identity

Temporarily Permanent

1.
I wrote something today
even though
I had nothing to say
there is too much music here
too many people who say
what I want to say
better than I ever could.

So I find myself
sucked into the information age
and suddenly time means something.
Once upon a time
I had read every book
available to me
but now,
I could never do that.

Once (or twice) there
I went a whole day
without ever looking at a clock.
Time
is just a word there
but here
it is what they (we?) live by.

2.
Someone asked me,
yesterday,
the one question
none of us can answer –
“Where are you from?”
And I wanted to say
“nowhere” or
“everywhere” or
“God” or
“Africa” or 
any number of other things
but suddenly 
I didn’t have the energy 
to explain
again
so I said
“Pennsylvania.”
After all, 
I know people there.
It is as good a place
as any other
for me to pick.

But really,
who I am now
is only a fleeting identity.
Maybe tomorrow
I will be someone else –
speak another language and
claim another place as my hometown,
or maybe I won’t.

But for now, for today,
this is who I am
and what I am
for those who ask me that
(such a stupid question. I am a
person, of course!)
And here I stand
temporarily permanent.

By Bluedarkness

By CulTuremiKs, ago

Green Culture

Under country, over country,
Never committed and always free,
But that’s freedom by plane, 
And not freedom of pain.

That pain hides in the greetings that are filled with goodbyes,
Our hello is rather uninviting, we realize.
But it’s a result of a normal routine 
Of always having to leave as the in-between.

Our looks deceive – 
We are not who you believe. 
We know both more thank you think,
And less than you think.

Yellow in the sea of Blue,
In the sea of Yellow, we are Blue.
Holding the knowledge of a Green
We are mistaken as pretentious, as causing a scene.

We return home
To absorb the culture of home, 
But Painters admire each color alone, 
For Black absorbs all, yet has no culture of its own.

Yet there’s beauty in Green! 
It’s not a fault to be in-between. 
But Painters are stubborn, 
Holding the old standard of one, they just don’t learn

That Green is both – it’s two – 
Not yellow, not blue.
Is that not so simple? 
Yet it remains incomprehensible.

You may know us as Global Citizens;
We carry the global burdens.
The dark eye bags remain as battle scars of jet-lag, 
Telling of the loss and grief from flag to flag.

Some of us live on the prayer cards on your fridge,
Between you and the 3rd world, we’re the bridge.
Existing as the good of the world in your sight, 
It is a fallacy we must rewrite.

If we didn’t bring our Sunday’s best
To visit your church to impress,
Perhaps you would be disillusioned, and the truth be known 
Of the dirt we bear, of the sin we own.

The truth is that we are scruffy
With the odor of our homes stuck to our shirts, a smell that is friendly,
Familiar because it is foreign,
Foreign to any other person.

If our real closet was opened, it would burst.
Culottes falling first, 
Hand-me-downs intertwined, 
Revealing our fashion – only 10 years behind!

The skin of a chameleon
Has granted us the chance of one in a million
To adapt, give, and share all before noon,
And before we’re gone, for our goodbyes come all too soon.

by Rachel Hudson

By CulTuremiKs, ago

Uniquely Me

I am a confusion of cultures.
Uniquely me.
I think this is good because I can understand the traveler, sojourner, foreigner, the homesickness that comes.
I think this is bad because I cannot be understood by the person who has sown and grown in one place.
They know not the real meaning of homesickness that hits me now and then.
Sometimes I despair of understanding them.
I am an island and a United Nations.
Who can recognize either in me but God?

By Alex Graham James

By CulTuremiKs, ago

Restless Blues

lay the line down
just away out of town
another road to wander
freedom is a horizon
ahead of me

some need a companion
urging them on to see
a world that moves in front of them
is just another dream

my feet shuffle restlessly
as soon as the leaves turn
cool autumn breeze tells me
there is somewhere else to be

can’t say I won’t return
but I know I won’t stay
anyplace I am accepted
means I’ve gotten there too late

by Guilty

By CulTuremiKs, ago

In Nepal / So Hum

Caught his eye
Walking in the mid day heat
In Bhaktapur.

Faraway – – look

Both of us a little like strangers,
Though he was born here
In his dusty gem encased by mountains
Cradled in the mist

He’d since
Seen the sea in Spain
& there gaining a new life
Lost some of the old

the cold mornings when he’d run laps around the pokhari with the other boys. One was always fastest – ran two times around before he could finish one.

We sit at its side now, smoking our cigarettes,
& I can’t tell how he feels
when he says that the children playing in the streets
Are foreign to him now.

by Aoife Higgins

By CulTuremiKs, ago

No Roots – Alice Merton

Alice Merton - No Roots

by Alice Merton

Verse One

I like digging holes and hiding things inside them
When I’ll grow old, I hope I won’t forget to find them
‘Cause I’ve got memories and travel like gypsies in the night


I build a home and wait for someone to tear it down
Then pack it up in boxes, head for the next town running
‘Cause I’ve got memories and travel like gypsies in the night

And a thousand times I’ve seen this road
A thousand times

Chorus

I’ve got no roots, but my home was never on the ground
I’ve got no roots, but my home was never on the ground
I’ve got no roots uh uh uh uh
I’ve got no roots uh uh uh uh

I’ve got no roots, but my home was never on the ground
I’ve got no roots, but my home was never on the ground
I’ve got no roots uh uh uh uh
I’ve got no roots uh uh uh uh


Verse Two

I like standing still, but that’s just a wishful plan
Ask me where I come from, I’ll say a different land
But I’ve got memories and travel like gypsies in the night

I count gates and numbers, then play the guessing game
It’s just the place that changes, the rest is still the same
But I’ve got memories and travel like gypsies in the night

And a thousand times I’ve seen this road
A thousand times

Chorus

I’ve got no roots, but my home was never on the ground
I’ve got no roots, but my home was never on the ground
I’ve got no roots uh uh uh uh
I’ve got no roots uh uh uh uh

I’ve got no roots, but my home was never on the ground
I’ve got no roots, but my home was never on the ground
I’ve got no roots uh uh uh uh
I’ve got no roots uh uh uh uh

Ending

I like digging holes
Hiding things inside them
When I’ll grow old
I won’t forget to find them


I like digging holes
Hiding things inside them
When I’ll grow old
I won’t forget to find them

I’ve got no roots
No roots

I’ve got no roots, but my home was never on the ground
I’ve got no roots, but my home was never on the ground
I’ve got no roots uh uh uh uh
I’ve got no roots uh uh uh uh

I’ve got no roots, but my home was never on the ground
I’ve got no roots, but my home was never on the ground
I’ve got no roots uh uh uh uh
I’ve got no roots uh uh uh uh

By CulTuremiKs, ago