Life, Love, and Basketball
(a sestina)

For a lifetime, this has been his team.
Seventeen championships – four of which he has seen – they are without peer.
An obsession for him: no matter where he has lived,
he dreamed imaginary ballgames, along with careers and families. Now the title
of “father” is a reality. There is no more time to dream: the effect
of being tethered to a spot on earth with his children. No, not Boston -

which is implacable – but actual concrete and soil. Where Boston
is just an idea, his children are real and teeming
with possibility. For his Celtics, he feels something to the same effect,
as every challenge flashes then slowly disappears.
Many doubt the Celtics are entitled
to this playoff run, just as he doubts he has earned the life he lives.

But then, this doubt is the reason he lives.
He questions his own memory – maybe because he’s from Boston.
The Celtics fan – once almost entitled
to success, if not in life, then of his team -
as a father now dances over midnights, peers
at each coming day, thinking of ways to make them perfect.

This June night, his hometown squad can affect
tomorrow. There are no religious icons here to believe
in, pray to – just a glowing television and yelps that pierce
the quiet hours before bed. Three miles from Downtown Boston,
this fan draws energy from the Celtics, and self-esteem
from his children fighting the intermittent tidal

waves of sleep and sleeplessness. No father is entitled
to a full night’s rest anyway. So why not let a game affect
him? The clock climbs over itself and his head teems
with more doubts. The playoffs don’t relieve
a father of his duties, but at least tonight in Boston,
the rules for fans usurp those for fathers – so it appears.

This man constantly departs. Reappears.
Sings children to sleep, screams silence at games, writes poems with no titles.
It has never been so good to be in Boston -
a lovely ugly setting, where home sometimes exists. It is perfect.
There may be other cities more enjoyable to live,
but his children are here in this city – and so is his team.

The City of Boston hopes Captain Paul Pierce
can help steer this magnificent team to another title -
if for no other effect than to remind us we’re alive.

They say I held you
for nine months; but no – I think
it’s you who held me.

This is kinda controversial. Not to anyone else – just to me. It’s hard to pick my favorite spoken word pieces of the last decade because the thing that makes me love them is so personal. It might be the presentation, the wordplay, the structuring – or it could be a lot harder to pin down, like the mood I was in when I first heard it, the way it seemed to complete an incomplete thought I was having, or maybe it became more powerful the more I thought back to it.

Also, I know I did twelve and not the customary ten, but there’s no way I can possibly take any of these off. It was hard enough narrowing it down this far. I’ve included the approximate year I first heard the poem and my favorite line from each piece, but these are coming straight from memory – so don’t quote me on them.

12. “Listen Asshole” – Yellow Rage (2000)
It feels like a lifetime ago. When I first moved to DC right after college, I knew close to nobody – and I had no aspirations to take on spoken word as anything more than just something I did at bars every now and then, since I lived right off Black Broadway and there was no shortage of open mics a couple blocks from my apartment. But pretty soon I found myself part of a duo called re: verse, and we were one of three main API spoken word groups out that way. The other two were Feedback (who I’ll talk about later) from New York and Yellow Rage from Philly.

I don’t really know how we all connected, but folks from all three cities met up in 215 to do a little East Coast retreat and this was the first time I hear them do this ridiculous piece. It was like, yo, who’s gonna stop us now?

Favorite Line: I’m gonna fight with alla my might against motherfuckers who think I’m a white…girl. Watch my finger unfurrrrl…”

11. “Remembrance” – Taiyo Na (2000)
On to the aforementioned Feedback Poets. Taiyo was the baby of the bunch – so I was shocked when I saw this like 17 year old kid spit this amazing piece at the Asian American Writer’s Workshop open mic called (re)collection. It was the most succinct and touching rendition of a Japanese American history and future through its literature and music, done in a way that I guess I haven’t seen anyone else even attempt. Mas Yamagata backed him up on the bass.

Favorite Line: This ain’t just some Biz Mark shit; these lips are rocking a lost taiko

10. “The Last Words of a Roach, Underfoot” – El Guante (2009)
Dark Horse entry here. Everyone else on this list is someone I probably first met like – well – a long time ago. But I didn’t have the pleasure of sharing a stage with El Guante until this past year, and I have to say man I was astounded. This piece from the point of view of a cockroach made me feel like I should be writing a lot more.

In the hands of a lesser writer, this concept could have been corny. But he went in on it; honestly, it’s transcendent.

Favorite Line: You say…that life can be something greater than survival, but what could be greater than survival?

(more…)

I know this is April 30, but I kinda slacked at the end of the month.

Letter from a Bear

Every time one of us
kills one of you. You
come back with nets, and
tranquilizers, and shotguns
to avenge your brother.

And you say it’s to keep
your innocent families
safe. So we don’t roam -
aggressive mother bear – in
your comfortable
suburban dwellings,

break the illusion that
your place at the top
of the food chain
was earned, maul
your precious children.

Well, what about my children?

Who ever thought
what it meant for us to have
to see you in our homes,
your loud talking
scaring us from our sleep.
Do you know how terrifying
it is to see your tracks
next to ours? My ancestors

were murdered by yours.
Sometimes skinned.
Sometimes the focal point
of your smiling
vacation photos. Sometimes
hauled on the backs
of your trucks -

to show off the danger
you managed to avert in the woods.

The danger.

As if you weren’t the
one with the shotgun. As if
it was your children’s
heads hanging on our walls.
As if we ever attacked
you unprovoked.

We have been killed by you
for centuries. Over and over.
You’ve destroyed our home and
you insist on dragging your
broods through it
for a weekend getaway. Don’t

you get it? You are
latecomers to this party.
We have the claws and teeth
and natural distrust of outsiders.
We are supposed to kill you. And

that doesn’t change just
because you bring guns here.

Every time you see me, I am
coming for you. Take that as fair
warning. Come unarmed in here
again. I dare you.

I know I’ll eventually
die by your hands,
so I pray for
the chance to send more
of your brothers home without
clothes, and limbs, and faces.
More reasons for you to hunt
me. And declare revenge
in their names.

Three Years

Magical, coo the uninitiated. The week ends the way
lyrics begin in three minute-long pop songs. Celebratory: as if

melodies were incidental, meaning were optional, and
rhymes and catchy hooks told less than the whole story. The crowd

dances to the rhythm of each others breathing. I hear my story from her throat.

Click the following links for a fuller context of this piece:

• Prompt! The Research Edition
• East Meets Words Meets Three Years

I am putting this up late. I actually had it written in time, but the weekend was so busy, I slacked. I’m going to be less strict on myself now and say I have until the end of the day Thursday, April 30 to post 6 more poems.

By the way, the American sentence is a poetic form invented by Allen Ginsberg.

A Last Great
(an American sentence)

The trees dance joyously outside; their shadows thrash each other against the window like drunks on Lansdowne.

Crooked Silence

Crumbling paper
walls, as frequent as
confused squawks
from a flock of
lost ducks.

Abandoned dirty hood scene,
poles top-heavy
with light.

Night falls, they
lean against
each other. Come

out and play,
he says, with
his chin on his chest;

the soles of his sneakers
lightly graze
the floor. A
grown man walks into the
sunset, back bent,
his shadow sliding

in the opposite
direction. Much of
the film is shown
in silence. The
private journals of
gods are misleading;

the lies they tell themselves
end up as entries
in his own. He crouches
behind his own fingers,
ready to slay sometimes.

The elderly forget
their own names.

My most recent joints – Days 20, 16, 17, and 21 – were all created through writing exercises I’m developing for work. Today’s also came from an exercise that incorporates a reading of an excerpt of Maxine Hong Kingston’s Woman Warrior. Probably a few more in this vein to come.

Clothes and Shoes

His pipe was broken.
They blamed me, the help, so I packed my
clothes and shoes to leave on foot.
Even if I had – and I did, but they
didn’t know, so – if I had broke his pipe
or broke her mirror, or whatever
prized possessions, if I burned their robes
into smoke, or dropped their old hair
combs, grinding them into frozen stone,
so what? I never hurt them as people.
But in that moment, they made sure to keep me
underfoot. They tore my jacket on the way out,
I was nothing to them; less than that,
I was a Chinese boy – maybe sent to be
her work from God. Challenging her
to turn me civilized.

Human

He’s tired of running backwards.
All his toes have done is ache,
and the muscles in his arches
feel like snakes in mating dance.
He barely even knows now
what he started running for –
let alone in reverse. Soon he’ll stop.
But there’s motive behind his actions:
he’s seen the future, and tries his best
to avoid that life, so it’s up and down these
city stairs and his neighborhood slopes.

He hasn’t fallen very often,
and all in all feels pretty good.
He isn’t even wearing sneakers,
but wearing loafers hasn’t hurt.
But so far, his whole reason
for starting this whole project now,
doesn’t seem quite as bad
as he imagined then.
There was motive behind his actions:
now he looks foolish, but it’s too late
to avoid that so he may still keep going.
People staring. Make a decision.

I was sick at the end of last week and missed two days of new poems. Although at the time I was gonna let those two days drop, I figured the whole point of the challenge is to write a whole bunch of new stuff – and so why not make up for those two missed days. So here they are.

Coyotes

“I’m not going to be very judicious,
I’m afraid,” as he struggled to haul kindling
to build a fire that night during his watch.
“They’ve run across here before – like birds, like a
line through one right through to the next one;
it’s hard to know which one to follow.” Memories
of their blighted homes floated behind his statement.
His shotgun leaned against his shoulder with a secret to tell.
“Areas…” he said, before rethinking his point.
“This is home to us, not to them,” he continued.
“If we could live peacefully together, I wouldn’t
bother being here,” as he ran
a finger down the seam of his jeans,
tracing the scar underneath, that he earned from
the last time he encountered his prey.

Broken Metaphor

Romance is a used pot of oil for deep frying,
holding onto flavors of past lovers.
The oil I use is suited for drinking.

With odor like the first step in the front doors
of a downtown late night diner. A reveler tastes
the pasture in his beef; the pickup bell sings muffledly
under the smoke of drunk conversations;
heat slides through nostrils and mouths
as air, proving more essential than oxygen; as
the lights bathe the room in dramatic white shadow.

In this kitchen, all the help bang elbows and egos
writing a melody that sounds the way
canned tomatoes taste.
Three years into college, I’m here to impress her:
the woman I might marry.

The oil is not suited for drinking.

The napkin dispenser is empty, I notice,
has this ever happened before?
I tap a rescue message with my pinky nail
against Formica, because if I live this down
I might find rhythm in music again.

It’s not called crying, it’s a teardrop;
everything I say is unnecessary.
The contained tantrum of pride
dropped its arms in the parking lot
at the end of a long day. The
flashing neon is childhood, a reassuring hour
in the bath, a bedtime song.

I break through the glass window without a sound,
pick up the pieces and return them to the pane.

The Big Guy is about to try something new.

In adulthood,
when there are no more problems,
we’ll be back here again, triumphant as game show winners.

The regal pool of ketchup wipes itself off the plate,
reveals skids of oil I forgot were there.
Eating to live is a way to survive, but not for us.

Ce qu’elle a dit, ce soir la?
The cup of coffee takes a final drag of
cigarette, coughs out a teaspoon of sugar.
The asphalt outside is wet from rain or
late night street-cleaning; we haven’t noticed.
As we stumble off the curb, we step
over a trail of romance before the sun rises.

Have Fields

A siren cuts through the fog, echoing. Cold
through sickly branches, the neighbor kids
hold snowballs behind their heads.
Shall we dance? Her eyes close, breathing
becomes free. Fade to black over
sounds of dinner.
A gloved hand pats the animal’s back,
returns her soul for another day. There are
ways to do good, without being good.
A defined moral is a dandelion picked in spring,
and kept until next year. Living room glare
flashes off and on; this is surely the 1980s,
when life was learned between commercials.
It can be hard not to seek an end to summer.

Padma’s Sonnet
(a Shakespearean sonnet in iambic pentameter)

In mirrors, her reflection’s hard to read:
her eyes deceptively shine star and sun.
As rubies do, her mouth drives him to greed:
march strong to mines, then turn as if to run.

The actors know she’d never learn to sing
the arias that others write alone.
Requests are never taken by the king,
except when Padma deigns to steal the throne.

A fiction writer (who gets paid to dream)
in fantasy, should hardly dare to dwell.
Reality creates a simple scene:
she left him plainly, reason dares to tell.

She doesn’t mind to hang her heart in frame,
but lotus flowers bloom within her name.