Do You Ever Get Bored of Chicken and Wine?

[A response poem to Persimmons by Li-Young Lee from the North American perspective]


I’ve never met you, [grandfather], only
Your ashes in a marble urn.
Sometimes, if you’re lucky,
We find the time to visit you.
We drive along the windy mountain road,
To your plot just off the bicycle path.
They run over your grave like a bicycle path.
Do you miss the safety of the shrine?

Do you ever get bored of chicken and wine?

We place a slip under a stone
And lay a feast before you on the grass,
White Styrofoam nestled in white plastic bags:
A bald chicken roosting there. Its eyes are closed, its skin
Full of goosebumps, like a chilly ghost.

Next, we pour the wine (“to impress your future in-laws…”)
Into little plastic cups. [Uncle] fans
The smouldering dollar bills; their ashes fly
Between the branches, dancing
Up to Heaven.

They say Heaven is a banquet table,
Ancestors gathered all around.
They laugh, they muse, they wait year round
For their boiled chicken and wine.
Old bones buried in a far-away land
Want for visits and chicken and wine.
For centuries, boiled chicken and wine.

Aren’t they bored of chicken and wine?


Tell me, have you ever tasted pizza
Or crab apple pie?
Is this something you would like
To try, now, in the Afterworld, descendants
Like roving taste buds,
Bringing you glimpses of present life?

If I burn you a letter, will you find it?
Would you read it? (Could you read it?)

Shall I write:
“Hello, [Grandmother],
I met you in a dream last night.
You sat, cross-legged, on the counter,
A young girl in pants,
And said you were thirsty.”

Shall I burn you a photo?

No—
a poem.

I shall burn for you poem.

I Don't Want to Read Sir Gawain

I don't care for what you had to say
six thousand years ago or

when you wanted to be god's son so badly or

when you thought that the world was flat
or when you thought dragons were among us.

I want to know what you think now.

Of all the worlds we could've traveled to
you decided to ship me to the past.

I feel like you're trying to tell me something.

Holding Station

A Villanelle Written in Fishing Terms

Drifting lonely on the quiet seas,

I hope for your return to this loch,

but life is only catch-and-release.

Others, too, paddle to these

sighing waters. They cast their lot,

Drifting lonely on the quiet seas.

Some, mourning the long-deceased,

seek to bend the cosmic clocks,

but life is only catch-and-release.

I remember your white arm; we swam each

to our own green, mossy rock,

drifting lonely on the quiet seas.

And then, with sudden and with wordless ease,

you left me by my cheerless dock.

Life is only catch-and-release.

Still I circle without cease

these desolate, grey-naked rocks,

drifting lonely on the quiet seas,

but life is only catch-and-release.

What are you saying!

The words we use are important, and they mean something more than whatever it is you’re expressing. I care about how people are affected by my actions, which include the words I use every day, the words we all use every day with out thought, without being conscious of what the words we use are saying. See, I care about words; how they are used, what they really mean, where they come from. What are you really saying when you say ‘that’s retarded’ or ‘that’s so gay’? Let’s start with the latter; beyond potentially hurting whoever you have directed the comment at, you are implying there is something wrong with being gay, that it’s not something one should want to be, or seem to be, and you shouldn’t like anything that seems gay. The response to this might be ‘But that’s not what I meant!’ but that is what your words meant, that is the message you are sending when you use the word gay in a negative derogatory fashion. When you put someone else down by calling them a fag or a dyke, saying they are gay, or making a gay joke.The words you use, they reflect who you are, and how you think, they are what you are putting out in the world. The next time you want to voice your disapproval for something a friend does, consider the words you choose to express your disapproval, and consider not insulting and demeaning anyone who happens to have a preference for the same sex.

(I'd appreciate comments on this, I'd eventually like to submit it to some publication as an opinion piece, or someting like that...eventually. Thanks!)

Travels of a Curmudgeonly Old Fuck

[I just pulled an all-nighter for a take-home exam, and then I had to write a sonnet for poetry class. I said "Fuck it it's 6:30 am and I'm too tired for this shit." This is the result.]


Of course I get the only fucking screen
that’s broken. God dammit! Fine. I did not
want to see your cheap Hollywood brain rot
anyway. Except now I’m stuck between

A walrus and a public nose-picker.
Yep, just keep digging. It’s not like I’m not—
Oh GOD he ate it! Gross. Just when I thought
it couldn’t get worse. Hey you, seat kicker!

Yeah you. Yeah, your son. Watch your child for Christ’s
sake! You shouldn’t have been allowed to breed.
There should be a law for that. God, I need
a stiff drink. Where’s the lady? I’ve buzzed twice!

I can’t wait to get to get off this thing and grab
a REAL lunch. Then it’s work. Augh! I hate cabs!

The Poetic Process

I wrote a poem last week.

It was too long

so I cut it

by half.

But it still seemed blurry around the edges —

metaphors missed the mark

adjectives and adverbs cluttered the images —

like stage light illuminating its subject

not quite sharply enough.

I whittled it down some more

deleted the excess

and the useless

until there were only

a handful of words left.

They weren't quite right

so I crossed them out

one by one

until there remained only

pencil scratches

and traces of erasure

on a blank page.

Run, Run from the Smoking Gun

[I wrote this for a poetry workshop assignment. The challenge was to take a previously written poem and rewrite it from your experience today. The rewrite had to be to the tune of a popular song, using the same rhyme scheme, rhythm, chorus pattern and everything. I chose to rewrite BLAM. (from HeartRape!) to the tune of "The Needle and the Damage Done" by Neil Young. Thanks Bruno for the song suggestion!]




The chair still rocking
By the fireplace
A stunned expression
On your cold white face
Ooh, ooh, what have I done?

You were my blood and
Now you’re on my hands,
I took the money
From the coffee can
Run, run from what I’ve done

Red thumbprints on
These dirty dollar bills
I wander dark
And lonely desert hills
Sell love
To get out of this town

Can’t leave behind the
Dirty deeds I’ve done
From up behind me, bloody footprints come
My downturned eyes are
Like a smoking gun.

Wishes Don't Come True

I wish the poles

stopped melting

and the polar bears

stopped dying.

I wish Hogwarts existed

and that nobody was hungry

or sick

or sad.

I wish that everyone's wishes

came true.

I wish men would stop killing

one another.

I wish I loved you better.

Juneau, Alaska (Complete)

[I have added the last two parts to this poem. The song lyrics are not mine. Please tell me what you think.]

I.

We drove here in your mother's station wagon,
listening to the old mix tapes
I had sent you, once, in the mail.
You sang along absentmindedly
as you counted raindrops on the window.
Forgotten words came floating up
with two strums
or a snare.
You traced the fleeing rain, and sang:

Someone told me long ago
There's a calm before the storm
I know
It's been coming for some time

The road was but a crumbled path,
Pine trees whispered through the windows.
I glanced at your neck;
it was smooth as fresh fallen snow,
but your cheek was trampled, worn.
Water had eroded your landscape.

The roads were frozen as we drove to Juneau, Alaska.


II.

“It’s nice,” you said, overlooking
The tumultuous black sea.
The dark iron hulls of ships
Appeared through the fog, like
a bad memory; a secret. I held your loose
cold hand.

The inn was warm, close. When the
keeper smiled at us you briskly signed your name,
then took the luggage. I asked for some wine,
and followed you to our room.

You had unpacked your bag. You turned your bare
back to me, saying, “Help me,”
and I zipped your blue dress,
smelling your hair.

My hands rested on your shoulders,
And you gripped with all your fingers.


III.

We lie naked side by side on the bed because
the bear skin revolted you when I proposed
we make love on it;
Yet even on proper sheets,
you remain revolted.

The town is sleeping. It is blinding midnight.
You stand up and pull the curtains aside,
exposing your breast to the empty town.

“There’s something I need to tell you,” you say,
watching dogs sniff snowmobiles,
but say nothing. Snowflakes dance past
your face, mottle your white skin.
Your naked figure is frozen in place.

“Don’t,” I say.

“Please don’t.”

one line. I meant to post this Friday.

A scrap of his secret dream flashed across his face, in a quickly erased smile.