it’s becoming inevitable that these things will become more and more similar as time passes. there’s only so many times i can remark about the beautiful things i see and the wonderful people i meet. it really is crazy, the more i see of the country, the more i realize there are awesome people everywhere.

today was a trippy day. me and my host jb woke up early to head out to the ed norris show at cbs radio, which is apparently a goddamn big deal in murland. they were both hella cool, and ed was hella dope to meet because he was a cop…

ed norris, me and dude who i can't remember

whoa, i’ll get back to that in a second, but i legitimately just had a long ass conversation with a french kiddo, entirely conducted through babelfish. awersome sauce of massive proportions. i just had to mention that.

but yes, ed norris was a cop in DC in the bad old days, so getting his perspective on the changed new york was really interesting. and dude trained kyokushin. come on now. how do you not love a dude who does one of the toughest martial arts out there?

whoa. i just had an entire conversation with the father of the kid through the awesome tool known as babelfish. that was a goddamn surreal experience, having multiple entire conversations through facebook. i shared some of my food. they shared some of theirs. we had coffee, and it was a goddamn good night. it is weird as hell sharing shin ramyun with a french family who’s never had it before. but honestly, how much more diverse and worldy do you get? freaking weird, but… the exact romantic ideal. that is what this trip is SUPPOSED to be about. i am so happy that this just happened. and at goddamn 4 o clock in the morning no less. though admittedly… it is a little scary that almost no one in that entire family spoke passable english.

the french family i shared my shin ramyun with and talked to through babelfish

c’est le vie. right?

but honestly… this has been an awesome time.

admittedly, lugging my huge backpack through the metro into DC and to my hostel was wacksauce. but that just means i need to pack better.

the hostel is hella nice. i am never going to be weary of staying in a hostel again. if you ever get a chance to stay at a hostelling international hostel, please do. they come with my recommendation. i liked them so much, i actually bought a membership today. and the bits and pieces i got to see of the national gallery were awersome sauce. les face it. i HELLLLLA nerd out on art. ESPECIALLY the impressionists. they quite literally set my knees aquiver, and the national gallery has an absolutely mindblowing collection of their stuff.

boston latin whaaaat?

yes, that it is a cezanne

saddest most amazing painting EVER. manet. genius.

this makes me so excited to see the rest of the museums, especially the archives. constitution! declaration of independence! duuuude. history nerd alert.

dc lounging. you know, candid shot.

and dude… jb introduced me to some folks in DC + one of my friends from dc showed up and it was awersome sauce. we hung out in chinatown. which is HELLLLLLa ghetto. but whatever. food was decently cheap. the bar we went to before had 50 cent chicken wings and decent drinks, so it made the chinese food that much cheaper.

that was all jb

dinner crew

i also got a chance to roll for the first time in my travels, at ryan hall’s dopesauce 50/50 bjj. all cool folks there. if you’re in the area, you should definitely roll through. and this is after i got hella lost on my way from the metro station, so you know it has to be good.

finally, night on the town with liz, the girl jb introduced me to, and megan, her friend. such cool, real, wonderful and beautiful people yall have never met. you envy me because i had the privilege of their company.

and they say food isn't sex

duuuuude. purty.

superlatives aside… the more days pass, the more i realize how blessed i am to be doing this. les just hope i keep feeling this way when i head down to nashville and know no one.

but whatever… i got two more days of DC left and i’m going to enjoy ‘em. oh and before i forget… if’n i see you on the road, please have a penny ready, cuz im collecting them for my empty lee kum kee jar.

life is like a durian… you gotta crack it open.

honestly, i wish i could sing, not only for karaoke (which always is a consideration), but so that i could sing songs like steve earle and mcgowan and tom watts do. goddamn. ballads and stories about real folks, truth that touches the heart.

*edit and aside* if any of yall know where i can find vietnamese folk, like old tyme vietnamese ballads, please send ‘em my way. ive heard some from my dad and some stuff that was on paris by night and such, but i need to hear more. in all seriousness, most vietnamese pop drives me nuts. too disco-ey… but i want to get in touch with those old ballady folksy roots that ive known very little.

i know i’ve been remiss with posting, my only excuse is that i was working on my thesis and finishing up college. congrats to me on graduating.

but along with that comes big big decisions about the trajectory of my life, my vision for the future and my development as a human being, a citizen and an artist.

so what else to do but take an odd-yssey ‘cross the continental united states? imma be hitchhiking, busing and generally trekking all o’er the place. i feel like there’s so much of this country that i haven’t seen and this will give me both an excuse and an opportunity to be a tourist all over the place. i’ll be able to perform at different joints and poetry venues wherever i can find ‘em, train at jiu jitsu places from coast to coast and even get a touch of culture and cuisine by eating local and visiting museums and honkytonks. more importantly than that, i’ll get to meet and get to know hella people from all walks of life, i’ll get to write, really allow myself to throw myself into art without the distractions of the city.

and most of all, i’ll get to maybe wrestle an alligator.

i’ll be blogging the trip the entire way, committing myself to at least one blog post a day, no matter how large or small. i’ll be leaving towards the end of june and taking a month to trek ‘cross the country to the apia spoken word and poetry summit, which yall should attend if you possibly can.

but as a part of that… if you have couch space or an idea of places to go or recommendations or advice or words of wisdom, please, please send ‘em my way. if you know someone who’d be willing to host or show me ’round their neck of the woods, please holler at ‘em for me. also, if you have any experience with couchsurfing.org, i’d love to hear from you.

and watch out for a viet am poet boy with a big backpack round where you live in the months of july and august.

i’ll be posting more in the next few days about the tirp and more writing, it feels damn nice to have time to write again.

but for now, more trip planning and xbox 360 .

life is a journey, no wonder so many folks are lost.

do you know how some people see sounds? they perceive music as an array of colours because of whatever strange connection has been made in their heads. though mostly this is is discussed in relation to the physical senses, i have something similar with emotions.

when i feel an emotion, there’s a tint in the back of my mind that colors everything. when i feel an emotion coming offa person through my physical senses, there’s a subtle flare of colour around them. it sounds weird, but it’s something i’ve grown up and kinda like. it’s unique. which seems to be a goal all its own in this city.

i guess why that’s the reason i describe poetry using the painter metaphor. we are painters, emotions are our paint, every subtle shadow corresponding to the exact nuance of a feeling. i’ve said it before, i don’t like using words like love or hate in my work without some sort of qualification. what kind of love? what kind of hate? what does it mean to have a hate for a person once loved? a hate born from seeing those you care about being hurt by the target of your disdain?

i’m still trying to convey that complexity in my work. it’s hard. one’s control of language, one’s technical skill is the tilt of the head that makes the Mona Lisa forever haunting. i’m learning it as i go, trying to build from traditions before me, but this shit ain’t gifted. it’s earned.

though, i do have enough of the romantic (the era, not the gift card) in me to see the poet as special on some level. maybe it’s my own arrogance speaking. but at the same time, there’s great technical illustrators that are still unable to convey any depth of feeling in their work.

i guess i’m rambling again.

my days have been stormy, the wind and rain that seeps into your bones and steals even the ghost of warmth or light from your being. then the tempest arrived, destroying the mud wattle buildings i’ve built up. now… the calm has come.

that specific calm that comes in the wake of devastation. the feeling of resignation that somehow still allows one to continue with one’s life. maybe the exact shade of emotion as the man who knows his cancer will kill him, so chooses to live his life as he wills. the specific gradation that belongs only to the boy who realizes that these three guys are going to kick his ass, so he might as well grab onto one and keep swinging. the swirling peace of a woman who is finally able to leave and be done, after too much time and investment in an awful affair.

—————————————–

colours

a mother’s love, an earthy red
oceanic in its depth
and temperament.

the feeling of the first nice day in spring
the pastel yellow of the sun
seen through freshly dusted douche goggles

infatuation is the whiteness of halogen lamps
haloed by a blinky, misty red, blinding
so that all else is relegated to the periphery

the satiated guilt of indulged gluttony
is the white of institutional light
reflected from the melting richness of vanilla ice cream left out

the contentment in the willingness to wait
is noon sun through a teal window pain
dust motes idly dancing

an adolescent’s frustrated rage
is the intense, pulsating red
of an infected cut

the frustration of hard work proved wanting
the sandy red-brown of the specific layer
of pit dug in the desert that is just kissed by moisture

a parent’s grief is a blurring
a twisted distortion of colour
that strips the senses of perception

the desire for cold vengeance, pallid
blue-grey of apprentice’s iron
fit for plowshares, forged into a sword

interpersonal ambivalence, the blue black green
of healing bruises, timorous
in its betweeness

quiet resignation is the ochre red
of dried blood, spilt and wasted
without recourse

a boy’s artsy-pretension depression, the cliched
inky blackness, thick with its self-imposed weight
a hungry dark, its smoky contrails reaching

my love for you, even now
the brown-gray of petrified wood, no longer alive
but always persistent

yesterday was a beautiful day in the city, and other then some work stuff which we ain’t gon’ talk about because that ain’t the point of this here blog, i spent the sunshine time out at tompkins sq park. i was napping and writing, writing and napping and generally doing my goddamn best to avoid the pressures and deadlines of real life… choosing instead to enjoy sun, wind, laughter and young twenty-something ambience for a little while, imagining that maybe it’d recharge my batteries.

a coupla things came out of it… a bunch of writing, two pieces of which will be shown here as a general bit of sharing and part of the poem-a-day project, as well as some realizations.

first and foremost, toddlers are goddamn cute. there were these two kids at the park with their hipster parents, both of them not more than two and half, maybe three years old, stumbling and tumbling around the park on still-awkward legs. smiling, giggling and just generally enjoying the strange environment, taking it all in and loving every minute of it. and i was just floored for a moment by the carefree laughter coming from me as i watched their antics. this is what innocence is supposed to be and once was, before doubt has really crept in and all the insecurities and neuroses of civilization have had a chance to take route. what wonder they saw the world with… and new yorkers, who tend to be very touchy about their private space allowed these kids in. talked to ‘em, made funny faces at ‘em, giggled at their antics.

it reminds me of the parable of the bandit and the girl-child, which is used to illustrate that all people, both those perceived to be ‘good’ and ‘bad’, all have some element of humanity in them. kids are one of those universals, its deep seated in us to enjoy their innocence, to desire to protect them, to envy their ability to see the world anew. little kids can bring a smile to the most cynical person. having kids have fundamentally changed folks i’ve known. which is why i can’t understand how folks can ever treat kids badly. wtf world?

now, a coupla realizations. dude, you gotta bring a blanket if you gon’ chill on the ground in the park a day after it was raining or you gon’ be trying to get dirt stains offa you for the minute. more over, going to the park by yourself unless it is for the purpose of reading and/or hanging with your dog can be hella awkward, ’specially when you’re surrounded by couples. spring love’s in the air alright.

further, my thesis sequester is going to suck balls.

but then again, like i said to my friend last night, we do what we gotta do. our lives are not our own. and duty weighs on us all heavily, but we continue cuz we gotta.

… which is why i don’t get it when folks describe me as complicated. i feel like i’m a relatively simple to understand kinda dude. i’m just a boy doing the best i can. what’s difficult to understand about that?

faults and foibles, vices and virtues, contradictory or not. and with my demons, which ironically returned to me last night in a big way. after having marveled at innocence and simple pleasure, i got a rude awakening from those parts of myself that are not so happy. it’s fitting considering the weather outside. but then again, we fight our demons ‘cuz we gotta. we keep moving because if we don’t what do we got? how can we look at ourselves after letting others down?

let me just leave you with this piece, On seeing the 100% perfect girl one beautiful April morning by Haruki Murakami, one of my favorite authors and one of the most genius minds in the world. oddly enough, i was introduced to him by two very different people, one, a woman who broke my heart because she didn’t think i loved her enough even though she was like the air i breathed, the second, a man with sharkeyes who taught me that there ain’t no such thing as heart or love when it comes to business.

the reason it’s odd is that murakami is such a romantic, yearning type of writer. there’s a vulnerable loneliness at the core of his work that touches something inside of the human. even if he’s ironic and has one hell of an acerbic wit, there’s an element of the human there that manages to shrug aside defences and reach for that part of ourselves that’s delicate, that’s affected by the subtly poignant (it’s no coincidence that poignant and poignard are such similar words) . the fact that two vastly different people both connected with his work smacks of the universal to me… maybe we all desperate seek something or someone that will soothe the loneliness within us. ’specially in this city.

april 5th

the swagger

he plays the audience
like a maestro, his body
his voice, the bow and the guitar pick
thrumming with life, never so alive
as when the stage lights hit
that first breath, eyes closed
and he embraces the hubris
of momentary divinity

afterwards, spent
he hardly drinks, sometimes
blazes a little, takes the edge off
he says, his voice subdued
as he dons ironically sardonic
pink-framed sunglasses,
jaunty scarf hanging just so, wandering
aimlessly from bed to bed, bar to dive

it’s now that he grows most miserly
when you can tell that every article of clothing
is expertly chosen
for maximum impact, every gesture
weighed against the memorability quotient

it is now that he gives
least of himself, fragile construction
fabricated at the clash between arrogance and insecurity
showing in between cracks in the facade, his structure
hostage to his neuroses

in the wake of the rush, his demons come
as regularly as the moon’s phases
or the shakes before a show, the doubt
that asks if the boy inside
matches the man the world is meant to see

———————————

expository

i have not been completely honest. i’m not very good at that, the whole forthcoming thing doesn’t really work for me.

that’s why they call me emotionally unavailable. whatever that means. i don’t know, always thought it was a bullshit description. i’m an artist for fuck’s sake. and i exude emotion. if my bartender can tell, shouldn’t you be able to as well?

words don’t come easy for me in speech. i don’t mean being witty, or telling my exaggerated stories or spittin’ game (whatever that means). those are part and parcel of the role i’ve taken on for myself. story teller. acerbic wit and gregarious charisma like sunglasses and cigarettes. and even then, text has always come more easily. i can be more clever when i get time to think (maybe thas why i’m on the computer so much).

my attempts at vulnerability (even when i’m at my most vulnerable) and honesty (except the brutal sort) are halting, like the stutter and speech tics i’ve spent my life overcoming. you didn’t know that, did you? no one really does.

so let me tell you how i feel then (as ambiguous and PC as that word is), here, with anonymity as the perfect medium. i don’t like gaming. i reach out to women when i’m at my weakest. hope on some level they’ll be what i need to make it through the storms and the turbulence. i know that’s not fair. i can be selfish, self-absorbed to say the least. get stuck in my head. only good at leaning on one person at a time, and always with hesitancy, even though i have a monumental fear of loneliness, get the shakes at the thought of being surrounded by ocean. fear drowning in isolation.

i think i could fall in love with you. that past infatuation there might be something more, which is more of myself than i’m usually willing to admit to.

i don’t know how to do this. i wish i was better at it (whatever it is).

this is as clear as i can be. not an ultimatum, but an exposition. ‘cuz it’s what i got to give you. i’m broke. i told you that, but still insisted on buying you a drink. money’s everything, but ain’t a thing. i confuse myself. sorry ( i don’t know what i’m apologising for).

ps: i miss reading your writing. it’s what i fell for in the first place.

———————————-

life is sisyphean, in all senses of the allusion.

will be slamming at the bowery poetry club for their college slam tomorrow afternoon at 6. would LOVE to see you.

April 1st

ain’t want to be no hero, buy no farm

sisyphean remembrances
are penance for our momentary hubris,
the pyrrhic nature of our commitment

i took showers three, four times
a day to scour
the smell from my skin, the grit
that inevitably infiltrated
its way past coverings, wedged
itself where the straps pressed, the water
like balm on parched tongue
in a mouth dry from desert and ‘drenaline..

trying to draw comfort
from rumination, like humility
from a superpower, i draw
from the infertile grounds
upon which we lie
false foundations
falling away, the center no longer holding.

there will be debate
about blame, when it was no longer enough
and motivation, when esprit de corps
became the only tenable connections
drawing us firm.

duty, both weight and impetus
for boys with set eyes
and stubborn backs.

funerals for heroes, and the cowardice
of not wanting to be one.

april 2nd

small favors and tragedies

ball missing the net by a breadth’s breath
in a grand street pick up game
among immigrants who share
no language, no customs
nothing but their foreignness
and the comfort of pirouettes and epees,
the unspoken eloquence
of the game.

having no papers
for the first jay in months
after the worst day in years
… the evening before
a surprise drug test

losing the number
of the pretty girl
destined to break his heart

snapping your ankle, all the months
of recovery… just before
you stepped
onto a mine rigged
to take out your platoon

the train doors closing abruptly
in the hopeful eyed boy’s face, his mouth
twisted in a moue at his tardiness
as he fingers the ringbox
stuffed as deeply as he could
into the bottoms of his pocket
even as the woman who he is to see
goes over the words over and over again
till their sharpness wears down,

“i don’t love you anymore.”