おつげ Otsuge (oracle)

we exist nowhere
wise oracles unknown, we
sing atop the stars.

the artist formerly known as "poet"

nothing worth saying, so i'll just say this

thoughts are fragmented
i guess because there's no time
to think them
complete them
to make them sound right.

...it doesn't feel right.

i'd rehearse this over but the big day looms closer and i've gotten no better. don't know whether i should give up now or just keep keeping on.

inspiration's running on fumes; satisfaction is something that haiku can't do.

the muse hasn't paid what she owes, but i can't let you know. so...

"the screen is still blank, but i swear something's there; i just typed it in white." i hope you believe me.

and you leave me,
to argue with myself over a good place to hang my

hyperbole,

though there are no hooks in sight...

only fragments for miles.

should i keep walking?

kai xing shu (happy tree)

autumn here is nothing short of beautiful.  the weather can't decide its mood, but the trees never seem to notice.

i still remember senior year, when anna, lauren, and i named the sapling outside our latin class window.  we named it  kai xing shu (happy tree) because looking at it cheered everyone up.

it's been a while since i thought about it, but just recently i found kai xing shu again.

there's a huge tree not too far from winthrop house, whose leaves have all turned a splendid gold.  i walk under it almost every morning on my way to my hectic life.  but i always have to stop (rather, slow my pace) and look up.

because looking at those branches stretch to the sky, looking at the showers of richly colored leaves...is like looking up at pure happiness.

i'm yours--segway into a daydream

when "i'm yours" came on my ipod earlier, i started thinking about him.  i had the perfect daydream, and a couple that were hazy.

it's been said that we'd make a great couple.  as much as i try to push the possible false hope out of my mind, i find...that i really don't want to do that at all.

what i want to do is walk with him, hands tangled together in a lazy, carefree way. humming a two-part harmony on jason mraz in harvard square.

Dryspell--Writer's Block Revisited

so i wrote this back in April, but since this morning was the first time in a month that i finished a good poem, i thought i'd share how that process begins...

i'm sitting here, poised for poetry. i have a song on repeat as usual. this time, it's "merry christmas, mr. lawrence--fyi" from utada's new album (shameless plug). i've listened to this song so much i think the other songs on my playlists are getting jealous. that's the first sign of a visit from the usual muse. i can't focus. that's the second sign. i feel strangely full but unsatisfied, as if the only metaphorical food that will fill me is poetry and the only way to get that food is to empty my soul of all emotion that i feel. that's the third sign, arguably the most important.

somehow...although all of the pieces are in place, the puzzle isn't together. i haven't written a poem in a month, but it feels like even longer than that. and it's not like i have nothing to write about. i'm surrounded by things to say, words to combine, secrets to convey in vague and cryptic ways, people to immortalize in verse. i'm having trouble figuring out what to say even here.

the well has run dry. no ink spills from my pen. my heart prays for the sky to change, for rain to release everything that i feel. but so far...there's not a cloud in the sky.