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Thursday, November 30, 2006

The Kyoto Protocol



I had to walklimb a mountain
to right this poem. here in beautiful
hangook, smog settles in valleys
where the suicidal species congregates
and lives in high-rises and billboards;
so here I am, trying to find some clean
air, a piece of mind
above
the love/hate relationship I harbour
for my own caucasian male ego. The people
here speak to me and I can understand
little of what they say. Their faces
say more -- kind and generous, have what I have.
Busan stretches its limbs below, encircling
its own heights that reach
for the sky
like a woman's breasts when she's on
her back, and there's nothing
sexual about that right now; I'm gay
for chrissake! For Christ's (and other's)
sakes I crossed the burden
of my being in a ferry named atomic.
For strictly exercising her lungs,
a woman cries out and magpies call back,
looking
for leftovers flung over the shoulder
of a kind and generous "have what I have"
face that quenched my thirst
with a persimmon.

What is it about heights that makes
people delight
in shouting, overlooking the harbour
where thousands board high-speed trains
with hand-bills and church congregations
sing suicidal hymns next
door to buddhist monks sneaking
into a tavern to quaff a drink, dripping
with the memory of incense.

Speak to me,
people hear!
of what they say I can understand
little.
And redundant,
recursive
limbs
stretch back behind the sky,
reaching for the atomic ferry.
Tinker bell,
a mountain named desire
maintained as a molehill,

echoing.

Monday, November 27, 2006

News, sewn with barbed wire...

Apparently, that sleep thing that I mentioned a few posts back was related more to a sickness (tonsilitis) than anything else. I had a bad fever, went to the hospital the next day, and my boss called me and urged me to go back to work because there are two illegals at the hagwan, who are missing that week due to the visit of some or other inspector. He told me to come back to work when I had an IV stuck in my arm. Between that and the "Stop playing games" and "make it more fun, the kids are getting bored" I don't know what's what.

I felt like crap again today: nausea all day, although it got better towards the end of the day. Plus the students of one class were lying through their teeth about an assignment that was due today and none of them did it. "Teacher, you didn't tell us it was due today." I told every single one of them at least three times: more likely five. Ok, if you're going to lie, at least make it plausible. Scratch that! At least make it interesting. Then, to try to make me feel like a "filthy foreigner" They touched my hair with a kleenex and spent two minutes making grossed out faces and doing their best not to touch it. Do I ever feel appreciated!

Thank goodness even crappy days come to an end.

Monday, November 20, 2006

WTF?!



I found this sign semiotically confusing, considering potheads have a reputation for poor hygiene and Metrosexuals have hyperactively good hygiene. Also, what does pot have to do with Ireland besides the colour green?

Thursday, November 16, 2006

Hello Whoever-you-are!

God bless your heart! I see you've been following my handiwork very well, and it feels good to know that someone is interested enough in the hard work I put into my blog and my music site (www.zebox.com/treevortex) to log onto both many times and loiter around for so long. I feel appreciated. Feel free to leave a comment, I don't bite! I will even respond in kind. Yes, I'm talking to you, inktomisearch person! You there, in Sunnyvale, California. This blog's for you!

And to my other loyal readers in the Toronto area: don't feel left out! I will dedicate one to you soon...

Here's a poem

The newspapers are all adrip with transparent ink
ghost words, remedy for the bored mind to rail against
bottled up, the pressure of a jobless space in the day planner
looks like a neck when you draw it on paper, cross-hatched
eggs rolling down the nape of breakfast, ruminating,
like a car idling, time waiting in line, what happens when we blink?

Everywhere people say with their eyes watch out or don't blink
you might miss something, a get-rich quick ticket with fresh ink
security guards, on the graveyard shift, in front of screens ruminating
stone still with drooping eyelids, a vagrant outside pitched against
the marbled edifice, steel enveloped glass, people hatched
direct into the hurry, a restless current, the vision of a city planner.

In a park, tuxedoed men rock on heels, relief sighs escape a wedding planner
rings pop out of boxes, held aloft for a crowd to see, minerals blink
and flash in sunlight, hands shake, arms clasp across backs, hatched
from stone-age burials, plant pigments, the smell of octopus ink.
Jet through the streams, downloadable desires set against
burgundy blades, trundled over flesh, eyes in the mirror ruminating.

Instinct still polished and stainless steel smooth, feet ruminating
the get up and go that got up and went, rending the event planner,
tragedies personal but outed, in the end sung, but to swim against
the tide, you need a diet of basso profundo, no ovation, just a blink
stage fright, flights from predators, camouflage covers the ink
on a newspapers' fine print that never made it to print, hatched

like a virus from its entanglement with the strands that hatched
its fight against the life that gave it life, walls are ruminating,
wailing with sewn together lips, criss-crossed with tattoo ink
hands tied with umbilical cords, no one is a birth planner
down to final details, with details so final, no cries are heard, no blink
is seen, face pressed against glass, against the bed, just against.

It all pushes back, doesn't it? If it was as simple as for or against.
An ostrich sticks its neck out, no sand in sight, even though it just hatched.
If I could learn from these words, it might make quiet sense when I blink.
Head perched on an end of the world railing, thoughts themselves ruminating,
my mind has a mind of its own, its ownership is a planner.
Can we make the needed leap, no faith involved, from pixel to ink?

So when you ask what I'm doing next Tuesday, I'll say ruminating.
If payday comes my way, I'll become a vacation planner.
Eyes closed while walking, I forgot to look in your face and blink.
Storm tossed branches, settled
tabletop splintered and angled,
the home seems less a home than an
eviscerated body.

Saturday, November 04, 2006

The Terrorism of Circumstance



My other favourite work at the Busan Bienniale was this weather balloon kept afloat by a fan blowing air upwards. It had a radio signal that broadcast through about twenty speakers arranged in a circle around the room. The radio signal was picked up on an amplifier through some feedback mechanism that varied the sound it made as the balloon moved around in the room and changed its distance from the amplifier. The sounds produced were very trancy: reminiscent of a cross between tibetan chanting and cicada song.

Unfortunately, as I was watching and listening, the balloon and its attached radio collided with the fan cage. The sound became very tinny, high-pitched, and loud, and then faded away totally. One of the bienniale staff soon appeared and looked at me, and I just shrugged my shoulders like I didn't know what caused the mishap (which was true). I guess I was lucky. They could have construed that I somehow screwed with the installation. Whew!