THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK, a found poem.

It's Valentine's Day 2017, and I know of no more romantic movie than STAR WARS EPISODE V: THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK. Here's my associative transliteration of the film in poem form, which may or may not appear in this sci-fi novella I'm working on, tentatively titled 12 VALENTINES (it does have something to do with Valentine's Day, and it'll all make sense in context, maybe):



THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK


Legend. Scroll. Gold over blackness.
Seed pods. An ice planet, an explosion. A crab rises out of the crater.
A Wampa.
The pirate and the princess. Solo and Organa. Their faces lit in an ice cave, from reflection. 
"The temperature is dropping rapidly."
"That's right, and my friend's out in it."
You will go from here to a jungle. A swamp. A planet.
And this will keep you warm. 


Have we ever known the story of that long night in the deathly freezing, in the shelter,
when Han watched over Luke, smelling of tauntaun entrails?


This is Rogue Two.
I have herded nerfs, up on Laserbrain Mountain. 
"I didn't hit it that hard."
Darth Vader sits in a semi-lotus position.
Leia briefs the daredevil pilots. 
The Ion Cannon shoots at the sky. The transport slips past the shark.
"We have spotted Imperial Walkers."


The snowspeeders are spitbugs, overmatched. 
Wedge is that guy who does everything right.
The AT-AT's soft spot is the armor at the back of their neck. It goes without saying. 
"I'll get her out on the Falcon." 
"Someday you're going to be wrong and I just hope I'm here to see it."
(That's an expression of true love.)
Vader's breaths as they leave. 
The chase of forever begins. The asteroid belt.
"You don't have to do this to impress me."
(The Millennium Falcon cockpit is the best 4-shot in the history of filmmaking.)
Scoundrel One, Slave One, Sith Two.


A swamp planet. Thick air. 
The Master plays the Fool. Grumpy, needy, dependent on a stick.
"Don't do that."
Yoda welcomes him with food. 
Anger. Like his father.
"Where he was. What he was doing." 
Yoda has his doubts. Look what happened with the other Jedi.


The peaceful hum of the Falcon in a cave. In a worm.
Mynocks. Chewing on our ship. Rebels cannot rest anywhere.
"I am not a committee." 


"Anger, fear, aggression. Easier, more seductive.
Knowledge and defense.
There is no try.
Luminous beings are we. Not this crude matter. 
You. Me. The tree. The rock. Everywhere."


The Bounty Hunters. 

Also, how is Luke on Dagobah for only a day,
or
are they chasing the Falcon through the asteroids for a month?


Bespin, also known as the planet of constant sunset.
"I don't like this."
"Well, what would you like?"
"What have we here? Who might you be?"
"I don't trust him either. He is my friend."


Luke makes a necessary bad decision.
Remember your failure at the cave.
Leia is the another. She's the last one if Luke loses.


The carbon freezing chamber.
"There'll be another time."
"I love you. I know."
Hands up. 
"Luke, don't, it's a trap."


Force jump.
Dad knocks me through the spiderweb window.
R2's smokescreen.
Dad cuts off my hand.
"No. I am your father."
"That's impossible."
Dad watches me fall into the netherclouds.


"We've got to go back."
"You know better than to trust a strange computer."
The last chase.
"I'm standing here in pieces, and you're having delusions of grandeur."
Hyperspace, after all that.


The Medical Frigate.
A new hand.
The trust of siblings.
The rendezvous point.
X-Wings, to John Williams's most heartened theme, unto the end. 

August 2014.

Sleep.

Warmth.

Eyes and hands. Neck and nose. Big features, small head.

What is it? This.

Sleep.
Darkness.

Music.

Shoulders. Temples. The soft spot under the ears.

Back of the knees. Feet. Weightless.

Sleep.

Shudders. Talking soft, laughing at language.
Movements are not how you meant them to be,
or what you're used to.

Warmth. 

Learning. Still searching. Missing the point. Wondering.

Waiting and waiting and waiting.

Asking and answering.

Eyes and hands.

Warmth.

Sleep.

Total Eclipse of the Heart.

Third in a set of poems based on the titles of the most-overdone songs at karaoke. Also: Don't Stop Believing and I Want It That Way.

Total Eclipse of the Heart

Virgin moon
Every now and then
Diana breaks out the arrows.
A hunter, she was born in Italy.

Turning tides
Every night the bar is full
and empty at the same time, you know
it kind of waxes and wanes.

Turning on:
the Turned Ons and the Turners
all circle each other, but
sometimes you just run out of time.

Mars and Venus
are just fucking fuckpads
and everyone is mad
at the universe because they're alone.

Virgin moon, bright night
The hunter sees a boy that she likes.

Virgin moon, bright night
Every now and then I fall apart.

Turn away
Every now and then
I watch them work on the street
and then I go and shop for a shirt.

Turn to me
Girls are aware of who's
approaching, boys attune to
who is running away.

Lock and key.
Home and garden. 
Shop for clothes. 
Medium small small medium small.

Virgin moon
goddess Diana's bow is seen
in the crescent phase,
in your belly, in your eyes.

Small sky, big eyes
Moons of your shoulders, sun of your heart.

"Turn around! Smile!"
It's funny how beauty makes everything fall apart.

And I need you now tonight.
We could be alone together.
We could be on our phones together.
I'm overcome, just come over. 

The moon relates to melancholy. 
The moon is in a song.
Okay, Cupid. Okay, Diana. 
The choices are the shadows, don't be bad, don't be wrong. 

The bar is breaking up. Hunters and the herd.
Hugs with cigarettes and a few fumbled words.
I really, really need you tonight.
Whatever's going to start tonight.
Totally. Starting. Tonight.

Early in the day
I was choosing a shirt
Now I lie with you in the dark. 
Tracing out the moon's
actual ellipse from your heart.

Sort of like a circle or
a limaçon with an arrow's sharp.
The imagined shape that you'd see
if you saw an eclipse of the heart.

I Want It That Way.

Second in a series of poems based on the most-overdone karaoke songs.

I Want It That Way

I invented fire. 

The one messiah. 

Believe what I say.

I own a desert.

I make a diamond a day.

I invented sex, and also those

yummy walnut prawns at Chinese banquets.

I am pretty lit, by the way.

But tell me why

I can't decide

that you would just walk in

from outside.

I'm friends with a dinosaur

who shits concept cars.

I am absolute truth.

I invented mistakes. Also, cake. 

I made you in my image,

messed up your hair though.

I'm that guy who stays up for four days

and sleeps for three. I'm Pinocchio,

I think in code, I'll love you from

the start of time to

the tallest point of Tokyo.

But tell me why

you can't just decide

to ache for some guy.

I can see electrons,

spit a billion sick syllables,

stop and start a heart,

but I can't make up your mind

and am left wanting, that way.

Don't Stop Believing.

As part of the ongoing karaoke otaku-ness, I'm writing some poems based on the most-overdone karaoke songs, holding loosely to the song's theme and line structure. This is the first one.

Don't Stop Believing

She stretched out on the street,

her fist a pillow,

she tried to feel comfortable.

He thought about failing to fail.

Not from southern anywhere but

also can't be from a bar.

The scene seen with raw eyes;

two young folk speaking smoke, 

simple minded as spaghetti, don't forget me,

don't forget, I won't forget you.

She sat up straight and attentive,

a shadow passed over like a cloud

in the desert, like an idea. 

The night turns navy towards me

and the pulse of Friday street lamps

taunt and turn into nothing. 

We're always making a movie.

This one's weird title is:

"Heartbreak Goes Around in a Circle

Like Mononucleosis of the Discarded."

Turn around, flip the world,

hold for sound. But don't forget,

don't forget to smile and move,

because movement is love.

She said, "We are all getting smaller

with every one of us,

classroom to cluster to ashes to dust;

But don't stop believing,

don't ever not believe

it isn't true."

I looked up when she said that

and couldn't shake the feeling

that nothing was wrong.

Let's Just Go To Nicks 2, and a poem about shoelaces.

An impromptu poem about tying shoelaces, by my friend Amy Chan, pictured in center rear, below.

That's F**king Teamwork

I do it old school,
check it, check it.
This is my style right here.
Double bunny ears,
pull it, cinch it.
Double it, the opposite way
so that it's a lock-knot.
So the tighter it pulls,
the tighter the knot becomes.
And the birthday girl
is good to go.

A poem about impulse control

You showed up in a dream I had, but with reddish hair
or maybe the dream was just red, it's hard to know.  There also
was a drunk girl who'd misplaced her drink and was talking
like if she stopped making sounds, she'd die.

To gain a little distance from her
I went outside to look for her forgotten Manhattan,
in case it was somewhere on the street.

You said, "Are you coming back?"
And I said, "It doesn't really matter if I come back or not
because if I leave and see even a cloud or a photo of a taco
or a cloud in the form of a photo of a taco
I will think about you asking that,
in the engine's hum and the quiet waking moments,
on the one moon earth has, everywhere.
It takes so long to realize what is missing,
and then it is like being haunted. It is like
recently learning to read."

And you sort of laughed at this. And I knew then
where I'd be tomorrow, and said:

"So even if I don't come back, I believe
I'll have the same experience
as if I never left
to look for this lost Manhattan."

V: a poem about love and aliens.

Rediscovered a poem I wrote from a while back, for a Brit-Korean gal I used to hold a torch for, in Taiwan. Somehow it is also related to a conversation with my Korean then-roommate about the difference in English between "corny" and "cheezy" while we were in the youth hostel watching a late-night rerun of "V: The Final Battle."

V (Taipei Hostel)

You had a moment laughing there where you made the elevator nervous.
Maybe it expected you to put your hand over your mouth.
Maybe it resented being called a lift like someone who finds you on the street.
Elevators have many rules and when you opened your mouth it slowed to a dewdrop,
hit the stop button, outed the lights, and the security camera's red gaze
found the soap opera story of the raven hair girl who lost
her true love and was saved by a dog.

It'll be a catastrophe. Imagine the end of life as you knew it.
The ice cream man you chased as a kid became a truck to collect all that sweet garbage.
All those cozy dripping buildings, covered smiles, infrared fruit stands, racist toothpaste and
cold bowls of chocolate flakes that hold me together are blown to bits.
We all agree that the alien queen on TV looks a bit like Wonder Woman.
But what does she look like on the inside? What if she's a woman pretending to eat people?
What if the second between a kiss and a couple inches bite off the face she considers, dreams maybe.
When she puts herself together in the morning for marshmallow hearts how do you know
if you're a boy girl snake vegetarian alone or apart when there
so many
little pieces?

a poem about lunch

i love going to school
i love those two kids kissing in the courtyard
i hate coming home
i miss the conversations
i like long, long silences
i love my misinterpretations
i like to think that
i missed a chance
and i changed very little
i hate my lunch
i like dopamine and depression
i love failing completely
i love anticipatable futility and
boy oh boy do
i love consequences
i hate the moment
i love thinking about
all the bad things that will happen
i imagine places on the memory map
i try to summon color and sensation
i like falling
I love working towards falling
i love the never-ending job
i want to work every day
until something happens to me.

a poem about love and photography

i don't have a picture
i have a picture of clouds
i rely on my watch
i have a schedule
i have dark movies in my head
that also feature absence
and anticipation.

i possess pictures,
like most people.
i like to look,
like most people.
your ghost face,
my fluorescence.

i prefer dreams
they come and go but
are more precious and discernable
as handwriting, a way of walking.
i love when someone says,
(of my obvious overtures)
"i can tell, i can tell"