A Glass of Water: A Collection of Poetry and Prose

By Jorry Luz

In his first-ever published collection of poetry and prose, Jorry Luz illustrates his understanding of the human condition and the universality of themes such as love, loss, life, death, beauty and nature. A Glass of Water is a collection of poetry and prose that uses the classic metaphor of a glass of water and turns it on its head. Instead of seeing life as half full or half empty, as an optimist and a pessimist, respectively, would, the poems in this book use the lens of the realist and the dreamer to illustrate how life as a glass would be brimming constantly. Jorry manages to tie in an array of themes through his works by writing them through the eyes of the two people he has personified over the years: the realist and the dreamer.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Tellwell Talent
• Release date: Jan 24, 2022
• ISBN: 9780228864172

Jorry Luz

Jorry Luz is a poet, videographer, musician, 3D-printer hobbyist, vintage enthusiast and student living in the Central Okanagan of BC. While currently pursuing engineering at the University of British Columbia, Jorry aspires to not only embody the intellect of an engineer but also the empathy of a poet. Along with reading books, making videos, writing songs, and the casual 3D print, Jorry visits his hometown of Vancouver, BC, to enjoy the company of his family and friends.Apart from his first published collection of poetry and prose, A Glass of Water, Jorry has already had a poem from his early works published in the 2013 edition of Voices Visible, titled "Look."In pursuit of a colourful life, Jorry hopes to continue on this path of using passion to drive his ambitions for the years to come.

Book preview

Copyright © 2022 by Jorry Luz

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other non-commercial uses permitted by copyright law.

Tellwell Talent

www.tellwell.ca

ISBN

978-0-2288-6416-5 (Paperback)

978-0-2288-6417-2 (eBook)

To my nanay and tatay

Thank you for believing in me

Contents

Introduction

An Opening Breath

A Glass of Water

Oh, What a Jungle

The Breadcrumbs I Followed

The Realist

hello

Tied

Speak Slowly

read this with a whisper

Read This Out Loud

Fever

Maraming Salamat Po

Embrace

Can I Tell You a Funny Story?

Shadow

Revered

To the Woman Who Taught Me Gratitude

Upside Down

Realize

That Moment in the Morning

Too Much

End

Knot

A Poisoned Idea

Torture

Apologies

Love Song

Cries in the Wind

Only at the End

After You

Broken Keyboard

Love as a Math Equation

I Hope You Read This

Ruins

Rerun

Forgotten

Unapologetic

We Used to Be Friends

Frame

Echo

It’s Daunting

First Apartment

I No Longer Know the Rain

Looking in the Wrong Places

A Message to the Meaning-Making Machines

Correct

Cocktail

Gravitational

Today I Was Mistaken for a Girl

Body of Water

Never Stopped

Time Capsule

In the Case of Gravity

In Between

In Between

The Dreamer

Blank Page

Why I Write

The Beautiful Now

Something Beautiful

Creatures of Habit

Welcome Aboard

Playground

Draws Me to You

When Does a Sound Stop?

One of These Days

Playlist

Iced Green Tea Latte

You Can Choose the Record This Time

Purist

Thoughts

Silence

Astigmatism

She Did More than Just Click a Button

To My Dance Teacher

Spotlight

Sunset

Crucible

He’ll Keep You Company

To the Guy on My Bus Wearing Too Much Cologne

The Riddle in the Mirror

Headfirst

Just a Dream

The First

The Second

The Third

The Last

An Endless Road

Without Me

Mother to My Poems

A Lie I Told You

Drowning

Through Midnight

Like a Storm

Through Your Fingertips

How It Would Go

Apocalyptic

Form

With Faulty Hands

When We Depart

Rest Well

Acknowledgements

Introduction

Is the glass half full, or half empty?

This is a metaphor that has been posed as a question to divide people into two separate groups: the pessimists and optimists. This dichotomy never made much sense to me because to believe that one’s experiences and perspective can somehow be encapsulated in some binary answer seemed too simple, and I don’t think life is that simple. I feel like humanity deserves more credit for how complex we all are. To add more nuance to this metaphor, I’ve decided to remove the distinction amongst the two perspectives and created my own take on that saying.

The end of an era becomes the breeding ground for change. And it’s inevitable to have to say goodbye to people and experiences, storing them away into the past. Now there exists a gap in our lives where a piece of our past once lived—a place that might feel as if it’s empty, but I don’t really think it is. As an engineering student, I learned early on that cold doesn’t exist; it is rather the absence of heat. So, what if the same applies to life? This part isn’t empty but rather an absence of the familiarity we’ve grown to be fond of.

I