re-working of an oft written piece

as a child
feeling safest when alone

yesterday wondering
(as often)
how life became so
beautiful
after having only been
afraid

growing up
seemed this
distant thing
so far from reach.
belonging an
impossibility.

the darkness of no longer wishing to live
those days of succumbing to that wish
but still waking

(sometimes all of this
seems like a dream
from another version
of living)

daily wondering now
if it wasnt this now
and that then
keeping
breath from leaving
allowing time to age
and all this
now
beauty to be known.

and everything
that seemed like the heart
could never contain
the heart now overflows with
ready.
letting go the control
because there is no
thing
to
control
no future to
predict
just now.

yesterday
so much
joy.
so much perfection.
even the lazy exhaustion of
yesterday's pleasures
perfect in its own way.

and wondering
as often

how did
she
go from that
lonely child in the schoolyard
to this
she
living life
in the pivot point
of
exceeding
breathtaking
annunciated
joys?
-- where
no one walks away
only just comes towards
as she runs towards
and where

i...
need never
stand alone
even when in the silence of home
typing on a
screen...

its everywhere
this beauty
sliding backwards
beside that lonely child
whispering
"its going to be more than just ok
its going to be
better each and every day."

each day a mask falls
each day the playground
no longer
unfriendly
nor
friendless.

oh how great his
"imagine!"
speaks.


kim thompson. 19.33 sunday 17 dec '11 seoul. s. korea.

the russian

the guy behind the counter is russian, unless he is lying, but he is tall and pale, looks like one, talks a bunch of shit. obviously the prick is a moron with his fucked up glasses and snow white skin. the dickhead is polite enough to avoid a drive-by, but he just won't shut his arse from which shit keeps pouring as if he in an instant went from a year of constipation to sudden diarrhea seeing an oriental for the second time in his life. aroused or repulsed? hopefully neither, but being a nincompoopeatingcocksucker his prescription of the oriental is complete:

"you asians all look so young it's disgusting"

MN oriental

whitey is tall and weird, misplaced between two worlds.
he studies korean, for what?    why not?
anything is better than pure snow.

the baldness of this country makes corn seem more yellow
and the craving for rice expensive and ridiculous.

this is a house of starvation, exploitation and subtle violence,
its universe hungry for pie and nobody questions its lack of colour.

there is a need for more amerasians and miscegenation
to sell over the counter, in this state

oriental with oriental equals authentic oriental
but oriental with white equals adoptee or bride.

contemplations on growing up ugly... an essay of sorts

*based on recent conversations that keep coming up on how we grew up and where we grew up and who we grew up around and what we were taught to believe to be "beautiful"

---

our exceeding obvious
lack of
blonde hair
blue eyes
and white skin
being an all self perception shaper

"you could be a model for benetton" j.s. said ... this being at the time when benetton was going through a period of putting what we all considered to be highly unattractive people on their posters... this being after she had assigned vogue, gap, the banana republic, and 17 magazine to everyone else on her private my dad's a lawyer party bus for jr highers... magazines and stores that we all considered to be the creme de la creme of beauty... (we were afterall 13 or 14)

exceedingly clear to many of us
that
due to lack of dates in jr high and highschool
the only thing we were good for was
being the "asian friend" or some kind of forbidden exotic fruit

"you know you asian girls have really tight p*ssies" was c.s's idea of a compliment ... and as the student council president he "bequeathed" this statement as some kind of boon from his elevated status.

for many of us growing up where we did
as we did
we accepted "being ugly" at a very early age
without any sense of drama
it was like accepting
that the color of the sky is what it is.

"t.d. likes a chineeeessseeee... but you say she's just a friend but you say she's just a friend... oh baby you... you got what i need... t.d. likes a chineeesssseeee..." was the response that was sung at t.d.'s school upon his stating that he would be taking his best friend k.t. to his jr. sr. banquet. (christian schools dont do proms they do banquets... another story for another time)

exceedingly clear that if we were
just
blonde
blue eyed
white skinned with a tan
maybe we wouldn't actually be so ugly...
but never really needing anyone to tell us this was not the case
because well
we just knew it was.
suspecting that the only other option our ugly selves would have would be to become the school slut...
or to hedge our bets on others wearing beer goggles...
the highest compliment back then being the standard staple of
"so you know karate? you related to bruce lee?"

"i know karate. so if you dont leave my friends alone i will...... HI-YA!" 6 year old version of k.t. threatening a bully at church... it worked... k.t. was small and didn't even really know what karate was except that you said "hi-ya" a lot

many of us growing up in the kinds of towns, villages, or suburbs
where the homecoming court mainly consisted of
white girls
with good tans
we'd accepted we'd be voting from the sidelines from a very young age.

"like ohhh my gawddd you are like soooo popular and beautiful and nice of course you'll be queen" we squealed to the white girl with the really good tan and long line of boys queuing up to date her...

... exceedingly clear that our "ugliness" was not so much a defect
but a fact
and so we probably would one day end up marrying some white guy that we met in college
a white guy who had a thing for asian girls...
so we were free to worry about other things like
where we'd go to school
and what kind of job we wanted
as our looks were not going to be getting us anywhere
and some of us weren't inclined to being the school slut
and those who were never got a sense of being beautiful from it...

so
we have these conversations now from time to time...
adults... in our 30s
having had it only recently if at all begin to dawn on us that
maybe we aren't ugly
that maybe we never were ugly
but that we still see ugly or nothing in the mirror
and
like everything else about our stories
we cant go back and put ourselves back together
and tell our past selves
"ermm listen youre not actually ugly you know."

whether or not knowing this... would have changed anything for us
we speculate on...
some of us may have been a little less... "easy"
others of us may have been a little more... "easy"

the good side being (if there is one) is that none of us tend to fish for compliments when it comes to looks due to having accepted so long ago that there were no compliments to fish for.
so no matter the bravado we pretend
many of us still feeling
just like that duckling
startled to see a swan
staring back
and still living like ducklings.

but the fact that many of us
have finally begun to move into the idea that
beauty really isnt determined by
having
blonde hair
blue eyes
and white skin
with a good tan...
is a step in the swan's direction

and for today
that step
is
enough.

one day perhaps
we shall be able to
trumpet proudly as swans
but even if not
at least we're finally getting that
maybe
we
werent ugly all those years.


kim thompson. posted 15 dec '11 thurs 12.08 written 14 dec. wed. seoul. s. korea

3 years... ruminating pt 1 of many

this feathered thing
re-tracing
the lines in (my) palms
(what is this new story
"i" am creating?)

in one sliding of a door
in one letting out of light
all lines re-drawn
a heart returned
from beneath the grapefruit tree it
had
been unearthed from
(florida a long ago
k-mart aged photograph
to recall)
(this here now
reality)

but this is not an
"ever after"
story
never forgetting the 98% still
digging
for what has always
been
rightfully
theirs

this feathering
giving wings
but also stripped/plucked
from the wings of others

when everything that is
coexists at once
and all the other of the everythings
knocking at the door.

id like to put the milk
back into its container
id like to put mother goose's wall fallen egg
back together again

instead i eat this rotted sulfur of a scramble
because there is restoration
in the fermenting of time

today
i stand
walk
full of wonder
with a heart so full
of 19.30 on a saturday

there are so many ghosts
spirits
here
they stand behind
and
beside
and my own self
just inches from the mid-space
between my forehead and my heart

they come out from the han
they rise up from the sea
they fly down the mountains
hanging overhead.

the moth became a guide
the guide she is a moth.
she leads (me) by the wrist...

there can be no
smooth connect in this...
the words
are too strewn by years

but there can be
joy
in amidst this ocean of milk
spilled out
all around

every 200
thousand
plus
of
us.



kim thompson. 13.53 tuesday 13 dec. 2012. seoul. s. korea.

Whorestaurant

A meal is best served with clothes on.
Sometimes skin offends the eye,
Dragging appetite down to the docks.

Nausea comes dressed to the nines,
Bulging from inconvenient places
And mini skirts aren't for everyone.

Untimely nakedness of skin
Turns the stomach into a maelstrom,
Opposing that which should have been

A delikatesse.

after reading poetry posted

we move so close
remain so far
like a gangly limbed blue muppet
racing to and from a screen
"nearrrrrr"
"farrrrr"
hit.
send.
repeat.

(it is not an ocean
it is not a land
it is...
a space unnamed)

having stood on the stones
that have been calling out for
26 years
built dynasties before becoming
(or maybe we too carved them
our reward to see them in a more luxurious life)
the past present and future all
collided in the blue
sending out
flashes of light
and a visage in the sky
all the way back and all the way forward
hitting right into the exact present
which is now
past
still happening.

time being a conundrum
time exceeding hands...
perhaps... it has already happened
this thing that has not.
perhaps... it too
just waits hanging in the blue of above...
appearing only in the after.
like a star that died long ago
but only now from the edges of this black hole
do we see it.

whether we race towards or from
whether we stand cocoon still -- not moving even (one) wing
still time flutters
still time moves
still time cannot be
stilled.

and the muppet running madly
near then far
far then near
repeating
hit.
send.
arms flailing
does it really matter?
does it change a thing?

and yet
and yet
as issa wrote

... and yet...

opening rumi's window after last night's moon

each eve
letting winter's light in.

hitting send.
repeat.

and the muppet sleeps
so
peacefully
upon stones smoothed by hard fought battles
whose losses and winnings
spun today into as it is.
relieved of
controlling hands.


kim thompson. seoul. s. korea. 22.10 on 11 dec 11 sunday