Category Archives: Writing & Reading

Since I consider intellichick.com (and by extension my @intellichick on twitter) as my “alter-ego”, then I suppose launching my writing blog is calling it my “other ego”?  It most certainly isn’t an “alter-alter-ego”.

So why the other site?  I’m a bundle of randomness, but writing is my life’s passion – so it made sense to collectively keep the random on one side and make a more concentrated effort to bring forth the writer me and keep my writing thoughts somewhere.

No worries, I’m sure they’ll be some cross-posting and I’m definitely not closing this site/self – I just gave it a new look-and-feel after all.

I found this on a piece of my church Meetinghouse while cleaning my desk.  I think it must have been the only paper I had on hand at the time I was inspired.  I write like that sometimes – on scraps of paper that I forget to keep.  This one is about a homeless person I saw sleeping in L.A.

Sleep Same
by Charity C. Tran

He sleeps like me
curled like a cat
would by a hearth,
into a ball
sleeping soundly.

He sleeps like me
hand tucked
against the thigh
head turned down
sleeping soundly.

From Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/intellichick/3704699148/

I hope love surrounds you like the sky – every day. -cct

Heart in the sky,
Skywritten as if to fall,
Never falls, but fades…
As smoke against the wind.

Is the human heart like this script -
Here and gone
But in a moment,
Like a heartbeat
Rise and fall?

Love a second,
Or forever,
Can it be box-limited
Into a day?
Captured,
Like a Valentine,
Wrapped and presented?

Perhaps hearts do not fade,
But instead
Break free into the air,
So that Love becomes the sky,
When even clear can emerge possibilities
Where even gray gives way to the sun.

To Bobby Who Lives On
By Charity C. Tran

I see you now in headlines
“L.A. School Official”
but when you shift from their
front page to archive
you’ll still be in our headlines
etched in the articles of our lives

you were writing
your dissertation
too many chapters left
of your own to write
of your life to compose

but before your pen
left your hand
its ink had left its mark
composing symphony
in the articles of our lives

you persevered the odds
determined
that others could do the same
you did so with laughter
achieving a quiet kind of fame

Mused - Winter 2009 Issue

Today I celebrate not only the Winter Solstice, but the first publication of my poetry.

In the Winter 2009 release of Mused (BellaOnline Literary Review), I have two poems that unintentionally have a focus on two different incidents of the holding of hands:

Hope & 7th:  A poem about helping a little boy climb up stairs at 7th/Metro Station in Los Angeles.

Close Proximity:  A poem about the moment when someone holds your hand unexpectedly.

Both are warm and fuzzy poems that hopefully are befitting of the holiday season even though they don’t directly speak to the holiday season.