color camera filter gel
it's a black tower at tintagel
turns me every shade of dead
when i'm made to lay in bed

last night i fought so violently,
the neighbors left a note for me--
"the walls are thin here; from above
we could hear you two make love."

born too early, slept too late,
crows flocked to their dinner plate,
and i studied aristophanes
amidst a shrill cacophony.

wet and wind in winter's maw
i opened wide, but tigers' claw
caught a vain and made it sing--
heaven hurting, heaven sting

a vessel filling up with sand,
myth and man with mountain hands;
sipping from a fiery flagon,
how i began Year of the Dragon.