scoundrel-garden

[scoundrel-garden]

Outside

I grew up in Northeast Los Angeles, and the area is one I've loved for as long as I've lived. It is a place where I grew up outside, on the streets with friends. Never as safe as it was inside, we stayed until it was dark out, naturally. I felt I had a certain group of friends at my disposal relative to the activity which was fun; basketball was my favorite. I remember I would shoot at the park with my friends until my mom would angrily pick me up asking if I knew what time it was. We never cared because we all secretly loved watching the sun set over the backboard. No one would ever admit it, though.

Presently, outside is unrecognizable. It's like the place that raised me matured alongside me, and we had different upbringings. It's contradictory but so is our relationship. When someone tells me that it's an unsafe area, I flaunt all of the LA Times top 101 restaurants, pet-friendly cafes, and vegan clothing stores as a retort. I introduce my neighbors, make sure their cars are in view, and I show them all of the happy families walking down the street. Then I get angry with myself. I don't know why I do, but I remember how I used to go to the park as a kid.

[scoundrel-garden]

Petrichor (Golden Blood)

What a pleasant smell,

I don’t know why it attracts me,

It’s refreshing but feels heavy in the heat —

Not quite how I’d imagine the rain,

The dry pavement seems to bleed and inherit a dark gray cast,

I can see green reflected from the grass beside it,

A large collarless dog walks up to me,

He doesn’t seem to mind getting wet,

I think he wants to be pet or fed,

He scoots to the left of me and leaves forever,

“Watch out for cars,” I shout,

I don’t think he understands,

Were those horns on its head?

Small cracks in the walkway begin to fill up with rainwater,

I try not to interrupt,

Even for a moment they’ll be full,

The same for the grass and the soil,

I remember my tears,

They are lost in the rain,

I slip and prick my finger on a chunk of blade-like sidewalk,

I notice my tears,

More this time or any other time,

The ground is warm.

[scoundrel-garden]

Accepting Help

Falling flat on my face isn’t fun.

I should ask for help.

Burning bridges is best achieved with a match or a flamethrower.

I should ask for help.

The path of the writer is a lonely one.

I should ask for help.

The faces I show are many; I fail as the grower.

I should ask for help.

My mind feels lighter as I write.

I should ask for help.

I wonder what they would think.

I should ask for help.

Why do my masters’ faces always cast white?

I should ask for help.

My face as conquered and primitive — I wish it would shrink.

I should ask for help.

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sunday ball at the local park, nearest diamond. Next to my friend’s japanese cigs.

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Meanwhile

Humble orange tree: I thank you for your juices. Your impregnable shell was difficult to penetrate, but I was patient. Your acids mixed with my sweat and bit me at the lips.

I sat with my eyes closed. Suddenly, a fly disrupted the silence. It was a resplendent hummingbird. And it buzzed by.

It was a quiet weekend aside from the rhythmed specter puffing in the garage. Nary a complaint from the cat beside its purring. We need each other; I sense the idea is shared. I’ve sneezed once.

In we go, unsatisfied, to stare at the screens.

[scoundrel-garden]

Nostalgia (a Poem for Her)

Commandeer your usurped mind.

The memories scamper about,

The love in a wistful panic,

For it was left near the pomelo plant.

Pick at it and swallow the seeds.

Skin dried but syruped over.

Out by the scorpioned rock is where the children play.

Offer the untrimm’d trifoliate to yourself and be kind while the chambers reconcile with the sugary sweet;

You there,

Grow through.

Speak to the old,

Their patience wanes as do their bodies.

Enjoy passion and confuse it with sorrow.

The pain cannot forgive you for clutching onto it for years:

File it like nails upon Fosse’d fingers. Beveled.

The boy who deals in the abstract,

The poor dilettante.

So much rests on their championed shoulders.

All of it - the love of the gentle citrus people - forgotten,

Lost in the lines.

However, remind them what new

Love looks like.

Yet the seasoned can be found pulsing in the careful voice,

The sweet boy growing up too fast,

Or the small rocks by the garden,

The unfurnished deck accompanied by intermittent pleas to be let out,

The spotted pitbull,

Or maybe it was left at the foot of the hill where the avocado trees used to grow.

[scoundrel-garden]

Here’s a hopeful, melancholic something I wrote earlier today:

Life is just absurd sometimes. Sometimes we get so caught up in looking for all the right answers that we forget to be okay with “I don’t know.” That’s a lesson I think we should all learn: the value of the unknown. Because you can do everything right — live life with the utmost conviction and loyalty, deliberately and true — and have it all ripped away from underneath you in an instant. They can leave you at the culmination of your love. Your body can fail you at twenty. Your mind can wither tomorrow. No matter how perfect the life, it can all go wrong. So live with patience; take things as they come and not as you’d like them to be, for expectation is the destroyer of presence.

[scoundrel-garden]

The Studio

I look around with reformed eyes, heavy under the blinding fluorescent lights, and I see ghosts. Whether it be their souls resting atop their bodies, uttering nonsense, or the pigmentation (or lack thereof) of their skin, I see ghosts. Warm, fleshy ghosts.

[scoundrel-garden]

The Few (or Melodramatic Baloney)

Some are not meant to live,

Some are unable to imagine a future self,

Though they have goals they strive to achieve,

Some are not meant to live.

Some are not meant to live,

Some hardly articulate their thoughts,

Though their word is respected and encouraged,

Some are not meant to live.

Some are not meant to live,

Some cannot stay awake and function in a life,

Though their presence appears to be true,

Some are not meant to live.

Some are not meant to live,

Some feel numb in a public setting,

Though they love the tender warmth their loved-ones bring,

Some are not meant to live.

Some are not meant to live,

Some will not adhere to the norms of a functioning society,

Though the hope that a new day brings fascinates them,

Some are not meant to live.

Some are not meant to live,

Some often fail to find meaning,

Though they cherish their life and the lives of others around them,

They are just not meant to live.

[scoundrel-garden]

I know it’s National Poetry Day in the UK only, but I still wanted to share this since this year’s theme is Refuge

by (or attributed to) King Nezahualcóyotl:

Truly do we live on earth? Not forever on earth; only a little while here. Although it be jade, it will be broken, Although it be gold, it will be crushed, Although it be quetzal feather, it is torn asunder. Not forever on earth; only a little while here.

When the world is too big, you seek refuge in your mind.

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Crab Story

Every night you dream that you talk to a genie, when you wake up you can't remember what you wished for. One morning you wake up with a giant crab pincer replacing your right arm. “That damn genie,” you say. Where a familiar limb used to be, there is now a glimpse of the unknown — how quickly things can change between consciousness. The next morning, you feel yet another unfamiliarity: “Gasp!…Three legs on my right side. They’re crab legs. But there was no dream.” At that moment, you come to the gross realization that you are no longer human. So quick to dictate — are you not still human? At the very least, you are still humanoid. What isn’t up for debate is this: You’re cursed. “That damn genie,” you utter yet again.

As each day greets you with more appendages, you begin to lose sight of what once was. You reflect: “I can’t believe I’m going to die.” Surely, similar to your previous state, the shell body is but a vessel; the sensitive recluse still remains. “What about my family? What will they think?” It has yet to be seen. “Will I remember?” There is no use worrying. It is out of your control. “That damn genie,” you reply. It’s a shame what it takes for you to finally modify your ways. It is only when you are met with a horrible incident that affects you directly that you enact change. You’ve seen similar events happen to others, yet this is what it takes. Ignorant fool. Willing ignorance. Truly you are the worst of them. Perhaps the genie was right to curse you.

Finally, in the aching hours of a new day, the inevitable arrives. It only took a few days for you to completely morph anew; you are reborn from brown fleshy human to blue king crab. “I have accepted it,” your crab body vocalizes. “How have I not seen it before? My entire life has been a silent cry for something more: a new beginning. Anything is better than that dull existence. The genie did not curse me, he offered me salvation. What a gift!” Your elation of crab self-actualization is short-lived, however, as you are met with a thunderous intrusion. It is your family with a boiling pot at the ready. You are boiled and eaten.

[scoundrel-garden]

Super Mario Galaxy - Peach's Castle Gardens

[scoundrel-garden]

Dread ft. Some hats and shoe boxes and- just looked up from where I was sitting

I have way more hats now

[scoundrel-garden]

A poem I just wrote (thanks B.C.):

Old boy

You are lost

I hear the chimes

Of the temple calling,

Dawning

Risen and weeping

Is the past

Your past,

Sensitive and raw

Oh what a life,

That sweet memory

Hold it,

Never.

Will there be another

[scoundrel-garden]

why should I care. I quote poems and my room is pretty

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just sang channel orange in its entirety in the shower

wbu

[scoundrel-garden]

I’m gonna say it!!

tumblr is twitter for sad people