open letter (or something) to korea...

dear korea, (or ... anyone else who may or may not be listening/reading... lurking)

as you may or may not be aware... (most likely you are if youve ever paid attention/been able to decipher me at 4am on some random night where ive had too much soju and am stumbling about your streets mumbling things against you that begin with the oh so poetic phrase of "fuckin-fuckyoufuckinkorea-andyourfuckin...") i have very complex... unresolved feeling about and towards you.

seeing as i have now been living here more than 3 point 5 years (consecutively) and have spent about... 4 plus years (here) what with that grant and all...  the one thing i have been able to "ascertain" thus far is that... i evidently had a lot more expectations about and for you than i first realized "once upon a time ago" back when i first "reunited" with you in 2007... back then i recall only wondering if i was going to have some kind of "amy tan/joy luck club - 'As soon as my feet touched China*, I became Chinese*.'" experience. (* insert korea and korean for china and chinese)

 the reality (for me) is that the moment my feet touched the pavement outside of incheon airport on the night of december 15th of 2007 - not only did i not find myself "turning korean"... it hit me... as my friend and i stood by a rubbish bin to smoke... that... the truth was... i had (been) "turned" "western" so long ago that like a westerner i really didn't give a fuck that korean ahjushis were staring at us as we smoked ... and yet... something else hit me...

that i ... didn't need to "turn korean" because...

fuck.

fuckyoukorea.

you never really left my blood now did you?

... so

here we are ... 6 ... SIX years later.

my ability to communicate with you only exists if we are discussing types of meat or seafood or booze... along with a few other random things that probably aren't too useful (though rather impressive party trick phrases when wanting to amuse korean-korean friends)

my ability to communicate with her as in HER... well... we all have different views/opinions on how public we want to be about HER... and for now... all i really want to say in this form of an open letter is that... thanks to you... thanks to a lot of other things... HER and i... really dont speak much anymore... (how many times can you repeat the same conversation over the course of almost 4 years?)

anyhow... back to YOU - korea.

i have such complex unresolved feelings about you.

one of these days... i will have to leave you.

...

... i have... a lot of feelings about that.

(feelings that i am not yet ready to fully express... give me a few more hours... days... weeks... months... years... lifetimes)

... but here... here is the thing i DO want to say to you in this open letter:

you cost me... us? A LOT.

not just HERE. not just LANGUAGE. not just IDENTITY. not just CULTURE. not just BLOODLINES.

you cost me... over there as well.

to the point that i am numb.

to the point that i am pretty certain that i am "supposed" to feel quite strongly about how things are (are not) with (that majority but not all of) my... "adoptive family" but... no longer do... and have not for quite a long time.

and the only real sadness i feel about that...

is that

i dont
feel
any
sadness
for that
loss (of connection).

and that started long before reuniting with you...

but i know... that reuniting with you...

has made the one day possibility of "repairing that bridge"...

well...

as the white people (who say this type of thing and who truly ALL HAVE) a fetish for asian things (people)... like to say "i feel quite zen about it all" (*imsosickof the idea/phrase "exceptional white person") *note: though i dont really need to say it... i will: i do not speak for others i only speak for me.

but the truth is...

ive got this sneaking suspicion that im not actually meant to "feel zen" about "it all..."

and korea,

you see i have this sneaking suspicion that ... when it comes to adoptees... or ... at least "to me, as an adoptee" that you really like to play the subversive game of "home wrecker"...

like there's this unspoken price that in the "quest" to find (my) identity the price is "all."

...

and for that... amongst so many other reasons that my brain and heart are just too tired to get into right now...

i have such complex and unresolved feelings about you.

yes,

i DO love you for so many reasons -- if you don't believe me ive got hundreds of pages of poems that i can send you to prove this...

but...

there is nothing about you that has proven to be... clean or tidy or... possible of resolving.

here is the only reality that i seem to understand these days (years):

one day, i will need to leave you... for my own sanity and future.

but leaving you... it will not be "easy"... nor will i be leaving you with a (white) english teacher's fat pension check or able to exclaim via facebook "YES! paid off another loan today!"

... (not that i ever came to you for financial remuneration) ... (but yes i did come to you hoping for another kind of remuneration... that ... it seems i shall not be leaving here with either)

... leaving you (when that day comes)... will not be clean... and i know i shall not go to wherever it is next feeling like "well, glad to have tidied up that mess in my life."

... here is what i suspect... here is why i feel so complex about you...

when i leave... and even before leaving you...

the realization... the reality...

is that...

i will never resolve anything about you... i will never find that point of perfect grace or peace in terms of having found my resolution with you...

i will never feel like "i got everything i hoped for" (in spite of what it may seem like "i got")

because the price of you... has been and is... too high... and leaving you... that price is and will be too high...

but... i will and have been paying it... and i always will...

because somewhere... in the midst of realizing how i will NEVER feel resolved about you...

that therein is where i find my own form of...

peace.

with oh so complex feelings that i know shall never be resolved,

kim thompson
seoul, s. korea
8 jan 2013
17:54
  

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

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

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

she says...

"we used to give gifts of poetry"
"tell your true mind
little
by
little"
"i wish i could understand your writings"
"poetry isn't easy to write..."
she says

as words swirl through the mind
like smoke churls out from this
cigarette
that is semi-permanently stuck to the lips...

"i want i want"
chants the mind
always william blake's ladder
stands ready...

"i'll wait i'll wait"
says the true mind
not needing anything to do with
ladders...

gifts of words
gifts of truth
"but sometimes there's such a thing as
too much honesty
sometimes its better to hide it"
she says

"네 언니~~~"
flopping head to table
grinning
"cuz... you know...
my blood is korean,
hence the propensity towards dramatic reactions"

"you speak like a 시인"
she says

"we speak in circled layers
so i know she understood
my...
'true mind'."
says korean blooded i
-- still table flopping
for her entertainment.

"i should be paying you"
we laugh

gifts of poetry
... gifts of circled layers
everything's a play on words
but everything is spoken oh so
blatantly...

"maybe ...
(after being reminded by the words of another)
its been this striving for some kind of
better self
thats been tripping me up"
stumbling down the street full tilt...

"maybe...
(after being reminded by the gift of words)
its just accepting
this is how I am...
and perfection
as spinning off
has not been pleasurable
and fact is
my contradictions walk alongside me
whispering
'no youre not'
'yes you are'"

maybe i just need to as the other she said
"invite them all to sit down for a cup o' tea"

"cuz i cant fix it
cant change it
let your reaction be what it will
im a master architect of making
mountains
from the hills of
moles...
today i retire those tools
every day i must retire
them
instead of trying to sink them to the bottom
of a sea that never swallows
only
floats."

gifts of poetry
thats gift of words

today is then like
some kind of
birth
day

the sun
outside
sweating in the cold

and me indoors
assembling all the presents
she said to me.

letting you exist

and if you return
the
gift i shall give to you
will be
a poem greater than this...

born of an imperfect heart
that commits confusing actions
seemingly contradicting my
"true mind"

but you know
as do i
we speak
in circled layers...

and your eyes
absorb
this
ocean of
too much
truth.

"want?"
says she.




kim thompson. 14.28 tuesday 27 dec 2011 seoul. s. korea

haikus on "is"/"if"/"then"

is.
focusing only
on the wave, forgetting the
whole sea. we are foam.

if.
all things known in the
middle of some new start. there
is no "if" just "is."

then.
the future waves from some
oceanic grey. i know
then, the state of now.

kim thompson. 11.39 26 dec 2011 monday seoul. s. korea

yet another meditation on the rose bush no longer blossoming

passing by you now
as if you are no longer there

(i) recall you from half way beneath the street
do not have to see you
to know
of all the roses that you contain
within your winter silent limbs

these days
we do not speak
do not look at one another
as we did
i have not gazed up you in weeks
but still
i
see you
without eyes...

you stand
quietly
in the courtyard of my heart
suffering the cold
of december
recalling your unexpected
autumnal appearance
when i just happened to glance out
when i did not want to go out...
when i had given up on seeing beauty...

i know
we do not speak as we did
but i do not feel
that you are any further
than you were
when you last let me
gaze upon you
in your
just before
unannounced retreat

even now
from this too chilled room
i recall you
as if you were some past
lover
still know the beauty
that now lurks within your frozen veins...

i think ahead to knowing
of what these months will bring
how it will seem as if
you will never return
and then
one day
youll wave to me with
your
tendril
kiss me with your
petals

and though we'll never say it
we'll both know
as i gaze upon your fullness

that

we were waiting
all along...

to be

seen.


kim thompson. friday. 23 dec 2011. seoul. s. korea. 18.07

yesterday/today

catching up on the latest "gossip"
news
from back home
-- home being whatever that may mean
no indicator of the actual place grown up...

interlaced with a lot of
"oh my fuckin' god are you kidding me!"s
(a lot of gods got fucked in that conversation)

realizing maybe life here
isnt so bad
hearing the ridiculousness back there
-- my choices being just that
- mine -
and i got let go of just in time
-- salvation beginning in the first act of saying
"this has been let go of
now let go of me"
(not that heart stringed attachments are bad
but
knotted strings
only trip me up)

and im supposed to drop the "i"
to evolve
but what else can "i" speak of
with some form of actual
certain knowing
when in truth even knowing "i"
can be
perplexing to
my own
eye.

to try to unravel
my "i"
only winds my eyes
into a blur
-- better
i begin to think
-- to just let be.
--- followed by a string of cliches on
the key of b

... like how
im not waiting for you
but im not closing any doors
"i"m gonna let this space
fill itself"
and like how...
that seeming act of letting you in
was a door closing
as "i" filled the space
with
my own past repeated habit
-- im sorry that sounds so unkind
... this is how honesty can be.
(its nothing personal
its not "you"
its that theres this "you"
and that is the "you"
that my "i" is looking towards
all the while knowing
it could be that this is how
my eye[s] must look in
order to see
some
unknown
"you"?)

and they say half the key to cool
is not admitting anything
-- so lets say that for most of my life
ive been frozen
and now im done with cold
and prefer the heat of just saying
even though the lack of certainty
makes my eye sweat salt.
(but im still done with palm trees
and
palmettos
and the hurricanes of late summer)

and theres a cigarette stuck to my lips
and im supposed to be considering quitting
but
ive never been good at quitting what i love
so
one day when i cease to love
i will let the filter fall butt end to the floor
for good
and sweep away the ashes of this form of love
but for now
we remain synonyms...

and its still early in the day
but the sun has turned its winter
soul
and
we spin on its axis.

and all the darkness of yesterday
(did the sun even ever rise?)
my eyes sank deeply into
too dehydrated to shed tears
so eye just dribbled salt
from the side

and "i"
dont expect
a thing from any "you"
but that does not change
what the
eye
wants.

and all this news from that place
that once was home
where they misname a patch of lake sand
"beach"
not knowing of the tepid heat of the atlantic
as my "i" does...

how they still preen
too old
for not having let go of any "i"
or
"you"
they speak buddha out their ashen-ed butts
and cling cling cling
so tightly
to
something
that was never
theirs to
keep
because
thats not how
"you"
and
"i"
is meant to work

but then
who am "i"
to cast my eye(s) downward in their direction
when
"i"
prove to my own self
time and time again
how
caught up in proving nothing/something to my "me"
ruins all this unwinding
that is being done

fists opened
palm lines
shifting in new directions

just when "i" thought
"you"
were gone
you returned
with flowers

and so today
for the "you"
who has been with "me"
since the beginning
and the "you"
who let go when "i" needed
and the "you"
who does not want to be a "you"
(but then maybe "you" do)
and the "you"
who wants to be a "you"
(but then maybe "you" dont)
and the me
who wants an
"i"

... i think of over there
and right now here
pick up another smoke
let the words drop where they may
though it is now
the shortest day
it feels like
the beginning
of this
next
that ive been waiting looking for
and in the throwing up of surrendered
hands
in the utter loathing
of what "i" can do
(its not that it was that bad or wrong
its just that "i" know that "i" am better
than such doings
and my eye does not like cheap)
in looking towards "you"
i's
are
seeing

me.

kim thompson. thursday 22 dec 11 18.09 seoul. s. korea

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.

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.