girl without pearl earrings

Now that the museum’s off to the public, I can finally take off this ridiculous exotic dress, this heavy oriental turban, and take a break from being up against the wall since I’ve made cover girl. I suppose I reproduce well against the light, particularly good at tolerating gawking eyes in multiple ways. Fame keeps me from turning into a harridan but it takes away my mystique. Am I about to be ravished? The russet low-key stare fares a pre-coitus glow. Why the liquid eyes? Insect pigment has a lip plumping effect? Why the impossible earrings? Vanity clit with a spare? Eyebrowless and bottomless? 

Unanswered threads, a net of burlesque. Security alarm punctured through left earlobe, bubble gum popping face, onion with pearl earrings, cat with pearl earrings, Barbie with pearl earrings, penis with pearl earrings. Tongue curl, nonchalant camouflage, crude flesh to luminous soul, setting the modesty slash purity portrait in place. 

from She, Self-Winding

---

the bindi escape

an ordinary girl with perfect features and a living deity 
caught between the nearly-broken zipper of time
of trammeled drapery of tradition
poached red beams and freshly-squeezed morning noises
pouring out towards the streets
hasty footsteps moving the alleyways forwards
the altar’s loitering in the still-tired square
beside sleepy fences of sanctified tourist postcards

a living deity’s forbidden to count her own steps
converse with her ideas
stir her body, with hands or mind, instinctively or intentionally
nor toy with the conceivable outcome of wandering matters:
making silver bullets pass through ash-thin petals,
leading a lost compass back on its track with a string of questions 
resurrecting timeworn earth with a punctured shovel
cracking open an urn with will
picking thorns out of glassy eyes
the pinpoint of apologies

she is to sit
within silence’s watchful reach
practice alogia
the plasma will flow in due course

12 days of purifying in isolation
she wipes the red sun 
belated dreams off her charcoal-rimmed eyes
the spirit vacates the body
light escaping between her remoistenable thighs

two entities lie languidly
in the corona of midnight innocence
making bolts out of peepal with burgeoning tongues

the bindi’s making a scandalous cross
towards freedom

from M of December

---

the forty eight hour pill

Lưu Diệu Vân

Catastrophe strikes at one A.M.
F sharp forms a split chord
sleep conjoins anguish
regrets burrow in twisted beddings
the clinic opens at 9 AM sharp
undoubtedly
a damned destiny
a well-calculated probability
the ovaries
desperate to escape
the pandemonium attack
inducementfrom the outside world
disgorges inside
exhausted sperms
lethargic toward the end
an anti-climactic finale
doesn’t guarantee a victor
in the tearing darkness
you couldn’t have seen my blood trickles
from its crimson membrane
voiceless
infertile
sobs
daylight has yet to awaken
but the night-dews are depleted

the emergency pill
effectiveness of a mere forty eight hours
too much time is left
to baby-walk indecision

{from Poems of Lưu Diệu Vân, Lưu Mêlan, Nhã Thuyên, Vagabond Press, 2013}

{artwork: Quan Steele}

---

at 11 Ramie St.

I feel myself through the icterus backalleys of 2000 years of rented heritage
where people see politeness as an act of compromising residual dignity
a loud speaker overlooking a giant altar overlooks you while you overlook the lake
where cordial smiles are a clear sign of emotional defeat
where old men fight political battles on chess boards by holy water with limited field of vision and unprepared consequences
where dirty linen can be cleansed for one dollar per kilo with no permanent remnants
where people devour and pet the same specimens with no longterm complexity issue
where children mount miniature-rifles, ride toy-tanks on ancient streets plastered with ink-fresh banners advocating for peace
worship the preserved giant turtle like dear ancestors
charade a legend of refurbished independence-liberty-happiness
I flip the cement pages of virtue teachings
pose like a true tourist in her homeland
receive the freedom reserved for an outsider
and pretend to understand the suffocation of an insider
when handling out dollar bills to street beggars
the exchange rate of a devalued country proves too costly for most

there, in secret, rough ramies are being weaved into smooth fabric of life

{from Poems of Lưu Diệu Vân, Lưu Mêlan, Nhã Thuyên, Vagabond Press, 2013}

{artwork: Quan Steele}

---

time-killers for poets

if not well-versed in the art of poetry
do keep at it
until the day
you dare to mince the best pages from the manuscript
mould the confetti into bite-size bouillons of contention
discard the flavorless ones
serve the rest to the most demanding critic
the now fully-nourished poet

*
when a poem tosses and turns
it becomes lopsided

when a poem sleeps too much
it becomes self-absorbed

when a poem suffers from insomnia
it becomes interminable

*

stir the soul using a bamboo matcha whisk
add a touch of high-quality condiment of choice
contemplation, recollection, acceptance, denial, etc.
pour directly into a poem
drink up to the very last word
this concoction helps treat many emotion-borne diseases

*
ask a poem to a bar
leave it alone
sit at a distant table
watch its every move
while intoxicated
take another poem home

a must-try technique for injecting some real emotion and rage into an indifferent poem

*

undress a poem
locate all the moles, scars, aging spots
trace a map out of the imperfections with fingers doused in sunray
do it often, tenderly
until the poem feels comfortable in its own skin
to begin questioning every inch of its stripped rhythmical existence
for all consciousness begin with consciousness about
Paradigm
Of
Existence
Mayhem

*

take the seed of a rare brainchild
break the irrigous logic soil,
plant it deep in a vacuous space of pluvial solitude
watch it grow into a poem
if it doesn’t
there was no life to begin with

*
don’t keep crying over miscarried poems
surely, one day, another of your own nucleus will reach for the light
respond to the signal of life
misshapen fontanels
bluish and creased
covered in lanugos
yet perfect on your newborn thoughtprint page
*

a good poem,
itself, is a perpetual time killer
for poets

{from Poems of Lưu Diệu Vân, Lưu Mêlan, Nhã Thuyên, Vagabond Press, 2013}

{artwork: Quan Steele}