I'm Still Warm - Oscar Penaranda Maybe I shouldn't have done it
but I wanted to see it happen

I shouldn't have written
that song for the dove
but I wanted to see it fly
wanted to hear it
sing

I shouldn't have flung my
heart so readily to the world
but its sadness begged me

(for the world tells the truth
when it is sure there is a listener
and that is only to make
certain
that you will believe it the next time
it tells a lie)

Yet I am not bitter, I'm still warm, I still blush
I am yet another who's had
a lover's quarrel
with the world and planted a rose
where only
the cactus grows, that's all


- Oscar Penaranda, excerpted from "Screaming Monkeys: Critiques of Asian American Images." Forwarded by Paolo Javier.   ¶ 11/08/2004 01:09:00 AM