Archimedes' Principle

I tilt you towards me

and you breathe heavily against my face

your smooth, white porcelain skin

smelling of warm cocoa

after a night of restless, shallow swimming

My neck is a bottle waiting to be shattered

against a ship's maiden voyage

and I lose myself even before 

french-kissing the salty sea air

a slippery swooning swan song 

You run through me 

like fingertip-toeing, piano-playing

stone-skidding on water surfaces and I half-shut my eyes

to sensitize your tactile intrusion

into my soundless morning

The fishing poles have all the baits

but reeling them in might be a little

more trivial than lifting the anchor

out of its watery grave

The dock groans another tired warning

wood on wood on nail and wood and sea

My eyes cloaked on sails, knots being

untied and so the tilting and swishing

and chopping begins 

the dance of drowning.

10:15 AM

December 20, 2013

AIR DRIED

Inkwells dry up when stand fans

decide not to glance over their shoulders

they stare long enough to gather dust

on corners and every small thing

that bears no weight fall off the gray

grand desk

receipts, business cards, old letters

sometimes pens that roll on their bellies

headless without their caps

skydiving ceremoniously on the floor

some soft bound books may attempt

to breathe a few pages

against the force of the stare

but like dead fish, they just murmur uneloquently

still, no words come to wet parched papers

somehow the nearby wall will soon

give in, out of self-consciousness

and mounted images will shift uncomfortably

until there is nothing left but

the constant movement of air filling

your breath, no empty space to fill 

unflinching, purposive, 

these blades watch, without looking.

7.41 PM | December 12, 2013 | Thursday

When Wet

Rain water is running between pavement cracks

pooling on gutters and trailing along windshields

on raincoat folds, blurring words on newspapers

and staining dust into mud

caught in the wind and drawn by the urge to

thin out in gravitational abandonment 

The map lines they leave are just obvious trails

of liquidations, all those evaporated heat

condensed and precipitated solitude 

we know too well where drops fall down from

darkly cradled far too long

only to race back to anything close to 

the same cloudy embrace

so they come down filling up palms, tin cans, 

dried up fish ponds and abandoned fountains

seeking space to occupy like all matter long to be

wherever they can slither in their

mercurial form into shapes and surfaces

to define them with a purpose

of more than just being slippery when wet.

9.42 PM

Nov. 7 2013

In-betweens

you know how it is

the in-betweens

the interims

the learning curvature

of wanting and needing

and unwanting some more

of missing something 

you've never known

the breaths held

the fingers crossed

the coin-tossed wishes

the wisps of thin candlestick smoke

blown out from birthday cakes

of things we thought we can't live without

and still we breathe a little better now

the sleeps, between wakes

the pause between breaks

the split second sighs

of resignation or relief

that follows the tragic comedy

of knowing the unknown

or waking to the familiar truth you've known all along

Aug 29, 2013

Short cat

she licks her wound in

small, round, clockwise

concentric circles

the scabs have dried into

cold volcanic surfaces

rugged, rusty,  ribbed and rough

a river hardening

in summer, burnt frozen

in place where lakes turn into mud

earnestly, she traces every nook

crevice, flesh on hardened flesh

wet moist tongue flicking on air-dried crust 

as if making out a letter

or tracing out a line or a quote

to make sense from all this french kissing

3:35 PM

Ants

ants have been frantic

gnawing on wet shirt sleeves

you can hardly see these scented lines

they follow, an invisible trace

they disappear on earth tone paisley sheets

silently defying gravity on tumbleweed walls

second-storey floors are no feat

when flood water drowns the moist ground

the heat fishes them out in a frenzy

of finding moisture, almost reaching the sky

one or two wards off the path in missionary search

for sugar maybe, and a congo line builds after

lying in bed, once or twice, you feel the distinctive sting

on the soft folds of your arm, scratching off the itch

only to be reddened in blistered annoyance

for something so small to cause this much sensory commotion

Sept. 08, 2013

3:09 PM

Not a Touch Typist

we move our fingers when we creep in shadows

without realizing we hit key strokes

sometimes we sit comfortably on space bars

and long pauses are born in exponential succession

without us meaning to

before the next syllable slicks its way sidewards

finger tiptoe-ing even when the caps lock is on

all this careful crawling becomes a silent scandal

of symbols above the number line

appearing with the simple press of the shift key

words are magnified by ampersands and pound signs

and asterisks, compounded by exclamation points

that bleed carbon fingerprints for every

single misstep or touch

the dark hardly hides anything from what we know

of where we've been skimming

and the things we say even without opening our mouths

we click our tongues to hide the sound of our backspacing

4:49 PM

Aug. 5, 2013

Embedded

the tear on the bed sheet corner

is starting to show

tucking the king size duvet on a queen

seemed like a practical idea back then

it didn't matter that the pillows

were randomly on a tug-of-war

beneath our heads

or the lumps of folded linen

were stealing sleeps in bundles

every time the wall against the bed frame slacks

the comforter vomits itself on the wooden floor

the room has to shift uncomfortably

to restore some form of tension 

to keep things from falling off

it made sense to just gather the dust skirts

enough to keep the stuff hidden beneath the bed

for who knows what else has blamed gravity

for the things we knock off from our dreams

or things we pretend to accidentally push off in our waking

June 18, 2013

2:06 PM

Blinds

There are marks you leave underneath the shag carpet

Must have been the accent chair screaming all 

across the floor when you dragged it a few nights ago

the stools stood in silence by the bar, Starck, pretending to be 

transparent.

There is so little tufting on the gray sofa, not enough

to hide the wrinkled upholstery and the matching pot-bellied throw pillows,  

just slouch against each other in sloppy abandonment.

The consul table gapes its legs like a mouth, a frozen scream 

or a motionless yawn, or a mocking gag

But I'm sure if the white-washed wallpapers could talk, they would

be saying the same thing, or screaming the same warning

The few white porcelain bowls have gargled enough duck rice

and the bathroom tiles have tasted enough sweat and salt to fill the sea

with things to float, near docks and public shorelines

Because there are certain things it cannot stomach

Silk curtains whisper between panels of windows

because obviously the screens can just filter insects and dusts

but not truth or the prying eyes of gossiping bystanders.

Everybody knows even the blinds cannot block light completely.

So stop pretending that its night time.

10:17 PM 

June 13, 2013

We keep on filling things up

we keep on filling things up

clothes on bedside,

books on chairs

words on papers

ice teas on supposedly bottomless glasses

to the brim

to the edge

mid-level

a millimeter before the bottom

reaches out for a kiss

the fridge is piling up with take-outs

and food spoiled even from the second

we decided not to take the last bite

the hamper moans in mouthful agony

pillows push each other off the bed

if we can't have conversations,

nor notes to paint over the gaps

and all the sheep were yesterday's stew

there is always white noise

to light our shallow sleep

we run on full tank for miles

wind on our ears,

silencing the sounds of our stomach

the clumsy click of our tongues

the grief of yawns and guilt of hiccups.

water tanks tend to leak on the side

punctured by rust I guess

and rain is a promise unkept

so helium heads are sent up

lanterns lit filled with short-lived illumination

a commissary in the sky,

a split-second shooting star

we have rubbed against too many narrow walls

to even feel the watery splinters

that has wedged against our eardrums

between cottons and soundproof walls

ribcages and hollow halls

the things we drown ourselves with

always reverberates a deafening

loud and palpable echo.

April 1, 2013

11:46 AM

In waves

they come in waves

breathing

the rise and fall

of chest, shoulders and lungs

water running in a rhythmic sweeping

of sands

and the shells  and dead pale corals 

break  into the foamy cycle

the staccato of blinking eyes

and choked sobs and thrusting limbs

ready to burst into flaming percussions

still in waves

we cling through boards and shipwreck

planks through a sweep of white fire

enveloping a non-nauseas state 

of pure, unfiltered gas

we heave in deeply to rip the 

throbbing flesh out by its hind legs

and it struggles and grabs all

innards in its way out. 

It's bulbous head and flailing arms

stuck between sphincters and intestinal

entry ways

and so in waves we feel it

envelop from within

puncturing in pinprick precision

sandy scraping through open tissue 

coral etching a messy aimless decoupage tattoo 

till we are inside out, breathing.

nothing left but pure

unfiltered gas

waiting to be lit.

March 27, 2013

3:24 pm

It rained today

it rained today

after weeks of scraping heat

and I can see the leaves shimmy

in excitement in the empty lot beside his room

they bob their heads in agreement

vigorously in rhythmic discussions

yes yes, trickles and droplets

and map lines quickly erased and

easily replaced

brushing on stems and clinging 

on roots

there the sea is silently overflowing 

in a split-second drowning

dusted and washed and muddied

and decomposing and damp

and dark and murky where water

sleep and later on harden 

six feet under

the dripping raucous of laughter

silenced in ground cracks

sealed shut from the light

even from the shadows

from the room beside the empty lot.

3:43 PM

March 22, 2013

Bokeh

we run in circles only to bump into ourselves

we reckon this escape would bring us somewhere 

but how could it be somewhere when we run infinitely

the same circuit

till someone closes the gate

a streetlight casts that condescending look

the sprinklers slippery gossip on willing cement

cars shamelessly hoot and mock and glare

and you are left to thread on higher pavements

avoiding eye contacts, 

and a line no longer becomes the shortest

distance between you and yourself

because there is no line,

there are just endless

infinite

circles.

11:31 PM 

March 20, 2013

Cup of Tea

There are thirty ways to betrayal

and they scandalously flicker their tongues

over wandering whores and sacrificial virgins

their egos clang, and echo emptily between

carnal perpendiculars and thoughtless trajectories

without really bothering to solve the value of x

masked with pretentious book quotes

and excuses of existential crises

they fumble and jingle and stage

confusion like a farce, 

a keyless liquid justification

to a one-size-fits-all morality 

they carve their hearts into unrecognizable shapes

thinking that as long as it still beats, it still the same

fingertips licked clean with clinical grade precision

Resting every now and then

silently heaving the lightless burden of their secret

between clenched legs and an inextinguishable fever

They dust the crumbs off the bed, and flush the dead fish

freshly washed linen shirts ironed to its starch conception

Shame cremated, only to come back as exotic teas dipped on

perfectly boiled water, served on expensive silver ware

sweetened with a single kiss on the cheek 

and a delicate french flesh-colored macaroon 

9:07 PM 

March 18, 2013