This letter concerns your long unused eyes:
Be warned—while still seeing, you may vanish—
quick as light slips past its closed door. Your sigh
can’t kill darkness. Read these words now. You can
think through them later, by lost, cool lamplight—
Watch the letters with concerned eyes. Don’t use
fingers on this page. Follow, strict, left to right,
quick. Light fades behind that door. Sigh and you’ll
miss them the way you miss slyly thrown balls—
think later, swing now. Then learn to light lamps
while you can make out shapes you’ve known. Night falls
fast, like fingers counting strict time. Write left
handed now, read with broken eyes. Cast looks
past words you’ll miss, like the lost balls you’ve thrown
at diamonds you’ve never seen.…
...continue reading
She’s looking at something light—
………………..not the tree trunks on the right
……something on the left.
Say, sunset. Say, a salty breeze.
I dab white petals over the orange half disk,
……white out the breeze and shadows too,
…………smear grape, scales, and lemon juice all around
…………..the potatoes and potholes of her back.
(Reach inside her torso,
……the colors would darken instantly,
…………the bristles would spread, the wrist would ache.
Take a bite and it would taste like cotton candy
…………before catching in the throat.)
The trunks are too skinny. The paint is drying—
……………………………………….…………Time is running out.
Anyone can paint appearances—
……it’s not more difficult than lighting up a sky with whorls.…
...continue reading
Trains don’t collide but intersect
when / where she stopped leaving early
and I stopped not working.
Work? Left me without stories.
It’s not amnesia but condominium life,
lights fluorescing off stage,
desert sky with half the stars.
My God, it’s full of snow!
When one is 1 plus the product
of all lesser primes,
where to hide but the imaginary line?
– Kenton K. Yee
Author’s Note: Recently, I’ve been thinking about poetry in revision. One way this poem can be read is as an ars poetica. “Snow Condominium” views a poem as a condominium of snow that’s being reimagined and restructured. …
...continue reading
sketch the ridge waiting
for sunset, light beaming
behind cumulonimbus,
……………but I can’t get the trees right.
wildfires glare from the west
shroud us in haze, but the blue shadow
of sierra still towers
…………………………when the sky blackens,
…………………………the stars pierce
…………………………& I still haven’t seen one fall
finish the sketch from a photograph,
the memory of actually being
just out of reach, perfect days
blur at the edges.
…………………………sketch in pen
…………………………it forces deliberation
……………where you hesitate, where you’re firm,
……………trace it all from the beginning,
…………………………………..enamored with the possibility
…………………………………..that ink will bleed
…………………………………..when coffee spills
……………………………..I carve
the layer of dirt on my skin
underglaze on clay,
…………………………trace a finger
…………………………a print on sunburn
…………………………the light lusters.…
...continue reading
I look at this imaginary painting on the wall –
A man is standing on an Irish cliff with the morning dew glistening
Upon the grass as green as green can be
And in his unruly beard that is sometimes more brown than red,
Other times more red than brown.
The sun is in his eyes and he’s squinting.
In the distance where he is looking
There is a roiling sea with a small ship rocking on it.
Two women are on that ship, on their way to stand also on the Irish cliff
Where the dew will cling to their bare feet and hang from the hems of their long flimsy skirts.
One woman is with the man of the unruly beard where the red and the brown do battle.…
...continue reading
I escaped through the basement door
at midnight, while up on the third floor
they were playing death games
on the flatscreen. I walked the dark streets
barefoot in cargo shorts.
Above me half a moon and half a sun
were stalking each other.
A line of handsome homes posed
at the edge of the bluff
as if thinking about jumping.
I only wanted to hide for a while
in their electric landscapes
to become a stone statue of no one
so they would touch my face
with their trembling fingers.…
...continue reading
I was seated
in the death black limousine
at the back.
Thirteen, sobbing.
Bagpipes played
the bagpipe songs.
Timely snow
covered our coats.
Our grandmother
mother
wife
stranger
lowered
into the ground.…
...continue reading