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

Triple A

Before posterity was secured
Empty wombs made unfulfilled
Houses temples of prayer
Or homes of natural science

But in the ruins of civil war
Carrotfuck had a dream

For the love of nation
And its pawns
Exportation of its own

A baby is born 
Bought and sold
Cabbagehead of the east

Sanctioned in the name of christ
Abductees in the mist

Alterations and machinations
Erasure of identity

Adaptee in production

Traded in for capital
Extracted in plane sight

Posterity has been procured
Lives as a scanner darkly

this thing

(*upon viewing Miwa Matreyek's work -- link to her work below)

this thing
birthing
in
and out

this thing
happening
in
and
out

this thing
nameless
groundless
space
inside of
outside of
all at once

windows open
life flies
in
and out
(can hear the beating of wings
rushing in and out
from this basement
room)

calling selves each day
out from
in
to

beckoning future
in the expansiveness of
now
for the fullness
of
later

heart pours out
from
within

and from with the out
it
fills
to
overflow

... beautiful
is
this
now

beautiful
is this
was

beautiful
is this
then

each and every
if of then and to be
... we are flying
towards
the beauty of
our
selves.

http://www.ted.com/talks/miwa_matreyek_s_glorious_visions.html

kim thompson. thurs 29 dec. 2011 @12.39 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

language

she reaches for something
flipping her wrists
jumping into the arms of he or she
she contorts to fit the others limbs

we pull our masks off each morning

she jerks in the embrace
fingers extended
to some other dream of life
her feet moving to the rhythm of her
own
heart

collapses without falling.

she takes a hand
between her own
elbow extended
her knees
buckling
under some
imaginary weight
of
being

we are not alone.

she drops her head
to a silent rise
as if proclaiming
all the words she will never write
whilst in this arms akimbo moment

we hide because we must.

she straightens her toes
touching floor
as if gliding on some kind of
table made from air
her abstract
so
intended

we yearn.

she jumps to the opening
of the others
extensions
and rides them until she
arrives in otherworlds

because there is no other way but this.

she is the pressing down
of each key
the arching back of
some form of
ecstasy
that can only be known
with two

we run from what we want.

she steps towards
because
today
she
cannot run

today we can only confess.

today
she crumples
mid reach
and
begins
again

as do

we.


kim thompson. wed 21 dec 2011 @ 19.16 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.

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

poem of love for mpls

we were at best
at first
at
odds
wanting nothing
if anything
to do with you
- pushing you away
and kicking your streets
telling you each and every moment
how you paled in comparison to the previous
drinking just so as not to see your face
even your air stung
even your club called c.c. brought ache -

as to when
it shifted
as to when
this kind of disdain
turned to some kind of
love
was somewhere in the middle streets
of uptown and lyndale

as to when the some kind of love
turned to
complete
balanced
dependence
give and take
equal reciprocation...
was somewhere between
35th and bloomington
and
14th and elliot...

you are no longer the one
there is another now
another whose river calls
another whose streets beg to be explored
another whose side alleys gesture alluringly
another whose air gasps to be breathed

but you will always be this one
of
6
or
7
years
giving and taking so much
you will always be this one
who opened a closed heart
who made beautiful a country
that had become a place to reject
after 8 years with others

and it is because of you
that now here
can be embraced
that now this seoul
can be known fully
by this soul

numerous
have been the places loved
numerous have been the
drunken one night explorations
in lands that can never really be described
whose scent still lingers
whose rivers still beckon

but yours
is a
river
a park
a lake
a clustering of
bodies
loved so
ardently
loved still
loved always

never fading in forgetting
always rising
up in dreams

never diminishing in time's ticking
always
always
always

whispering
"and how... we loved."


kim thompson 14.49 tuesday 21 nov 2011 seoul. s. korea

time... the sea... then... now

images from the o.k.a.y. book 2009... (so much happens in 3 years)






-- and now... (an) epilogue of many 2 years 11 months 2.5 days later--

jesus didnt part it
moses didnt do one damn thing

wandering like a nation
in the deserts of the world
never knowing just how close you were
circling for stale manna
eaten rotten meat

you were never showing up in dreams
instead you sent the sea

you were not a cloud
not a holy fire

you were cross-legged on the floor
hand gesturing
that had been predicted 2 years before

speaking to you in that empty seat
speaking to you in that empty chair
speaking to you in that empty space

weeks away from what will be 3 years
29 to be exact in days

you were always absent
always omni-present
sacrificing on an altar
in place of harvest

that sea's been flooding land
for 30 plus
2 years
only to be calmed

not by their savior
but by

you.

kim thompson. 20-21 nov. 2011 (sun/mon) 12.50pm-1am seoul. s.korea.

movement: contemplations on dance(rs)

*(an ode of sorts for friends who are movement artists)
----

they
move in between the sounds
hitting the beat unheard

landing like feathers
gliding across the stages of this world
paris
london
moscow
st petersburg
new york
chicago
seoul
and all the other
planks
in between (minneapolis)

hand wrist flip
hand wrist inward stock motion
animation

toes
ankles
bent just so
pointing us to
look anew

degas understood

they do the things that
poets
painters
cannot

they move the mysterious
from
invisible
to
visible

they make real
what is only felt inside
they make what is inside
real.

they make sharp
what is so often blurred to sight

they are the gods of details
making us all mortal
they are the ghosts we carry in our heart's hidden pockets

they are mortals who transcend all the
spaces
for a moment

blackholes projecting new dimensions
taking all this seeming empty void
and giving shape
to
moments that
escape
all words
written
spoken
put onto paper/cloth
canvas

... oh so
lithe
are
they.


kim thompson. wednesday 16 nov. 2011 @12.54 seoul. s. korea.

something new

something new is birthing
something inside these clammy shells
something greater than a pearl
a diamond in the bottom of the sea
something new is growing wings
something new is outsmarting even the
intelligence of crows
impregnated in the darkness of the end of winter
formed in the unexpected moments of the spring
sweated through in the heat of summer
timing its emergence
in this late autumn month
the loss has been great
the floor pulled out from beneath
and with the loss of ground
came the gain of some kind of
albatross-like flight/soar
and something new is
waking
something new is
rumbling
"soon
soon"
it whispers
each and every morn...
announcing its own entrance
without fanfare
but in the space time fabric continuum of a
still
small
voice

something new is
being
rubbed into shape
between the grains of each day's dirt
something new
is
rolling endlessly into the
art of
becoming

dancing in between the beats
skipping in between our feet
when autumn feels like the birth of spring
and spring a distant gauzy memory

something new is --
knowing not what nor how
only knowing --
something new
is
becoming.
from out of the darkness
and into all this
lightness of
today.


kim thompson. 8 nov. 2011 tuesday. 11.23 seoul. s. korea

Thy Name Is Religion

Evil has a name.

Deep, deep in the bosom
Of a burning cauldron
Laughs the lizard.

Ultra Catholic sunblock
Can’t save you from abduction,
Child trafficking by pope mobile.

Rage has flooded the nation.
Men in ties calmly sit
In fascist condescension,

While doctors, in freezers,
Babies keep.

Penguins can be evil.
Human theft part of prayer.
Money exchanging hands.

Franco isn’t dead.
The stolen generation lives.

Unbelievable

Whenever I hear
예수님 믿으세요

I think: Fuck Off!
Verbal selfdefense justified

When I hear the question
교회 다니세요?

I want to reply: In Your Arse
You Fookin’ Cow!

When the word repent
Scratches my ear

I put on my shitkickers
And kick some shit

angels/demons

im an angel full of dark
a demon full of light
one on my left
the other on my right
a bastard in the middle

angel's name is c.s. after lewis
demon's name is charles after bukowski
bastard's middle is named
kim.

theres an outer and an inner
a shade between the grey

the kindest sort of naughty
the raunchiest sort of reverent
the dreamiest cynic
the most jaded kind of resilient hoper

and every reason
(my grafted)
family tree
thinks me
damned to hell
is every reason why im
heaven bound
but every reason why you think me paradise headed
is every thing im trying to
reckon with my
night.

yes.
i AM a poet who weeps at falling leaves
and stares slack-jawed at the sky
but im also
the jackass who takes irreverence one/two/three step(s) too far
and the pervert who is tied to
devilish delights.

i don't worship any name-ed god
(even humanism smacks of some kind of
pre-prescribed practice)
(and anyways
im tainted from being gagged on
jesus and his goddamned fuckin' cross)
but still each day i take the time
to sit
and
breathe
the here
and
now
because it's balance that i seek
between my
outer
inner
in betweens
of
c.s.
charles
and
kim.

keep my lust in check -
let it dance dirty in the cage ive built for it
to keep it well behaved -
but sometimes
the demon charles whispers through the fermentation of a night
and it flies free
like some kind of
angel in heat
with an impish bastard's grin.

my halo is held intact by horns
my forked tail kept from lashing by my not going to tat em on my back-
wings.

i will weave you the most
lovely gown of
words
all true
all meant --
but in the next
i'll shred them off
to take you then and there

and for so long
there was always some kind of
holy battle waging 'tween these seeming
splits
one side always winning
and always getting / causing
pain

somewhere in the midst of
finding
has been this calming
of the seas

where the dark angel c.s.
and the sentient demon charles
now allow the
full truth bastard kim
to
float a line
of
calm
alarming
swayful
balance
in the breeze of their
windy incantations
of
lust
desire
poetry
inner peace
and all things
seeming
contradictory.

angel
demon
bastard
we are coming one.


(rothko moment from my airplane seat in the sky above the sea -- the sky as it was... the light and dark as it is)

- kim thompson. mon 24 oct @ 13.13 seoul. s. korea

Death to Barthes

the young die hard and violently
to the song of the moose.

time is not what separates us
intellect is. smoke the last thing
seen before the moon opens her eye.

the mending of the chasm is left
to doctors who understand nothing
of the rising tide of misprision.

a heart stops beating because the author dies,
the sound of sirens faded into oblivion.

Lorelei doesn’t dance anymore,
the echo of waves against her breast
is the last trace of an obsolete sun.

further rose bush meditation

do i dare
pluck the last of
two
remaining
red/pink magenta
petals
on the daily baring sticks
of what was once
full blossom
blooming?

do i reach out my hand
to touch the last
colors of a cycled life?

touch with my mind's fingertips
taste them on my tongue
they are velvet perfume bittersweet
they are wings
they are the last two months of this year

and the once vibrant green
is now
a stickman version of
a former fleshed out luscious being

and like always
i dare not to
reach out and grasp
the last signs of life
like always
i stand
stare
let the understood felt into taste of these last petal shaped drops roll around in my mouth
crush their svelteness between mind over matter fingertips
like always
i want to tell them
"please just stay"
"dont leave
i love you"
but like always
i just gaze
take them in
turn them into words
and let the memory of desire
fall upon the page.

trusting in the spring
they will return
brilliant
brand new
remade
after winter's
slumber.



-- kim thompson. tues. 18 oct. 12.36 seoul. s. korea

My Mind Is No Steel Trap so I'll Put This Here, For Safe-Keeping

I pretend it’s for my benefit that Dad is repeating the story about how he and our neighbor, Sam, spent Labor Day weekend splitting logs in the backyard--

Like it’s his way of etching a simple, important moment into my memory. Something for me to find meaning in and pass on to my own son.

I pretend Dad is telling me again about how his older sister, Dot, suddenly remembered last month that their brother, Ray, had died--that she had been the first sibling his wife had called.

This has to be his way of underlining emotion--both for Ray’s death and Dot’s steady decline. He clenches his jaw.

“I already told you that, didn’t I?”

I pretend it will be for my benefit if I forget this some day.

Charlton Heston is alone again

the streets are silent this afternoon,
almost deserted,
the city’s bosom laid bare.

today, madness is on hold,
men at work not rushing
into inevitable decay.

the day is red like a face
talking too much shit
the night before.

the hour is hung over,
a nation deep asleep
behind motel doors.

lazily the apes will rise
one by one, wondering where
the hero has gone.

The Shindorim Crowd

a mixed bag of nuts
phalanxes of sheep
waiting for the cowboys
to bring 'm home alive

I don't believe in Djins and Daemons

i wish i were a better poet
then i could write a golden sonnet,
prevent poor Romeo from dying.

but could i blame this withered flower
on empty air, when golden boughs
drop manna everywhere?

i can't keep count of all the notes aborted.

where is the palm that holds the tree,
the black feathered bird that speaks?
why are they silent, those ghostly walls?
there is no other ggod but me.

rose bush - an object of meditation

in the silent throes of autumn
what seemed
dead
from spring
a violent burst of petaled red
- as if to remind
from the midst of naked thorns
and limbs -
that life
nor death
are never things
to be
assumed.

no start
no finish
always
unexpected.

what came to life in spring
then faded
only to appear today
as full formed
new found
cycle defying
blossoming -
against the
seeming
odds.

and i
i
am reminded
- as oft i am -
of words by another
of how life just carries on
no matter the
passing of one hope
to the next

beginnings
and
passings
anticipated.

but then there is always
that one
that one almost as if
"death defying"
act of nature
of living
to remind
that
nothing

no
thing

is ever truly gone

even when all dreams of
spring
seem seasons far gone

you walk up the stairs
out the door
doing as you always do

and then

and then

there
she
is

waiting silently
without announcement
face
arms
open
to the day
bowing only
to the
breezes.





kim thompson. wed 28 sept @ 13.29. seoul. s.korea

and in.

and in the quiet

of the in between

of night

and dawn

when lights go dim

and only monitors illuminate

when the world is full of

original silencio

and thoughts rest

to leave space for the core of constant

(i) map a mental choreography

of invisible long stretched arching limbs

that extend past the realm of now

moved by a song

moved by the pauses in the song

- rhythm

drum beat

(my)

fingers hit keys in time with

the piano

weaving a dance of their own

a blank screen

(my) stage

a dim and glow

(my) stage light

... raise

arch

float in thought

(i) circle with

this song

like all others

directed by some kind of

inner

sense of

of-otherness

everything but me

is fleeting

and even i

am passing

with each tap down

on these lettered squares

one day

all that will be left (of me)

are these traces of thoughts

traces of moments

translated into a form of

typed out

language

its words that brought us here

it is words that will lead us out

i

we

each

the spoken reclamation

of a single act

of

another's

exhale

i

we

each

solitary

in communion

joined by inner

strings and strands

of

phosphor-essence

tonight

i yearn for nothing

wanting everything

in the

eternal

silencio

of

a temporary

now

though my body does not

my words

they dance

through space and time

weaving you into my

hear and jigum.


kim thompson. written on monday 2am or so 26 sept 2011 seoul. s. korea

beginnings (cont.)

i want to

go back to a beginning that ive forgotten

to swim the chasm of the sea

to walk on water

fly on air

float through breezes

to grow my life from dust formed trees

and

to watch night dreams

grow into

day life.

i want to live

that space between

the words

the thoughts

want to

let go all the edges

watch words shoot forth free flight

from the center of my chest

we were all born of

silent explosions

born of

the connection of spaces

born of an act

born of a desire

born of a grief

born of a mystery

a void

a realm

born

of other.

i want to go back to that beginning

that i can no longer recall

go back to those first breaths

born of this very air

over by hongdae

next to hapjeong

i retrace the steps of my own carried feet

i want to return

to the place of their act

to whisper to self

the truth of the future

for those days when all would feel so

lost

to remember

what i have always known

i want to take the sea water

that swells in my chest

that drips down my cheeks

to the tips of my fingers

transforming to the smoke clouds of words

take all these words

all these half finished sentences

all these fragmented starts

and build bridges within my

galaxial self

i want to

live in the middle

right in the center

of everything now

and then fling it all

upwards

sky high

to watch it all be transformed

into

the art

the act

of

letting go

and rebirth.

i want to pick up the past

sling it over my shoulder

and release it dead weighted to

the bottom of some kind of

deep azure blue

so that the day you call

i can tell you

"ive let it all go

and found my center of being

way back in my beginning."


- kim thompson seoul. s. korea. sat. 24 sept @ 19.11

Once Removed

Hello Thursdays! I am new to writing poetry and eager to learn and grow from being in community with each of you. I want to thank you for sharing your art and inviting me to be part of this project. I am sharing the piece that I started while living in MN, and continued to write as I begin learning Korean language while living in Korea. Thank you for giving me a space to share it. Peace and love~

기 화영
******

What good is half the story?

Told in tortured tongue, twisted and tamed.

Recoded Korean complete with English Talk function. 

Even she daydreams of songs I sung and sounds undone.

My first language once removed.

Case K85-160. 

Another non-native English speaker numbered and claimed. 

In two-world paradigm of white-normative worthiness.

Let’s call her Lori Jane.

I wanna blow up this “East meets West” bullshit--

That never let me beg the question:

How do I claim the class privilege that cost me my mother?

How do I hug her when she hid her white guilt in my humanity?

Can any of us consent in this time of capitalism?

Each person made product, produced by imperialist consumer culture. 

“Get your…bootless mail-order baby."

Easy addition to your four-person family equation.

I’m gonna pass on the long-winded rant about global white supremacy, dominant narratives of heteropatriarchy, and constructions of hegemonic masculinity...

But for now, let’s consider my desire: 

To talk to her, my birthmother once removed.

Three decades. 

Two continents. 

One ocean. 

I came all this way just to say “I love you,” to first mother once removed. 

Is it anything but injustice that when I hold her hand, 

I can’t tell her about my day. 

The friends I made at school today. 

The stories we shared over kimchi and rice, mystery meat, and baby fish soup.

To third mother now removed: 

Even “I love you” fails us when my brown skin betrays your good intentions. 

“I love you.” Three words held hostage by the histories of violence that I carry with me, each day, on this bruise called my back. 

“I love you.” English language on lease as long as I don’t call you racist.

This is my orphan love story. 

Crafted in American-made, Midwest English.

I am your bootless mail-order baby gone bad. 

Gone evil.

Raging against the capitalist machine.

Waking up the rebel sleeper force of overseas Korean adoptees. 

Calling all Yellow Devils! 

To reject our constricted status: language-less Korean learners when living in our motherland.

I want to learn at school today--

The other half of my story. 

Reclaiming Kee, Wha Yung!

Self-determined Asian American and deconstructed transnational adoption symptom.