photos, poems, films by me
Dumpster Diver
Dumpster diver, dumpster diver
I ain’t nothin’ but a lone survivor
Metal cans and pretty things
One man’s trash is another man’s earnings
Crush the can until it’s flat
5 cents a piece, I’ll take that
Searching for gold, I’m a California miner
San Francisco cold, 49ers
I was raised in this city but she didn’t raise me right
I’ll keep mining ‘til the day I die
Paris Pluie
Rain rushes over me and sweeps me away
I can’t remember the last time I felt this way
At peace, at present, as life should be lived
Golden and sweet just like honey is
Comme ci, comme ça, how life goes
I will follow wherever the wind blows
A breath of crisp air and a cold nose tip
I end the night with a kiss on the lips
Wine by the bottle, paints by the Seine
I love the rush of Paris in the rain
Papaya
Last week I watched The Scent of Green Papaya
with close intent
Like an anthropologist studying his own home
I wanted to understand the land within me
that I chose to ignore
A mosquito flies into the bed net
As a young Vietnamese boy takes a hot afternoon nap
His older brother perched on the window reading a book,
Burning ants on the ledge to assert his power
His mother sells fabric at the market
Because her husband gambled away all of their money again
This week I visited my home with more or less hesitancy
I purged my tears like a dam waiting to be unleashed;
a heavy, confusing, cathartic release
But this time they were for my father and not for me
His wounds exposed, like a cut flesh that never healed properly
My real grandfather was a literature teacher, a writer
my father too
His words pierce me like a dagger through the chest
a grown orphan star; this was true
Now his secrets are distant memories
His mind preoccupied with fatherly duties
When I’m home he greets me with a bowl of sweet papaya
and yells, “Ăn di, eat!”
