vascon was amazing... ridiculously crazily amazing. and i know this
post is late, but it's taken me this long to finish this goddamn poem
that came out of that experience and of hanging with the people at
VASCON. it's taken me this long to get my photos up too. i'm kinda slow
like that i guess.
vascon was beautiful... honestly, amazing amazing good folks. a lot of
southern hospitality and love. dude, i met people spanning from my
monkey brothers in spirit, to someone that i'd love to call my mom, to
silk mangoes members, to some of the hardest working people i've ever
met. so many beautiful people it was amazing. i had so much fun and so
much privilege performing in front of that audience. thank you. all of
vascon. for being fucking beautiful.
yall helped me learn so much about all of you and about myself. not all
of it is beautiful but it's all important. so much of the time, i'm so
closed up and so fronted up in this persona i build. i need to learn
how to let go and let people know me as i really am. and not to be
stupid. thank you again. let's do it again soon.
and kimchi... if you're reading this... bring me to unavsa!
oh... and i need someone to fix my xanga for me. anyone up for the job?
and someone to help me with my webpage banners and stuff... i have the
html done but i need someone to help me design. please help a poor
brother out! :)
my pics
http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/vinhthekid/album?.dir=4762&.src=ph&store=&prodid=&.done=http%3a//photos.yahoo.com/ph//my_photos
and apparently, my boy thuan, who i also met at vascon has video of me
performing 'love poem to a vietnamese woman' on youtbue. and there's
some fucking dope video of my brother vudoo and my family magnetic
north performing at vascon as well. check it out.
http://youtube.com/results?search=vascon&search_type=search_videos&search=Search
http://youtube.com/watch?v=-By7M03ks_E&search=vinhthekid
some of my favorite photos
magz n moms... two of the coolest females i've ever met. and moms just fucking rocks. love you thi.
bao, dopest emcee... other than keith
now that's a crowd
me and kimmy, homegirl showed ridiculous amounts of love. southern hospitality alright.
elizabeth, who also showed hella love. and brother vudoo
four of the women i love. Caly, dope sister. Magz, crazy feisty female.
Weird looking catrina munchkin, the most mature 14 year old I've ever
met. and tammy, who i love. marry me!
me and thomas from thomas' apt. if i look crazy it's because i was just
crowdsurfing... thomas' apt rocked ridiculously well... holy fuck they
rocked.
beautiful vascon people learning the science of noodleism.
me and my monkey brothers monkeying around. ooo eeee ahhh ahhh
now the poem... the one dedicated to all the wonderful beautiful amazing people that i've been blessed with.
Elements Series,
Lucky me, i dreamed of You.
1.
My luck has never shown
itself on Tet,
does not run like
once-in-a-lifetime lightning bolts through slot machines or
find itself in the perfect
face card flopping onto felt dreamscapes, as green
and verdant as my father’s
conception of the American dream.
I’ve never really been lucky
in that sense, my luck
has never gotten me a girl or
a free trip, never managed to help me
snatch something out of the
jaws of near disaster.
I cause disaster so how do I
avoid it?
But I thank god every day for
my fortunes, because they carve themselves
in heartlines that run up
through my palms and into my center,
in the genuine teaching that
writes itself as watch-words onto the edges of my ears.
My luck has always been in
people.
2.
I write because I don’t have
the words to break past cliché and speak so you would understand
Every day, I thank the Maker
I’ve never really believed in,
who I find cold, causes in me
an incredulous disbelief born
of a brother’s grief
untouched by my father’s appreciation
of the miracle that is survival.
because the courses He’s set
have destined my eyes to meet with theirs,
these shining streetlight
angels blinking into the lonely-lost cityscape firmament of my life
like North Stars guiding me
home to safety
3.
This is for the strong women
sculpting me into something a little more myself
Sisters, as beautiful as my
mother’s smile
and as strong as the hills
that my father says are the true strength of Vietnam.
transcontinental drifters who
leave no roots, just seeds
of love wrapped in a
knowledge that are the truths
my pretensions to maturity
wish they could be.
those seeds blossom in me.
Born to be artists, they
paint the mark for ‘thuong’ onto my heart,
a language they learned from
living days and nights when they didn’t know themselves
burning the meaning of living
onto the unfinished manuscript of my existence
a calligraphy drawn by
proffered cigarettes shining like beacons and shared blunts,
guide lights to shared
dreams.
They are the whirling
dervishes of electricity that give energy
to my ADD dynamo personality,
and it’s in their
complexities, the multi-tiered layers wherein fly
the passions and scars and
bitter truths that make them who they are,
that I find myself.
they guide me, winds blowing
into my life
with the suddenness of
monsoons shattering preconceptions
and tossing away the
machismo-ignorance fostered out of hood-boy insecurities,
clearing the land for growth.
Women whose hands, carved
from the heartwoods of jungles
have soaked up the tears I
never let myself cry, held me up
when I didn’t have the
strength or the courage
to hold myself up.
Kisses on foreheads and
silent encouragement become the roots,
engraving themselves onto my
being like paths onto homeland hills.
channeling me into the person
I want to be.
My sisters, gentle as sweet
water springs after almost drowning,
the
only teachers I’ve ever listened to,
never phased by my bursts of
manic self-hate
always being the embrace of
calm deepness that
protects me from myself,
loving me with a quiet force
greater than my passions
could ever hope to be.
strong women have always
taught me what it meant
to be a man.
4
For them, men who taught me
love comes from the space in between thumb and forefinger
brothers as true as my
father’s words,
as idealized to me as every
legend of my people.
They are the zephyr winds
whose carefree grins come as
breezes to take the heat
of daily grind battle wounds
away.
Laughing men, they embrace
eternity,
throw themselves tumbling
into the fullness of life
because they won’t let
themselves ever feel the regrets of I-wish-I-had and I-should’ve.
Their laughter shows me the
direction to fulfillment.
Humble poets who’ve already
proven themselves to the only audience that ever mattered,
self-effacing men made of the
poems born at the
hearts of mountains
worn down to become the
long-suffering hills giving birth to a people that has survived, a people
still singing poetry, still
raising children fed by a mother’s quiet strength and a father’s
stern experience, even after
wars and pain and tragedy.
Under their tutelage, the
quiet of their voices and the sparseness of their pride,
I grow like cherry blossom
trees.
My brothers have always been
bright burning flames,
the fires of their beings
consuming everything of their lives
in the hope that the
conflagrations of their passion will ignite the inspiration
for change.
They have never asked for
thanks, because they burn too brightly
to ever think themselves
vulnerable to burnout.
They give all of themselves
for others
They are all that keeps me
afloat, safe from a failed refugee fate,
these oceans born of some
mother’s salt-water tears.
buoyant masses singing a
lullaby ancient eternal, the one that gives hope
to boys trying to find
themselves
but losing their history in
the finding
of another.
It is from these men arrayed
before me,
that I’ve learned what type
of man I want to be.
Their scarred knuckles, quick
grins and quicker words
have shaped every limb of my
body, every curve of every poem
that has passed through my
lips.
I can only hope that they
look on what they’ve crafted
and don’t find it too
wanting.
5.
I hope you understand, even
if I don’t
My luck has always been in
people,
has never, and will never
manifest itself in dreams come true
at the snap of fingers, but
rather,
in women who demand the world
and
deserve it
and in men dreaming of better
days and dedicated to searching for them,
because I’ve never asked for
anything at my grandfather’s altar
but for the ability to be a
better Vinh and he has given me that.
and I’ve never known how to
thank them,
these people responsible for
who I am and want to be.
This poem is not
could never be
enough.
and I don’t think
scorched earth policies or
atomic apocalypses
or even another Bush
presidency
could be much worse to me
than losing them, I don’t
think
I could stand if my luck
should
run
out.
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