"Clam Ode"
One attempts to be significant on a grand scale
in the knock-down battle of life
but settles.
I love the expression "happy as a clam,"
how it imparts buoyant emotion
to a rather, when you get down to it,
nonexpressive creature: In piles of ice
it awaits its doom pretty much the same
as on the ocean's floor it awaits
life's banquet and bouquet and sexual joys.
Some barnacles we know are eggs dropped from outer space
but clams, who has a clue how they reproduce?
By trading clouds?
The Chinese thought them capable of prolonging life
while clams doubtlessly considered
the Chinese the opposite.
I remember the jawbreakers my dad would buy me
on the wharf at Stone Harbor,
every thirty seconds you'd take out
the one you were working on
to check what color it turned.
What does this have to do with clams?
A feeling.
States of feeling, unlike states of the upper Midwest,
are difficult to name.
That is why music was invented,
which caused a whole new slue of feelings
and is why ever since
people have had more feelings than they know what to do with
so you can see music sorta backfired
like a fire extinguisher that turns out to be a flame thrower.
They look somewhat alike, don't they?
If you're buying one be sure
you don't get the other,
the boys in the stockroom are stoners
who like to wear their pants falling down
and deserve their own island in Gulliver's Travels.
The clam however remains calm.
Green is the color of the kelp it rests on,
having a helluva wingding calm.
I am going to kill you in butter and white wine
so forgive me, great clam spirit,
join yourself to me through the emissary
of this al dente fettuccini
so I may be qualmless and happy as you.
Friday, October 31, 2008
Thursday, October 30, 2008
Creative Writing Poetry Assignment
- Ode to something in your bathroom
- at least 4 quatrains
Accentual verses:
1. 4 6 4 6
2. 5 7 5 7
3. 4 5 6 7
4. 4 5 6 7
I love my instructor. She is so creative. She works us really hard but it probably pays off, and she's nice about it so I don't mind. She makes me want to laugh and cry at the same time.
- at least 4 quatrains
Accentual verses:
1. 4 6 4 6
2. 5 7 5 7
3. 4 5 6 7
4. 4 5 6 7
I love my instructor. She is so creative. She works us really hard but it probably pays off, and she's nice about it so I don't mind. She makes me want to laugh and cry at the same time.
Tuesday, October 28, 2008
I Hate Politics, Free Candy
I was reading queries at work the other day and I came across a manuscript that touted itself as "mostly sci-fi, but with realistic settings that will probably come about very soon and thus be relevant." The premise is that China has taken over the United States due to Americans' coporate capitalist greed, and it is up to a small military force to reclaim America. In the synopsis the author for some reason also talks about the War on Terror in the Middle East, democracy, patriotism, and something about freedom. There are sentences like "The Great Dragon has awakened." Despite my Taiwanese leanings when pushed to admit my ethnicity, I was kind of offended. I was also pretty disturbed. The kind of things the person was saying, not to overgeneralize to the rest of the country, but McCain just might get elected. I hate politics. I don't know what to do with myself. I think I'm going to disidentify like crazy.
In happier news, I bought boots! And it rained today so I couldn't wear them because they'd get wet. It was also colder and wetter than I anticipated it would be when I was putting clothes on in the morning, and I can't feel my nose.
Also, I just got back from Staples to buy printer ink and highlighters and I got a free bag of mini Snickers with my purchase of three inks or more. That was a pleasant, nonsensical surprise (candy and technology?). Why did I buy three ink cartridges? It came in the pack of one color and two black ones and it was cheaper and that means I won't have to go back for a while, despite the lure of free candy. Happy Halloween. If I lived closer to the equator I'd want to be a Pussycat Doll. But since I'd rather not be a frozen Californian I'll just be an eskimo. Or a polar bear. Or not dress up at all because I don't really have Halloween plans.
In happier news, I bought boots! And it rained today so I couldn't wear them because they'd get wet. It was also colder and wetter than I anticipated it would be when I was putting clothes on in the morning, and I can't feel my nose.
Also, I just got back from Staples to buy printer ink and highlighters and I got a free bag of mini Snickers with my purchase of three inks or more. That was a pleasant, nonsensical surprise (candy and technology?). Why did I buy three ink cartridges? It came in the pack of one color and two black ones and it was cheaper and that means I won't have to go back for a while, despite the lure of free candy. Happy Halloween. If I lived closer to the equator I'd want to be a Pussycat Doll. But since I'd rather not be a frozen Californian I'll just be an eskimo. Or a polar bear. Or not dress up at all because I don't really have Halloween plans.
Tuesday, October 21, 2008
Sources of the Delaware - Dean Young
I love you he said but saying it took twenty years
so it was like listening to mountains grow.
I love you she says fifty times into a balloon
then releases the balloon into a room
whose volume she calculated to fit
the breath it would take to read
the complete works of Charlotte Bronte aloud.
Someone else pours green dust into the entryway
and puts rice paper on the floor. The door
is painted black. On the clothesline
shirttails snap above the berserk daffodils.
Hoagland says you've got to plunge the sword
into the charging bull. You've got
to sew yourself into a suit of light.
For the vacuum tube, it's easy,
just heat the metal to incandescence
and all that dark energy becomes radiance.
A kind of hatching, syntactic and full of buzz.
No contraindications, no laws forbidding
buying gin on Sundays. No if you're pregnant,
if you're operating heavy machinery because
who isn't towing the scuttled tonnage
of some self? Sometimes just rubbing
her feet is enough. Just putting out
a new cake of soap. Sure, the contents
are under pressure and everyone knows
that last step was never intended to bear
any weight but isn't that why we're standing there?
Ripples in her hair, I love you she hollers
over the propellers. Yellow scarf in mist.
When I planted all those daffodils,
I didn't know I was planting them
in my own chest. Play irretrievably
with the lid closed, Satie wrote on the score.
But Hoagland says he's sick of opening
the door each morning not on diamonds
but piles of coal, and he's sick of being
responsible for the eons of pressure needed
and the sea is sick of being responsible
for the rain, and the river is sick of the sea.
So the people who need the river
to float waste to New Jersey
throw in antidepressants. So the river
is still sick but nervous now too,
its legs keep thrashing out involuntarily,
flooding going concerns, keeping the president
awake. So the people throw in beta-blockers
to make it sleep which it does, sort of,
dreaming it's a snake again but this time
with fifty heads belching ammonia
which is nothing like the dreams it once had
of children splashing in the blue of its eyes.
So the president gets on the airways
with positive vectors and vows
to give every child a computer
but all this time, behind the podium,
his penis is shouting, Put me in, Coach,
I can be the river! So I love you say
the flashbulbs but then the captions
say something else. I love you says
the hammer to the nail. I love Tamescha
someone sprays across the For Sale sign.
So I tell Hoagland it's a fucked-up ruined
world in such palatial detail, he's stuck
for hours on the phone. Look at those crows,
they think they're in on the joke and
they don't love a thing. They think
they have to be that black to keep
all their radiance inside. I love you
the man says as his mother dies
so now nothing ties him to the earth,
not fistfuls of dirt, not the silly songs
he remembers singing as a child.
I love you I say meaning lend me twenty bucks.
so it was like listening to mountains grow.
I love you she says fifty times into a balloon
then releases the balloon into a room
whose volume she calculated to fit
the breath it would take to read
the complete works of Charlotte Bronte aloud.
Someone else pours green dust into the entryway
and puts rice paper on the floor. The door
is painted black. On the clothesline
shirttails snap above the berserk daffodils.
Hoagland says you've got to plunge the sword
into the charging bull. You've got
to sew yourself into a suit of light.
For the vacuum tube, it's easy,
just heat the metal to incandescence
and all that dark energy becomes radiance.
A kind of hatching, syntactic and full of buzz.
No contraindications, no laws forbidding
buying gin on Sundays. No if you're pregnant,
if you're operating heavy machinery because
who isn't towing the scuttled tonnage
of some self? Sometimes just rubbing
her feet is enough. Just putting out
a new cake of soap. Sure, the contents
are under pressure and everyone knows
that last step was never intended to bear
any weight but isn't that why we're standing there?
Ripples in her hair, I love you she hollers
over the propellers. Yellow scarf in mist.
When I planted all those daffodils,
I didn't know I was planting them
in my own chest. Play irretrievably
with the lid closed, Satie wrote on the score.
But Hoagland says he's sick of opening
the door each morning not on diamonds
but piles of coal, and he's sick of being
responsible for the eons of pressure needed
and the sea is sick of being responsible
for the rain, and the river is sick of the sea.
So the people who need the river
to float waste to New Jersey
throw in antidepressants. So the river
is still sick but nervous now too,
its legs keep thrashing out involuntarily,
flooding going concerns, keeping the president
awake. So the people throw in beta-blockers
to make it sleep which it does, sort of,
dreaming it's a snake again but this time
with fifty heads belching ammonia
which is nothing like the dreams it once had
of children splashing in the blue of its eyes.
So the president gets on the airways
with positive vectors and vows
to give every child a computer
but all this time, behind the podium,
his penis is shouting, Put me in, Coach,
I can be the river! So I love you say
the flashbulbs but then the captions
say something else. I love you says
the hammer to the nail. I love Tamescha
someone sprays across the For Sale sign.
So I tell Hoagland it's a fucked-up ruined
world in such palatial detail, he's stuck
for hours on the phone. Look at those crows,
they think they're in on the joke and
they don't love a thing. They think
they have to be that black to keep
all their radiance inside. I love you
the man says as his mother dies
so now nothing ties him to the earth,
not fistfuls of dirt, not the silly songs
he remembers singing as a child.
I love you I say meaning lend me twenty bucks.
Friday, October 17, 2008
Prop 8 is Ugly
And so meanly worded.
"Fiscal impact: over next few years potential revenue loss, mainly sales taxes, totaling in several tens of millions of dollars to state and local governments."
Ha.
Prop 4 is also dumb.
"Fiscal impact: over next few years potential revenue loss, mainly sales taxes, totaling in several tens of millions of dollars to state and local governments."
Ha.
Prop 4 is also dumb.
Wednesday, October 15, 2008
Coming out of the Fog
To Build a Home - Cinematic Orchestra
More being cryptic.
I was chatting with some friends. Not about this particular situation, but I made some offhand comment without really thinking about it. I spent the next few minutes internally agonizing and beating myself up for being so insensitive, maybe having pushed things too far with a "harmless joke," maybe they wouldn't think it was funny, maybe I'd offend them, like I did last time. I felt so nauseous.
But they only laughed and took it in stride. All that second-guessing and ulcer-inducing panic for naught. They knew what kind of person I was, and what I meant by what I said or did. And I saw what kind of quivering creature I'd become. Actually that's a little intense. I mean I just saw what this had done to me, and that maybe it wasn't worth it anymore, and I could move on. I mean, I did move on, but.. move on some more. Maybe completely.
I'd been harboring the thought that perhaps I deserved all this, that my actions warranted such a harsh response. I thought her response had some validity-- I mean, if someone feels a certain way, it must mean something, right? Well, she might have the prerogative to live her life however she wants with whoever she wants around her. But I don't think I deserve to be treated this way, or treat myself this way anymore.
SO in conclusion, hello, goodbye, it was good while it lasted, I love myself, whatever whatever whatever, I am going to fail this damn midterm.
This song is making me way emo.
More being cryptic.
I was chatting with some friends. Not about this particular situation, but I made some offhand comment without really thinking about it. I spent the next few minutes internally agonizing and beating myself up for being so insensitive, maybe having pushed things too far with a "harmless joke," maybe they wouldn't think it was funny, maybe I'd offend them, like I did last time. I felt so nauseous.
But they only laughed and took it in stride. All that second-guessing and ulcer-inducing panic for naught. They knew what kind of person I was, and what I meant by what I said or did. And I saw what kind of quivering creature I'd become. Actually that's a little intense. I mean I just saw what this had done to me, and that maybe it wasn't worth it anymore, and I could move on. I mean, I did move on, but.. move on some more. Maybe completely.
I'd been harboring the thought that perhaps I deserved all this, that my actions warranted such a harsh response. I thought her response had some validity-- I mean, if someone feels a certain way, it must mean something, right? Well, she might have the prerogative to live her life however she wants with whoever she wants around her. But I don't think I deserve to be treated this way, or treat myself this way anymore.
SO in conclusion, hello, goodbye, it was good while it lasted, I love myself, whatever whatever whatever, I am going to fail this damn midterm.
This song is making me way emo.
Monday, October 13, 2008
Betrayal
At around 5 this morning I was diligently typing away at my take-home midterm for Intersections when I decided to save my progress so far, because saving periodically is a good habit to get into. However, it being 5am, a time which my reflexes and coordination are not in peak condition, instead of hitting Ctrl+S I hit something else instead and turned my .doc file into a .tmp file.
This temp file then disappeared and became a hidden file, which I could not open because "I didn't have access to it." In a panic/rage I IMed Vivian (my new hero) to ask for help. Apparently the file was still open somewhere, somehow, so after much deliberation I rebooted my computer, thus killing whatever application was holding it open, and was able to reaccess my file and resave it into a non-temp/hidden file. I still have no idea what I did to cause this to happen.
So I didn't have to rewrite it after all, which is good. I went to bed at around 6am. My typing speed is still not up to par. I am also having trouble aiming my fingers at the keys I want them to go to. I have a lot of work to do still and I am behind schedule, but I am not panicking yet. Technology has finally betrayed me and reared its ugly, dark side. I wonder how long I have been blind to this evil and if it is too late to escape.
(Actually, it was my fault to begin with, with my clumsiness due to lack of sleep. Or am I just putting the blame on myself because I am a victim? At any rate, yes, it is too late.)
This temp file then disappeared and became a hidden file, which I could not open because "I didn't have access to it." In a panic/rage I IMed Vivian (my new hero) to ask for help. Apparently the file was still open somewhere, somehow, so after much deliberation I rebooted my computer, thus killing whatever application was holding it open, and was able to reaccess my file and resave it into a non-temp/hidden file. I still have no idea what I did to cause this to happen.
So I didn't have to rewrite it after all, which is good. I went to bed at around 6am. My typing speed is still not up to par. I am also having trouble aiming my fingers at the keys I want them to go to. I have a lot of work to do still and I am behind schedule, but I am not panicking yet. Technology has finally betrayed me and reared its ugly, dark side. I wonder how long I have been blind to this evil and if it is too late to escape.
(Actually, it was my fault to begin with, with my clumsiness due to lack of sleep. Or am I just putting the blame on myself because I am a victim? At any rate, yes, it is too late.)
Friday, October 10, 2008
queers and cops
Last night Shades went to the Christopher Street Piers, a historical hangout for queer youth of color. It used to be pretty shitty and dirty and gross, but the drag scene was awesome. Now there are no more drag houses, drag competitions, or balls, and the piers have been renovated and beautified and gentrified. It looks nice.
It's meant for rich white people in their high rise nice condos they're building for them along the water.
Cops are harrassing the youths hanging out there and making them leave, and since many of these youths are homeless, they have no safe public space to go to anymore. Anyway, we went and mingled with some queer youth there. I met this really gregarious Southern black boi and his "What's the T?"s and "Girl, she's gonna read me"s were adorable. And we brought mocktails (and alcohol, but we hid that) and were drinking them, when this--it wasn't even a cop, it was a park patrol person, who came by in an intimidating jeep, drove by us slowly on the pier where we were sitting on the ground in a circle just talking. He kept shining a flashlight at us and not saying anything, just silent and watching. It was annoying and retarded. Finally he left after we just ignored him for a while. Anyway it was lame. There are less and less public spaces for the marginalized to congregate. Although Southern boi pointed out that it didn't really matter, because you could look on the bright side; for every one place they close off from us there are three more you can go to. I agree :) I mean, it might be sad that historical places are being cut off from public access, but you could always adapt, right?
Sooo I got back at 1am and slept much later and still managed to drag myself to work this morning. Now to study for midterms. And by study I mean read a textbook I haven't opened since it came in the mail.
It's meant for rich white people in their high rise nice condos they're building for them along the water.
Cops are harrassing the youths hanging out there and making them leave, and since many of these youths are homeless, they have no safe public space to go to anymore. Anyway, we went and mingled with some queer youth there. I met this really gregarious Southern black boi and his "What's the T?"s and "Girl, she's gonna read me"s were adorable. And we brought mocktails (and alcohol, but we hid that) and were drinking them, when this--it wasn't even a cop, it was a park patrol person, who came by in an intimidating jeep, drove by us slowly on the pier where we were sitting on the ground in a circle just talking. He kept shining a flashlight at us and not saying anything, just silent and watching. It was annoying and retarded. Finally he left after we just ignored him for a while. Anyway it was lame. There are less and less public spaces for the marginalized to congregate. Although Southern boi pointed out that it didn't really matter, because you could look on the bright side; for every one place they close off from us there are three more you can go to. I agree :) I mean, it might be sad that historical places are being cut off from public access, but you could always adapt, right?
Sooo I got back at 1am and slept much later and still managed to drag myself to work this morning. Now to study for midterms. And by study I mean read a textbook I haven't opened since it came in the mail.
Tuesday, October 7, 2008
Just sayin'
http://arbroath.blogspot.com/2008/10/homosexuals-should-carry-warning.html
HAHAHAHAHA "FELLATIO KILLS" HAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHA Why?
HAHAHAHAHA "FELLATIO KILLS" HAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHA Why?
Saturday, October 4, 2008
Restless
I've been itching for change these days, although this has been going on for some time--I'd say a few years.
This has nothing to do with politics.
No, I am talking about hair.
I'm actually okay with the style I have now. It's just getting long and I don't think I can get it cut until Thanksgiving-ish.
I am slowly getting used to the fact that any haircut I get, no matter how Western I think it is, is just going to end up looking asian on me. That said, fuck it; watch me morph into an anime character!
ANYWAY, right now I like Zack from FF7:
My hair is not long enough for the second one and I don't think I have the patience to grow it out. :( dilemma!
I don't know if I can wake up early enough before class to apply that much wax though :-\
This has nothing to do with politics.
No, I am talking about hair.
I'm actually okay with the style I have now. It's just getting long and I don't think I can get it cut until Thanksgiving-ish.
I am slowly getting used to the fact that any haircut I get, no matter how Western I think it is, is just going to end up looking asian on me. That said, fuck it; watch me morph into an anime character!
ANYWAY, right now I like Zack from FF7:
My hair is not long enough for the second one and I don't think I have the patience to grow it out. :( dilemma!
I don't know if I can wake up early enough before class to apply that much wax though :-\
Thursday, October 2, 2008
Amazing
Let me preface this by saying I find politics tiresome and pointless. However, since this is how the world works, I am not going to rebel out of some equally useless grand principle and not vote. I will vote. I will play the game, damn it.
Anyway, I just got back from watching the VP Debates and I would like to share with you some of my favorite Sarah Palin snippets from the program:
"They hate America because of our freedoms!"
"Nucular"
"O'Biden"
"Hockey/Soccer moms"
And my favorite of all time, because I am apparently a 13 year old boy:
"Senator McCain has tapped me.."
On a more serious note (not that this isn't all serious, as in seriously terrifying), fuck you, Sarah Palin, and your "tolerating adults who choose to live their lives with partners of whomever they choose". How condescending. You don't "tolerate" me. You embrace me or you get the fuck out of my way and mind your own business.
Anyway, I just got back from watching the VP Debates and I would like to share with you some of my favorite Sarah Palin snippets from the program:
"They hate America because of our freedoms!"
"Nucular"
"O'Biden"
"Hockey/Soccer moms"
And my favorite of all time, because I am apparently a 13 year old boy:
"Senator McCain has tapped me.."
On a more serious note (not that this isn't all serious, as in seriously terrifying), fuck you, Sarah Palin, and your "tolerating adults who choose to live their lives with partners of whomever they choose". How condescending. You don't "tolerate" me. You embrace me or you get the fuck out of my way and mind your own business.
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