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

goddamn it has been a long month.

which is why i only got 8 days into the poetry project before giving up. too caught up in too many things to keep it going. my personal life is all a shambles, my school life is overburdened. and to top it off, i lost a month and a half of work on my thesis because the file got corrupted and is completely irrecoverable. luck loves me.

but imma keep my head down and bull through. i can’t wait till i finish, graduate and go apeshit. go back to the gym, get prepped for a competition at the end of the month. god i’m going to enjoy feeling tired from physical activity.

i’ve given up on the poem-a-day project for the simple fact that my everyday life has to take priority… and because i realize i really really hate posting poems that aren’t polished. such is life.

wish me luck.

i’m the type of poet who writes in great spurts. and i am currently hella blocked, so no new poems until i can get over it. because of this, here’s two old poems, slightly done up to presentable. appropriately enough since it’s a horrible, nasty, get into your bones wet and windy day, i’ve decided that they’ll be love poems. as happy as i ever write ‘em.

big smiles.

even when you want to cry.

oh… and if’n you’re interested, i should be there and it’s dope as heo… the apia summit. a great gathering of artists and just generally dope people. and dude, it’s in the bay area this year. how dope is that?

—————————————–

jokes

the imperfections of our bodies
give shattering testimony
to the perfection of the moment

shared knowledge
of sex
being too sacred
a meeting
to be had
without laughter.

touch is a ghost, is
a memory, is flame
and salty sweet moisture,
is the tracery
of sparks

touch whispers,
touch grips fluidly
and straddles
the fault lines
between
pain, pleasure
playfulness.

no self consciousness, not now
when we lose track
of limbs, the parts
yours that become mine
mine that become yours.

for an instant
entwined, no
me without you, identities
defined only in relation.

and then i rolled off.

———————————–

untitled

my fingers walk the outline
of your silhouette, trace the tightropes
holding our tenuous miscommunications,
trusting in our unspoken tensions to hold us up.

we sequester whispers in the corners
of half-hearted smiles

man, fuck NYC banh mi.

The NY Times had an article about banh mi places in the City, and goddamn me if it wasn’t written by a white person. While i haven’t been to the places in brooklyn, i’ve been to pretty much every place in Lower Manhattan and ain’t none of the banh mi places down here that ain’t wack.

folks, you gotta remember, i’m from a vietnamese-heavy neighborhood boston. i’ve been eating various banh mi my entire life. hell, every time i go back to boston, i GORGE on banh mi and cafe sua da (vietnamese iced coffee – crack). so whenever i’m in the city, ‘specially when i’m homesick or missing that good ole vietnamese cooking, i go searching for pho and banh mi. while i got my pho joints, i still haven’t found a good banh mi place.

imagine how happy i was to find out that there wasn’t just one, but TWO banh mi places opening up near me. imagine how heartbreaking it was when i tried the sandwiches and they were wack?! fucking a’, one place had goddamn char siu in their banh mi. hell, most of the places in this city sell banh mi with goddamn char siu. can you say sacrilege? and though one of the places had decent cafe sua da, better than any i’ve gotten except in my favorite pho place, there’s something even more fuckin’ awful and evil about it…

every place i go is at least 2x the price i pay in boston, some places are goddamn 4x the price i pay in boston. and there’s the really core problem… this shit’s marketed to yuppies.

ain’t no vietnamese folks gon’ buy this ish. tastes awful, costs hella. whoa. let’s sell it to the white folks.

holy hell does this ever break my heart into a million pieces. and worst of all… almost all the sandwiches at these places are fusion. dude, i want me some traditional, legit vietnamese food. i come from academia so i know how problematic the whole ‘authentic’ thing is, but dude, don’t be messing with this vietnamese boy’s favorite foods.

i can’t believe i just went on a massive spiel about banh mi, but what can i say? i’m tired. haven’t really slept in awhile and am burned out on this whole academic hustle. and for whatever reason, jolt soda makes me hungry.

but no matter how emo i am, i can’t help but smile about having my hair back. live i’ve said before and i’ll say again and again, my mohawk makes me strangely happy. i like getting my hair cut, cuz the whole thing of it is that there’s hella things i ain’t got control of in my life… including how many bookings i get… but i do have some say on what my head. and the reactions from folks to an asian boy with a mohawk are just full of epic amounts of hilarity.

btw, im exhausted so i came home and watched tv. i’m watching the racism/diversity episode of better off ted. shit’s problematic as hell, but not much more than any comedy club i’ve been to… and it’s hilarious. it’s irreverent, well-written, grounded in both realities and archetypes and is able to pull off the straight faced satire thing. which is hella hard. and it doesn’t even depend on awkwardness for its hilarity like the office does. win.
——————————-

(this poem is a little wack, but hey, waddya expect, im churning ‘em out like whoa)

barback nights
(after ed bok lee’s real karaoke people)

real bar people have accents, speak
with lisps and slurring, at home
in the cacophonies.

real bar people have faces
carved haphazardly, striking
bas-reliefs in shadowed lighting.

real bar people know all
about their bartenders’
lovers, vicarious wish fulfillment

real bar people know intimately
both the sun and the moon, have breakfasts
after closing with the bar backs

real bar people are all broken hearted poets, failed
screenwriters and investment bankers with no nose
for the trade.

real bar people make snide remarks
about frat boys barfing, college girls
leaving with ugly guys

real bar people know the signs of a fight
make bets if it ain’t regulars, make fists if it is
jokes if it’s the bouncer

real bar people have droopy eyes
and sagging shoulders, their favorite seats
and usual drinks.

real bar people share drinks
to split loneliness and laughter
as a middle finger to fate

i know more real bar people
than i know any other kind.

————————–

life is like lost… you might think you know what’s going on, but even the writers have no idea.

yeah, i’ve had a long day. those types of times that drain you, of energy, of joy. maybe it was just ‘cuz it was a shitty day outside today. then again, i go through periods when everything’s hunky dory and then periods where everything’s bloody awful. i can see that as a near universal. we are all at the whim of the wild fates, bend and weave to the wiles of their wings.

if you can’t tell by my poetry, i’ve been hella fascinated with alliteration recently. there’s something about the way the sounds just roll off the tongue that gives me a simple aural pleasure… what billy collins believes should be the first thing you look for in a piece of writing.

on some level, i agree. if it doesn’t read well, if the first few lines don’t grab you, you’re probably not going to want to go through the entirety of the poem. you might do it anyways and thereby find yourself pleasantly surprised… or you might do what i do, skip ‘em over till i have nothing else better to read.

c’est le vie. i’m going to try to make it to jits tomorrow, work off the excess emotion. sweating has a cleansing quality all its own. and working off my aggression is always nice. but bloody hell, so much work to look forward to. at least there should be more sun soon.

and it’s kinda ironic how fascinated i am with 80′s hair considering i think i’m going to get my mohawk back tomorrow. we’re ‘sposed to be agentful beings, i know… but sometimes, i feel like i have so little control over my life and the things going on around me. thas when i get haircuts, because hell, i might not be able to control everything, but at the very least, i can cut my goddamn hair.

yay mohawk!

now from that high, back down to a low. for whatever reason, i’ve been writing hella emo poems. at the very least though, i hope they still present multi-dimensional characters, still have some decent imagery, some fun sound and most importantly, some connection to the greater.

tell me what you think.

——————
april 6th

chi dem, co ngay gap ma

the touch of ghosts
like the ache
of a last kiss or the touch
like mortality, the memory of illness

she told him she could love him no longer

his moods, more a burden
than she could handle, her shoulders
too narrow to hold a tempest
the sunflare of her temper
too hot for his inconsistencies

he drinks

she painted his portrait
with water colors, he wrote her love poems
on napkins and by email
they declared their love
under an unlucky moon, eyes
like will o’ the wisps

he fights

she caresses the purple cataracts
like twilight starbusts
across pupils and knuckles
visiting hours ticking away
through the iv, he courts danger
like he had eyes for no one else
she left him once before, but always answers
his call

he cheats

sleeps with women who fall
for his sleepy eyes, futile ego-stroke
and she forgives him
once, twice, too many times
her attempts to punish him
backfiring like misloaded bullets
or the vain cutting across forearms

he smokes

she says she quit, but can’t
knows he hasn’t even ever bothered to lie
only tells her
he loves her when his voice slurs
his head lolls, forgetting
he’s broken. her muse
splayed across the bartop

he tell hers, he needs her

and she weeps for a moment
mourning a fantasy, all she tastes
in the dregs in his stout glass
the fortune she reads
a signal to wander on, lips set
fists clenched tight enough
for fingernails to pierce

her phone left
in the bus station bathroom

his languid arm reaching for shoulders
and finding emptiness enough to startle

——————————————-

life is a process of humbling.

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.

dude, weschler’s currywurst is fucking bomb. because my plans had fallen through last night… yes i got ditched… i hit up my local watering establishments for some late night alcohol and food.

how was i ‘sposed to know i would find my new favorite watering hole? massive, amazing german beers poured by a hella efficient, friendly staff. currywurst, which i will officially say is one of my favorite foods ever. a wild boar sausage that was literally to die for.

alcohol and pork. how the hell do you go wrong with that?

but yes, i just needed to make a quick shoutout to the place before i got into the poem of the day. i hella recommend that folks should roll through there whenever they’re in the east village. and hey, since i live near there, you should hit me up, if’n i’m not already inside.

oh yeah, i won my slam last night. made a pretty penny. i’ll be back next month, alcohol money is worth slamming for.

but let me say again, this posting schedule is kicking my ass. i never realized how difficult it’d be to turn out a poem a day. jeebus. but yes, onto the poem’s intro. this piece comes from the fact that i really do have goddamn weird dreams, that are, to me anyways, completely believable while i’m in them. so i really will wake up thinking i was the bodyguard to the president and ate a bullet for him, or that i dived into a computer and rode on top of the fail whale.

awkward i know.

april 4th.
dream fail

i dreamt one time
the earth was invaded
by polkadotted unicorn space pirates
and the key to saving the world
was saving the stripper

one night, i thought i was superman
the asian dude who failed in math
and gave up the violin discovering
his gift for rescuing fair maidens
and cats stuck up in trees

the time you hadta carry me home,
drunk, i saw us as intergalactic ballerinas
our pirouettes encompassing
star systems, our soubresauts
like sun flares

when i passed out
at that party, i saw myself
as leonidas at the springs
holding off a legion
of fratboys with nothing but a braut

i woke up this morning
after having dreamt
we were still in love

turned to see you
next to me in bed, the assurance
in some deep part of myself
that all was right with the world

and realized how much
i hated dreaming

it’s weird what you remember at odd times. as i was writing the original draft of this piece for yday, i was thinking about what my father told me… that back home, there was no meat anywhere to be found, relatively little of any other veggies, because he grew up in the hill land in the middle of vietnam. like hill peoples in other parts of the world, his region was poor as hell, the lack of fecundity causing the folks out there to depend on daikon to feed they families. like the irish with potatoes, they found a hundred hundred different ways to prepare daikon, it was fundamental to their cooking, to their way of life.

along with this, came the memory of my asking him how the hell the vietnamese managed to shrug off the yoke of french rule way back when. my father told me vietnamese are goddamn good in a fight, ’cause we’ve been fighting since light dawned on people, since lac long quan and au co went their separate ways. conflict is what we’re good at. we’re stubborn, we’re tough and we’re broke, so we can always make do. he went on to explain that this is also the reason why we can’t rule ourselves for shite… and why when you get a lot of vietnamese people in a room, give them alcohol, there will inevitably be at least four-five fights by the end of the night.

oh my people.

btw, fuck vivid dreaming. i had one of the most bittersweet dreams last night. woke up with a broken heart. shit was awful. i want normal people dreams.

i will be slamming tonight, 6 o clock at the bowery poetry club. you should roll through if you have time, i’d love to see your faces.

also, my team, Ronin Athletics, will be completing at Naga today, so wish ‘em best of luck.

april 3rd

daikons, donnybrooks, processed meat

dolan’s eyes widened
in incredulity
as i folded three weeks worth
of now-clean laundry, crammed it
into just one sports bag,
my smirk replied, if you think this is good
you ain’t ever seen asians on a road trip.

i remember my father and mother insisting
that because we were an american family
we’d eat meat with our meals, that their children
would have what they didn’t,
so the taste of spam, canned tuna and eel
eggs and devil ham
wreath my childhood like the aroma
of my mother’s heavy hand with the garlic

my father’s family back generations
could not coax anything but daikons
from the stubborn, war-weary womb
of their hills, so they made a hundred, hundred recipes
for daikon, depended on it
like the irish on potatoes, because hill folk
can always survive

i was too lazy to go to ikea
to buy bookshelves
so i made my own

… in a gas station bathroom
my friend david made good use of the wall street journal
after too much wack-ass chinese food

the vietnamese used rifles scavenged
begged and borrowed
to rise against the french, had no uniforms
‘cept what they could scrounge,
no armour but faith in the cause
with such they beat a power

david’s uncle hates his life
but will not abandon his family, his job
as a line cook in a pho restaurant
so every night, he drinks a bottle of cheap cognac
till now his face is splotched red
with cirrhosis, his sweat reeks with fermented sweetness
but he has never missed a day of work, his children
have food every night, clothes on their backs

they call ‘em field expedients
yah make do with what yah got
my life is full of ‘em

but you do what yah gotta with what yah got
it’s in my blood.

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.”

first and foremost, i want all yall to welcome one of my best friends in the world and one of the best goddamn artists i know to the vinhhua.com staff… give a hand to geoff ‘sheeptang’ kim. geoff has a new york city hipster sensibility with the heart of a yay area hippie. he has an artistic style and flava that is like almost no one else’s, at once dismorphic and magnetic, transformative and transgressive. in addition to formidable visual talents, he has a unique way of looking at the world that is more often than not just a slight bit slanted. he’s seen the west coast, he lives on the best coast, has tripped from midtown skyscrapers and downtown dormitories, brooklyn dumps and every place in between. he’s a hella valuable edition to the team, and i’m hella grateful to have him on board.

‘but i don’t want to take your heart, and i don’t want a piece of history, no i don’t want to read your thoughts… anymore’ – the heinrich maneuver

kismet. fate. destiny. serendipity. all names for the same phenomenon, that sense that things are the way they are, that events and people come into confluence, not out of some random luck of the cards, but because it was ordained to be such.

hell, we had an entire movie about it recently. if you didn’t get that slumdog millionaire was about a fated love, then you weren’t paying attention… or only paying attention when freida pinto was on screen.

as a poet, it would be easier for me to just say that i believed in it, use it as a piece in my writing and act hella mysterious about the entire thing, but that’s too simple, too reductive. it takes freedom and agency out of the question, because if everything really is fated and pre-scripted, we have no real choice, we are on train tracks. it furthermore takes responsibility out of the equation, because hey, it was meant to be. so if i cheat on this girl, then it wasn’t meant to be, we weren’t meant to be together. if she says she loves another man, and comes back to me later, the pain that i went through, the alcoholism, all of it meant nothing, because in the end, it was ‘sposed to happen that way.

we all know this shit ain’t true. or if it is, it shouldn’t be.

but at the same time though, i’m not lying when i say i’ve felt the occasional nudge in some direction, that moment when everything feels so perfectly right and you just KNOW this is how it is because it should be so. the smile on a lover’s face that makes you feel like this is what was meant to be. the crazy chain of coincidences that created the chance for smiles to touch in midwinter. times when, in desperation for some sense of meaning, you trace back time and realize it could not have but happened this way.

i’m not as quick to dismiss these moments as some people are, because i figure, something that i feel this strongly about has to have some validity in it right? yes… i know it’s a logical fallacy.

but love’s one hell of a logical foul up if you really think about it. and if you haven’t had that feeling of serendipity in your life, that moment where the strands of your life and another’s meets in such a way as to feel inestimably primally right, then i feel sorry for you. because no matter the heartbreak that it brings, no matter the drama it summons, it’s worth it.

then again, i’ve always been the peculiar sort.

——————————————————

so it’s a snow day, beautifully so. especially because i am sick as heo. i feel it in my nose and my throat and all over, just the weakness of it all.

it’s wack. but hopefully the extra day of rest, away from my long day, will fix me up. at least somewhat, i hope.

it did give me some time to think though… which is always good. actually, probably not in my case, but hey… i’m writing this section after watching tonight’s episode of chuck, which definitely plays into two themes i’ve already been thinking about previous to all this…

‘everybody talks’ and we all fall in love with the most inconvenient people at the most inconvenient time.

‘everybody talks’ is the idea that everyone has their limit, has that point within themselves that says they can’t take it anymore. it’s kind of a scary though, and something i’m not completely able to talk to about right now, because i realize how important it’s been in my life. and not even in the typical emo way that is easiest to interpretation. but hey.

the second one is much more obvious in its meaning, but it’s something i’ve been thinking about hardcore. both because of my ass getting broken up with on valentine’s day. as well as the general run of my relationships with women in general, everything from the girlfriends, to the flings, to the mistakes i’ve made along the way. it’s always the most inconvenient thing to happen to everybody involved… which kind brings this full circle, because it sure as shit makes me believe in fate or kismet. expect to see this theme in a lot of my poetry from now on.

oh and i forgot to say, the chapbook is being worked on hardcore… expect to see it soon.

and even though i spent most of the day asleep, i still managed to get some measure of work done. which is why i have a poem for yall…

ouroboros

a wise man, buddhist without
the belly, robes dyed red
with revolution, told me that he’d lived
a hundred thousand lives before this one,
and you always die
only to return

i gave a bum my last
three quarters today, kissed
my friend on his grimy cheek, he was a little
freaked, manhood threatened
by the obviousness of affection, and ate
three hot dogs on my stoop
to chase away the cold.

i have so many random stories
to give away, like shiny bits
of change.

like how i gave the homeless wino
laid out in front
of the ritzy real estate brokers
what was left of my jameson
to warm him through the night

the girl who stole my heart
and sold it back to me
for the price of a dance
and my harlequin’s mask, our toes
bent and twirling through the twilight

the grandmother who collected
empty bottles and soda cans
rhinestones strewn on the street
and cigarettes, as offerings for the dead
soon to be her companions

moppy headed
and spiked topped boys their
bruised fist metaphysics
who choked back tears
and gave me my name

the fortune teller, or maybe
the doctor, the dreamer
who told me death was but waking
and my body’s premonitions
were but the stirring

to end, life’s a loveable mess and hateable order.

btw, this is going to be a long asssssed post, covering a wide arrange of topics. so be forewarned. to a large extent, i’m blogging so profusely because it’s helping me to explore myself in a way that i haven’t been able to for awhile. i have been writing poetry, but in a lot of ways, i haven’t been able to say much new. i haven’t been progressing as much or as quickly as i want to be. i’m hoping that by blogging, i can push open the artistic barriers within myself.

“i’ve written pages upon pages, trying to rid you from my bones”

it’s weird to see someone you once loved, deeply and powerfully, but no longer do now, for whatever reason. especially when there was also negative emotions enough to match the positive ones. which is not to say that love is inherently positive.

i saw my ex today for the first time in awhile. or i should say, for more than second, more than a flash and a glimpse. i gave her a grin or a half-hearted smile, i’m not sure which.

there’s so much emotional weight, so much baggage to even an image of a person who had that type of place in your life. it’s hard to reconcile it with the realities that we deal with in the everyday, when, some part of us remembers that link between people.

soldiers who have lost limbs say that they sometimes feel those missing pieces of themselves, as phantom sensation or the pain of something that isn’t there but should be. i guess seeing someone you once cared about touches that old wound, reminds you of a bond that was once there. and on some level, no matter how “ever tortured” you are, some part of you can’t help but want that back.

these moments are life’s kicks in the balls. the awkwardness, the shock. the oh shit factor of it all. the freezing up and the wondering what the hell to do. and then the pain afterwards, the inevitable ache of a missing limb.

no wonder i’m epic fail at relationships.

but hey, like they said in dedication, no woman loves the truly fucked up guys. so i guess it’s time to make an effort to fix myself. or to find myself a shy illustrator somewhere who is just as damaged as i am. someone who needs to be needed.

which actually brings me to the first of my love poems to an asian women. yes, i know that’s not grammatically correct. it was done on purpose. i’m artsy like that. or a moron, either way.

—————————————————————————————
#1

insomnia
her constant companion
now, in the days after

when she has reconciled
or she tells herself over
and over, again

her body
remembers too well
the missing comfort
of squeezing into sparse space
between arms splayed

being needed.

she slept earlier, then
as if holding together
tenuous miscommunications
enough to tire the heart out
the effort at trust

she wishes him well, she prays
in half sleep, everything
he needed, she didn’t have
her feelings, she examines, paws over
touch till they lose their cutting sharpness
the angles worn, memories fade
dulls the ache, cools
the phantom warmth
lingering

stiffness of dried tears, regrets
maybe even the resentment
like fleeting city air
through the the gap of her window
begging to be filled.

now she waits, till
the sun creeps its fingers
to her windowsill
before she will climb
the few feet, insurmountable
to her bed.
———————————————————

“your pain was my pleasure, your sorrow my joy, i’m afraid i’ve lost you now to pain and good cheer”

one of the most interesting things i’ve gotten out working on this series is the fact that my socialization has made it so that i look at the same emotions much differently than some of the women that have written in to me. it’s actually kind of dope to examine these feelings in a different light.

consider an emotion as a many sided object, a rubix cube of sorts. i’ve only seen one side of it, seeing it from another side brings out a completely revolutionary experience. it’s full of epic win.

BUT i need more, many many more. SO PLEASE SUBMIT MORE EXPERIENCES TO ME.

more poems in the series are forthcoming, i promise.

“i’m more than a handful you’ll see, so kiss me, i’m shitfaced

so. the nyu protests were all over the news and all across the blogosphere.

i was actually there. me being me, i was at the bar before hand, but wanted to come out there, like many folks, to see the drama. and maybe get some free quesadillas.

let’s face it, i’ve done a lot of stupid things in my life for the sake of free entertainment. dating women, going to events posted on the internet, antagonizing people, going to nightclubs. a lot of random experiences and events that have become a large piece of who and what i am. so why not right?

but as luck would have it, i actually ended up hooking up with a crew of street medics and spent my night watching their backs, making sure they had space to work and no one fucked with ‘em. not protester, not counter protester, not bystander.

it would figure that when there were three distinct sides and a shitload of bystanders, i’d have to take up a fourth side, one likely to get my ass into a fight, with no back up in sight. after having left a bar no less.

but all in all, it was a great experience, the street medics were great folks.

on to a discussion of the larger implications of the take back nyu action though. let’s face it, it was a failure. there were hella mistakes made. many blogs have already discussed the various problems with the whole thing.

what i just wanted to briefly talk about was the dopeness of the democratic spirit in action. not just in the protesters themselves, who i thought were a little crazy even if goodhearted, but the counter protesters and the folks just screaming out random shit. democracy is not just about the idiots agreeing with you, it’s about screaming at the idiots who disagree with you as well. it’s the discussion that grows out of diametrically opposed theses. it’s the creation of discursive space. and let’s face it, clashing signs saying things like, “we support tbnyu” and “you suck” and “we want quesadillas” are, to me anyways, a sign of democracy in action.

the ability for those three sides to exist in one space is probably the only positive thing i see coming from the entire fiasco. i actually managed to see people who didn’t agree with each other having semi-rational and fair minded conversations about their politics. that’s dope as hell.

of course, there were hella scuffles. but fuck that shit. the voices battling each other, singing freedom songs against oppositional chants, smells like democracy to me.

i do wish there was a little more entertainment and it wasn’t so fucking cold. but hey. ain’t nothing perfect, i should know that better than most.

“can’t make it alone, i built my dreams around you”

i think i’ll be posting nyc moments from now on, just the things i see day to day that warms my heart and reminds me that i live in the greatest city in the world. new yorkisms. moments that are quintessentially urban, and contribute to the mystique that new york has and always had in my mind. will always have most likely.

today, i saw a father playing football with his son on the sidewalk. all i could think of was that it was such a new york minute, to be playing on the side walk, as people walked by. there’s not that much space, so waddya expect?

i love reading new york’s missed connections on craigslist. there’s so much loneliness, yet hope there, that i become addicted to it. the image of a shot in the dark, a chance at love, the ultimate message in a bottle appeals to the hopeless, broken hearted romantic in me.

the sheer variety in them, everything from hipsters and indie scenesters narcissistic enough to realize that folks who are just like them have a bloody good chance of browsing missed connections, because hey they do it too. forreal forreal, the sheer amount of stuff that comes from the L makes me laugh hella hard. i’m really tempted to do ride the L one of these days, dressed hipstered out, smile tentatively at some girl on the train, write furiously in my tiny notebook and get off at the next stop. i figure that’d earn me a missed connection. yes, i just stole that from xkcd. but hey.

old people making a last ditch effort, the last arrow before their quivers are depleted.

folks cussing folks out anonymously. full of teh lulz.

all sorts on missed connections, and every one of them entertaining. so addicting. now i miss get back to it, in the forlorn hope that i’ll get my own. come on, how many mohawked asian boys are there in this city?

actually that kind of reminds me. i have this crazy thing about love and crushes. let’s face it, i’m obsessed with the concept of love, probably more so than most men. i’m not very good at it, i epic fail at relationships. i’m too much of a fuckup, and i admit it.

sooner or later, i’ll get my shit together on it. but for now, i enjoy it.

i like having crushes. they’re fun. even if they usually lead to nowhere. and even when they do, i usually end up getting bored and restless. i guess the unattainable is so much more fun than the real. i like having this image in my head of an attractive woman in my head, attractive for whatever reason and having the hope that she might be the one. whatever that means.

but it’s all so conceptual. i guess that’s the way it is with me and love and relationships. i’m good at thinking about it, dealing with it on a flirtatious level, but i epic fail at maintaining it. im better at writing about it then actually going through with it. i always say i want a relationship, i want what i see that other people have. those folks who are pretty much married make me jealous. but if i can’t get my shit together on the fact, is it fair for me to pursue something like that? especially for the girl?

i guess that’s love and relationships in the city.

or maybe i’m just immature.

“i’m lucky to have been what i have been, lucky to be coming home again”

more than that, i wanta tell all of you that the chapbook is back on. in lock step with the children’s book i’m working on. i am inundated with work of all sorts these days, but i NEED to get this ish done for the sake of my sanity. especially since i haven’t gotten a chance to go to jits nearly as much i want to. it’s full of epic fail.

my webguy, i36, will be revamping my page a little bit, updating it to make it more efficient, easier to use and spoofier. i’m eventually hoping to get a gallery together where i can post pictures that i take with yall. you’ll notice that the blog is the first page you see when you get to vinh-hua.com, which is the first of the changes.

i will also be bringing more people onto the blog team. while this is my personal website, considering how much i ruminate and touch on all sorts of artistic and philosophical topics, i figured it’d be appropriate for me to bring more people in. and i think the cross pollination of ideas would be good for all of our creativities.

i’ll be announcing acquisitions to the team soon. if you’re interested in joining the team, hit me up.

life is a woman, you should be able to love her with or without her makeup.