poem

But I Did Anyway – Mock Funeral

Mock Funeral

There was no funeral.
No flowers.
No ceremony.
No one had died.
No weeping or wailing.
Just in my heart.
I can’t…
But I did anyway,
and nobody knew I couldn’t.
I don’t want to…
But nobody else said they didn’t.

So I put down my panic
and picked up my luggage
and got on the plane.

There was no funeral.

By Alex Graham James

A Response

“I can’t. But I did anyway, and nobody knew I couldn’t.”
Isn’t that the summary of every goodbye I have lived through? How many times have I done the impossible, entered into the unimaginable simply because I must? The human spirit is resilient, determined to live, capable of withstanding much. All the same, every time I do something I can’t, I lose myself. Piece by piece I’m losing myself, trails of bloody footprints in my wake.

No words or imagery could ever be enough to capture it, and I’ve spent my whole life searching for how to explain something that is inexplicable. The sacrifice of innocence, the absolute helplessness of a child, the depth of the ache bound up inside my knowledge. Too much knowledge, too much logic, and I cut myself off from the relief of grief, thinking I hadn’t earned it. Wasn’t good enough for it. Isn’t everyone good enough for grief?

By Elizabeth Hemp

By CulTuremiKs, ago

What Keeps You Here?

a strawberry

What keeps you here
I ask my heart
Stranger in a strange land, so white, so clean

These fields in June, she laughs
Your red-stained fingers
A taste of heaven beneath each leaf
And this sky expansive and clear

I wonder why, my heart, you hold
Steady on small delights after
Months of sifting memories
Under grey skies
Testing each day as we
Walk out into this not-all-bad
But still foreign place

I am young, says she –
A child who races, explores,
Finds beauty even here
And welcomes the new, trusting
Inviting sweet existence even
Within this space of not belonging

I hold out for
Simple Wonders;
Encounters with the Presence

Crouched amongst the rows I ponder this
Sifting through the too-soon and the already-past
I find it.
The ripest, the reddest berry
Welcomes me into the perfect balance
Proves to me that
Yes, child, even here, even you,
Have abundant peace.
The taste and texture of now.

By Bree Becker, a third culture kid from Rwanda and Kenya who now lives in Oregon, USA.

By CulTuremiKs, ago

You’re Invited, You Know

You’re Invited, You Know

Look, look at the rain pounding
into the dust outside, doesn’t it
sound like home? Like tin roofs
and shouting and laughter?

You would remember these
things, if you were here, and so
I say them to the empty space all around
me, to the memory of your presence.

We were made of different stuff, you and I.
I am stardust, never content with small and you
are the oak trees strong and steady, so
you know, I’ll visit you again someday
but I won’t stay. Will you forgive me for that?

Life is supposed to be built of love
but you and I have made it out of
minutes in the middle of years, out
of snapshot memories faded at the edges.

Look, look at this place and
how empty it is without you.
The world is big but our hearts are small
and you’re invited, you know. To come.

By Ghanaperu

Other poems by Ghanaperu
To My New Friends
Eve of Bittersweet

By CulTuremiKs, ago

Somewhere Closer To Near – Home

Somewhere closer to near but far,

I come from new names of old lands,
Oceans, islands, continents,
Snow and sand.

Between the blood spilled
for selfish reasons,
the crucifixion of sheep
as camouflage for our fears;
Home…

The place I come from …

Sometimes its people disappear
with the wind,
Its shape shifts from blinks to tears
And whenever it does so
it turns me into a foreign,
again.

That’s how I get lost;
how I get home;
simply to leave
again.

I come from seashells,
different smells,
Tastes, colors,
Fetishes in the spotlight,
the holy of brothels!


Where I come from…
I sleep naked,
covered by 3 blankets,
waking up sweaty.
I wear boots at the beach,
Slippers at parties
and I’m barefoot in the streets.
Never ugly, nor pretty,
the eccentric, the exotic
Neither usual, nor repugnant,
yet intriguing, deceiving.


The place I come from
is a loop, a pattern in space,
not very different from here,
quite similar actually!
It feels good to be back
for the first time;
Again.

By Caio Leão 

By CulTuremiKs, ago

Water Towers, Too – Adrian Patenaude

i knew i’d miss mangos
pale yellow, smooth, size
of two fists combined
peeled, sliced
and juicy sweet

i was right
but surprised
by warm peaches
firm and sun-yellow
picked fresh,
washed clean
in summer camp sinks
juicy sweet
and running down my chin

i knew i’d miss lilawadee
fragrant, perfect white
even when scattered
below branches
of waxy leaves

i was right
but i met magnolia
fragrant, perfect white
big blossoms
to get lost in
and breathe myself dizzy

i don’t remember, but mom does
a little girl crying
water tower!
water tower!
each time we passed one

that girl is a stranger, lost
in time to some parallel stream
the magic of water towers
is now lost on me
but West Texas sunsets
enchant, even that silhouette

i was right to miss Thailand –
rhinoceros beetles, rambutan,
raindrops clamoring on tin roofs –
and i still do
but i have been touched
by Texas, too

By Adrian Patenaude

Poet’s website

By CulTuremiKs, ago

Goodbye to Here

Another filled up, worn-out suitcase, another crossed off day—
Tomorrow I’ll again be going a million miles away.
I know someday I’ll return, but I know it won’t be the same
Because that’s just how it’s always worked in the traveler’s game:
Always moving; always settled; I don’t fit in; I belong—
Trying to blend in but always doing someone’s culture wrong.
I love the memories; I’m going to hold them close and dear. 
Farwell, the ticket says I’ve got to leave, so goodbye to here.

Goodbye to every face I’ve come to love.
Hello to familiar skies above.
Goodbye to what I’ve learned so I can blend.
Hello to strange customs that are my friend.
I face it all with no and every fear.
Hello to over there; goodbye to here.

I go through the familiar airport procedures and routines
Until it’s my turn to get into that big flying machine.
As I take off, I watch everything below grow so small,
And I can’t believe that again I’m leaving behind it all.
Trying not to cry even though I’ve got memories to keep.
Trying to keep myself entertained and then just fall asleep.
Trying not to laugh as I get excited about what’s ahead.
Trying to trust that we follow where God has faithfully led.

Goodbye to every face I’ve come to love.
Hello to familiar skies above.
Goodbye to what I’ve learned so I can blend.
Hello to strange customs that are my friend.
I face it all with no and every fear.
Hello to over there; goodbye to here.

I can’t imagine life for those who always live in one place,
Knowing what they’ll do each day and recognizing every face.
One mind, one tongue, one heart, one life, one home, one land where they live.
They say I sacrifice, but there’s more than what you see me give.
Maybe I can’t define home or use one speech to tell how I feel,
But I know I’ve come to love this world in a way much more real.
Someday maybe I’ll settle in a place most people call home,
But my heart still won’t understand why I can’t forever roam.

Goodbye to every face I’ve come to love.
Hello to familiar skies above.
Goodbye to what I’ve learned so I can blend.
Hello to strange customs that are my friend.
I face it all with no and every fear.
Hello to over there; goodbye to here.

by Katrina P. Puckett

By CulTuremiKs, ago

No Creature’s Form

With the wings of an Eagle I cry
Screaming the freedom of wind and sky
Untethered from all land and place
I’m Queen of the unclaimed space

With Chameleon scales, I master disguise
Waiting for my cue with roaming eyes 
Blending to each new culture displayed
As my skin knows no original shade

With a turtle’s dark shell I hide
Holding my emotion protected inside
Come too close and I will retract
To keep my softer sides intact

With a camel’s back and wandering feet
I’m built to travel through the heat
My restless nature drives me on
Till all I’ve been or known is gone

With so many parts and pieces
The more you see the confusion increases
Nothing is simply mine but my name
No creature’s form can I fully claim

by Danae Tanner

By CulTuremiKs, ago

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