A beautiful and heartfelt collection filled with human touch. John Lee Clark is a DeafBlind poet who writes in English Braille (EBAE). He even translated works from American Sign Language. His poems are enjoyable to read. One of my favorites is the biographical “A DeafBlind Poet”:

A DeafBlind poet doesn’t like to read sitting up. A DeafBlind poet likes to read Braille magazines on the john. A DeafBlind poet is in the habit of composing nineteenth-century letters and pressing Alt+S. A DeafBlind poet is a terrible student. A DeafBlind poet does a lot of groundbreaking research. A DeafBlind poet is always in demand. A DeafBlind poet has yet to be gainfully employed. A DeafBlind poet shares all his trade secrets with his children. A DeafBlind poet will not stop if police order him to. A DeafBlind poet used to like dogs but now prefers cats. A DeafBlind poet listens to his wife. A DeafBlind poet knits beautiful soft things for his dear friends. A DeafBlind poet doesn’t believe in “contributing to society.”

I used to think I could do anything
with enough effort—throw a rope
at the night and lasso in the moon,
or jump from a tree
and beat my arms into wings
like an owl, its feathers nothing
more than decoration, nothing my naked
arms couldn’t match. I was an imaginative
child. An imbecile in some circles.
It is not nice to call someone names.
I was the name-caller. I said Little White
Sickle to the moon. I said Big Head Bird
to the owl. I said Mom, and I said Dad.
I thought if I shouted these names loud
enough, then someone would respond.
These days I have seen my best
efforts fail. All the love I’ve poured
into a person. Or them into me.
How I’ve failed to open myself
properly to receive their names.
Love. Love bird. I have been called
so many names. I have so many
identities I never meant to adopt.
In the dark, the owls hoot at each other
and I shout back: me, me, me.

Kien Lam

Từ chất giọng khàn đến cách nhả chữ, Minh Tâm hát rất giống cô Khánh Ly. Chẳng hạn như chữ “ngỡ” trong ca khúc của cố nhạc sĩ Hoàng Thi Thơ, Minh Tâm phát âm y chang như cô Khánh Ly. Chỉ khác là không rè bằng vì thiếu thuốc lá và trải nghiệm. Nghe Minh Tâm trình bày những ca khúc của Trịnh Công Sơn (“Hạ trắng” và “Ướt mi”) khiến tôi muốn nghe lại những bài thu âm trước năm 1975 của cô Khánh Ly. Album không có điểm đặc biệt hay riêng biệt của Minh Tâm.

Bags of ice drip from the back of a small bike
in Vietnam. The exhaust pipe rumbles. The man
sweats. My tongue melts. We are lucky we are not tiny
starving polar bears slipping off the last refuge
of ice into the black asphalt. The open
ocean. Or I should say we are lucky
the coming flood is incremental.
We are lucky to share this moment—
him delivering the bags of ice
before they melt, and me having returned
to my parents’ birthplace, which is to me
an almost-home in that I am almost
melting. An old woman sells a child
a snack. Her mother hands her some cash.
The old woman doesn’t melt. The bike
doesn’t melt. We are lucky to be held
together by bodies which are so difficult
to melt. We are similar in our almost-melting,
just as the sounds of the café I am sitting in
almost melt into me the way a song’s name sits
on the tip of your tongue when you can’t
remember it. I will never fully know
the sounds because I am lucky to have left
the melting: my mother lucky
to have a family that didn’t need to sell
dried pieces of squid on the street,
which is a thing I almost-understand—
the old woman squatting in the street.
In Vietnam I am the piece of ice
that stays on the bike. I am the child
chewing on the dried squid. I am lucky
it is dead and cannot escape into the wet
air, where the Vietnamese people swim
and their voices distort just slightly—I can
almost understand them. I can almost
piece my tongue back together.
I can almost stop the melting.

Kien Lam

On Saturday, I took Đán and Xuân to Whitetail. I wanted to learn the hop turns on the blue slopes, but they were harder than they look. I could do the toe turns, but I had a bit of a hard time getting the board around on the heel turns. Because of the rain and warm weather, Whitetail closed its double-black diamond. I encouraged Xuân to switch to snowboard. With Đán’s help, the three of us snowboarded down the long green trail. It was a fun day hanging out with my two boys. We left around 1:00 pm so we could attend the Scout party.

Because Đạo had scouting on Saturday, he didn’t go with us. Today he and I went together to Liberty. I started off skiing because I didn’t want him to wait too long for me on snowboard. We hit the double-black slope three times. It felt a bit strange at first to be skiing again. I wanted to ski moguls, but that terrain was closed. The rain and warm weather had washed away all the moguls. After lunch I switched to snowboarding. I also switched my 156-cm Capita to 143-cm Burton. The shorter board made turns easier, but it was less stable. I caught the edge a few times. Still the major issue for me was uncomfortability. I did two runs on the blues and couldn’t snowboard anymore. We headed home at 1:00 pm.

I think the Flow’s step-in bindings were the culprit. I ordered a Rome Snowboards United-G1, which was on sale for $103, to see if this will solve the issue. I am also so attempting to buy the Rossignol Circuit, which is currently on sale for $156.95. I’ll wait for the bindings first before I invest into a board.

After two days of skiing and snowboarding, I am exhausted. Getting old is catching up to me. Snowboarding alone is putting a toll on my body.

I unloaded my stomach
onto the pavement again,

a gut check to push my body
to its edges—inflate it

to the point just before it pops,
or as so often happens, just after.

I have learned so much
from my mistakes. Do not pet

a dog’s ass when it’s not looking,
or anyone’s ass for that matter.

If someone offers me a drink,
I’ve taken it and spilled it

into my mouth. Swallowed it
quickly. This is one way

to test how hollow you are.
Do not despair. Inside us

is enough space for even
the most grotesque-looking creatures.

The liver, the lover—

there are worse things
to spill than the stomach.

Kien Lam

When we die, the money we can’t keep
But we’ll probably spend it all
’cause the pain ain’t cheap.
Doctors say I’m the illest
’cause I’m suffering from realness.

Ye (excerpts from “No Church in the Wild” and “Niggas in Paris”)

I thoroughly enjoyed this second collection of poems from Taije Silverman. From motherhood to misogyny to marriage, so many gems in there and I will be sharing a few of them in my poetry posts. I am starting to understand poetry little by little. Like learning snowboard, I just have to get past that painful period before could begin to enjoy poetry.

Novelist Kristin Bair launches “Get It Done, Dammit,” a virtual accountability workshop designed to help writers get the work done. She has written three novels and her fourth will be out in early 2024. She knows a thing or two about getting shit done. If you are a writer who is struggling to get your work done, register today.

A is for almost, arriving, my father’s death.
B is for bear, which he does and does not do.
C is for care and critics and leaving them to their caskets.
D is for damn, which your father does not give but must.
E, for empire—a thing to impale, kill, break
Breach. F is for farther along we’ll understand why
Fire greets us at every door and we’ve lost our way
In the sky. Now where, where should we turn?
G is for good, the shy speechless sound of fruit
Falling from its tree. Me, you, there in the woods
Watching the pines shatter shadow in the light
Wind. H is for horses in the high cotton,
The crack in their hooves carrying your grandfather
And your grandfather’s grandfather down the hill
Until two stomps on the barn floor orphans them
Again, dust, dust. I is for in, as in in the blood we bear
All sorts of madness but bear, bear we must.
J is for jaundiced, which you never were.
K is for keep. Keep your wilderness wild, your caves neat.
L is lift and lymph, the node they cut
From beneath your grandfather’s arm.
M is for misery, which turns and breaks in
Though I wish it would not. Leaf
Leaning on a pond. Blood on a sock.
N is for nature and nearly and how I’ve come
To love; nearly, nearly I come to you, my falcon
Hood pulled tight; my talons tucked; Lord,
Let me not touch. O is for out and the owl
You say sits on your nose. P is for please
As in “Please, son, don’t visit me”
And yet I visited and did not please, and he would not
Touch your leaf, afraid his rot would
Make the petals fall. A lovely love—
No, not at all. Q is for quince, its yellow-breasted
Bell knocking against my father’s deathbed
Window, the light, the light too on his dying
Bed, what you opened your mouth to and tried
To swallow. R is for road where we lay,
Sometimes, because we wish not to exist
And wish and wish and wish. And must.
S is for…

Roger Reeves