No one can hear me
I use soft lead
It’s not what I wrote
But what you have read

Get past the lines, into the spaces
Truth and love, my pen always chases
How about this, what if I were to say
All of the things that make me feel this way

Any verse, now they’re all the same
What is up with that, what’s in a name
No one left but my pen and I
Ink smears when I start to cry

9/12/25

I am a student in Paris, a med-school freshman, one of the crowd.
This week is all introductions, orientation functions and instructions.
“Settle in, get your books, parking passes and find your classes.”
I got my ID - I’m a Vip in the bourgeoisie - does that look like me?

Freshmen join a ‘buddy program’ so things seem less hostile
I met my buddy last week, she’s the consummate boss - effortlessly busy.
She’s got my folder (oh my), full of check-lists. I’ve yet to see her smile.
She’s a third year, from Chamonix, a town in the jagged Alps, near Italy.

If you want me, right after classes, I’ll be at Les Deux Parisiens,
a shaded coffee shop across from school that feels like a garden.
They have everything - from coffee to pizza and martinis - it’s awesome.
For 17€ : try the ‘La Campione,’ pizza with beef and chorizo (sausage)

I am a student in the misty rain, stepping carefully on cobblestones
- they pool water geometrically - I’m heading home (6 Av.) walking alone.
Nothing’s still, classes end at noon - it’s the city, sidewalk’s are full, Ubers uber, mopeds mope, bikers bike, people scatter, umbrellaless commuters.

I haven’t made any new friends yet - I’m not worried - I’m just beginning.
.
.
Songs for this:
Day Tripper by MonaLisa Twins
Café Europa by Quadro Nuevo
Count Contessa by Azealia Banks & Lone [E]
Robinson Crusoe by Art of Noise

There’s a lot of ways to be smart
Crafty smart, turning garbage into what passes for art
You can read some books and know it all
Be ready and smart when you hear your life call

Smart enough to come in out of the rain
So smart you drive everyone and yourself insane
You can dress smart, knowing just what to wear
Color coordinate your outfit with your underwear

Learning makes you smarter if you open your mind
People smarts help you be loving and kind
Smart enough to figure it out, how to get things done
Commonsense, well now that’s the smartest one

You throw your heart at the world
It throws it back like a girl
It comes up short as it hits the ground
You pick it up and can tell that it’s been around

One more time you throw it out again
One more time you hope you win
Just once more is all you need
It comes with pain, but you don’t have to bleed

Catch my heart as it is falling
Here me now as I am calling
I am one you will see
All in time I will set you free

Catch my heart, let me hold on tight
Hold me close make it feel so right
Don’t let me stand alone
Catch my heart, I’m throwing it home

04/09/19

The labouring art of poetry
is in true sense, senseless.

It corrupts judgment, strains credit
and prostitutes' self-esteem.

**** the unhappy day you start it.
.
.
A song for this:
This Place Hotel (a.k.a. Heartbreak Hotel) by The Jacksons

Quick break-up Senryus.
Pick one to quickly, cut that
relationship cord:

I'm sorry, What'd you say?
I can't hear you (confused look)
- we’re breaking up.

You’re the guy that
every girl at our school wants
- it's their lucky day.

It's time that we took
our relationship to the
previous level.

I still cherish the
initial misconceptions
I had about you.
.
.
Songs for this:
Love on the Rocks by Lizzie Mintz
Lovefool by The Cardigans
Nothing Can Stop Us by Saint Etienne
Forever by X-Cetra

None of the guys
ever asked me out
they teased me
or just froze me out

I wasn’t stuck up
I was shy
I came from China
that is why

I didn’t know the styles and trends
or even where I should begin
there wasn’t much that I could say
I never talked much anyway..

so I sat there
and read

I was an incredibly
epic fail

To all the guys
who called me names
that tagged my locker
and tried to shame me

I wasn’t snooty
I was shy
I’d just come from China
that’s the why

I didn’t know the styles and trends
that let a new girl fit in
I’d never even used the Internet
I was as lost-in sauce as a girl gets..

so I sat there
and read

Which eventually
got me into Yale.
.
.
Songs for this:
*Conversation by X-Cetra
Simply Couldn't Care by Tracey Thorn
Human Behaviour by Björk

A turkey, even if basted,
Too long in the oven is wasted.  
But gravy revives
When roasting deprives.  
It’s gotten so juicy, just taste it!

The day was long and greedily waited,
in near unspoken secret - like a thing
delightfully and enchantingly wicked.

We are reunited - simpatico - my love, lover and I.
We ravish each other and lavish each other
with flattery, endearments and entire pleasure.

We live sweet centuries in those tight hours.

Happiness changes the tenor of things.
Rains of feeling combine in torrents,
like the tinkling notes of a harp make symphony.

Our minutest nerves are instruments of joy.

Mornings start with exquisite excitement and
the dense reel and stagger of intoxication -
because we’re drunk with the fullness of life.

Leaves on trees called chestnut, linden and hazel, stir
gently in the breeze - those faint shoos and rustles, times
nature’s fractal design - blare, in effect, like terrific trumpets.

At night, as we walk together under cooling summer skies,
the stars in the far-flung firmaments, seem to huddle together
and whisper, like sisters, of life and the mysteries of earthy love.

We are the dust of those constellations - are we but spies?
.
.
Songs for this:
Thank You My Angel by Over the Rhine
Perfect Day by Povo
Goodbye Sunday by Everything But the Girl