something

(i) am nestled in something
i know not what
(i) am seething in something
i know not what
(i) am brewing in something
i know not what

only that it is
something.

something
that one day
- but not today
- and probably not tomorrow
- and probably not the day after
that i will
be able
to name/define/express

love does not make me
silent
love makes me
voluminous

- but even love -
cannot name this
"something" for me.

only time.
only time.
only
the
right
time.

and as snow falls for the 6th december here
i only know
that this
something

it is
very

much

a lot.

kim thompson. seoul, s. korea. written on a wed. posted on a thursday 6 dec. 2012

I Believe In Harry Holt Too (Two)

The revised version is actually hanging out in 2011. Below is the original draft. 

Somewhere across the ocean,

a woman with my eyes looks at her ruined body every morning

and remembers me,

wonders what might have been

now that it is 2011 and the world is a different place than 1986.

Maybe her heart rips in half again

as she goes to work in a factory somewhere.

Somewhere across the ocean,

a man with my jawline frowns at his monthly wage

(less than I make in a week)

and remembers me,

wonders if I have his jawline

or what the woman with my eyes is doing now

before swallowing his failure like drunken sick

and clocking into a factory somewhere.

Yesterday, I bought a teddy bear for my friend’s kid

because the tag said “made in Korea”

and somehow, that made me feel like it could be less store-bought--

some connection to whoever was sewing it together

in a factory across the ocean.

I doubt he’ll remember who gave it to him.

On Not Writing Enough Lately

On Not Writing Enough Lately

I drink too much. 

I’m losing weight, I don’t look well. 

A fleeting quip about going from jaundiced to Jon dust makes me
smile in the mirror and

I am alone with my recycling--with the bottles that stack up on shelves like books

Each with 750-1000ml of whispered prayers, swallowed regret,
every murmur in between

I hope will reach across an ocean, translate into a language I don’t speak.

There’s no wind today. 

If I exhale hard enough, I can send these gallons of messages across the waves

to a familiar foreign shore where the ghost of a childless woman wanders, waiting.

If I drink enough,

waste away enough,

I can fold her shadow into mine and

tell her I'm sorry for not writing sooner.

certain things

* soundtrack for reading: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A4K2VTLZ7qc&feature=relmfu

certain things delight...
like
the moon
in the middle of the day
and
flowers growing
in the shade.
like
green growing from within
desolate-seeming
narrow
alleyways
and then there is
the smell of books
years forgotten
stacked to the first floor
from underneath the
earth.

in a place like this
the stars at night are few
thanks to modern urbanity
and humanity's fear of the dark
but still
if you look up
you can hear them
glistening
out beyond
the sound of green, orange, blue
buses.

in a place like this
where ahjushis spit
and ahjumas shove
silence can seem so impossible
but there is always space
to sit
and listen only
to the hum
of an aircon motor
and the sounds of
tires brushing against
black pot-holed streets.

in a place like this
where some days the smell of sewers hits
you can begin to believe there is nothing left
to take in
until
you smell the bread
baking just around the corner
that all the wafting of fermented cabbage in the world
cannot conquer.

in a place like this
where white pursues yellow
and yellow does everything to
make its skin look more white
than even they
you can forget
that there is something left to
pursue
and
when your phone rings
and you just
you just cant have the same conversation youve been having
for more than 3 years
a conversation you once said youd give your entire life up for
just to have one time
and now you have
given it all up
and cant have that conversation anymore...
you can forget
why it is you ever chose to return
...
until you walk outside one night
or day
and see small patches of green still growing
a garden of 호박 growing from a 무당 집
and you remember
that no
good thing
ever
truly
dies
only
re-plants itself
and
when your phone is finally silent
and you dont have to watch white
pursue yellow
and you just let the smell of
bread
and
cabbage
and
sewers
be
...
and watch the harmony
of moon in the day
and flowers in the shade

you remember
all these certain things
for
why it is
you stayed.

 - kim thompson. seoul. s. korea. some weeks ago in early august 2012

STARE AT THE SUN

What happens
when you stare
at the sun,

when your
arrogant heart
points too high
and the burn
is not enough
to deter you?

Well I like it hot,
here with my eyeballs
on my sleeve
and a darkness
I mistake
for light.

You with
your song-
filled skin
and my
bed an
empty
measure, I
reach for
you with
quarter note
hands
and singed
eyebrows.

Tell me a story,
let it be about

your shoulders
warm between
my teeth,
let it be about

your matchstick
chin against my
kindled rib cage,
let it build

around a zipper
and let me take
it down, notch
by silver notch.

What happens
when you stare
at the sun,
when you lie

in bed with
it under the
suffocating moon,
when you tell

it secrets,
thrown corner by
corner into
its hungry
mouth?

Will you burst into solar flames?

or will you
simply flicker?

Liner notes to my life

In honour of this seemingly dying blog... and to make up my absence... a thursday poem on monday ^_^


One road met the other, and silently they lie across each other, like two people whose love for each other had soured, refusing to say a word, not even a song...

At crossroads, what better place to write the liner notes to life?

If my life was an album, I wonder, which tracks would it have. What people would feature as artists, and would they be friends of mine? or foes... or perhaps a bit of both.

To run away, and lose the road back; to find a road where none existed before. I find myself in Africa (who the fuck knew), passing everywhere, inbetween, incomplete; yet I am whole within my indecision... A bridge from here to there, from two places somewhere on a map, tattooed on my body.

I've harboured healthy addictions to cupcakes, to kisses, and to unrequited love. I've found my demons, and comforted them, told them they shouldn't be scared to lose me, as I moved along in life. Turned the pages, and made silly notes in the margins; witty remarks and slug lines to a script that even I could not have dreamt up for myself; confused, the text was wondering and decided to be a drama that lives like comedy (or is it the other way around?).

There is fear, seductively keeping me inside my comfort zone. Who ever said fear was terrible? it is sweet and delicious, comforting, beyond a mother's touch. It succeeds to cage even my strongest desires, it makes love to my hope and gives birth to fantasies and daydreams... To dream and never reach for it, to never achieve...

How to pick up the thread of life? when you're not sure what kind of life you've led? How to decide? Where to go, down which road best fortune lies? What to say, when the curtains closed on a kiss and the sound of trumpets? When the script has written soundly "the end"? Where to go, from here?

I have feelings and emotions... and I know my song is here... How to give in and lose myself again? To lose myself, and live, again

...

I want to bring someone breakfast on bed, and feed her sweetness from my lips... I want to have Tracy Chapman on repeat in the kitchen and dance to the sound of her voice, fuck it what people 'd say. I want to have hope, for some distant future. I want to eat the icing of cupcakes, and leave the cakes for someone else. I want to live and love, with a smile that refuses to make way for anything. I want to be who I can be, not minding my words... despite the fact that they are too many, and get me in the sort of trouble that too often sours my heart. I want to touch, and enjoy long kisses for lunch. I want to live, live, live, and understand my purpose in life!

there is no such thing

there is no such thing
as a kingdom within

many have preached a fact without knowing
even more have believed without evidence.

the sum of certainty has tainted the cow
and left the owl wildly unsatisfied.

one must be the jester to keep sane
when fire spewing dragons assert
a land within. nonsense joe boo!

obeah is for crazies, magic hokus pokus
for intelligence unvisited.

kingdom of heaven is a euphemism
for idiocy.

writing a poem whilst listening to a poem...

the spit of ahjushis
frozen to the pavement
a permed halmuni kicks a plastic bag
up the one of millions of alley ways
this one being known to me
this one leading to a
hwajangsil...

the shape of their actions
heavy forming
in my mouth
she kicks the space
between tongue
and roof

i dont want to taste his spit
frozen in the pavements of
my mind

turning up my own street
my mind's legs
walk towards the hwajangsil
seeing the things we once
sharpied on the walls
(love notes
no longer valid
inside some illustrated red apple
now crossed out by keys)
(but im speaking of another
hwajangsil
thats further up the street...)

each day
i am making peace
with a past that i cannot
fully see
may never fully know

i am lines of blood
my own red string(s)
i am his spit
her kick
those silly notes of love
scrawled on bathroom walls
throughout this neighborhood

and in each act
of him
and her
and me
i am finding
the return
to
some body-known
beginnings.

born of this soil
born of this river
i am this place
this place
is me.



kim thompson. sun 19 feb. 2012. 15.00 seoul. s. korea

jarred thoughts (for the armerdings)

*per katia's request... for malcom armerding and his mother and his family who loved him...

hand me your tears
drip them into my palms
and i'll dig a riverbed for you
with my feet

we'll burrow
beneath the earth
in the soil of
others regrets
staying warm till spring

youll whisper all your pain
i'll turn them into
poems
for you to float out
into the eastern seas

we'll meet somewhere
mid-pacific
speaking the
specific
walking on water
like we're our own saviours
- unsinkable.

i have this life ive lived
to speak to you
this life ive lived
to finalize in ink

but each day
when night begins
i empty words
out from their jars
spread them out on some
imaginary table
count them up
to see what i can cash

before heading out
to bury all our wishes
beneath
moonlight
to water with
your
tears.

this is how
trees
become
books
and how
words
become
the lives contained
inside these
forests
of the jars of
vocabulary
we collected in the
summer's heat.

i want to tell you
want you to know...

i will keep
your
salt water
safe
in this bottle of
soiled
rooting
verses

until you wake
and see the sun.


kim thompson. 18.33 on friday 17 feb 2012. seoul. s. korea

for you, little brother, that i always wanted

walking through the park at night
looking for the back of your head

the life i may have lived
am living
in another world
(how many times each day
do we pass ourselves
never seeing?
only
wondering
"what if?")

hongik's gate
arching off the sky
"where i wouldve gone"
-- and are you beatboxin' in the park tonight?
-- did we just pass never knowing only both thinking
"umma" ?

are we the chubby cheeked
hand in hand
children running up the street?
(i coulda sworn those were our ghosts when smiling for false memory)

and does our dongsaeng know i went to paris first?
back when she was still dreaming of the day?
(and whose footsteps do i follow?
usually i just say "langston's")

how close are we every night
in the artist's park?
b-boys
round a boombox
how is it that we can be so
related?

here in this land of the ever great river of
"if-han"
i am building bridges to find you
will we ever intersect?
(i carry you in my pockets)
or maybe this bridge is for
my own return to
my own
need for knowing
"then"

... tell me little brother
how long
should i look for your (dreaded) head of hair
in the park of boomboxes and beats?
(we are so related)

and will our sisters
even care?

and will our mother weep?

tell me life
that i never got to live
how long
do i look for you
here in the land of
the great
"whatif"?

because so many days
i think i pass the answer
on the street
and smile
from the park
in between the shouts and beats
from near to where
this if
began to
fall apart
somewhere up the street from this
giant
arch.


kim thompson. wed 15 feb. 2012. seoul. s. korea. sometime in the late afternoon

poe-et-try

youre this longing
in the center
of my
breath

youre the in and out
of every
hale.

winging out
wider than any
flutter
by.

where are you?
where did you go?
when will you emerge
from your
dormancy
of cocooning?

when will i see your brilliance?
when will i see your see through
flimsy paper
stained glass window
wings?

i used to live in a field of
moths
with rare monarchs
and blue bottomed things...

today this field
seems so
barren
cut off from language
(by my own doing)
(only 입양 and 시인
can understand the
emotional trauma of
language lost/sold out from
under them)

im standing here
arms wide spread open
like im about to take flight
just waiting
for some wind
to lift me

waiting for the volume of words
that rush across the tops of
field grasses
out of the seeming nowhere
all the way into the being of me
lifting me
even when not moving

i am waiting for that whisper
for your wings to brush against my cheek
waiting for you to tell me
in the cacophony that only you can create
that you are here
and we have symphonies to create.

my heart has been broken and duct taped
back together
more times than i can count
i am a walking cathedral window like
notre dame's divinity...
waiting for your light
to shine
through all my colors.

a person
i can live without

but you words
you poems
you well cadenced sentences

without you
i learn what "longing"
truly means

you are the reason that i came here
you are the reason i will leave
you are the reason why i now stay
waiting each and every day
for the if and when of your
appearance at my door

(you have always been
"the reason.")

lovers... they have been many
coming and going at any momentary whim
each one sacred for
the words left behind
to be reshaped into
stories
poems...

this urban concrete jungle
a field
in which words sneak up and out
from between the narrow alley ways...
from in between the steam pouring out
from the windows of 만두 sellers
from in between the heels clicking on the streets
from in between the shouts and spits of
아저씨's and 아줌마's
there is poetry and beauty in
each
and
every
thing...

but some days
this urban concrete jungle
can seem just purely
urban
and concrete
and
windless...

and
when other poets write
of love and desire for another's flesh
i am always certain what they really mean is
"i long for
poetry."



-- kim thompson. 12.40 9 feb 2012. seoul. s. korea

snow...

you think me
open.

that i tell the world
all there is.

that every thing experienced
becomes
some form of
public
domain

... but i...

i am like this
snow

sharing being
the act of
evaporation
of whats already been
let go

and your lives
are just backdrops to mine
just as mine
is to yours

and the sacred
the few
...
there are so many
stories
i'll never tell
at best
at times
alluding
showing a drop
from the ocean
beneath
that most think rain...
but only if you were there
swimming beside
would you even know
the salt
of which i flavor
these pages with...

my life
it is like
tonight's short lived snow
collecting
being swept away
and melting

but my heart
it is like these streets
solid
open
well lined
spaces
which
absorb
the things
that flutter down from
the skies...

and
i go back now to the first days of
december
back again to the alps
and again to the fortresses of europe
and sit down on the wall perched above vilnius
meandering through forest paths
and still throwing chips to gulls off the isle of mull

and these things
like this snow
i show
to the world
but
all
other things
like all the sentences i never write
but sleep and wake to

those are mine.

thats why youll never hear me speak of those donkeys
or those nights in the cellar
or where the time capsule is stashed...

all things i hold dear
they are
like these stones on my shelf
more solid than snow
to others just stones
to me
they are streets
bars
friends
different days in the 20s
an engraved fish
and old dm's from covent g.

you think me open
saying all that i contain
never knowing
how little ive ever spoken

you think me a blizzard
not an inlet running under your feet
out into expanses so great...

you forget
that just as you do not think of me
each and every moment
i think of you in the same way.

our stories are like this snow
the things i speak aloud
already gone

i can count on one hand
the actual only
full oceans ive ever shown...

you see...
like this snow
that fell and is now
going to some other place...

i really am
no different
than
you...

so much of life
just
melts
on the
tips of
our tongues.


kim thompson. tues. 31 jan 2012 19.39 seoul. s. korea.

if...

"if..." -- a poem i wrote last night (25 Jan 2012) and experimented with today on the computer... here is the youtube link to the poem (short piece)

http://youtu.be/unGeaPoZET4

kim thompson. 20.17 thurs. 26 jan. 2012. seoul. s. korea

the affair

i grow weary of
blurry faces
forgotten names
and dates

my pockets heavy breaking
with stories of
random places
where we did
what we did

bored with my own
re-tellings
too tired from
all the running
and using
and accumulating of numbers

i awake now these days
to a warehouse of
forklifts moving cargo to the sides
the immensity of this space
being cleared
not to refill with many
but with
one
(or so my dreams seem
to be repeating)

keys in my hands
the exhaustion
of the past
receding
and eyes re-focusing
there are only doors to open.

i know this world
and what i can take from it
i know this world
because i have well lived in it
many beauties have been known
and
i know this world
because i have stolen cheated
deceived and misled
my way into moments
that meant so little
i know this world
and what it has to offer
because freely have i taken from it...

and now i know of this world
just how
beautiful
this thing i lied and said i didnt want
(but always did)
oh so truly
is.


kim thompson. wed. 27 jan. 2012 14.36 seoul. s. korea

language lessons...

"so how do you?"
she asks
...
and upon hearing my
"uhhh i ...
i really
i...
dont know..."

she smiles and says
"ahh... (안다) its because you have
능력자"

explaining
the street slang value
and telling me
"thats a very good thing to have
i think.
because then you dont have to
do
anything.
youre very lucky"

... "ermm...
no...
not lucky
i mean
ermmm
its not like that..."
wishing i had a cigarette...
(which evidently
seems to be half the key to "my"
"능력자")
flustering...
"im not...
i mean
i dont go out
thinking like
... that...
im
not
that kind of person"

she smiles nods...

"its not good
because
then i dont know what
or how
to do
when i need to
like... with
this..."

she smiles and nods..

gesturing open palmed up
to the empty brown tweed cushion
to my right
that id just been previously mocking as a
way to explain
stieg larssen's style of tolstoy-esque writing...

"cuz ive never had to
and
so i dont know
how to now..."
(and 35s kind of old to
not know
what i guess everyone
else has for years)
-- carry on the unspoken thoughts

"but im learning now."
i tell her
... earnestly...
"im really trying."

explaining
how we have these fears
-- leaving out the "입양"
to explain that "we" ("우리")
leaving out the "very deep seeded" between the
"these"
and
"fears"--

making finger feet walking gestures
from a left closed hand
to an open handed
right
"we want to get from
here
to
here...
but dont know how to..."

... "but
i'm trying"
i confess

"i really am..."

... she nods

and repeats

"anyway...
you...
i think
have
능력자
and youre lucky."

and i
smile
and nod

with a reluctant acceptance
and wonder
who the teacher in this conversation
really
is

repeating to myself
"lucky."
"능력자."

lucky.

kim thompson. tuesday 17 jan 2012. seoul. s. korea. 16.08

thinking back to...

the sex stained sheets
and the acrobatics
of listening

back when
things were once a seeming
eternity
the bed creaking
against the floorboards
threatening to bring down the curtains
and the blinds
a sort of
violence
in the sweetness of some kind of
otherworldly exchange
and the moon
peered in
not saying a word
and the scent of lilacs
filled the morning air
and there was no residue
only oxygen

and how we broke the frame
and we'd only met 3 hours before
maybe 4
and how the alpine sun shone through
the walls
and we pulled hay from our clothes
and
driving through the dolomites
we stopped to "ahh" at the stars
and milky way
above
with venice running through our minds...

and how i once loved you
to the point of
even vitmn water on the shelves of kowalskis
would break my heart to
recall
all the things i
never said
like
"love"

and that b&b
and how you kept disappearing
saying
"finished"
but would always reappear
and id say
"begin"
till you became this kind of
habit

and you had this sort of madness
in those 6 inch stilettos
and we'd wake entwined
blurry eyed
fuzzy brained
saying
"oh
ha
hi"

and i always knew you werent
right for me
but i could never stay away
cuz youd call
and i
was
bored
and
restless
and in need
of something
to tame

and we would spill our drinks
all over the floors
not caring
about everything that
got knocked off the tables

and when my path
would cause me to
pass your house
id let out some kind of sigh
even though id never loved you

and then id count the number of
houses
that id drive past in a matter of miles
sighing at
and
laugh to myself
and sigh again

and how you serenading was
the worst thing ever
and only vodka made it
tolerable
but that was when i was more
greedy

and i didnt even know your name
im still not sure

and i know we shouldnt have
but we did
and karma made sure to
pay me back for that one

and i didnt know you were
there with her
or i wouldnve brought you home
but i guess its ok
because i still guess at your name too...

and how i threw hardboiled eggs against the wall
and you bit my lip
and i felt like i was being returned to a place
that no longer wanted me
and you were
the most beautiful id ever seen
that i couldnt speak for two years
and we would
laugh about that
poem
that goddamn
stupid
silly
poem
and how everybody stared
and
i told you how i dislike mangoes
and you told me your disdain for oysters
and we didnt leave the rain for hours
and you would cry
in the middle of
it all
and id storm out to
smoke a cigarette
and you broke my heart
with all your lies
and i broke yours
with how
id go so silent...

and ive never yelled like
ive yelled at you
nor been as gentle as
with you

and i can only remember some
and half the time forget the rest
except there are
these scars
on my heart
that remind
and

even now
tonight
all memories merge into one
all yous are five minutes/ five hundred lifetimes ago
some kind of fast forward blur...

and the only thing i can recall
vividly
at this exact time
of
19.14

is

that one time

that one and only time

of over there
and how we did nothing
but
clink glasses
and walk on top of things
and eat
and drink coffee like it was
going to put us to sleep...

and its funny how
all that seeming nothing
can
later return as being
the most
distinct

not because there was
some kind of
poet's love
but because

in my heart of scarred hearts...

ive still always
valued "real"
over
sheets that are just offering
themselves up
to be

stained

(for the taking).


kim thompson. monday 14 jan 2012. 19.24 seoul. s. korea

lines

i walk beneath
the lines
telephone
and
power
some heading
north south
others
east west
and all the rest
criss-crossed

over there someone is chattering
of something
their words
passing o'er my head
and i
seemingly
oblivious
to what these lines
are transmitting

over there someone is not saying
anything
the lines sagging
in anticipation
and
i
not hearing the
difference between
chatter
and
silence
only seeing
the lines
that seem to
hold the sky
in place

some of these lines
hang looped in heavy circles
dangling down the sides of
former trees
now
poles

and i
walk back
towards
you
knowing full well
the weight
of truth
and
the written
spoken
word
and how
even the unsaid
is an answer
and the lines
do not wait
for
me
or you
to speak

the lines
they just
streak
from
post to post
moving
from the wind
of communications
standing still
when people
have nothing else to
say

i live
beneath the lines
gazing upwards
waiting
for a sentence to drop down
and splash into my ears
snow
or rain
it does not matter
everything is still water-based

and i...
i have always been one to
swim
outside the lines of
in between
spokens
and
un-saids...


kim thompson. saturday. 14 jan 2012. seoul. s. korea

thoughts...

there are nails
re-drawing lines
in my palms.
everything is
shift-ing.

and no
thing can
change
all the changing
moon tides.

sands collecting
falling
in a glass
without a sound
there are no cairns
to scatter on your shore lines.

i have stood
at the world's edge
3 times
watching gondolas
bob for water...

you are but another
in a story line
that keeps expanding.

but you are not
just
like all the others
(each grain of sand
its own
called by name
by the collector)

but yes...
you are
a single seed of sand
falling through
my open
hands
(for i have long ago
given up
mud clinging.)

and
we are running
along the canals
of venice
in the rain
beer
and pretzels in hand
we catch the train
(i was once 19)

and even now...
i let go
all the places
you will never know
that i will never
show
you...

still
building
memoric cairns
in the sands
of
my own
still
unfinished
pages.


kim thompson. 13 jan 2012 friday. 19.41. seoul. s.korea

for k & k

how were we
to know that night
that some kind of
darkness
was already penetrating
your very calcium?

how were we to know
when hiding with a bottle of tequila
behind a bed
in that hotel room
that this was what was coming?

how were we to know
each time we shared a stage
that this day of
"wordless"
would arrive?

and i know
there are no guarantees
and i know
that life is not a thing of
"fair"

but this?
these things?
these days?

how were we to know
on your most joyous day
that connected to it
in an all too near
imminence
was
to be
your greatest
nightmare?

would we
have treated any moment
of joy
and laughter
differently?

and
all the things
we are too scared to say
too scared to risk
would we have just
said
and
risked
more
if we had known
that
these days
were part of
all that joy?

and there are
nothing
but
cliches
right now
nothing but
the same kind of
reactions
every single
human being
has
when things like this
take place.

and there is
no
escape.
no hiding behind a
hotel bed with
tequila
laughing.

no
keeping your perfect
most wing-ed moment
in some kind of
static
space.

but would we
have
loved each moment
any
more?

and its not
that i dont care
about my own
"situations"
but it is
that your
and
your
and
your
...
"situations"
these days
well...
they are teaching me
to love all of the uncertainties
and silences
and possibilities of
"yes"
or
"no"

because
we didn't know
that night
at the theater

we didnt know
that night eating
jjigae
and
platters of fish

we didnt know
that
these days
were coming...

and
right now
i dont know
what else there is

except that
there will be more grief
but there will also be
more
joy

and that none of it is known
even the things dreamed ahead of time
can only be
premonitions.

and so today
and these days
in betwixt this seeming
river
of
broken hearts
and
blackholes

i do the one thing i can:

i gaze at the rose bush
now sticks and thorns
watch the smoke push through
it's naked vulnerabilities

make time to see the moon at night

and i carry you
both of you
in my heart

and love
this moment
for all its pain
just that much more.

because...
these days we are reminded
how
we dont know
what kind of days are coming
we don't know what seeming darkness
is working its destruction against our
bodies

all we know is this:

that loving this life
is worth
every risk

and even darkness
always at one point...
must
give way
to

dawn.


kim thompson 12.30 6 jan 2012 friday. seoul. s. korea