the wild suburban dogs
eat
the leftovers of a tom cat
outside
my apartment door--
the neighbors gone,
they must've done wrong,
the cops keep asking me
where they went--
a bluebird lands
on
a bent limb,
no song to sing
just worms to slurp,
a nest to think about,
and a debt
to me--
for the undeserved attention
I grant.

The courtesan and poet Zuo Fen had two cats Xe Ming and Xi Ming. Living in her distant court with only her maid Hu Yin, her cats were often her closest companions and, like herself, of a crepuscular nature.
      It was the very depths of winter and the first moon of the Solstice had risen. The old year had nearly passed.
      The day itself was almost over. Most of the inner courts retired before the new day began (at about 11.0pm), but not Zuo Fen. She summoned her maid to dress her in her winter furs, gathered her cats on a long chain leash, and walked out into the Haulin Gardens.
      These large and semi-wild gardens were adjacent to the walls of her personal court. The father of the present Emperor had created there a forest once stocked with game, a lake to the brim with carp and rich in waterfowl, and a series of tall structures surrounded by a moat from which astronomers were able to observe the firmament.
      Emperor Wu liked to think of Zuo Fen walking at night in his father’s park, though he rarely saw her there. He knew that she valued that time alone to prepare herself for his visits, visits that rarely occurred until the Tiger hours between 3.0am and 6.0am when his goat-drawn carriage would find its way to her court unbidden. She herself would welcome him with steaming chai and sometimes a new rhapsody. They would recline on her bed and discuss the content and significance of certain writings they knew and loved. Discussion sometimes became an elaborate game when a favoured Classical text would be taken as the starting point for an exchange of quotation. Gradually quotation would be displaced by subtle invention and Zuo Fen would find the Emperor manoeuvring her into making declarations of a passionate or ****** nature.
       It seemed her very voice captivated him and despite herself and her inclinations they would join as lovers with an intensity of purpose, a great tenderness, and deep joy. He would rest his head inside her cloak and allow her lips to caress his ears with tales of river and mountain, descriptions of the flights of birds and the opening of flowers. He spoke to her ******* of the rising moon, its myriad reflections on the waters of Ling Lake, and of its trees whose winter branches caressed the cold surface.

Whilst Zuo Fen walked in the midnight park with her cats she reflected on an afternoon of frustration. She had attempted to assemble a new poem for her Lord.  Despite being himself an accomplished poet and having an extraordinary memory for Classical verse, the Emperor retained a penchant for stories about Mei-Lim, a young Suchan girl dragged from her family to serve as a courtesan at his court.
      Zuo Fen had invented this girl to articulate some of her own expressions of homesickness, despair, periods of constant tearfulness, and abject loneliness. Such things seemed to touch something in the Emperor. It was as though he enjoyed wallowing in these descriptions and his favourite A Rhapsody on Being far from Home he loved to hear from the poet’s own lips, again and again. Zuo Fen felt she was tempting providence not to compose something new, before being ordered to do so.
      As she struggled through the afternoon to inject some fresh and meaningful content into a story already milked dry Zuo Fen became aware of her cats. Xi Ming lay languorously across her folded feet. Xe Ming perched like an immutable porcelain figure on a stool beside her low writing table.
Zuo Fen often consulted her cats. ‘Xi Ming, will my Lord like this stanza?’

“The stones that ring out from your pony’s hooves
announce your path through the cloud forest”

She would always wait patiently for Xi Ming’s reply, playing a game with her imagination to extract an answer from the cinnamon scented air of her winter chamber.
      ‘He will think his pony’s hooves will flash with sparks kindling the fire of his passion as he prepares to meet his beloved’.
      ‘Oh such a wise cat, Xi Ming’, and she would press his warm body further into her lap. But today, as she imagined this dialogue, a second voice appeared in her thoughts.
      ‘Gracious Lady, your Xe Ming knows his under-standing is poor, his education weak, but surely this image, taken as it is from the poet Lu Ji, suggests how unlikely it would be for the spark of love and passion to take hold without nurture and care, impossible on a hard journey’.
       This was unprecedented. What had brought such a response from her imagination? And before she could elicit an answer it was as though Xe Ming spoke with these words of Confucius.

“Do not be concerned about others not appreciating you, be concerned about you not appreciating others”

Being the very sensible woman she was, Zuo Fen dismissed such admonition (from a cat) and called for tea.

Later as she walked her beauties by the frozen lake, the golden carp nosing around just beneath the ice, she recalled the moment and wondered. A thought came to her  . . .
       She would petition Xe Ming’s help to write a new rhapsody, perhaps titled Rhapsody on the Thought of Separation.

Both Zuo Fen’s cats came from her parental home in Lingzhi. They were large, big-***** mountain cats; strong animals with bear-like paws, short whiskered and big eared. Their coats were a glassy grey, the hairs tipped with a sprinkling of white giving the fur an impression of being wet with dew or caught by a brief shower.
       When she thought of her esteemed father, the Imperial Archivist, there was always a cat somewhere; in his study at home, in the official archives where he worked. There was always a cat close at hand, listening?
       What texts did her father know by heart that she did not know? What about the Lu Yu – the Confucian text book of advice and etiquette for court officials. She had never bothered to learn it, even read it seemed unnecessary, but through her brother Zuo Si she knew something of its contents and purpose.

Confucius was once asked what were the qualifications of public office. ‘Revere the five forms of goodness and abandon the four vices and you can qualify for public office’.
       For the life of her Zuo Fen could not remember these five forms of goodness (although she could make a stab at guessing them). As for those vices? No, she was without an idea. If she had ever known, their detail had totally passed from her memory.
       Settled once again in her chamber she called Hu Yin and asked her to remove Xi Ming for the night. She had three hours or so before the Emperor might appear. There was time.
        Xe Ming was by nature a distant cat, aloof, never seeking affection. He would look the other way if regarded, pace to the corner of a room if spoken to. In summer he would hide himself in the deep undergrowth of Zuo Fen’s garden.
       Tonight Zuo Fen picked him up and placed him on her left shoulder. She walked around her room stroking him gently with her small strong fingers, so different from the manicured talons of her colleagues in the Purple Palace. Embroidery, of which she was an accomplished exponent, was impossible with long nails.
       From her scroll cupboard she selected her brother’s annotated copy of the Lun Yu, placing it unrolled on her desk. It would be those questions from the disciple Tzu Chang, she thought, so the final chapters perhaps. She sat down carefully on the thick fleece and Mongolian rug in front of her desk letting Xe Ming spill over her arms into a space beside her.
       This was strange indeed. As she sat beside Xe Ming in the light of the butter lamps holding his flickering gaze it was as though a veil began to lift between them.
       ‘At last you understand’, a voice appeared to whisper,’ after all this time you have realised . . .’
      Zuo Fen lost track of time. The cat was completely motionless. She could hear Hu Yin snoring lightly next door, no doubt glad to have Xi Ming beside her on her mat.
      ‘Xe Ming’, she said softly, ‘today I heard you quote from Confucius’.
      The cat remained inscrutable, completely still.
      ‘I think you may be able to help me write a new poem for my Lord. Heaven knows I need something or he will tire of me and this court will cease to enjoy his favour’.
      ‘Xe Ming, I have to test you. I think you can ‘speak’ to me, but I need to learn to talk to you’.
      ‘Tzu Chang once asked Confucius what were the qualifications needed for public office? Confucius said, I believe, that there were five forms of goodness to revere, and four vices to abandon’.
       ‘Can you tell me what they are?’
      Xe Ming turned his back on Zuo Fen and stepped gently away from the table and into a dark and distant corner of the chamber.
      ‘The gentle man is generous but not extravagant, works without complaint, has desires without being greedy, is at peace, but not arrogant, and commands respect but not fear’.
      Zuo Fen felt her breathing come short and fast. This voice inside her; richly-texture, male, so close it could be from a lover at the epicentre of a passionate entanglement; it caressed her.
      She heard herself say aloud, ‘and the four vices’.
      ‘To cause a death or imprisonment without teaching can be called cruelty; to judge results without prerequisites can be called tyranny; to impose deadlines on improper orders can be thievery; and when giving in the procedure of receipt and disbursement, to stint can be called officious’.
       Xe Ming then appeared out of the darkness and came and sat in the folds of her night cloak, between her legs. She stroked his glistening fur.
       Zuo Fen didn’t need to consult the Lu Yu on her desk. She knew this was unnecessary. She got to her feet and stepped through the curtains into an antechamber to relieve herself.
       When she returned Xe Ming had assumed his porcelain figure pose. So she gathered a fresh scroll, her writing brushes, her inks, her wax stamps, and wrote:

‘I was born in a humble, isolated, thatched house,
and was never well versed in writing.
I never saw the marvellous pictures of books,
nor had I heard of the classics of earlier sages.
I am dimwitted, humble and ignorant . . ‘

As she stopped to consider the next chain of characters she saw in her mind’s eye the Purple Palace, the palace of the concubines of the Emperor. Sitting next to the Purple Chamber there was a large grey cat, its fur sprinkled with tiny flecks of white looking as though the animal had been caught in a shower of rain.
       Zuo Fen turned from her script to see where Xe Ming had got to, but he had gone. She knew however that he would always be there. Wherever her imagination took her, she could seek out this cat and the words would flow.

Before returning to her new text Zuo Fen thought she might remind herself of Liu Xie’s words on the form of the Rhapsody. If Emperor Wu appeared later she would quote it (to his astonishment) from The Literary Mind and the Carving of Dragons.

*The rhapsody derives from poetry,
A fork in the road, a different line of development;
It describes objects, pictures and their appearance,
With a brilliance akin to sculpture and painting.
What is clogged and confined it invariably opens up;
It depicts the commonplace with unbounded charm;
But the goal of the form is of beauty well ordered,
Words retained for their loveliness when weeds have been cut away.

I was once asked to spell the word Depression
Now that was an interesting question to me because lets face it
Who does not know how to spell depression
It is three syllables
It is ten letters
It is just once word
Or at least that was the answer he was looking for.

I was once asked to spell the word Depression
I thought for a second and said
"Which way would you like me to spell it"
The teacher paused and looked at me quizzically
"What kind of question is that"
He chuckled

Like he thought I was dimwitted he repeated himself
"I would like you to spell the word Depression it is rather simple"

And now this is where I got to chuckle and say
"Sir, I believe what you are asking is a question I cannot answer, because to me Depression is not a three syllable, 10 letter word. Depression is when my sister comes home to a dead father, and Depression is when my best friend get diagnosed with Cancer. You see to me the Depression you are asking me to spell is the same Depression That gets you laughed out of a hospital. The same Depression that gets you a handful of 'cheer up's' and 'Get over it's.' and maybe even some 'Oh just be happy's' But last I checked when someone has Cancer, we do not tell them to "Just get better" or when someone is sitting in the ER with a cracked skull, we do not tell them to 'Just give it time, you're fine.'"

The boy sitting in front of you could not "just give it time"
When his mother died in his arms
And the girl that you pass through the halls could not "just be happy"
After she had true love ruined for her when some man did not Understand the word "No"
And your dad who calls every sunday cannot "cheer up" because the love of his life has died and his own son does not care to come see him on his birthday

So Sir when you ask me to spell Depression I ask which way because
I spell Depression D-E-A-T-H
and I spell Depression A-L-O-N-E
and I spell Depression S-I-C-K-N-E-S-S

So Sir I spell Depression S-U-F-F-E-R-I-N-G
And I define it as misunderstood for something in ones control/

So do not tell me it is simple to spell and do not tell me I am stupid when I ask in which way you are asking because to me
Depression isn't a simple
Three syllable
Ten letter word
That you use to define those who you do not care to know

I once asked a classmate at college
after a Sociological lecture on Deviances
why most women get traumatised and upset
about those perverts heavy-breather deviants
because where I come from, you'd laugh at their sickness
call them stupid and waste their money by not hanging up

And if you're crazy enough to be those perverts exhibitionists
who frighten women and young girls by exposing their privates
rather then scream and run, the woman would actually go to the
fool and yank his ****** trousers down and aim a hefty blow
to the offending sight, God help crazy silliness behaviours
where I was raised..

These perverts get their jollies from terrorising and the shock
reactions from their victims, that's their money shot
same with trolls and bullies, they relish knowing they cause upset
or fear or some emotional responses from their victims
Hell, I come from a place where cowardice is recognised for what it is
The rationale is so simple, you've got beef with me, say it to my face
that's what confident real worthy people do, stand by your words
anything else shows you lack courage and you are immediately called out and exposed as a weakling and a coward.
They will tell you, have the ***** and talk to my face'
A cowardly man is the lowest of the low, as simple as that.

But a worthless idiot who hides and then start hissing and cursing
immediately shows cowardice and becomes a joke and a useless example of a man,
So how can the ******* spewed by a pained faceless nonentities impact me, how can a hidden coward without the nerve to face another man, be considered an equal or respected, much less cause me emotional pain or make me doubt myself.
These fools that are given the run around by clever Asians and Africans. Tell me more jokes please!
I actually enjoy toying with fools and when bored take the ****
out of them and bait them to laugh at their ridiculous comebacks.

Do me a favour, how can a semi-illiterate yobs, who turn ghost white and physically trembles at the
the slightest pressure wants to get into my head and disrupt it

These shameless buffoons, who are being academically humiliated
by indian classmates, whose parents come from dirt poor villages and can barely speak english.
Such proven fools and cowards, then decides they can come and terrorize me, like we say where I was raise
" for where"   that means ',   how is that possible

Even an oxford educated person who can't face me earns my fine
contempt, you call yourself Oxbridge, what's respectable with being a coward who can't talk man to man but sneaks around playing a childish game, utter contempt!
Even with their artificially created chaos and difficulties i still
fare better then them
and these pathetic sickos think they are relevant in some way

But I know, they get off the contacts with me, its like I bless them
with recognition
after all there are perverts who pay women to kick them in the *****

I feed the trolls, as my mentioned above, our woman would yank down the pants of a ***** pervert exhibitionist rather than scream and run away, you don't go crying, saying I am emotionally damaged by a mentally ******* fool and pervert dropping his pants, you know immediately this is an idiot not worth two bits, you treat simpletons as simpletons,
what's to be terrorized about by some scallywag dimwitted
cowards with problems and inferiority complexes.
Pray do tell me.....................

If I Was anything the compound fools are alleging would I be here laughing at them or perhaps I am stupid like them, and can't recognize demonstrable spineless cowards and what they do.
He's broken, we've planted seeds, he's anxious, he's crying, some mentalist even says, the coolest stylish man is goofy.

These are the brain dead bullies who pick on the prettiest girls and start calling the ugly, the classic bullies trade make, flip everything because you are all brain dead, smelly ignorant, dumb nobodies
Trash like this want to alter my personalities, want to do my head in

Ohh.....puuluuzee!!

Am I worthless?
Am I rude?
Am I dimwitted?
Am I belligerent?
Am I stupid?
Am I unrealistic?
Am I animal?
Am I satanic?
Am I destructive?
Am I corrosive?
Am I *******?
Am I abusive?
Am I putrid?
Am I lazy?
Am I selfish?
Am I narcissistic?
Am I devilish?

If I am who you tell me to be,
I am all these things.

Dimwitted cloves squashed before they developed four leaves.
Other foliage in the family constantly grieves.
Devoured and left sore
By a local herbivore

Cattle herded for the purpose of prolonged life
No more slaughtered at the point of a knife.
Living free in grassless fields
Farmland now hardly yields

Dietary concerns carefully balanced,
Finding you’re nutritionally challenged
Told its time to drop the meat
And pick up a steak made of beet.

I find mystery in the silence.
It's an intelligence so complex,
that it's empty because it's
seeing all the flashbacks of its company,
and remembering things it has never experienced.
The silence is full of emptiness that is
encompassing those who are searching for a thought.
(The dimwitted ones.)
The silence is an excuse to be silent--
to get away from the screaming that goes on anyway.
I'm listening to the silence and pretending it's something defenseless.
I find security in the silence,
because silence always walks by,
calling for me from far away.
But it always walks away,
fearing that it's a distraction for me to escape towards.
The silence is looking out for me,
and singing to me all the time.

The gun at my hip is ready to make you disappear,
The club your ancestor loved is no match for mind I run,
Think you’ve got the better of me,
Let’s wait and see who welcomes another day of agony,

Life is rough and resembles damnation,
From conception,
Making it to your twenty’s, ******* impressive,
I would have aborted your ***,

Just a dramatic demon,
Despite the deaths of other humans,
Across the ocean,
Far from where I hide,
Far from where I can see,
Where I would mind,

Out of sight,
A place where the bodies lay,
Where militaries fill graves,

Land of the free, land of the incubated,
Indoctrinated,
Intoxicated,

Belated by your brutality,
Why do you think I reach for my 9 milly’

Betrayed by your humanity,
Why do you think my trust in you diminished?
Because you are ******* human,
And Darwin wasn’t dimwitted,

Ignorance graced by intellectually \ lives,
Sprinkled amongst the ash,
However I feel like I should last,

What was I talking about?
That’s right your demise,
At the hands of you despise,

But this shouldn’t be a surprise,
Since you spawned this stupid stride,

I feel like picking on those who can’t find their way out of a compromise,
I don’t mean to pry,
But your confessional is so humanly inviting,
I’ve gotta criticize your justifications for the way you live a life,

The fact you can’t forget the dollar,
The fact you still pop a collar,
Who the **** do you think you are,
You are just a bump in the modern mold,

What am I saying?
Oh yea you’re the prey and I seek relief,

I believe in the possibilities of this species,
But evolution out grew a generation of intellectuals,
So who is going to take the helm?
And make sure we don’t end without spewing a few words,

A generation enslaved by self-entitlement,
Nothing is given to you my son,
You’ve gotta reach for you guns,
And earn your stripes,