Preface:

In an attempt to exercise my craft, I have been writing daily. I have further challenged myself to sharpen my discipline by writing a single poem each day. The outcome of this exercise is the following poems. These poems are held by common themes – a sense of caution and lessons detailing our daily lives. These poems also share the connections between individuals and quotidian objects. They reveal the struggle in defining things and the difficulty in finding language to explain. This project has evolved into a series of many poems reflecting my interactions with the world and how they shape my relationship to them – whether they are inanimate objects or other people. Furthermore, these relationships have shaped my language and view of the world. While cautious in tone, these poems were borne out of a need to write without fear. These poems express in words, what is sometimes abstract, intangible, and, in some instances, unspeakable. Enjoy!

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conversation between air and pedal

You force the air in and the door is free standing. You say come one and all. These days nothing has a smell only the blank look and the eyes in fury. I come after names and each foot becomes increased backwards as you and I are doing this talking. Free standing and farther and farther is where we are headed. You are the black and white photo that each of us hides in. You are amongst the empty cans: the bedrooms in this house, the space without the room, the hour on the hand. I come after names and each one name follows another. You are the back pedal and the bead. I come after each name, and each one is like the whole or the grain in a cup. You are the red in the painting, crimson like the flag of China. You are cherries on cement. You are seeds eaten by birds. Each one is being brought back to weeds and worms. I come after names and each one is mistaken for the weeds and the weeks in the months ahead. You force it all in and you say that soon the ones in gray will be calling. You force the air in and the pedals are running back. O, I wish it would all run back.

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conversation with cement and glass

You are the process space takes. You are blue ink and table. You are everything made of cement, steel, and glass. You are the broken and out of the broken come you, come frame, come the brand new. You are a building of every room. You are every window has a view of cityscape and river. Today this river seems so new to me. You are everything new to me. You are the stone masonry and everything that we are gathering. You write the light and become fascinated by what is natural and sunlight. You are unlike oatmeal in the morning. You are bright walls. You grow your own vegetables and share them with others. You recommend concrete and brick and natural glass. You are glass. In this city, you welcome objects of light and you know that the earth is worth it. You begin and you find the salt and the wood. You are not about memory but you proclaim that the wood is pure. You recommend all things with light and smoke. I will bring the inch of fire and afterwards you can bring the inch of olive oil and season. You are steel and everything efficient. I am walking to you. I am toasting you.

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conversation with the boulevard

You are what we are gathering. You avoid the poison ivy and you welcome in the wild. You welcome the mushrooms and the writhing worms. You are unlike the dead earth. You grow fingers and point to us. You always say, come close. Tomorrow, you may welcome the salt and the wood. But today, you bring up all the empty contracts and you place our name on the line. The warm earth is you and you are in many ways the primary, the flavors, the rendition. It is not the light or the steaming white rice in a bowl on the table that brings the multitudes together. Not today. Instead the advisors introduce the distance and they bring in the poplars and their magic. I have walked around you in every occasion. I have brought people to your destination because you are in many ways the source. We want this to be the bringing forth of voice and the meeting point. We want this place to flourish and grow. Will you feed us?

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conversation with the deep-sea diver

Each one thing is against me today. The mirror is against the surface and the light is against the aluminum sheet randomly sitting in the garage. Today your heart is heavy. Too much coffee in the brain and everything between these ten days pass eventually like an individual decade. It seems that the dark and the waves crashing beneath deep-sea discoveries become like wanderings against the shore. All around the edges become like underwater salted sounds made up of muscles and barren seabeds, barren and everything else becomes the source. Each one thing is against the paper today and even the water becomes blurred, becomes blurred clouds, like steam rising above something else. Breathe this oxygen. Breathe these two hundred years. Breathe in a minute and then breathe in three hundred through each lung. Breathe the source. Breath all the exploitation of all that is and everything that is becoming years and sounds. Deep in the ocean floor is a fish. Deep in the ocean is something crawling and then something becoming something else.

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conversation with this hidden crevice

You are a hidden crevice, hidden like a slant of light. You are funny without any meaning and without latitude. You remain and glare at the light. Your picture is without frame. You are a music note in pause. What should we get for her? The leaves outside are like a wave. In the distance a cat is tearing apart a dead alley mouse. Blue in the background almost calms the steam. Give her wine or perhaps an empty tin or a copper key. You are the line under the frame. You are the tongue in between an opening. You are closing in and perhaps it is a way to keep the flowers from laughing. You are a hidden crevice. You are a house filled with the scent of homemade meals and a pocket full of dust. You are a list of vegetables. I keep reading you and I keep hoping that the safety pins will turn around and recite names of absence, names of light. You are a hidden crevice and empty white light.

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conversation between the two rooms

You are the soft sound between two rooms. Something is floating near the windows. You are everything in writing. You are the tree and the broken glass at night. I hear rumbling in the basement while clothes turn in a dryer. You are the things in between this marriage: the old nightstand and a letter buried in a bag. Somewhere someday the dirt will have order and the noises in the landscape will no longer call to me. You said that the bottles steer you in every direction but you also mentioned that what is behind the explanation has everything to do with recognition and the running dial. You mentioned the ceilings and their length. And these days you and I only think of duck duck duck. You are the second night. You are somewhere between dividing two mountains. You say the world runs and everywhere the tables turn.