Subtitled Love (Action Movies)

Bang!

Boom!

Go on without me!

Save yourself!

The thin layer of fleece can’t stop the chills that scale up my back

Like a minefield, goose flesh explodes across my skin

Hairs stand at attention and droop slightly, in silent salute

Darth Vader didn’t make it out till the end alive…

Heartbroken, I chew popped maize by the mouthful

Greasy kernels disintegrate by my saliva

I stuff confidence and bravery in my mouth,

Yet as it sloshes down my throat,

I vomit it back, upchucking lament and cowardice

I can’t swallow back my screams

You see, my body is at war with itself

But that’s the price I pay,

When, for 124 minutes, my eyes are glued to an IMAX screen

PG-13 labels allow for restrained carnage, though characters still meet their grisly ends

Bullet-ridden bodies are pumped to the brim with lead, and crimson life trickles down

Body parts are blown off and my ears are too, by defeaning machine gun fire

Metallic cylinders spew like a hose, splotching red drops across torso and chest

Corpses of good plots are abundant on the soaked battlefield, making a cornucopia of parts Dr. Hollywood can use,

Yet despite the rehash of plot lines and special effects, I am swept up by this spectacle

But I never enter these war zones alone,

My grandmother was always at my side

Cheering with me when the protagonist survived,

Uttering a prayer of sadness when the antagonist died,

Clapping profusely when the credits rolled by

But it was in 2013 when I found out the truth,

I saw my grandmother watching a screen filled not with war,

But of drama and romance, subtitled in a language I knew, though the characters on screen spoke a different dialect

Then it struck me: my harmoni did not like action movies

Her past affirmations, covered thickly by her Korean accent, was done out of love

Not knowing English, she sacrificed her favorites, to spend time with me,

Because you don’t need to analyze a bloodbath,

So I have seen how violently she loves me,

Slicing and torturing potatoes to feed me,

Firing up praises to God, shaking the foundations of heaven with explosions of adulation and prayer on my behalf,

She shoots looks of love that pierce through my hardened skin, making me bleed happiness

Yet even after being hit with this fierce, un-spoken love,

I don’t go past a “thank you”

On the quest to bridge the language gap,

I am Tom Cruise, deeming this mission impossible

John McClane letting my monolingual habits die hard

Sylvester Stallone: I’m boxed in my ignorance on this rocky path

But now in 2016, I’ll reclaim the tongue I have cut

죄송합니다

난 배울거야

95th and King + Mellifluous Maledictions (Extended Edition)

I really should have posted this a while back so I apologize. The slam poem piece that I wrote called Mellifluous Maledictions was published in a Chicago State University Literary Magazine entitled 95th and King, the cover of which is shown below.

95th and King Literary Magazine Fall 2015 Vol. 1 Issue 1

It was truly an honor, and I would like to thank Ms. Kelly Norman Ellis and Ms. Concetta Williams, who were the editors of the magazine. I highly urge anyone who is interested to submit a piece of writing to their next edition at 95andking@gmail.com. Be sure to include a cover page with your first and last name, school name and address, grade, home address, telephone number, and email (all as an MS Word document). Since I already posted the poem on Montag's Musings, shown below is an extended edition, with a few more lines of dialogue that I performed at my youth group's open mic. The new parts are bolded. 



In the beginning there was...the word…
Transferred from the waters that stirred to form the seas on the third day,
For when God spoke, darkness broke, the piercing light won the fight over the formless night
Yes, on the day of creation, God saved the world from desolation and rose up the nation, uniting us under one language,
But with the bite of an apple, we built towers of Babel, and began a never ending-battle, with words
No longer “in God we trust” it’s now “all about us” as we wage world wars with our mouths, letting profanities fly out,
And now unlike before, we have become stewards of Gondor,
We refuse to give up the crown of our hearts back to the true king,
We let our ears get swarmed by a storm of music, movies, and TV
And let the Messiah get cut down by this cyclone,
Looks like Kanye West and Jay-Z did a poor job of watching the throne,
The latter leaving us a Blueprint to follow and what path we ought to walk,
Of how to look at women and structure our talk
As we are told to sip the can of pop culture,
And let the sin sizzle in our throats,
Then vomit back caustic phrases
And let those unforgivable curses become our daily source of liberation,

Why swearing and profanity is so shockingly frequent, that it is hard to have a conversation that is decent
And no matter the reasons for people's treasons each word leaves my skin beaten, the curses pierce my side like a lance
And though I take a moral stance hoping that people will snap out of this horrific trance,
I can't leave it up Chance because these problems are just too Common
Intertwining with every 2 phrases like Batman and Robin
Robbin clean words from their mouths, and scarring innocent souls, turning them into Two-Faced criminals
And as Lamar is dropping bars, the curse words shine bright like stars,
Looking notoriously big in an atmosphere of celestial beauty,
How can I strive to be a good kid in this m.A.A.D city?
It seems as the metal-detectors of our mouths don’t realize the deadly weapons that we carry,
As they let f-bombs pass through security
And while the female dogs bark and howl at our dirty mouths,
The soles of our shoes pick up dirt of the ground and our souls become dirtied by the smack of the locker room sounds

But, I’ll be a Rebel and Anomaly, and break free from the Gravity of profanity,
That despite the calamity and abnormality of reality, I will press on to a cleaner mentality,

I refuse to play games with profanity, none of my music has explicit tags
I’ll blast the clean versions loudly, I won’t care if you all get mad…

But people tell me, to grow up
That swearing is simply a natural part of life,
That a few words here and there are alright,
That I am a lone knight, and a flickering light, counting from 0-100 as I fight these fire Drakes

Yet I’ll keep on fighting because I know God will return one day
And when he does, everything will change
All will be different and nothing will be the same
So even if, back to back, I am faced with problems, 
Using my energy I’ll rise up to the challenge even if I started from the bottom
I’ll beat back the world’s flaming arrows, 
With the word of God that pierces flesh, blood, and marrow
But being isolated, I know that my heart can harden like Pharaoh
Daily I must fight to walk the road less traveled and take the path that is narrow, 
So though I am alone, I will accept my differences
I’ll cling to Jesus’ cloak and be healed by his reverence

But I am not doing this for my own glory,
I speak cleanly to glorify the author of my story,
And point back to the first time in Eden,
When no one was eatin’ and God wasn't leaving,
Back to the first day, before the world had stirred
Back to the beginning, when there was just... the word

West Coast Envy (Chicago's Winters)

I said that I would post this when snow first touched the ground here in Chicago. There was that one weird day earlier in November/December where there was snow but soon after it returned to tropical weather. To usher and prepare for Chicago's infamous winter, I wrote this poem (it's set around the holiday season so it is a bit dated). 


Mother Nature, being too ashy from the lack of lotion,

Sheds her skin, epidermal layers flaking off onto the Earth, causing a commotion, down below

As white blankets fall from the sky, covering hibernating vehicles

Screams of anger emit from worker’s lips, cursing the new layer they must clear off

As they cough up steam, taken from midnight closing coffee shops

Canines force their masters to take them on walks, their thick hides providing heat

While crisp air continually cuts caustically into the soft flesh of human meat,

Freezing insides and innards, transforming the outpour of our hearts into a hardened lake,

While thoughts of fatigue and depression ice-skate across the surface

The pavement groans as holes the size of pots crack and waste away at their pristine shine

Peppermint mochas and holiday CDs attempt to cleanse the bitter grime,

The muck and soot piling on the pure sheets of flake

As if bipolar temperatures aren’t enough, Mother Nature believes third time is the charm

Chicagoans get no break from this storm,

The only break we get is when we pump it twice, while skidding across the floor

Just when you think you’ve seen the last snow fall,

A new blizzard is unleashed, and you’re forced to crawl out of bed earlier,

Taking heavy picks and tools, hacking away at the new scales that have surrounded your car

Feeling salty as the boxes of sodium are emptied on streets and driveways, needing to be filled once more

But if only the brackish substances would melt our hearts as well,

For our souls no longer become wells, but leaky faucets

Dripping out a few dashes of compassion, while we start lashing out at the setbacks, this winter causes

That all of sudden, giving your last dollar to the man with the cardboard sign, is not benign

Thinking of your own survival,

As steam fogs up our glasses, we become forget about the masses,

Eyes blind to others, while we try and care for those we know

And while enjoying the company of family is admirably done,

If we rush home to be warmed by food and carols,

But miss the ringing of the Salvation Army bell,

Then winter has truly claimed our hearts,

Rather than letting compassion and love flow delicately, like the never-ending snow

Happy New Year!

I know that this is a day late and I apologize for that. But I wanted to wish everyone a HAPPY NEW YEAR! (y ¡Feliz Año Nuevo!) I cannot believe that 2015 passed by so quickly.

Image credit: http://www.advertisingmn.com/

I recently went on a trip to St. Louis for the Urbana conference, which blessed me in more ways than one. As I give thanks and praise for 2015 and look forward to 2016, I want this upcoming year to be Characterized by Surrender and Defined by Joy. My key verse for this year is Matthew 16:24, which states Then Jesus said to his disciples, "Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me" (NIV). I must deny myself daily and gladly submit myself under God's authority. Rather than try to hold on to this ephemeral world with its fading desires, I want to surrender my life to God and find and trust the true joy that he has in store for me. Though the christian life is filled with risks and struggles, our God is one who will lead us through the storm and shower us with his presence. I pray that this year and for the rest of your life, you all can submit yourself fully to God's authority and realize just how great his plan is.

Some commitments that I want to make this year (not necessarily resolutions) are:

1) Daily, commit my life to God and submit under his authority. I want to begin with this prayer:

Dear God,

Today, I want to submit under your authority. Let your will be done through me today. 

Let me experience the joy of serving you.

Amen. 

2) Daily read God's word. My father has come up with the phrase ROQAM A (to be pronounced Rockem Ay) when it comes to reading. All of these steps are to provide a fuller and richer experience when I do my daily devotions.

R= Read
O=Observation
Q=Question
A=Answer
M=Meaning

A=Analyze


3) Memorize AT LEAST one verse once a week in english, and the same verse in Español.

4) Learn Korean (and maybe German). I will release a poem on my reason for this soon.

At the beginning of 2015, I made a similar list of commitments. It was much longer and I lived only by trying to "do those things." While in the beginning of the year it went well, I eventually began to burn out as the months went on. Before I do anything, I want to first submit to God and have him rule over my life. These other actions should simply be an outpour of what God is already doing in me.