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TUNNELS Dynasty
(after Bei Dao’s Black Map)Back in the room, Beijing is the new pairof shoes close to the smell of anise in spring;shoes father wears when he was lostin the black continents of bedtime narrativeshoping the sheets remain fine, unworriedas taxi fares only his childhood can charge.Memory barks no-yuan minutesof the meeting, no semi-charmed heart,no Shanghai of forgotten dream cinema.All I want is to swirl aroundmy father’s personal winterso I can explore the night’s fatherlymadness, its dust echoing sweetness,and come home. In another time I knowI‘ve come home to watch the seasonsnever understanding why several shadesof father stand still on the pavementlooking for maps and lost time. Heshuffles afterward with the shoesI think are ready to fund him farewells.Rare eddies of him left my Beijingcrumble in stochastic reminiscences—no bestial beat pounding on the walls,no searchlight from out the windowlo
TUNNELS The Neighbourhood
And the music from the neighbourhood waxes,collects smoke from yesterday’s conversation.And the tea kettle pot puffs another faithlesstranslation of a strange intervention.Which is like placing the beers with toy gunsand sanitary napkins. Armageddon is comingto you when you least expect it. Heavy,quite the world babies in cribs want to hugwith their tiny T-Rex arms unmindfulof its axis mundi that supports the insectsmarching around a crumb called curiosity,or maybe patrolling one winter nightabove the clouds sprinkled with graffiti art.During overcast days out in the street,dotted with basketball courts, you wouldenjoy black motorcycles muffling the noiseyard after sprouting yard, rocking the entireneighbourhood with the only music that isrelevant to a perambulating landscape:Eunoia. Such emergency won’t breakmy bones. Ashtrayed your intentions in.An aubade in front of the TV set, you wouldsay was written for Dinosaur Jr. to playin your head like skateboard silhouettes.And danc
TUNNELS Directions
I loved directions. “In case of fire, break glass.” So there was a fire. I broke the glass. I salivated for more directions. But there was none. The fire waltzed and continued to rage—Xanadu, lies. The laws of flight and fall perceived rebellion. Its park, so dark. A huge hum of darkness I have never heard, listened to. Nor welcomed with its promising cryogenic address. So I found new ways to make a friend. Then a man came out of the sprawl. Himself confused with the sound of his name, even James Joyce could sprightly not explain, this man made me rethink directions. “In case of fire,” he said, “break me.” He might be the glass that I made, then broke open for athletically good reason. But what do I know about breaking? I just loved directions, and I learned to break them with tremendous speed. It sounded as though I were coursing my own roundabout. So I ran after the fire that followed me. I ran fast without caution, walked without warning. And I lived
TUNNELS To my Aurora Borealis
In life, we are playing with dangerous games: you, the witnessof the visiting vatnajökull now blushing pink in the atom skywith the bright comedy of Lucifer fooling the stars,razorbills, and I, making a cryogenic favour to the moonlessnights, to the mountain echoes following the murmurof tourists caught in the arctic splash of water balloonsand whispering endless cold, happen to see the worldin your eyes—spinning, spinning with the silence of earth.There I seek the image, the northern face, Europa-cheeked,slowly melting away like shreds of memory fillingthe landscapes, carousel hills, the dawn—all these accidentswe call remembrances of love. Speaking of which, the onlything that matters is to spread the ashes of the colouracross the strange horizons charioting above us, realizingthe force of nature to be like hoppíppolla magic. We takeshelter in our celestial dome, where I see you shushthe spectacle and stand still as an image, a celestial sight
TUNNELS Leche Flânerie
How many stations are there from Katipunanto Recto? I’ve lost count. I’ve lost countof the elective units I needed to enroll,the verses submitted for Tulaan sa Tren.Too I’ve lost count of the perfect scoresI received in a videoke lounge for singingThe Cure countless times, colored balloonsstood astound, cobwebbed by the ideathat Morrissey had in a dream a lover.I’ve lost count of the LBC trucksjust passing by, not dropping offletters or any delicious news smellingof campto soup that once made Retiroa streetway of stories for old moviespelted with laughter and soundtracksof which I’ve also lost count; the sightof these sensor machines seemed OKseemed civil like my blue beep cardwith no-swipe tantrum, only magnetichearts beaming through worlds, worlds.
TUNNELS Rain, Sunday night
When cities wear around their necksthe seethe of the cold, traffic slowsto the gutter the clambering freeze,and half a heart this rain touches our skin,mere stains we believe home recollectsmemories, drops of names unclutteringsuspiciously in the melting shadow,over the ice age of our singular breath,surface of things revives in the darkwhat is lost from a deep gorge of sleep,seconds on the side of water, more hopethan hiding, beyond the evening light--there is a rustle of a long sworn word,a lonely song at the night’s heels, oh—but were you there to hear it?
TUNNELS Rains of Iran
(after re-reading a few stanzas from The Ruba'iyat of Omar Khayyam)The cycle which includes our coming and goingLittle did I know then that the Khayyam boyswill soon become Khayyam men, out in the fieldssearching for that sticky tongue of fire ephemerallymaking strong the sky sitting on the horns of a bull.Has no discernible beginning nor end;Let the one hundred and one nights singto the prophesies and muses. Let the chaos of the nightsweeten sin with a patchouli-embracing smellno dandier than a whispering ruba’i.Nobody has got this matter straight—Life... oh it’s the magical mystery kind!In the desert I could die loving the sand, the voicethat touches the voiceless in every particleof dust, composed and collected, like the Eternal Painter.Where we come from and where we got to The Master of Fate wraps myths with the moon's squeakyhush, and sound to sound the rains of Iran showerus wit
TUNNELS Labour Day
for my sister, giving birthA double meaning, I guess. When the effort offersmore wind to the process, a grown-up confusiondepreciates. A day of countless promotions, too,suddenly glimmers, as seismic as the lettersof your name in the skin of new day. Numbersreduced into decreed holidays. Once again,these are the borne context on your head, setto cradle the perfect word in a tin house we builtfor freelance work and exclusive reading repast.My dear sister, you lay there waiting for now.My dear sister, you lay there closing your eyes.Don’t you know the sun is knitted for a pumpkinhat, its rays the colourful socks for tiny feetinsecure about the dripping weather in September.Oh, my sister, labour day is all fine with jazz!Before I forget, just what I heard on the news,Kim Jong Un loves to play with missileswith no carrier-propositions. And just so you know,dear sister, like Kim, I’ve watched the episodesof The Boy General, expecting that in e
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