Ars Poetica

my parents were born from a car. they climbed out
& kissed the car on its cheek. my grandmother.
to be a first generation person. 23 and Me reports
i am descendant of pistons & drive trains. 33%
irrigation tools. you are what you...

forgive my geography, it’s true i’m obsessed
with maps. with flags. a Starbucks on the block
means migration. any restaurant with bulletproof glass
is a homecoming. underneath my gym shoes
is a trail of salt. that last sentence is a test.
does the poet mean:
(a)...

Now by what whim of wanton chance
Do radiant eyes know sombre days?
And feet that shod in light should dance
Walk weary and laborious ways?

But rays from Heaven, white and whole,
May penetrate the gloom of earth;
And tears but nourish, in your soul,
The glory of celestial mirth. 

The darts of toil and sorrow, sent
Against your peaceful beauty, are
As foolish and as impotent
As winds that blow against a star.

Faintly remains.
Scarcely remains.

Drops of  water form inside my life
as if  I cherish a drop of light
just as love is formed inside the word love
just as the word goodbye doesn’t permeate it

it faintly lingers.
A thin part of me remains.

Sometimes inside me...

We cannot buy it in bulk at Trader Joe's,
Swap it for gold, or hoard shares of Grace, Inc.,
To hedge against bad luck. We acquire it
Without contract, promissory notes, or IOUs,
Neither codicils nor fine print. We gather
Grace safe from litigation or...

In these barracks, night speaks another dialect.
No longer does he fall asleep to the smell
of boiling milk or his brother breathing
cigarettes in the dark. He doesn’t yet know
the ways his body will change for a war
that doesn't happen in this...

In the Philippines, we abolish goodbye parties for Filipinos
who don’t want to leave—become overseas Filipinos.

Every colonizer wants to be remembered—see our country
whose name is a Spanish king’s name. Philip in Filipino.

The smell of mined dirt is gone. Chevron swims back
to...

         i wrote of dawn as the new beginning on earth.
tonight, we see the dawn, as we never have before.
the light that shines and leads our paths is now
more real than it has ever been.
     ...

A spring snow coincides with plum blossoms.
In a month, you will forget, then remember
when nine ravens perched in the elm sway in wind.

I will remember when I brake to a stop,
and a hubcap rolls through the intersection.
An angry man grinds...

Hear me: sometimes thunder is just thunder.
The dog barking is only a dog. Leaves fall
from the trees because the days are getting shorter,
by which I mean not the days we have left,
but the actual length of time, given the tilt...

I want to grow old with you.
Old, old.
 So old we pad through the supermarket
using the shopping cart as a cane that steadies us.

I’ll wait at register two in my green sweater
with threadbare elbows, smiling
because you’ve forgotten the bag of day-old...

my parents were born from a car. they climbed out
& kissed the car on its cheek. my grandmother.
to be a first generation person. 23 and Me reports
i am descendant of pistons & drive trains. 33%
irrigation tools. you are what you...

I am hardly ever able
to sort through my memories
and come away whole
or untroubled.
It is difficult
to sift through the stones,
the weighty moments and know
which is rare gem,
which raw coal,
which worthless shale or slate.
So, one by one,
I drag them across the page
and...

I am a door of metaphor
waiting to be opened.
You’ll find no lock, no key.
All are free to enter, at will.
Simply step over the threshold.
Remember to dress for travel, though.
Visitors have been known
to get carried away.Illustration by Shadra Strickland