Category: Poetry

Pigeons

Posted on by Emilyn in Poetry

(Sometimes) Lovers are strangers – recipients of commerce.

Lend me a pen for swooping calligraphy.
Give me a time,
a place at the Willow Tree
blooming orchids of fate but,

(You) Mourn bliss, sacrificed for Oblivion.

No sense,
no Holy Halos –
Hopes to be forward but short –

hopelessly distant,

Birds (have to) bless you
beneath the sun’s radiance –
fly to you, to wish to embrace you.

Carrying penned words of:
ardent thanks,
sincere sympathy,
greetings …

then sealed.

Free (fall) freedom feelings:
blushed cheeks,
scarlet smiles,
faint porcelain skin,

(Before) falling head on in love with words,
setting skies, and singing birds –

I fell over my heels with reminiscing of home.

Free (flying) as the high atmosphere –
unslept hours staring at the depth of his breath,

To stare to an endless dream.

(Let go) Exhale a petal,
pick a petal,
my dear mockingbird.

Love me or Love me not –

pick a petal,

drop a petal…

Thoughts (so) breathlessly taken,
here or there,
timed and placed.

(You) Send me part two,
(can) will fly from heaven,

and back to me.

When birds (fly) amongst the sky to you and (back),
Only to settle where it may: (to me)

penned –home.

–               Emilyn Nguyen, Pigeons

 

 

The Present & Future

Posted on by Emilyn in Poetry

There is no future without the present day.

There is no present without an idea of the future.

Perhaps this is where our problems begin.

I wish I could be able to live more in the present,
but my head is always dreaming about a future.
I forget that I have to get there first.

I don’t have a future yet –
it has yet to only exist in my dreams.
So I lay my head down walking on clouds, as a dreamer.

I do not know what will happen –
Nothing is for certain, but for the sake of shame,
I admit it is the only thing that I have control over.

Now – Day by Day for and to a Future Anew.

I’ll admit that I carry a fear of the future,
its aura of mysterious vines and suspenseful drapes.
In my dreams , I am able to a push them aside,

Now – Dreaming of the Present,
What I must do for a New Future.

Finally, something we can agree on.

–         Emilyn Nguyen, The Present & Future

La Laconde (The Mona Lisa)

Posted on by Emilyn in Poetry

La Joconde1

Now that you’ve seen her face,
the skin between his fingers tingled of the emptiness of a brush:
That smile illuminated the world around her –
her patented smirk, softly carved out;
her delicate features,
her piercing stare spreading,
contemplating.

There are many counting countenances of those who try to replicate her – I.
the skin between my eyebrows, in wonder, in utter introspection,
Those eyes confused the audience around her:
For there is a woman with confidence in beauty.

Exceeding all manifested bounds.

From 1503,
From a canvas taut with lack of a woman’s color,
scraped the muter shades with a blade’s edge,
Layering her textures – alive.

Seeing and
Painting myself over the top.

Her paths are painted inset – layered beneath the certainty and knowledge of her years.
All of this useless chaos swirling in about these empty distractions, and feeble
pretense –
as you stare back at her, the roads seems clear.

Her scintillations glow a bit more gold than white,
in front of a locale of open fields, feared of windblown hair.
She is the center of the color blocked mountains.

Her perspective is in my self-possession.

Her lightly dust on her powdered skin
shading in soft contours in vibrant hues of blues
and,  reds and,  yellows and,  greens as forests grow.
Blending dusky shades and blurring shadows
to highlight regal undertones.

The names became opulent
a match for your alias,
She was Bernadette, Carol, David, Leo, Meryl – Myself.

Finished in 1517 to –
She is seen through the glass of geometric pyramids,
I am standing behind a crowd until I am the only one left standing,
And I have become her eyes, and her contagious smile.

I know what she in the canvas  is saying:
“I know what the wind tastes like,
and I am scared no longer.”
To be a woman,

to be a confident woman – with  ambition , dedication and pride…
To have the eyes and a smile illuminating the world around her,

 To be La Laconde.

–         Emilyn Nguyen, La Laconde

1: La Joconde: The Mona Lisa by Leonardo Da Vinci (French)

Hide and Seek

Posted on by Emilyn in Poetry

It took a long while for you to find me
through our treasure trove.
Look for me, and an acquisition it was,
my heart treaded to your tarantella.

Through the white desert sandy blankets and the spilled seas,
you came to search for me.
Closets, Hidden Hatches, Attics,
I told you to find me, come protect me.

Despite the tedious counting, you told me you were coming.
I questioned if you had surrendered to your fear of fear,
so you could win one battle against these chromosomes.
I thought I’d be lost forever, that you’d be lost forever.

Marco to the Polo,
crimson tie-dye on your childish shirt,
Colors wanting to collide, to bond but only,
Stuck between two intersecting ways of a chromatography-inked maze.

I yelled, “Over here!” to help you,
only to confuse you with the echoes drumming in your ears.
I was paralyzed in time, tick to the tock, dusk to dawn.
Waiting – hinting you by ruckuses, pots and pans,
making it easier for you, from my love for you.

Only until you reached my hiding spot,
your face became blank, striking with fear in your soft cheeks,
I had realized you weren’t looking for me, in a childish game:
You were looking for a hiding spot of your own.

–         Emilyn Nguyen, Hide And Seek

Note from the Poet:
This poem is about my cousin, who had been diagnosed with Down Syndrome. When we were younger, we enjoyed the simplest of life’s pleasure such as ‘Hide and Seek’. He is the most clever little [maybe not so little anymore] boy. He is the brightest kid I know. Despite his disorder, I was never so proud of him each and every day developing like any other kid in the world. Labeling him disabled was never an option. There was a never ending quality to him that some of are missing in our lives everyday: happiness.

One out of seven hundred babies each year are born with Down Syndrome. Genetically common, four hundred thousand people in the United States harbor this condition. When Down Syndrome occurs when an individual has a a full or partial extra copy of chromosome 21. The enticing material alters the course of development leading to health problems and causes the characteristics associated with Down Syndrome: low muscle tone, small stature, an upward slant to the eyes, and a single deep crease across the center of the palm.

I came across a program that gears independent fundraisers interested in raising money on behalf of the National Down Syndrome Society (NDSS):

NDSS Your Way is an online program geared towards independent fundraisers interested in raising money on behalf of the National Down Syndrome Society (NDSS). Participants in this program create personalized fundraising web pages in support of an event or individual pursuit. Each individual event is hosted independently and oversight is provided by  NDSS.

Fundraisers are invited to create a customizable web page in one of three categories—Compete, Celebrate and Create—no matter which category you choose, your personal page can pay tribute to someone who inspires and motivates you.

As a Fundraiser, you are helping to further the mission of the National Down Syndrome Society. NDSS works to create a culture that values, accepts and includes the more than 400,000 Americans with Down syndrome. NDSS envisions a world in which all people with Down syndrome have the opportunity to enhance their quality of life, realize their life aspirations, and become valued members of welcoming communities.

I encourage everyone to check out the website and donate.

– Emilyn Nguyen, Hide and Seek 

Falling in Love with an Artist

Posted on by Emilyn in About, Poetry

Illusions are where we were bound – Indelible.
I fell for the artist, as a writer, embedding his love into black ink.
He painted the words I could no longer write:

Ask the priest down the street about the heart you wish to possess;
how you want to relapse the emotion you once had after widowed.
You merely questioned how one’s pure beating chest,
wasn’t contracted with a light headed soul as yours
– now that you’ve seen her face,
the skin between your fingers tingled with an emptiness of a brush.

In a year, your scintillations glows a bit more gold than these blue ink pens,
a locale of open fields  and color-blocked mountains use as a barricade.
Paths painted inset – layered beneath and below the certainty of years,
all of this useless chaos swirling in about these empty distractions, and feeble
pretense –
as you paint her; sculpt her colors.

Enfold our inevitable surrender,
sculpting faces in 100 Celsius; sloughing yellowed paper to Mache her skin.
Pressing your face against the damasked canvas to remember,
her neck of a turquoise necklace, on your rosewood table
as you paint a familiar face.

Saved a memory in the clot in your forehead,
that you’ve strayed into sickle shapes and fickle pieces.
Cautiously you paint her ashes red of your pain, her eyes emerald green and blue:
Spring has come, and you remember her face as you sit here…
Plucking flowers from her grave.
We were the notch in the naïf; complete tessellations in a slew of opals.

He blew past me, subtle in strength, silent in the hymns of prayers;
transfixing beauty to the encounter of the wind
gentle as breeze lifts seeds off dandelion manes, spiraling, winding.
An echo in his heart conjures up a colorful time torn beneath his feet.

He was the color endowed in me, painting flowers on my grave.
Loving him was the fortunate occurrence of serendipity in each page I wrote
like the scintillating sun follows, brightest as we become a climatic whole.

–          Emilyn Nguyen, Falling in Love with an Artist

Paper Airplanes

Posted on by Emilyn in Poetry

You challenge an innocent being:
Chasing her soul on the wall her shadow fell upon,
she beckons to run far ahead,
but she hid in the mist of your making: an illusion of your trickery.
She coughs up you only to be breathing you again,
thick and heavy, devouring in you – pounds of your opium embedded inside her.

You drown her in gases, synthetic poetry:
It makes her go numb,
up and down her red and blue veins,
dumb on the brisk of cold frost on grass tips as
mountains tips only croon towards her, leaving her hanging on a cliff,
falling, then flying to heaven – only to have you shake her out of the clouds again.

You scorch heroin into her, dictating her vision:
Blinded by truth violated by your words, exposed in a mirror,
Her heart limps, throats sore, bruised lined skin, slit throats
dried lips to alcoholic kisses,
an aching body left on the bottom emotional shelf.
Passive, Aggressive: Murder – Inability to grieve, Inability to receive…

Bombarded her with paper airplanes, love notes:
her flesh being imprinted with dropping spitballs,
carrying jokes dark as the bags under her eyes –
dark as the memories they may possess.
Pulses quickening towards a swift, sick conclusion of humor,
erupting World War because

You were afraid to tell her you loved her.

–         Emilyn Nguyen, Paper Airplanes