Member Poem

1. Water

Locked away inside me, I wonder how it is
That memories float to the top with waves,
Onto shores, half - buried and becoming
Like time measures against the clock.

My mind,
An empty void of
Blank pages on a dream book that recalls...
Stormy rams, monsoon
Through a woven grass window.

Burnt roses turn to soot after water drowns the fire
And now nightfall as I lie awake. Following endless
Clouds smoking across the glass moon.
Cooked stones in the oven warm our bare feet
While we drift closer to the spirit world. To ancestors
Through the crackling roof and metallic crumbling.
Their ritual dust of rose petals withering fading away

Nothing,

Only distant chanting of the Sutra.

2. Moon

My father shirtless in pants, forn at the knees,
Praying, grips his dark thighs as he carries me
On giant shoulders. Or is it a dream? I'm not sure,
But I rest in the shade of leaves, Staring into the bird's eye
At the center of that sacred fig. Under the evening
Humidity. We climb over barbed wire and sneak
Pass machine gun nests surrounding this land of sugar palms.
My lips rouge when I bite my teeth. Tasting dew
As sweet as honey - suckle at dusk, smell of candied
Plums skewered on bamboo picks.

High above the stagnant forest, the same star - filled
Sky grows silent on the now placid waters, flickering
Through the low blanket of feathery white fog as I
Stare down the sky turning from dark to morning
Blue. Behind my face, the starlight - dwindies
Like flames of blown out candles I will never light again.
***