and I said yes, and that I spoke Spanish.

Every week we spoke across that counter,
about his lack of sleep and my language studies,
his bus ride to work, and my father’s car
and he became more than a poor immigrant,
hidden behind tanned skin and a black moustache:
a familiar face, and then a friend.

Then he lost one job
Then another gave him time-off
so I went skating with him one Saturday night.

Everybody needs a friend,
and though he lived with a tribe of countrymen,
they left him alone when they tossed back the beer,
so he called on me to come down.

The rink was small, filled mainly with children and teenagers,
plus one old guy who’d been skating since age ten.
I was like child: slow, wobbling, unsure

if I could safely turn around or stop without falling.

While my friend jumped empty chairs followed by pirouettes,
one of the best, the fastest, a man with talent.

Too bad the rink was small, containing him
from spinning out into the abandoned streets,
The centripetal force of the walls crushing his hopes
to become famous, well-known, an individual.
The gravity kept him orbiting in empty circles,
magnificent circles, though they were.

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This poem is taken from my feeling about an experience with a Mexican friend of mine who works at Taco Bell and loves roller skating. Surprise, huh? I think the poem otherwise speaks for itself - who am I to be where I am in life, and who is he to be where he is?

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Fireworks, revisited
Like burnt leaves fell,
like an amber willow tree
dipped her hands into that black sky
above us, the fireworks left their mark.

I pulled out of the darkness my watch
and noticed the infant cry awake,
the police look down,
and the girls talk behind her.

It they who spoke and not her,
silent when I turned to listen.
Instead she looked at the colors change
the green, yellow, and red,

that I remembered when the trees hid the moon
on our way home; she said it flickered
like the fireworks white finale:
autumn dying into winter.

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The title for this one isn't really set, but because the situation pairs up so much with my other Fireworks poem, I've considered combining them into a two part poem. Then again, i might not because truly the feeling of the two poems (not to mention the content and the people involved) are very different. Who knows, but I still like it.

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Unfinished Stories
If I could tell you from my unfinished stories,
the endings, the happiness, the characters plenty,
you might ask the question that I asked before,
– “How many?”

How many leaves can you count in my hair?
How many flowers behind my back?
How many times will I be unaware
that I left you with white, while my ink is black?

If you could tell me from your broken clocks,
ripped-up calendars, and hidden sky, then
I might ask as we walk round the block,
– “When?”

When will you say that a story’s done?
When will we get out from under the rain?
When will we agree that the endings are one
when two people start over again?

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Basically the first part of this poem basically popped into my head and I thought it sounded interested, so I went from there. I enjoy most of it, though I feel it could still use some work. Heck, they all could. Anyway, hope y'all enjoy these!

For My Grandmother

The passing of a close relative is a strange experience. I can't say that I'm grieving or mortally wounded by it, because I believe her to be in a better place, hopefully reunited with my grandfather, etc. But nonetheless, the experience is strange and in such a way that it's hard to describe. And if it's hard to describe, that means it'll come out in my poetry for a while, in small ways (such as my poem Lightning), or as the main topic such as in the following two poems. The first is a revised version of an older poem, while the second one is newer and probably harder to follow, but I'm trying. Comments welcome and appreciated.


The Archeologist
O remember that my life is wind – Job 2:7

I remember Stonehenge: the rocks piled together,
and the dawn casting shadows like a river of darkness.

My grandmother paused on the outside of the circle
perhaps imagining herself with a brush,
unearthing history with a gentle touch,

or seeing as the ancients the passing of days,
a cold solstice foretelling the long nights.

And I remember the ruins in Scotland
a village once covered when wind pushed the sand.

Then it lay below us, she and I, walking through time,
entering in homes that once sheltered families
like a child and his grandmother, talking around the fire,

or herself, young with her husband around the dinner table,
in a timeless scene with one son and three daughters.

I wish I could unveil more than the garden remains
of an old island home, lost in this tumultuous aging sea.

But this is how I discover: digging through memories,
sifting through them for the twinkle in my grandmother’s eyes.

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I read this poem at her graveside. It was okay and people liked it as far as I could tell, but, as expressed in the next poem, it felt inadequate. I'll keep revising it.

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Collage Of My Grandmother’s Memorial
Her four children leave the church singing
about the shivery river. An upbeat tune
but who can hide? who knows how soon
pain (do I feel it?) will be stinging?

Ready for the river,

It is the young ones who throw in the dirt
over the deep urn. A girl takes the rose
from the silent bouquet at her toes,
to this pit, and soils her skirt.

the shiver-y river
the river that goes down to the sea.

In clumps at the monument, we reminisce
when suddenly rises some clarinet’s cry:
a minor jazz melody, from off to the side
where my cousin’s soul doubts this:

gonna drown all my troubles
and leave only bubbles

Who am I to stand up and read
a poem, written and revised but one time?
a collection of memories lacking in rhyme,
inadequate to give voice to my plea:

to indicate what used to be me.

I sing as my mother sings; I follow her,
the congregation also. I can’t break away
from this celebration of life. Can’t stray
to that distant tree, her home now hollow:

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Doing a collage that is understandable is hard because, by nature, a collage has nothing to do with sequence, but the overall picture. That being said, I want it to be understandable. The italicized lines are meant to be the song that was being sung out of the church. Does it work? I'm trying to capture a bit of the strange feeling, but again, that's a feeling that's hard to describe. So help me out. Hope you enjoy these.

"Refined like a poem"

So recently, I've had the great opportunity to have one on one poetry revision sessions with a guy named Shawn who's an MFA student in poetry at UNCG. It's been amazing; I tell ya. It takes us about 2 hours to go over three poems. I've done this twice and therefore the following post will be six revised poems. They're awesome. Read them. Tell me what you think. I'd love it if you compared them to the originals and told me if you liked the changes or no and why. But maybe that's asking too much of you. If you just read them and enjoy them, I'll be satisfied, especially if you tell me you enjoyed them. Thanks!

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Portrait of a Roommate
I hear through dreams and I smell the smoke,
the silent alarm that drags me out awake.
Tomorrow sits on the couch,
ashes between his fingers, beer can empty,
confesses he forgot to walk around the block
complains of a headache and the bright lights,
the ones shining high in the open corridor.
But he won’t go to bed when I tell him to.
No, he just watches sports on TV
though he pays no attention, not even thinking.
Inside him is an emptiness that smells
of abandon, of rage beneath the blank face.
I yield to my room and turn off the switch again.
I want to sleep, but I turn to the wall too often,
imagining I can move in with Yesterday.

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Shawn enjoyed the idea of Tomorrow trying to forget tomorrow and, while I sort of had that concept, he put it into words, which helped a bit in the revision of this poem.

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The Napkin
Once, this was written on a white napkin
while waiting for take-out in a Chinese restaurant.
The original will be lost someday:
smeared with grease, or used as a tissue,
or left in the backseat of a car to be trampled
and then thrown out.

I say this so you won’t forget beginnings:
often malleable, yet easily forgotten.
In these ways we connect, this napkin and I.
Storms soak us and bitter times tear us.
But looking back I remember who I was and who I am,
even as I hope you find yourself
in the reflection of a glass of water at home,
while you wash your hands of old dirt,
or when you hear your own steps on a crowded street.
The smiles around you confirm that you are alive again,
refined like this poem, printed on a fresh page.

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Shawn liked this poem because it avoided sentimentality, for the most part. I did do a slight edit to avoid that a little more, but the overall feeling of the poem is the same. He also pointed out that if I'm the one who remembers who I am, shouldn't the reader be the one who remembers who they are. Yeah, that makes sense to me, too. Finally, he pointed out that "restored" wasn't strong enough a word for the end, that I needed a word that not only showed life, but improvement. I think I found it in "refined."

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The Milky Way
As if I was a child spilling onto the night sky
his bowl of cereal dripping with milk,
so too I catch my breath tonight
before it can join the galaxy up there,
there where ancient stars circle.
Dark rivers swirl bright
whirlpools, sinking out of reach.
My faint sparkle drowns.
In this way my thoughts tremble,
in fear of a power that silences me
as if imagining the frown of a parent,
in awe of a force that makes me nothing,
a mess of feelings, splashed on the ground.

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Most of the changes here were with the beginning, adding "I" into the first line. Not too much different here, but overall better, I believe.

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Fast Food in the City
Back on the road, he unfolds the paper,
like the scuffing of feet on green grass.
I listen in the dark to the nature:
chewing, the animal and its cud,
hooves clopping down the trail.
The slurp becomes a nearby stream,
water rolling over the smooth stones,
churning onto rough rocks, yet unbroken.
Ice shakes in his cup: a distant thunder
from which none seek shelter.
And finally the wrapper crinkles in his hands,
as freshly fallen leaves crumple under toe
along the path to home, to what’s natural, to sleep.
He shows his satisfaction with a simple shrug.

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Shawn also really liked this one. He pointed out that I could do more with the title to add to the meaning of the poem, so I did. He also just helped me to focus the images a bit so that each is slightly more accesible and with the impact in the right area.

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Fireworks
She looks out the window,
and my eyes follow, out into the night,
where lamplights reveal emptiness. And then

I hear a drumming sound

of victory overtaking itself.
Like gunshots in the dark, only upwards.
This is what calls her attention.

There are no bursting colors
but sounds of bombs rising,
the black sky against the rumble

that she calls fireworks.

It is like the bass drums marching,
pounding their red hearts
and beating their chests.

It is an anxious symphony of clocks,
the crashing of chairs and tables,
doors closing against me. I look at her

before I notice the moment is over.

The triumphal noise ended long ago.
The defeated silence remains, hanging
like the new moon above us.

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One things Shawn thought at first is that there was a riot outside, so in revision I tried to make it clearer that I was describing with images what I heard, not what was actually going on. If the reader gets caught up thinking that the fireworks are something other than fireworks, I need to work on that. I also tried some different line breaks to move along the reader, and because I think it makes more sense this way. I added the final line to emphasize the overall end feeling.

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Lightning
“For nowadays the world is lit by lightning” – The Glass Menagerie

Lightning woke me that cold night in summer,
not an awareness of my toes, bare to the open window.
I am always a child in that image.

Lightning is a memory so faded that I can’t remember
more than the black and white, that it happened sometime,
never quite the way I imagine: with rain taking a midnight stroll,

the whole world sleeping but I, caught in wonder,
alone in shivering awake, of wanting to drift off.
All I show to you is mine and no one else’s.

Lightning is the scent of lavender, years later, at the door
of where I don’t consider home, though I dream there nightly
in a room small enough for one, smaller for two.

The thunder echoes, clapping for an encore,
that the stage should rule me, hold me in my seat,
for when life is struck, it doesn’t always move on.

Yet it is the sharpness that keeps me alive,
when the nightmare is that I can’t forget
when the girl doesn’t sit beside me anymore,

or when my grandmother died one afternoon.
I hold them with my bleeding hands in a flash of white,
until the darkness reminds me who I am.

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This is the poem that took us the longest to go over because, I believe, it had a lot of potential. It's a poem that tries hard to connect two seemingly dissimilar things, lightning and memory, and do so in a clear way. It also tries to make use of a famous quote (yes, the quote is important to the poem. It inspired me to write the poem, but I didn't just add it in for kicks). So yeah, Shawn helped me understand what my language was inferring and thereby helped me know what could be improved/changed. And I think this version is much better. I hope you've enjoyed it, and all of them! Thanks for reading!