what we call in

and i dont know
how this story ends
or even where/when
it
begins

but i can tell you the first day
was re-birthing

and i called her from the page
or she called me

saw her in the upper back right row

and she began to answer

she gave me her
desire
kept it safe in
d
n
a

and now

... i unwind
rewind
stop stop stop
go go go go
begin again
again
begin

lights
audience
stop
begin

and the curtain was not falling
the rope was not cut
she called her baby into being
i called my umma into knowing

and i did the thing i said id never do

stretched limbs
let go
and
danced
without
holding back

told her my whole story
and in the middle of the writing
she calls my name

(oh the irony)

... tell me laurie

did you know this all along?

musings on 4 months

and she says
"whatd you come here looking for?"

accusing me of wanting
something

cuz everybody
wants
something

... "to create the world with you"
is what i want to say
but its only the 2nd day
so i just say
"nothing"

cuz the kind of something that shes asking
isnt about
creation
its about
- something
else

speed the streets ahead
traffic zooms by
and she no longer asks
a
thing

and we joke
eating
pork wrapped in sesame and lettuce leaves
how everybody choose their alias' now
cuz
"we know we're ending up in the book"

"the book"
like im bout to birth the bible
like im bout to birth the next best great thing
(maybe
i am)
but
(maybe
im not)

for 32 years 362 days ive dreamt that sea
and now im safe inside
from its crashing
safe
because now
ive seen it

and in the inbetweens of late night drinking
the sentences are forming

and in the late night inbetweens of acting out of lusts
the paragraphs are being shaped

for i have memorized your lines
can recall them in my fingertips
can feel still
your hands covering my ears
protecting me from the sounds
of
pre-recorded
calls for
goods to buy and sell

and you?
you were only ever just an excuse
to move on from
what i want but cannot should not have

and you?
you were just a hand
against my flesh

and you?
you were
well
you were there
to prove i have no high ground for some kinds of
morality

but you
you
its always been you

the you who five years later maybe the story could be different
but we met
when i was wearing blue
and no matter all the bad
so much still
is beautiful to recall

you
you are my favorite
from this time
i didnt just come here looking for her
i also came

to

see

if you would
say
"stay"

i have my whole life ahead of me
its begun again so many times

have seen and met
the most interesting of all things

the goodness of my life
is not lost on me

but that will never change just how much more i want...

... "i dont write love poems" i tell her
"yes ... you do" says she
and then lets me pretend that i just dont

she turns her back when i leave
but thats ok
i got exactly what i came here looking for

i saw her smile when no one else was looking

so i can go out into the last days here

and write the kinds of things it is that i write

a small wondering

what is it
diamond shining in the sky
octagonal
over city scapes
and this night compels
and this day it maintains
and i am black toque'd
i am grey jeaned
hair pulled back

leather jacket
bound

and youre the one i dream of
when awake

do you know
just how much i have seen
come and go
in a time so
brief

4 months
and i have seen the rises and the falls
thrown money down upon the tables
been slapped with the backside of your hair
saying
"go away"

come back
is what i whisper

and you are now mine
forever and a day

i have lived so much
in just months
and watched circles large and small
fall in upon themselves

watched winter fade
stood beneath slow snow falls
outside the cafes of hongdaes

gained and lost
lost and gained

in such a short space and span of time

and still this one circle
small to others
large to me

i wonder
if thats the diamond that i keep seeing in the sky

wonder if thats
the thing thats been blinding me
from
focus

... cuz i just
cant stop looking

up

(the) cherry blossoms

i want to
see the cherry blossoms with you
watch them fall
down our cheeks
see sky cry
cry the sky pink
cry the sky that ive been dreaming on the big screen
not geisha
but gisaeng walking proud
looking upwards

and the women are not here today
and i dont care what it is he has to say bout finite resources
i just want to dream in the rain of blossoms

and for all my wanton ways
my heart it believes the softest (of) things
can be sent fluttering at the thought of pink petals floating
can cry for things not seen
but felt

and even if
i miss you everyday
i will not speak it
instead i will stand stalk tall silent
and let the tears of trees encompass
everything that im not saying

i want to see the cherry blossoms in the spring with you
days before leaving
but because i cannot
i will go with others

and i will cry for memories
of the circle that we started
but cannot yet
complete

for we like cherry trees
both come from something

proud
and
heart breaking

letting words drop from our
soft smooth limbs
that sends the wind into
the woods

and leaves us
bereft
of
winters
cold

calling forth the start of
yet another
year

beneath the sky that is
kissing us with
pink
and
pollen

what they say

and they tell me
"youre sooo korean"
when i say how much i love
gobchang
and they tell me
"youre soo korean"
when i say
"hell yes i love dried squid... especially with mayonnaise"
and they tell me
"youre soo korean"
when i tell them samgyupsal's a favorite but gobchangs even better but no matter what
there must be

soju

... and then they giggle when i cant even say my own mothers name right
not just her name
but
her title

mom

and thats when i go back to being
western
waygook

(damn those g.i.'s were stupid
thinking migook meant "me gook")

and then i go back to being a western waygook
when
i cant order off the menu
or tell the taxi driver slow and broken
"wenjok... juseyeo"
but it sounds
(coming outta my mouth)
more like

"when-joke joo say-owe"
and everybody snorts a laugh

and thats when i want to punch
and
kick
and
scream

bout how
"well maybe i could say these things correctly
if youd just taken the time
to
i dont know
KEEP ME"

but then they clap and smile
say my name
tell me it is beautiful
and just how korean i am
cuz my hair is black
and my waist is thin
and i love gobchang
so damn i must be korean
cuz i love the makkoli man

but ive met white girls more korean than me
and all us ibyang can barely say our korean given names
the other day she corrected me on my own name
and i blushed
cuz maybe she was right
but (sometimes) i dont trust the ibyangs
much more than i trust
the agencies

and they tell me
when theyre not speaking
just how korean i look
but then again i know words that only insiders know
words like
"iban"
and thats something just the ones who give themselves new names
know

and i announce to laughter
the laughter of koreans
"thats right - im an ibyang iban"

like we all know
something

and maybe youre my sister
more likely somehow so my cousin
cuz my halmunnee's descended from some place high
and im your bastard relative

and anyways
im not korean
and im not american
i know europe better than i know here

and they tell me everything of who i am
cuz of what i like to eat or drink
as if soju makes me more korean
as if the entrails of farm animals give me right to kinship
its in my blood
its in my dna
but i know ibyang who run from sight of fish
does that make them somehow more
midwest?

"you know nothing"
i wanna yell
whilst glancing black hiigh heeled leather boots that pin prick along concrete floors
leaving echoes the way that ghosts leave sounds behind

"i love nachos too does that make me mexican?"

but here its different

here its like
the acceptance that i never got on pre school playgrounds
when white boys would sit atop the big log tunnel taunting
"chinese japanese"
(i know now even they did not know what they were saying...
father, forgive their parents for raising such small white beasts)

they tell me how im so this or that
in europe it was the same
canadians mistaking me
me
for lithuanian
in a land of lily white

mistaking me for always being what im not.

well,
ive got a white mama and a white papa
and a tall white bro
but that still dont make me white

and i know where my generations come from
im descended from the mountains and the sea on the east coast side of this continent
ive the seen the waves and soil

and the one im looking for
finding her has changed everything and nothing
cuz i still can wake up
broken hearted crying
for the lust i lost the night before
for the lust i cut off just months ago
for the friends i miss
for the girl who has to think before saying hi to me
so none of that has changed

but all the wondering
that whole thing looks different

but the questions remain just as dumb

and they tell me
just how korean i am
just how american i am
just how european-ized ive become

and i wanna tell em all
wanna scream it shout it when everyones just busy with their day and drinks
"you fools
im not just
im not so how
im
an
iban ibyang who loves gopchang soju nachos cepellini seour cream svyturys words by kerouac and asian american beat slam poets
im the latest trend
that hollywood stars are showing off
hybrid cross culture gay ass korean born american raised european lived iban ibyang kimchi eatin' dunhill light-uhh hybrid poet writer
gluttonous lustful womanizing
but still i believe in love


artist

who
got lost
and
found
15 times
along the way"

decompression for the days

oh korea
drunk and tilting
bodies writhing
passing out on bar top corners
coming to for another shot
tongues wrestling forbidden fruits
korea's slanting on a hill
outside the walls the words read
large in white
"EAT ME"

... dirty man covered in foundation
oggling me like im his future twink
and im sipping cass

so many times like these
when thinking

"how-m-i ever supposed to write home 'bout this?"

oh korea

everyones gonna get the wrong idea

like this is all that we've been doing

watching people down their drinks
and sandwich dance on white blocks

(cuz even then
the light
it still gets in)

so much happens in four months
so much happens in a night
a day
some weeks

closeness gained lost gained and lost again

how is it that letting go is just a form of clinging?

i dream with henry miller

how one day

this will just all be different

... i think of jack
young
like me

old
like im becoming

i refuse to die of rotted guts

but some days after nights like last

i wonder if with every single act of redemption - im not just on my road to hell

in the middle of the day
in the middle of the night

i chant your name

hoping
for words to change what wishing does not

... even inbetween these lines

im whispering

inbetween the bodies writhing on the makeshift stage
inbetween the passer-outers at the bar
inbetween the wrestling tongues
inbetween the cards turned over

cuz the light

it never leaves

so maybe one day somehow

you'll look up without knowing

and say my name too

and we'll wander paragraphs together

like writers do

blah blah ramble ramble one of many more

and when distraction ends
and life begins
theres the uttering
and muttering
to retrieve
to make kind what was once cruel

and the distraction of the dumb
is habitual
returning
(me)
to the truth of
honest
true
desire

and the distraction of the less than
is not to fill
but to forget
if even for a moment
of why it cannot be
even though
i cannot help
my heart

and the weeks that have now turned to months
to life that is
everyday living
i now must begin
to face a truth
one too many

of everything thats been so easy to
cover up
replace
with
wanton
less than stimulating
moments

just like television
sometimes the brain kill
is necessary
to find where it is that
(my)
heart
begins

and my heart is with you
and my desire is with you
and my wish is for you
and my missing is you
and my dealing is you

and the objects in my hands
im setting down
the paper dolls that ive been dressing up

and i can hear my friends a whispering
i can hear their voices in my head
and how they save me daily
and how they bring me back to mine

last night i dreamt of chocolate cake
and somehow it tasted good
inbetween the headache that was waking me
reminding me in sleep
the truth of
reality
and
the
fantasy

and one day i will write this thing
that is gestating
and wonder where it will take me

oh lover of words
oh word lovers
godots of my daily
i dont want the hyperboles that are whizzing round my head
i want the fruition of my sentences
the same fruitions
that brought us here
that keep us here
that will not let us go

we are made of water
and everything between us now
is just
steam