Mockingbirds

EDIT EDIT: I did my first spoken word reading in Korea last night at a bar in KSU called Cafe Radio. It was so great to be back in front of a microphone reading my words again. When I was there, I was surprised by how much I had missed the concept of reading poetry in general. Of course, I miss Barley Rhymes and Hops on Birch, because they are populated and run by the best people in the world.

As it turns out, though, I also miss just sharing my work. I miss having a reason to put poetry together. I miss the bravery it takes to stand up in front of people (beer in hand, of course) and lay everything bare, to be open, to say here I am–well, part of me–take me or leave me.

WordZ Only gave me the opportunity to do that again. I’m looking forward to attending many more events in the future, and writing a lot more because of it.

Tell me what you think of my reading in the comments!

EDIT: Nick was actually featured reading this poem in Episode 3 of Barley Rhymes’s web series! Yay! Check it out: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nTd4lmi88_U#t=449

I don’t really fit here.

Korea is beautiful. The ocean, the mountains, the forests… I see amazing, beautiful things everyday. But I don’t fit. I think maybe there are places where you feel immediately at home, as if you always should have been there, and there are other places that you merely exist in, no matter how much they have to offer. For me, Busan is the latter. There is nothing wrong with this place, but it’s just so very far from the person I am.

I wrote a poem on this theme, my first in quite a while, and I wanted to share it here with you all. (My brother also read it at the best spoken word poetry EVER, Barley Rhymes! You should definitely check out their web series. Nick doesn’t appear, but tons of other great poets do!)

Enjoy.

Mockingbirds

There are birds here,

black and white,

that look like mockingbirds.

A thin, dark-haired woman,

smiles, wrinkling the corners of her narrow eyes.

Every morning she tells me

about something beautiful.

Today, she says

that when a Korean hears the song

of the black and white birds,

she will know

good luck is coming.

I step out of her car

and the bird we’ve been watching

picks insects

from between blades of grass–

silently.

In the hills behind my school building,

there are dozens of tiny farms.

One day, I stand on a road and watch.

A man squats over a row of cabbage

while the birds

fly in arcs from field to forest

above his head,

landing first on green house,

then rooftop,

then nesting in the nearby trees,

singing.

The sun sinks and their black bodies are silhouetted

against the grey and pale pink sky’s

dimming light.

Sixteen birds on a wire

turn their backs to my bus as it passes.

If they are singing, it is a sound

I don’t hear.

Are you mocking me,

bird in the grass

with your beak too full of bugs

to speak?

Or do you know

I’ve already had my share of luck,

enough to bring me here

to a country road

where you shower a man with your song,

to a setting so pastoral,

it seems pulled from a painting

in a history book,

removed from time

and set here

on this hill

just far enough from the highway

for the song birds to stay.

One evening, I walk through woods.

My path winds its way

around houses with crumbling concrete walls

that were once washed in brilliant white,

and then between fences

built to keep farms

and farmers in,

and then between clumps of bamboo shoots

and trees with fall reddened leaves.

Among the farm plots

sit small shacks, of plastic sheeting

placed against itself at right angles.

From one shelter,

across the ravine,

I hear saxophone notes.

They follow one another slowly,

then a few burst forth

all at once,

unable to endure the wait,

to sit back in a man’s breath

while the others

ring out clear,

in the cool air,

building a melody that settles

on foreign ears,

ears that are deaf to all language but this.

The notes rise and fall

and drag from her a sweet sadness.

She thinks of her home

and she smiles and cries all at once.

The notes penetrate her chest

and massage her heart

until its beats slow,

fill her lungs until her breath

comes deep

and low.

Her eyes close.

She stands there,

her non-conforming blonde hair,

her clothes that aren’t right,

her voice only capable of forming words

that don’t belong here,

and she listens.

The notes sweep up the hillside and break

against the edges of the ravine,

like water over the spillway of a dam.

The melody surrounds her

until she is no longer separate

from this country, from this world,

until she is no longer a woman

among the trees and

the breeze and

the sound.

She is sound.

She is breeze.

She opens her eyes

and a bird that’s not a mockingbird

flies silently by.

My luck has all been spent,

she thinks,

chest tightening,

eyes closing.

Alone in the forest,

slow saxophone tones

carry her home.