Haven't been to China
Unless you count Hong Kong
But I like Chinese food
And Mr. Harry Wong

Rain again today
Ocean going green
City of Ember remembers
So does Things Not Seen

                   Hermits!

This is the first breath that I've ever cared about.
Please abandon your everlasting doubt.
We've opened up a magic portal through an alien route,
exposing you to my internally dying dehydrating drought.

I'm like a waning foreign phoenix finding fairness in its contaminated ashes.
I still get flashes of post-traumatic emotional rashes,
from an abstract haunting nightmare  that I don't care to wear
on my not-so-bare chest anymore.
Be aware that I don't always do my share,
and that I am made of skin that has been known to ware and tear.
If this is just Truth or Dare, I don't want to play anymore.
Please be fair.
Please beware.

The snow has suddenly stopped straining my spiraling somber sorrows into silent sirens sounding seasonal surreal suicidal scenes of secret sappy solitude tomorrows.

And though the weakening leaves outside are withering,
and my feeble frozen bones are quietly quivering;
my shivering insides are shyly shifting
into brand new hues of brighter blues
that are constantly turning into a lighter and mightier muse,
like the autumn leaves that heroically live beneath my yearning Red Wing shoes.

I'm on a blissful beach of elated snow,
burying my feet in what we both know;
that our doubt has been put to rest below.

Perhaps there is a dragon palace somewhere
flowing with emerald scales, where ice-colored
sunlight rings in the wind, where soundless
mountains hide their bare faces in purple shadows.

This world, a transparent garment ,
blushes with the seagull’s shriek,
pales with the dove’s soft coo,
brightens with seasons singing
newness, clouds with the heart’s
sorrows.

The music of colors invades
the senses, scarlet sopranos,
jade’s deep base, distant ringing
of silver planets. rainbow banners
that gossip in the wind.

An arpeggio of colored sounds,
each unique in its own tone,
from the lullaby
of sunset to the ****** of
dawn’s glacier blue.

Seeing, hearing, naming,
assembling, each sensation
to its own order of allure.

I feel strange.
I was once a glory
Put directly on stage.
I showed my ability
Yet you weren't amazed.

Instead, you scold me,
But wasn't I great?

'No', you told me,
'You need to change'.

Lines and cubes, unparalleled construction,
participles that don't dangle, heads of horses,
Guernica in stanzas, feelings contorted,
crying while dying, iambic pentameters,
stiff arms straight up, screams wide open,
metaphors and ******, hanging on walls of
Museo Nacional Centre de Arte Reina Sofia,
blue pillows on the floor, broken legs and
arms, ******* and agonies, montage of
blood and brutality, peace and war, love
and kisses, hits and misses, curves and
angles, bulls beheaded, silence and solemnity,
silver-blue stars bursting through open
windows, helplessness and hope. Picasso
and I.

TOD HOWARD HAWKS

Two trout on a line

One struggling