this poem has nothing to do with Taiwan

Here's a sample of some of my amateur work. I love the sound of a poem just as much as the search for its meaning, and I therefore write my poems with the purpose of being read out-loud. The beauty of poetry is magnified tenfold when read out-loud, and ten-fold again when heard by another, yes? So, if you're not at the library, or even if you are and you're not embarrassed, use your vocal cords and bless someone.

“Swollen Feet”


is it the satiety of a search
to which there is no dotted line
nor a fat red ex to end?
how can her search quell
what dwells in the bowels
of the bowls of cereals
of childhood hopes
or could candy ropes tie knots
that rot not after so long a time on the hunt?

she camouflages trenches
building lincoln log fences
stay out!
her days then spout
open into an argyle itchy sweater
taken off at seven p.m.
with a podiatrists’ swollen numb  mind
too tired to follow that dotted line
that she once scaled into a tree fort to find

one day like a baby tortoise flailing its shell
she fell
from a high syrupy sycamore
into the adult life of a whore
buzzed through a cheep pilsner haze
but only on Saturday.

turns out, the turn taken
wasn’t an overturned turtle on its back at all
but a hurdling bird, hurt wings
but able to leap over things
when those spikes in the back came
and the right to leave the black became
bright all around
and that prowling nemesis was at last tamed


the hunger of her search was filled
only when the boulder rolled over
the dotted line ex, crushing everything
that might vex, like that flesh-colored fence
and arriving at the spot
it was an ex all right, and a blood red one
staked into the ground
with mockers’ spitting all round
“my God, my God,”
but His face could not be found
that’s how He found her, though,
that whore who’d fallen from the sycamore
pulled out of the trenches
the stenches of swollen feet healed
and instead of itchy sweaters
clothed as the flowers of the field

The end.

I'm in Oregon for another 12 days. When I get back to Taiwan, I intend to blog more about God and life and Taiwan and America and to share my poems at Red Room. My stage fright will be conquered!