— tapioca world tour

Near Years through the years

Digging through the files of my life tonight, I came across a heap of old poetry, as well as 30+ journals from the past 15 years or so. I thought it would be interesting to chronicle some New Years poems since the loud beginning of our present century….

January 2000 Haiku
I still dream about
you because it’s the softest
thing I can sleep on

January 2001 what can i do (a john yau reference)

the taste of death is in my water
i drink it as the color

of my hair burns its embers
to a new dark heat

everything a symbol of
your absence

the abortion
of our story before i could even

write it down and now
you are a dead cloud breaking

like the hope of women
baking with burning hair

with clean insides but not enough
life yet

when will we learn
not to wait for rain?

i wait for clouds to break but
this pain

is seven seasons shaking
seven suns painting

different pictures of your face
i see them on every wall i run to

why aren’t you running too?
where are you?

i am burning down while all around
me skies are breaking

and my prayers
lift to different heavens

that only return questions
in dark red embers

with three decembers
already past

do you remember
nothing of the tale we cast

to the night the night
you cast your words to the floor

under eyes
so green they’re blue

do you remember
none of me?

do you remember
none of you?

January 2002 New Year

Finally I find
my old self standing
in light and pleasant
memories at the end
of a tunnel some devil dug

Finally I climb
out of myself and this new tomb
stinking of seasons
I’ve forgotten or become
imprisoned by

Finally I
am feeling what hurt birds feel
once they fly
further and further from their mother
and their city
and each other
and I’m satisfied.

January 2003 Red Abandoned

The city is mad
today, sugar-coated in
headless fog, festive

regardless, screaming
welcoming bravos to the
first string of costumed

performers in the
New Year’s parade. However,
since I’m not there right

now their happiness is only
a guess — it’s quiet in the
green ghetto, my lumpy street

decorated with
dirty red abandoned
construction paper

projects small children
dropped the week before Christmas,
the week before that.

Everyone here is
home taking naps, the only
free activity

left that’s still mildly
satisfying and doesn’t
always require celebration

or company. Some find sanity
only in empty beds and
the city is mad today.

January 2004 To Josh at 14

Sometimes the winter is one long night.
Sometimes it buries us and we can’t tell
the ceiling from the floor,
the ice from the waxed white sky
or the right answer to our own question:
How will I breathe again? The low light
is not forgiving, but it brings
a small promise of better things
when your long days end.
What the world is now is not
all it will be. Trust me. No — trust only
that great equator of hot ambition
under your skin. Sing, if you want to.
Speak, spit, scream –
but don’t give in.