Poetic Trips Down Memory Lane

Poems Written By An Angrier, Younger, Dramatic and More Talented Yih-Kang Lee
Spring '03

"Love's Bitch"

I'm trying to write a love poem
but I can't
cause all I can think about is myself.
trying to write about the one who got away
or the one who was supposed to call yesterday
or the girl who liked my friend instead of me
or the girl with the nothing much up there but with the biggest breasts I've ever seen.
Their faces cloud my mind like
some fantasy gone mad into nightmare-mode,
haunting my pride and my pants
as if they knew my pain of not being able to love
I dont' know if I can
for I have no more love to give.
spent on every digit I've pressed
every minute i've invested
and every tear I shed
into the silent abyss I call the past
leaving memories of loneliness into the noisy traffic jam I call my mind.
I feel like an Alzheimer's patient from time to time,
getting attracted to one girl after the next as if I have forgotten the bruise on my chest.
But I ain't FedEX, I can't get over it overnight,
I am love's play toy that has lost its elasticity
becoming the Etcha Sketch of today,
thrown around by love, leaving me in the silent corner
of the storage room next to old Elvis love records,
living my Heartbreak Hotel.
So I lie on my bed, waiting for my glass slipper,
and my Prince Charming
Oh wait, I'm not a woman, I'm a man. I can't just
wait, but I have to go out and do something about it,
but without Cinderellas or Kristen Krueks as incentive
for me to risk my life,
I will wait instead of love.
So here I am, watching women fall for fakes in life and on FOX, wondering when women will fall for me, wondering when I can fall in love,
but I realize I can't
till I stop falling in love with myself.

"Not"

We are not a laborer laying railroad tracks across the continent, not a gardener trimming the shrubs while secretly planting a bomb,
not a saboteur before the day of infamy at Pearl Harbor, signaling the Imperial Fleet,
not a kamikaze pilot donning his headband somberly, screaming "Banzai" on the way to my death,
not some peasant with a broad-brimmed straw hat in a rice paddy on the other side of the world, stooped over to toil in the water,
not an obedient servant in the parlor, a houseboy too dignified for my own good
not a washerman in the basement laundry, removing stains using an ancient secret,
not a tyrant intent on imposing my despotism on the democratic world, opposed by the free and the brave,
not a party cadre alongside many others, all of us clad in coordinated Mao jackets,
not a sniper camouflaged in the trees of the jungle, training my gunsights on G.I. Joe,
not a child running with a body burning from napalm, captured in an unforgettable photo,
not an enemy shot in the head or slaughtered by the villageful,
not one of the grooms in a mass wedding of couples, having met my mate the day before through our cult leader,
not an orphan in the last airlift out of a collapsed capital, ready to be adopted into the good life,
not a black belt martial artist breaking cinderblocks with his head, in an advertisement for Ginsu brand knives,
not a chef serving up dog stew,
not a bad driver swerving into the next lane,
not a horny exchange student here a year, eager to date the blonde cheerleaders,
not a tourist visiting, clicking away with his camera, posing my family in front of the monuments and statues,
not a ping pong champion, wearing white tube socks pulled up too high,
not a violin prodigy impressing the audience at Carnegie Hall
not a teen computer scientest, ready to make millions on an initial public offering before the stock crashes,
not a gangster in sunglasses, embroiled in a turf war with the Sicilian mob,
not an urban greengrocer selling lunch by the pound, rudely returning change to the black patrons,
not a doctor, trained in a foreign tradition with anatomical diagrams of the human body through colored points,
not a calculus graduate student with thick glasses and a bad haircut,
not a teacher's assistant with an incomprehensible accent,
not an illegal alien crowded into the cargo hold of a smuggler's ship, finding life as a work slave in a slaveshop.
And we are definitely not black
And we are definitely not white.
We are yellow,
a color that no one understands,
sadly,
not even by those who are.

"The After-Climax"

Life was perfect
but then I watched the giants
Life sucked
Life gained hope
but then I watched the jets
Life sucks yet again
Now I look forward to the knicks
O God
Does life suck

*By the way, this was written three years ago. Not much has changed I guess.

"Writer's Wish" By: Me

I want you to be the writer and
I to be your motivation.
I want you to understand how necessary I am
when you cringe in frustration.
To acknowledge that I'm the reason for your fame
the shadow of your pain
To realize i'm the boxer knocking-out your block
saving you from the never-ending potent sounds of tick tock tick tock
Your frigid mind and frozen eyes
gives white space a dark stare
Wondering when inspiration will take over
and give you an answer to why you should even care.

"Poet's Resignation"

I am sick and tired of staying up till three in the morning
trying to chase my subconcious designs to the corner of my mind
with an AK and force itself out like a bad case of diarrhea gone insane
into the World of Who the Fuck Cares.
Spending countless hours dreaming up ways to use
fuck
in a poem and call it art
is not worth decayed and delayed snaps and claps
from an under appreciative audience,
a New York Times crowd that years for
anti-war poems and anti-Bush poems,
a lowlier than Thou crowd that needs the
rhyming poems and Rated NC-17 Dr. Seuss poems,
a poetry club crowd that desires the
poetic-device-filled poems and sip your martini and say "Huh" poems.
Cause when all is said and done,
I need more than the assurance that
my creative words on mass-produced paper
has a connection to my inner-spirit
that no one else comprehends.
But I dont know how to rhyme like Saul,
and I dont know why people draw their jaw when I utter, war
and I dont know how to reach those who don't want to listen or read
a piece of writing that doesn't make sense
to them,
like a dumpling stuffed by a turkey.
There seems to be no room for life in a poet's world
after six months of regurgitated words, styles, themes, and words
have begun to surface on the red dirt near the crossroads
between pleasing one mob and the next.
Someone better get me a Zeugma patch
to cure my poetry addiction,
cause on writer block nights like these,
I still find myself a slave to the hope
that my blue ink can reach another poet's black ink out there,
who is going through the same artistic nightmare as me.