the peaceable reed
the peaceable reed
(of their ilk),
like the bountiful
rice variety
so nice to look at
—those slender
stalks
like the idylls
of European creativity
in this case,
any person that talks
all conversations
that have that potential
for explosive eruption
the friction is everywhere,
a gruelling task
normal life's allusion
now, may i ask
how she
managed to endure
such horridity?
(answering the plea—)
boy, it's not love..
but
just affinity!
calling it love (yet involving cultural variances)
it's as if they know—
how to lift their wings
to fly
only to be able to reach
that glorious blue sky
it's when city dreamers
really, really
could dream high
yet trying to go on their
own particular ways—
not even finding relief, sigh!
would you still hold me
until the golden dawn?
tell me what year are we now, again?
we're here, olden.. but then
somehow
we still have
fallen apart, as you joked
again..and..again
—that you bleed—
(unrequited love?)
that's how we
pass the blame to reality
but really, it could just be
an untranslatable word
for perfect love
unconsciously—
misunderstanding
mere affinity—
to come to know another
(a breakaway discovered
among groups of birds)
to come to know me is
to deep dive to me
to not resent
the unanticipated
cavernous dark
sides or hues
what an awful
surprise that would
be if you had
that false image
before you love
an idea far-flung
gets into your
morality,
then let birds
fly away
forgetting everything
in their flight—
in that one-way mirror again
high up in his flying train,
he gathers up his
thoughts once again
a seeming intersection
while the Tokyo music
was revivified in his
digital song collections
sure, they never admitted
their needful urges just to
warrant their utmost desires
to live in heaven peacefully
but the firmament,
where was that exactly?
we may forever escape
our scathing and snide
remarks thrown unto each other
the overarching cultural
relativism, capitalism,
individual differences,
language barriers,
denialism & its power
your misdeeds are forgiven
by him, like a muscle twitch
unlike when he needed to scratch
whatever it is when compared
to an itch
he came along
she was the song
but just without words
and tender caresses
of samurai swords
—like a moonless twilight
the dead of winter
make things
not right
not all countries
dusted by snow
to their heads alight
it does speak
through our fallacies
and biases alike
our dreariness,
longstanding,
dreaminess,
like a moonless twilight
An Active Volcano
& Homesteads
He wants to visit
a Mitsukoshi somewhere
but, instead, they
visited Harajuku in Japan
It's like a Resident Evil
film sequel during
that silver afternoon
just because every big
city needs one
But the tremendous
beauty of a volcano
and a mountain simply
cannot be denied
Its mysteries even
symbolized the island
country, her homeland
Without that sad part of
the past (Alas, now it's over)
each could not
have walk passed each other
It seems everything
happens for a reason
I say everytime this
was the case,
it happens each season
And so we question time,
biology and our biography,
and blame the universe for our
subjective and objective reality
—to one's own company
(original working title: the music you play)
are these leaves pure green tea,
to steep in a cup
designed so quaintly?
i know a type of
music, but not all things
jazzy
because there
could be drill rap music
which they—call—
classy
it's not a pretty picture
anymore for a degenerate
generation,
i think transnationalism
somehow creates a
nation
i just hope we don't fall
victim to this wake of
insanity—
to be foisted, with gradual
influence—to one's own
company—
My father prefers to speak through songs rather than with words. Through time, he has created a collection of all sorts of musical devices: he owns a wide spectrum of headphones, LP and CD players, and those in our home’s history remember a couple of iPods and iPhones... This could go on and on but his favorite ones are the speakers you can find in the room at our home where he sometimes works. I remember being younger and the various times where my dad showed me how different music could sound, all depending where it was coming from. For a man of few words, he has a habit of religiously telling me that I need to feel it: The sound and tempo of strings, piano keys, and the beat of drums can all become tangible if I want to. Every weekend he gives himself time to test the different kinds of settings his speakers have and change them to his desires and preferences. They've been with him through it all: since the first day we moved to this house, to all the jazzy dinner meals he has prepared for us. Almost every Sunday he cooks us chicken and vegetables while he listens to his favorite songs from sessions of MTV Unplugged. Once he turns his speakers on, it feels like as if he's not in Monterrey anymore but in a land somewhere far away in his mind. There are times where I can’t differentiate the sounds between his devices but he can get so excited about them that I just can’t say anything else than “Yes, I do”. Sometimes though, times are gloomy and he puts his music very quiet and stays inside his office all day long. I remember when he discovered a radio station from Montecarlo and how he used to put it on nonstop; he said it reminded him of one of the dreamiest trips he has experienced with my mother. Sometimes, she doesn't like it when (for her standards) the music is too loud. So when she’s away because of work, my dad sets up a daylong concert including genres such as bossa nova, jazz, 80’s Argentinian music, and much more. It’s quite funny how he secretly adds up speakers to his collection without telling anyone, they just appear in our house randomly. I don't remember a time in my life where music has not been relevant to his life.
On a business trip to Germany back in the summer of 2006, the same year the FIFA World Cup was held over there, I asked my dad to bring me a present. So, as I was hoping for, he brought me a replica (I had all intention of playing with it so an original one wouldn’t be such a good idea) of the ball that was to be used for that World Cup. It had a very simple yet appealing design, with those squiggly, black lines making something of an 8-like shape with golden edges. It felt very smooth and with not much cushion in the first layer, you could tell it would be a hard hitter. At that time, I played football with my dad every Saturday and Sunday, we would go out to my garden and stretch our feet for a couple of hours. He always bugged me about using both feet (I’m right footed), but I never really wanted to. I could barely hit the ball with my left foot let alone give an accurate pass or shot with it. A couple of days after he returned from Germany, whilst we were getting ready to play with that same ball, he came up with an exercise to make me get better with my left foot. In our garden, there’s a big wall on one side covered in bindweeds which has something of a vertical line or column of bricks that stick out of it (with a width of about 30 cm, no idea why it’s there to be honest). It’s fairly noticeable. He told me I had to hit, from about 8 meters away, a spot on the column that was about three meters high, with my left foot! At that age (around 8 years old), you’re not guaranteed to lift a football upwards of three meters every single time, even with your natural foot let alone hit a 30 cm column from almost ten meters away. Giving it a try with my left foot, I struggled to make it reach the wall in the first place. So this became our ritual. Every day, before playing, I had to have at least 30 go’s at hitting that same spot on our wall with the same football. There would be some times where I would lose my balance and fall, others where the ball would simply not reach the wall, and every now and then I would be able to lift the ball only to see it hit far away from the intended spot and brush some bindweeds. It was excruciating, but I wanted to play so I would just get on with it. I really can’t remember the first time I was able to hit that spot with my left foot, but I guarantee it was at least several months later with that same World Cup ball my father brought me, which was probably full of scratches and green grass marks by then.