I am no poet.

Im useless, to conceive a limerick or song,

my pencil mushed, no weaving sonnets
of lovers long gone.
I know nothing of the cool swirls blues
that brush big brothers toes
nor the captive white stillness
of the snow laden schoolyard
just past the curved dead-end road.
There is little I see
of the sweet ecstasy of well-earned exhaustion
of the dirt dimpling hilled kneecaps and arched bunions
on hazy Sunday evening frolics in the fat of August.
I dont know the silvery ribbons
that slide fast and slow
that weave in and out
that cream amid my hair.
Or the iotas of mischief
that climb up the roofs
of my eyes, stirring trouble past midnight.
But I can sing to my fish
and hang upside down for hours.
And I can paste feathers
on my forearms
close my eyes
and fall
backwards.
But I sure aint a poet.
Carpet
Stairs.
Padded by the soft churned patterns,
lazy linings of Egyptian eyeballs and swollen horseshoes.
My feet, bare and slightly cold,
knew the indents and mounds of the old familiar carpet
like a blind man, weathered by age and pain, still
remembers the curves of his first love.
Up up you go. Turn left. Walk forward.
Stand straight, smile big, and hug her
with all your might.
Its okay, Minji. Shes still the same person.

This is a maybe, if
we are required to
have 3 poems. It
will be the first
poem to be
dropped.

The scratched gold knob groaned

cursed
and with rusty reluctance
let me pass through.
I plastered on my best smile
let my lips push my cheeks and hold up my face from sinking.
I drew a pail of courage from the shallow wells of my sixteen-year-old soul.
Then it came.
Whispering into the cracks of my crooked lips.
Conquering the soft caves of my nostrils.
There it took sweet refuge,
trailing its putrid petals,
and wandering up to reach the buds of my foggy eyes.
I swallowed. Gulped. Tried to retrieve my smile but my muscles had lost all memory.
Her frame
skeletal
swallowed whole by the bloated sea
of comforters, stamped by speckled pink flowers.
Her eyes
bulged
After the Fall
big and hollow
lifted tenderly to me and locked on my face.
The soft caresses of petals entwined,
Blushed cheeks of a babys first fitful cry.
Her sockets stared.
The spoils of youth, as moons roll behind
Sucked back to the earth with a curse and
I looked down to see the strokes of pain and
low sigh.
shame
Why do lost, lonely leaves pluck off and fall
painted on my blurred toes.
As the living cast loved one in boats, down
Toes that tugged on the carpet,
Rivers they gleam, hearing the masters
still tinged that perfect shade of
call.
burnt caramel and pumpkin spice lipstick.
Mourners say, what a pal; talk of the town
For a day is his lasting legacy.
Carpet that we had sat cross-legged, feeding
Then they work. Slave away. For two weeks
each other
play.
sun-smooched persimmons
Minds bathe in lucid dreams, a fallacy
we plucked from the backyard branches.
That their eyes ablaze at each sunrises ray.
Carpet that we littered,
If only they kissed the silence and prayed,
with twisted ribbons and shreds of wrapping
The torn veil of sky would fall where they
paper
laid.
under the tree that twirled round and round
and sang like an elevator from the eighties.
Carpet that I had floated down to sleep,
on a pillow that stroked my hair
with the quietest brush of tenderness.
Carpet,
that I imagined growing up my body
planting me in the nectar of its memories
and taking me down to the very beginning.