2001-06-07 - 9:50 p.m. - poemata_mala2

As usual, I've nothing exciting to report. I should probably start packing soon, but I just finished dinner and I don't want to start quite yet. Below, if you feel like some particularly strenuous self-torture, are some of my earlier poems and a set of stories I wrote for my friend.

I have been strong, with strength of youth

Grown stubborn in myself with those before me, behind me;

become especial and wondrously at peace,

tempered strong with the blood of the Han.

So why then am I afraid to speak?

Why then do I not burst forth

From these bonds that imprison me?

I ask the wind, Is it time yet?

And blowing from China�s Sorrow, it answers,

Not yet, my child, not yet.

I have grown strong, with strength of youth.

Am fully in my prime, have come into my own at last =

Yet cannot find love, though it freely is given,

Where now is my quiet pride?

Where now are my crafted words?

I am grown stubborn and determined to battle,

I ask my wind, Is it time yet?

And blowing from China�s Sorrow, it answers,

Not yet, my child, not yet.

I have watched strength wane, as has my youth;

grown ornery in descent to senility,

Old friends have long passed me by.

I face my demons alone but standing fast.

Why was I- am I- afraid to speak?

Where were the bonds seemed so strong?

Where has my time, my life, now fled?

I ask the wind Is it time yet?

And blowing from a glorified lake,

It whispers- though drowned still-

Not yet, my child, not yet.

But now, I am prepared for this creed;

Bitterness and bile- no newcomers these,

Work their way up, and all pours out.

I cry, When then, is it my turn to bloom?

When will I no longer be forced to hide?

When will I not have a huge lie to don,

To claim my birth and my people as I am?

The wind whispers, I am not permanent.

You listened to me, I did not force you.

And the more fool are you for having listened.

I know he is right � shame darkens �//

Niobe! come from your mount;

surely your heart is not too covered

over in stone by your grief...//

What did I do to deserve myself?

I am my own worst injury:

for trapped in this inglorious carcass of mine

I find myself only laughable.//

[first half excised]

what reason to smile, how to smile

when my core is hollow rotted out bleeding?

how can i smile until i love myself?

and how can i expect love of others

if i have none for myself?

not narcissism but acceptance i seek:

i try to learn ambition, a sense of urgency

i do not wish to die

for i am more fortunate than most

only i have burned myself away

only ashes remain

and i collapse upon myself in familiar

despair.//

[first third excised]

perhaps if i write for long enough, something will emerge

something indestructible, something immutable

perhaps what is left of me will find

a better tomorrow:

as now I have little hope:

what is left of my spirit is steel

but what is left is the size of only a pin//

Um, yes. And now the story. A warning should be given now that I have no powers of narration, and you may fall yourself falling asleep. The interjections are there because I was typing this into an ICQ chat.

FAIRY TALE

Once upon a time, there was a little girl who lived in a small town. She lived in this huge castle with her parents and her older sister. (Shut up and let me tell my story!) One day, she decided that it might be nice to start recording that huge mix of feelings inside her brain, and decided that paper was the best medium. Of course, paper hadn't been invented yet, because these were the old days and anyway these people weren't in contact with the greatest of civilizations, the Chinese.

So, she took some rags lying around the house and created the European substitute for paper, parchment. She bound the parchment together with twine and made the first book. Because she was a wonderful little Latin scholar (am I really that boring that you need to be away for so long!?), she took the word for "day," "dies," and made it into a new word, "diary," because she knew that she wanted to write in her little book every day. She started writing in this new book of hers but forgot where she had put it the next day so she went out, gathered rags again, and made another book. This went on for a year.

Now, what she hadn't realized is that an evil gremlin had been stealing her diaries and reading them. She found this out, however, and killed the gremlin, but unfortunately, because she was a Princess of Little Brain, she forgot to ask where he had chucked the diaries after reading them (which of course was tantamount to raping her). One day, she opened a closet, and all her diaries fell out on her. She called out for her parents, but because her parents were so far away and because the castle was so exceedingly large, they could not find the princess in time and so the princess died of internal injuries brought on by being crushed under 403 diaries.

Her parents commissioned beautiful music, poems, and sculpture to be made in her honor, and kept them in the castle archives' permanent storage room lest their dead daughter's memory fade. The man who would have married the princess turned out to be a closet case anyway, finding the love of his life (a common sailor- imagine, a prince with a sailor: the scandal!) and running off, so that the princess's death saved them both an unhappy marriage.

Everyone turned out happily ever after, even the princess's ghost, because the princess's ghost found a very nice straight male ghost in the castle and had little ghost children, one of whom eventually turned out to be the ancestor of Caspar, the friendly ghost. Everyone was happy and the kingdom settled down into its little rut after a suitable period of mourning for the princess. ..

Once upon a time, there was a closet case who was liberated from a joyless arranged marriage by her unfortunate death (crushed by diaries). He was of noble blood, but despite the disapproval of his parents, he ran off with a common sailor. (Where was I? Oh yes, right...) This sailor, alas, was in the navy, and the navy of his country had a restrictive policy about those of alternative sexualities. They were found out and beaten out of the navy... and abandoned on a desert island in the middle of a wide ocean.

Saddened by this renewed evidence of man's inhumanity to man, they clung to each other for a few days before realizing that they had to do something about their rather dire situation. The sailor, luckily, was an experienced navigator, and after building a raft with some handy palm trees that had been felled by a storm, they set out in search of a realm that would accept them and their love.

While the prince had never rowed before, he was able with the competent instruction of the sailor to put his overdeveloped (fitness centers in the palace and all) muscles to use. By day, they rowed, and at night, they rested- although they didn't get all that much rest. The sailor set up a container for rainwater so that they were able to get fresh water- fortunately, it rained almost every night. They eventually sighted land, but as they drew near, they saw signs reading "Family First" and "Christian Coalition" on the beach. Fearing for their lives, they backpedaled, but not before the spyglasses of the theocracy's guard had caught them locked in a passionate kiss. They were towed into port with a Cross-shaped tugboat and were thrown into prison immediately.

We left our two young heroes in the dungeon of the Christian Coalition. They were surrounded by all the trappings of the breeder stronghold- their torturers had horrible haircuts, the decor was horrible, feng shui had completely been ignored... and worst of all, there was no vegetarian option in the meals set before them.

After a bit of torture that your storyteller would really rather not go into (branding irons, billy clubs, meat hooks, racks- that sort of thing), the lucky pair escaped by shredding their prison-issue clothes, tying them together into a rope, and climbing the rope out the window to freedom. Their guards, fortunately, were asleep, having dismissed the sailor and the prince as merely another effeminate pair to be broken, which allowed the pair to make good their escape before any outcry was raised. They found canoes lined up at the docks, unsecured of course because in any good Christian country there is no stealing, and promptly stole one and paddled away. The next morning, they were well out to sea again, away from the chaos caused by their disappearance (there were quite a few heads rolling that day...)

They kept rowing for a week, wishing to put as much distance as possible between themselves and the Land of the Christian Coalition, and washed up on what seemed to be a fertile island. It at first glance appeared to be deserted... but... they found a small tribe living on the northernmost promontory. After much discussion with the chief, they were allowed to rest on the island for a bit, which allowed their bodies to become tanned, a move they knew would put them at a distinct dating advantage within the mythical Gay Community. (They already had hard bodies, which helped.)

Before long, they had a visitor to the hut that they shared. This visitor begged to be taken off the island, saying that the chief had made life intolerable for him, as chiefs are wont to do. The chief, it was stated, had raped and then killed the visitor's life partner over a fishing dispute, then proceeded to make the visitor his own partner and leather slave. The visitor didn't mind being a leather bottom so much, but did have issues with belonging to the chief, and so he appealed to the mercy of the sailor and the prince.

After about ten seconds of deliberation (for after all, the visitor was rather fetching in his leather regalia) the two decided to leave, taking their mysterious visitor with them. That night, they sailed out under cover of darkness, taking food and water and leaving five gold pieces, setting out for another land. They took turns rowing- the canoe was a little crowded and they were all pressed up against one another, but they didn't really mind that. After a while, the chief's slave decided that he didn't need clothes anymore and tossed them overboard, keeping only his leather equipment on board the canoe. They all rowed and rowed, pausing only for nourishment and rest. The trio found land that was temperate and thus inviting, but before they could reach the shore, their boat was swamped by a freak storm...

After their boat capsized, three of them nearly drowned. However, a pod of dolphins happened to be stopping by and ferried them to the shore; the fourth swam on his own. On the way, they passed a colony of cute, rubbery, cuddly seals who decided to follow the dolphins and ring in the nuptials of the two couples with their chorus of barking. The land that they reached turned out to be the Land of Every Queen's Wet Dream, or the Land of Equal Opportunity. The prince and the sailor were happily married in the large Episcopalian chapel by a pastor of Tiffany's choosing and everyone lived happily ever after in the happily socialized society where all were provided for.

The End.

And there... I leave you. I suppose all of the above was a very very long way of telling you that I really have nothing to write about.

Tiff, Oz, I'm making you two mixed tapes each.

I will return.

Just as Dewey returned to Manila.

J (:>