I believe there are words buried in us all. Whether we write them down or speak them or whether we plan them out elaborately just to conceal them in a moment of fear or shame or doubt. These words form the story we want to tell; the story defined by our deepest emotions and clearest memories. Some people tell a funny story, others tell sad ones of loss and buried pain, still others talk in circles, never telling their story at all, simply avoiding the truth they haven't told themselves yet. In one way though everyone's story shares a common element, we all tell a story about ourselves. Selfish you say. That is the only story I can really tell convincingly, that is really the only story I know. I may adapt it to be more exciting or suspenseful but, in the end, its just about me. Selfish? Only if I don't convey the story in a way to capture you, in a way that makes it your own experience, your own life as well.
Mine is a love story. I hate to admit it. Love is why we live; to get it, to give it, to feel it more. A string of thoughts connected by conjunctions and punctuation in my mind, pulled together in my waking hours, and exquisitely portrayed on my dream's canvas in the night; all a painting of love. A painting yet to be uttered. How does one speak art? Would you know Michelangelo if you heard it or read it? Even now the words I have inside me are buried beneath the words that you are reading. I'm telling you about them without telling them directly to you. Michelangelo simply peeled away the outer layers of the stone to reveal the image underneath. Forthcoming posts will determine if I can shovel away the earth to reveal the words, the story, the love? buried within me.
Tuesday, December 23, 2008
Sunday, December 21, 2008
Samplings of my poetry and a short story
This is a poem about my Ganglion cyst, located on top of my right wrist. Written when I was 14 or 15 years old.
Ganglion Cyst
People are always asking about this bump on my wrist
How many times do I have to tell them it’s a Ganglion cyst?
Indians used to have them so you could say that they are tribal
If you think its ugly then just smack it with a Bible
When people started staring I’d slip it in my pocket
And just because it fit, I’d put it in my eye socket
I always joked that I was growing knuckle #6
But then Frony grabbed a Bible and took a couple licks
The procedure was painless, I didn’t feel a thing
Except for the Good Book and a mighty giant sting
Before I knew it one wrist was like the other
I missed it so much I felt like crying to my mother
What people called a deformity I called a gift
My little miracle was a boost, an uplift
Everyone was jealous though they claimed that they were not
It even helped me to improve my jump shot
So now that it’s dead and gone, I don’t know what to do
My jump shot has disappeared, but the gawking quit too
My eye feels naked without its protective shield
The Bible is supposed to save people, but to me it didn’t yield
It came crashing down with all its mighty force
It took my cyst away like taking glue from a horse
I’ve strived to grow a new one, I really have tried
But I’ll live my life cystless and Ganglion deprived.
This is a Shijo (Korean form of poetry) that I wrote. Inquire within for the translation:
떠나간 마음
마음이 떠나갔으니 이생에 가치 있나
눈물이 사라졌어도 흉터가 남아있네
새벽에 빛나는 해가 어둠에서 앞선다.
I wrote this a long time ago when I was in High School about a girl who was hitting on me while riding the bus home:
MCfilthy Experience
The load on my shoulders goes on the seat
I pull out my ears and prop up my feet
Losing myself and winding down, the bus rides away.
Bouncing behind me is a twisted leach throwing out her poison, trying to catch another stallion
I put down the cereal ice-cream as the leach tried putting the hook in
I ain't the fish to be caught, so get off the bus
Next rolling session and there's the filthy leach
Elaboration on her fishing poles and I nod, I nod my head while I'm complaining inside
The yellow mobile is where the leach attacks, I can take that.
But holding on a minute she's taken my arm
She's adding to her fish farm
She's the large mouth leach and filthy at that, if she says that again I'm gonna grab a metal bat
H + B is false
I'll write it on the walls
She tries playin with my mind, she gets so unkind, being blind, not knowing that I'm holding the strings.
She's a psuedo-empty bucket all melted inside, mad amounts of spoons and nasty house flies.
The filthy bus leach tried attaching to me, I burnt her off with a match but I still haven't got free.
The Argentine Chocolate growls loud at the parasite.
On the scheme of wheels I'll look into the light, excuse myself from the table and melt the spoon outta sight.
This is a two part story that I wrote during my leisure time as an Intern at LG Electronics:
Gilbert’s Tale
Once upon a time there was a fish named Gilbert, people just called him Bert for short (funny, I'd probably call him Gil for short, I mean, he is a fish, but anyway, that's what people called him) And Bert didn't read very well because when paper gets soggy it eventually disintegrates and gets to become a useless mess of pulpy matter. So Bert looked for stuff coated in plastic (or more commonly known to us landlubbers as 'laminated') However, poor Bert could only find menus from local restaurants that were plastic coated and all the local restaurants were seafood places and so when he would read them it was horrifying to him! So that is why Gil... I mean Bert didn't read very well, it gave him nightmares. So instead of reading Bert would practice the fine art of twirling sand into little funnel sand clouds on the bottom of the ocean floor. Then one day an otter saw Bert artistically expressing himself in the sand and ate him. Bert was only 3 weeks old.
Think that's the end of the story?
You thought wrong; Bert was a resilient little fella. So he twirled the Otter's innards right up into a beautiful array gut tornado and the Otter thought it was so wonderfully imaginative that he let Bert free! As a new man (or fish actually) Bert changed his name to Gil as was his destined fate to begin with and never had otter problems again. He then spent his days doing service in the underwater mental institution for marine life gone psycho. What a big heart.
The End :)
Gilbert at the Tute
Gilbert awoke suddenly to the sound of gurgled throat clearing. 6 hours at the Underwater Mental Institution for Marine Life Gone Psycho (UMIMLGP) or as Gil liked to call it, the Tute, and who wouldn’t be choking a throat gurgle? Well, Gil wouldn’t be and he wasn’t, it was the creature under his care sitting opposite of him. Gil had spent hours staring at this creature’s features. For example, the wrinkles surrounding his fins that seemed to be the lips on a catfish, screaming for help, “Please save me from this giant flapper thing that is moving back and forth crushing my lips! Mmmm, tastes kinda delicious.” This creature’s mouth was very small. Gil often wondered how he sang so well with such a small mouth. Gil had lots of time for wondering because he had such a good imagination. “My imagination is so good”, he always thought to himself, and by ‘always’ I mean every moment not spent wondering, using his imagination; which is why its so surprising that Gil got the UMIMLGP award for best diver/mental patient care facilitator. Not that he ever facilitated mental patient diving lessons, but that he was a skilled diver. Gil could often be found imagining himself diving deeper and deeper into the ocean, and then deeper. Sometimes he imagined himself diving shallower, but ne’er once had he successfully executed such a maneuver, even in his mind. The creature before him, under his watchful facilitated care cleared its throat again, this time minus gurgle, plus hacking wurple. Gil braced himself. The creature’s mouth gaped open wide, exposing his viciously jagged tongue. You see the creature had tried eating metal scraps discarded in the great deep only to realize that sharded metal disfigures ones tongue when its sharp parts are pressed too firmly against it as is a side effect of chewing. It also lost its one and only tooth in the process, thus rendering it insane and in need of mental facilitation. Fortunately the Tute’s finest mental diver was there to assist. There was a deathly silence post hacking wurple that caused Gil to ponder the vastness of the ocean and the depths of his wondering mind. He was doing an ocean of good at the UMIMLGP, but with his skills, he could be doing so much more than tending insane toothless fragmented tongued creatures with small mouths and a future in show business. No, he could be spending his time in much more meaningful ways, such as saving those wrinkled lips from delicious imminent and utter destruction. So Gil promptly swam head first into the creature’s fin rendering it paralyzed and aiding the imaginary lips. Then as the creature gathered its remaining forces of strength to retaliate Gil burst upward shallowly diving for the first time ever, up and away in a beautiful array of motion and lights and bubbles! He was on a mission; he was off to wonder no more where no fish hadn’t wondered before.
Ganglion Cyst
People are always asking about this bump on my wrist
How many times do I have to tell them it’s a Ganglion cyst?
Indians used to have them so you could say that they are tribal
If you think its ugly then just smack it with a Bible
When people started staring I’d slip it in my pocket
And just because it fit, I’d put it in my eye socket
I always joked that I was growing knuckle #6
But then Frony grabbed a Bible and took a couple licks
The procedure was painless, I didn’t feel a thing
Except for the Good Book and a mighty giant sting
Before I knew it one wrist was like the other
I missed it so much I felt like crying to my mother
What people called a deformity I called a gift
My little miracle was a boost, an uplift
Everyone was jealous though they claimed that they were not
It even helped me to improve my jump shot
So now that it’s dead and gone, I don’t know what to do
My jump shot has disappeared, but the gawking quit too
My eye feels naked without its protective shield
The Bible is supposed to save people, but to me it didn’t yield
It came crashing down with all its mighty force
It took my cyst away like taking glue from a horse
I’ve strived to grow a new one, I really have tried
But I’ll live my life cystless and Ganglion deprived.
This is a Shijo (Korean form of poetry) that I wrote. Inquire within for the translation:
떠나간 마음
마음이 떠나갔으니 이생에 가치 있나
눈물이 사라졌어도 흉터가 남아있네
새벽에 빛나는 해가 어둠에서 앞선다.
I wrote this a long time ago when I was in High School about a girl who was hitting on me while riding the bus home:
MCfilthy Experience
The load on my shoulders goes on the seat
I pull out my ears and prop up my feet
Losing myself and winding down, the bus rides away.
Bouncing behind me is a twisted leach throwing out her poison, trying to catch another stallion
I put down the cereal ice-cream as the leach tried putting the hook in
I ain't the fish to be caught, so get off the bus
Next rolling session and there's the filthy leach
Elaboration on her fishing poles and I nod, I nod my head while I'm complaining inside
The yellow mobile is where the leach attacks, I can take that.
But holding on a minute she's taken my arm
She's adding to her fish farm
She's the large mouth leach and filthy at that, if she says that again I'm gonna grab a metal bat
H + B is false
I'll write it on the walls
She tries playin with my mind, she gets so unkind, being blind, not knowing that I'm holding the strings.
She's a psuedo-empty bucket all melted inside, mad amounts of spoons and nasty house flies.
The filthy bus leach tried attaching to me, I burnt her off with a match but I still haven't got free.
The Argentine Chocolate growls loud at the parasite.
On the scheme of wheels I'll look into the light, excuse myself from the table and melt the spoon outta sight.
This is a two part story that I wrote during my leisure time as an Intern at LG Electronics:
Gilbert’s Tale
Once upon a time there was a fish named Gilbert, people just called him Bert for short (funny, I'd probably call him Gil for short, I mean, he is a fish, but anyway, that's what people called him) And Bert didn't read very well because when paper gets soggy it eventually disintegrates and gets to become a useless mess of pulpy matter. So Bert looked for stuff coated in plastic (or more commonly known to us landlubbers as 'laminated') However, poor Bert could only find menus from local restaurants that were plastic coated and all the local restaurants were seafood places and so when he would read them it was horrifying to him! So that is why Gil... I mean Bert didn't read very well, it gave him nightmares. So instead of reading Bert would practice the fine art of twirling sand into little funnel sand clouds on the bottom of the ocean floor. Then one day an otter saw Bert artistically expressing himself in the sand and ate him. Bert was only 3 weeks old.
Think that's the end of the story?
You thought wrong; Bert was a resilient little fella. So he twirled the Otter's innards right up into a beautiful array gut tornado and the Otter thought it was so wonderfully imaginative that he let Bert free! As a new man (or fish actually) Bert changed his name to Gil as was his destined fate to begin with and never had otter problems again. He then spent his days doing service in the underwater mental institution for marine life gone psycho. What a big heart.
The End :)
Gilbert at the Tute
Gilbert awoke suddenly to the sound of gurgled throat clearing. 6 hours at the Underwater Mental Institution for Marine Life Gone Psycho (UMIMLGP) or as Gil liked to call it, the Tute, and who wouldn’t be choking a throat gurgle? Well, Gil wouldn’t be and he wasn’t, it was the creature under his care sitting opposite of him. Gil had spent hours staring at this creature’s features. For example, the wrinkles surrounding his fins that seemed to be the lips on a catfish, screaming for help, “Please save me from this giant flapper thing that is moving back and forth crushing my lips! Mmmm, tastes kinda delicious.” This creature’s mouth was very small. Gil often wondered how he sang so well with such a small mouth. Gil had lots of time for wondering because he had such a good imagination. “My imagination is so good”, he always thought to himself, and by ‘always’ I mean every moment not spent wondering, using his imagination; which is why its so surprising that Gil got the UMIMLGP award for best diver/mental patient care facilitator. Not that he ever facilitated mental patient diving lessons, but that he was a skilled diver. Gil could often be found imagining himself diving deeper and deeper into the ocean, and then deeper. Sometimes he imagined himself diving shallower, but ne’er once had he successfully executed such a maneuver, even in his mind. The creature before him, under his watchful facilitated care cleared its throat again, this time minus gurgle, plus hacking wurple. Gil braced himself. The creature’s mouth gaped open wide, exposing his viciously jagged tongue. You see the creature had tried eating metal scraps discarded in the great deep only to realize that sharded metal disfigures ones tongue when its sharp parts are pressed too firmly against it as is a side effect of chewing. It also lost its one and only tooth in the process, thus rendering it insane and in need of mental facilitation. Fortunately the Tute’s finest mental diver was there to assist. There was a deathly silence post hacking wurple that caused Gil to ponder the vastness of the ocean and the depths of his wondering mind. He was doing an ocean of good at the UMIMLGP, but with his skills, he could be doing so much more than tending insane toothless fragmented tongued creatures with small mouths and a future in show business. No, he could be spending his time in much more meaningful ways, such as saving those wrinkled lips from delicious imminent and utter destruction. So Gil promptly swam head first into the creature’s fin rendering it paralyzed and aiding the imaginary lips. Then as the creature gathered its remaining forces of strength to retaliate Gil burst upward shallowly diving for the first time ever, up and away in a beautiful array of motion and lights and bubbles! He was on a mission; he was off to wonder no more where no fish hadn’t wondered before.
Not my Poetry (Shijo)
Murmuring Stream
A night ago the mountain stream shed tears as it flowed sadly
Reflecting on my lover's death t'was his tears sent flowing to me
That water too my tears may bear upstream to he who left me.
- Won Ho
(Translation by Bryce Johnson)
간밤에 우던 여흘
간밤에 우던 여흘 슬피 울어 지내거다
이제야 생각하니 임이 울어 보내도다
저 물이 거스리 흐리과저 나도 울어 보내리라.
-원 호(元昊)
A Loyal Heart
Jung Mongju (1337-1392)
(Translated by Bryce Johnson)
Though I die and die again, revived and killed a hundred times
Bleached white bones return to dust, though my soul perish or go on
No part of my heart, loyal to the end, will ever turn away from my Lord!
단심가 (丹心歌)
정몽주 (鄭夢周 1337-1392)
이몸이 죽고죽어 일백번 고쳐죽어
백골이 진토되어 넋이라도 있고 없고
임향한 일편단심이야 가실 줄이 있으랴
A night ago the mountain stream shed tears as it flowed sadly
Reflecting on my lover's death t'was his tears sent flowing to me
That water too my tears may bear upstream to he who left me.
- Won Ho
(Translation by Bryce Johnson)
간밤에 우던 여흘
간밤에 우던 여흘 슬피 울어 지내거다
이제야 생각하니 임이 울어 보내도다
저 물이 거스리 흐리과저 나도 울어 보내리라.
-원 호(元昊)
A Loyal Heart
Jung Mongju (1337-1392)
(Translated by Bryce Johnson)
Though I die and die again, revived and killed a hundred times
Bleached white bones return to dust, though my soul perish or go on
No part of my heart, loyal to the end, will ever turn away from my Lord!
단심가 (丹心歌)
정몽주 (鄭夢周 1337-1392)
이몸이 죽고죽어 일백번 고쳐죽어
백골이 진토되어 넋이라도 있고 없고
임향한 일편단심이야 가실 줄이 있으랴
Saturday, December 20, 2008
Shackles and Fetters
There is a love that binds so tightly it suffocates your impurities.
Somehow it leaves you with only one thought-- she. is. _______.
Then there is that word that you only feel for her, that isn't actually expressed. There probably hasn't been a word articulated by man's tongue except for love, and that doesn't nearly equate to that feeling. This feeling or emotion actually binds my heart to her, it confines my thoughts to her and embraces her in a way that discards everything but her pure goodness and ________. That word again. It is a compelling word, it compels me to act, to do everything I can to show or express that word somehow. Too often I'm left however not expressing it. I'm left to simply feel it and cry out silently "________". Why would we be allowed to feel things and not be allowed to express them? Is there a more frustrating mortal limitation? Is there something more mortal than to feel these emotions and something more human than to desire to express them? Why then the unbreachable limitation between the two, the human and the mortal. This wouldn't be such a problem if she felt the same way of course. Then we could just both revel in our inexpression together. We would cry out silently in beautiful harmony, written by our hearts and sung by our lives but never uttered, only felt. Our bodies have 3 separate feeling/sensory organs. The first is the skin. It feels needle pricks and cold wet floors as well as sunburns and sitting too long on hard surfaces. The second is the heart. Here you feel heartburn, heart attacks, and other pain associated with running too fast or exercising too hard after years of laziness followed then too quickly by sudden bursts of motivation to get into shape. That is all that can be felt by this organ despite every poets misguided pen. The third organ is deeper than the skin yet superficial to the innards. It resides somewhere between the mind and the imagination. This organ feels warm embraces and kind deeds accompanied by a smile and twinkling eye. This is where ________ lives. No wonder most people don't know about this third organ. There isn't a way to describe it let alone describe what it holds, so why even go there? I go there because that's where I find her. She is always there. I can count on her presence there, like it or not. Mostly like it, except when I remember that she isn't anywhere else, the only remnant of her existence is there and I can't even tell anyone about it because what would I say? "_________"? Not very effective, I know, I've tried. I tried saying that to her once before she left. I tried saying it with time, with a hug, with an affectionate touch. All of which failed; she didn't hear my third organ screaming out "I ________ you!" I even tried sarcasm, which is often used to emphasize how strongly I mean the opposite... surprisingly that failed too. For now, until that expression makes itself known, perhaps through other organs more relevant, that emotion will just have to remain buried in words.
Somehow it leaves you with only one thought-- she. is. _______.
Then there is that word that you only feel for her, that isn't actually expressed. There probably hasn't been a word articulated by man's tongue except for love, and that doesn't nearly equate to that feeling. This feeling or emotion actually binds my heart to her, it confines my thoughts to her and embraces her in a way that discards everything but her pure goodness and ________. That word again. It is a compelling word, it compels me to act, to do everything I can to show or express that word somehow. Too often I'm left however not expressing it. I'm left to simply feel it and cry out silently "________". Why would we be allowed to feel things and not be allowed to express them? Is there a more frustrating mortal limitation? Is there something more mortal than to feel these emotions and something more human than to desire to express them? Why then the unbreachable limitation between the two, the human and the mortal. This wouldn't be such a problem if she felt the same way of course. Then we could just both revel in our inexpression together. We would cry out silently in beautiful harmony, written by our hearts and sung by our lives but never uttered, only felt. Our bodies have 3 separate feeling/sensory organs. The first is the skin. It feels needle pricks and cold wet floors as well as sunburns and sitting too long on hard surfaces. The second is the heart. Here you feel heartburn, heart attacks, and other pain associated with running too fast or exercising too hard after years of laziness followed then too quickly by sudden bursts of motivation to get into shape. That is all that can be felt by this organ despite every poets misguided pen. The third organ is deeper than the skin yet superficial to the innards. It resides somewhere between the mind and the imagination. This organ feels warm embraces and kind deeds accompanied by a smile and twinkling eye. This is where ________ lives. No wonder most people don't know about this third organ. There isn't a way to describe it let alone describe what it holds, so why even go there? I go there because that's where I find her. She is always there. I can count on her presence there, like it or not. Mostly like it, except when I remember that she isn't anywhere else, the only remnant of her existence is there and I can't even tell anyone about it because what would I say? "_________"? Not very effective, I know, I've tried. I tried saying that to her once before she left. I tried saying it with time, with a hug, with an affectionate touch. All of which failed; she didn't hear my third organ screaming out "I ________ you!" I even tried sarcasm, which is often used to emphasize how strongly I mean the opposite... surprisingly that failed too. For now, until that expression makes itself known, perhaps through other organs more relevant, that emotion will just have to remain buried in words.
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