Promise

how do i take off a mask when it stops being a mask. when it’s as much a part of me than i am. we kept fighting. but the world be unmasked. we will find our true selves again. maybe after wiping away all the thick grimy film of whiskey glasses at the bar and wet morning pillows, we can all see the light of day. i know we’re not supposed to talk in a while. but i’m going to ask you to have hope for me any way. just please. have hope.

Remind

The odds of crossing a partner in crime from another life. Low. In the grander scheme of things. But they always arrive impromptu. With or without an invitation for havoc. I wonder why we parted. I’m writing a novel about Canton, some sort of memoir that freezes pendulums. I’ve said that to an acquaintance before. It’s still very much under the water. I want to host a travel/food television show. I’d need to go back to school. I looked up several names. Doubt I will be admitted into any. I was going to help the kitchen at my aunt’s restaurant in Chapel Hill, but I convinced myself that they only made Chinese. It’s never too late, they say. Conviction diluted. Like how last night’s Reds just found their way to my lips. I fell for sticky habits, as if I hadn’t already. It was a relief. It was a moment of clarity. Fires and ashes and sticks with us. For a long while. I’ve lost count for the chimney that flew around the world in 2011. I had lunch at a restaurant in Vilafranca, savory game entrees with artichokes. I found peaceful silence in the co-captain seat at 6,000m heading for Sitges. The engine off and turbines stalled. All too euphoric crowds in Amsterdam smiling at the Sun, psychoactive in all processes. Paris fashion, vin chaud, and mademoiselles with class for hats. I recruited charming digits in the apartment-turned-cafes, tucked away in Taipei alleys that sing blues. Decay and uprise in the Shanghai scenes of westernization. Lugies flying out on swerve. Mercy. I hailed Ginsberg’s and Kerouac’s surviving banners of The Beat Generation. Time capsulated and expended in the Nevada desert dressed with glamour. From Harlem to Brooklyn, from K-Town to Chelsea, a few NYPD uniforms willing to pose for tourist photographs. All of theses are negatives to the same 35mm roll film. It’s been two months already since the last tour. This is what happens to youth. Discontent and dissatisfied through accumulation of what could’ve been or could be. A lighthouse of disillusionment bids my next departure. Economics of a Zippo, compared to a regular lighter? I have to soak the cotton with gasoline way too often. The fuck am I on about. A dutch and a nightcap. I’m working on the insomnia. I’ll get back to that now. Good night moon.

Chains

Shackles anchored at the shuffling feet of men, cries burgundy

confetti over thousands who planted their toe-nails in dirt and uncovering

filth, artifacts and gems of a simpler time. A time bound by refined

circulating bong rips amongst arms waving liberty under martial

law. Through the cold bars, mates basked in a golden shower of shanks, surrendering

natural reflexes in the face of death. A hieroglyphic coffin of peacetime

artillery forfeited under the assumptions of tyrants storming the unlocked

gates of the wretched asylum, where beautiful nurses drug the populous   

Pantheon of curious faces. A time bound by curated commissions of war,

bleeding freedom for an argued cause, daunting up at the heavens, curses

inaudible rage. Through the frozen winters, benefactors indulge in harvest of weak

minds and poorer souls. An extinct sign language of Silk Road merchants,

pirates who hide a similar poison in their livers, where dices and cards

earned a man’s worth and the start of his countdown. Whispers of destiny

ruled the angles of catapults and dictated the blackness of the king’s lips.

Without proper records these modest times were lost along the way, pawned

countless men in the name of liberty and wealth. Still, we hang onto tainted

photographs, wild memorabilia from doorsteps of those contemplating jazz,

flurry of punches, and crowns that once stood for our youthful physicality.

Flags and crest banners beat against the fatigued Sun, imagining tomorrow

being drowned with thunderclaps. Invitations reduced and alone everyday.

Waves of parchment odor died and emptied seats tell sad tales burdening tears,

wax debris from Icarus blinded wishful men and tormented ambitious

dreams with misinformed realities. Slanted looks asked for trouble and so did

breaking wishbones, no matter the problem in question. So just maybe, just maybe,

the Sun is wrong, and it will be another beautiful day crowded by lovers and friends.

Easy

What happens when everything’s said and done? Are there really alternatives to the things we cherish? Sometimes the people we meet in life are not who they turn out to be, or perhaps just blame it on bad timing, inhibiting us from knowing the future, the changed, and the better person that they would eventually become. Even if the present is what we imagined and hoped for, perhaps the reason for our departure is that we know nothing gold can stay. Crowned for being immature, spitted on for being irresponsible, and avoided for being a ticking time bomb. We all got angels and we all got demons. Trying to disguise an empty nest with indifferent contemplations of grander schemes to come. A coping mechanism they might say but the composition of which is evasion with a dash of blues. Even the sourest candies in the world can’t make me frown, doing nothing but getting my share, breathing this air. Regardless of yesterday’s foolish mishaps and drunken ordeals, there must still be fond admirers of a rebel, a knucklehead who rushes out at the first sign of a cold night. Still believing that everyone makes illegal u-turns for the sake of familiarity. Money can’t buy love because it’s overpriced. Be it pride or ignorance, the consequences always have the last laugh, under a sun that don’t shine and rain that won’t stop. So is life, take a chance, roll a dice. If I lost your respect, I just hope you don’t look at me as something you regret. Hell bent, heaven sent, Lord I repent if I ever sinned. Not trying to change the world, I just want to put minds at ease, but in the mean time it’s lights please.

Thirty

Southside port city harbors the innocent and the sinister, childish

embraces of all things rebellious. Broken bottle mosaic brandishing

resin waters in the sidewalk mines, procrastinating silence slumber

restlessly in the wake of freedom. A time when the greenery blossomed

with young bucks, a time when gold arch was not affiliated with Ronald.

Caged rooftop, cram sessions, laughter halls, ramen vendors, assorted

meat fried rice, gender bender, urban soul, and athletic dominance.

Barbeques, toad hunt, egg drop, boy scouts, food fairs, musical

productions, prom nights, and really, why are there chaperones.

Somewhere down the line, a gradual change in the administration

of testosterones and hormones gave the rise to imperial defiance

from the things that were. Humbled by excess and extolled with recess.

Pool parties, amusement parks, censorship, shaved heads, unfiltered

packs, after-hour gypsies, bandanas, and undefeated championships.

Street-side lamb skewers, wholesale shopping, exclusive access, duffle

bags, zigzags, and really, limelight dawned like on Kobe and Shaq.

Untouchable was the motto but a decade was quick to fade, into

sunset a new generation stomping batons led the way, returning

to a familiar riverside is never easy as originals came to predicted.

Fresh smiles and craves entangle the same vine, one that runs in

the vessels of all those reminiscing departed. Not a day goes by and

by when pride for the sturdy horns of Rams is cheaply disregarded. 

Pieces

Broken spearheaded horns fragmented in the arteries

drenched black of a still beating heart. Perhaps the one-eye-scarred

protected territory with all might fathomable to a bear, soft

touches on the Furrow barely left a wound. She stands smiling

waiting to return to a den where wheat golden waves, light

rain caress her skin. His blood left no imprint of yesterday’s travels

to peach blossom springs and back. Their fervor a thing of the past,

times of inadequate comfort and childish dreams not made

to last the slapping winds of reality. Where a patch of grass

there was laughter, a cave of colors went silence. Amidst

underground kings and heavenly goddesses were two – of abyss

and of tenderly premise. This was the story often told, hushed

away from ears of men and surrendered into oblivious

myths. What does not kill you eventually does, but for now

the bear’s eyes on passing clouds, he rests.  

Elected

The majority of Formosa has spoken today. KMT stand up!