The littler man walks up to the little man and asks for a gun.
"I wish to join you, and fight for justice."

The little man coughs.
"Young soldier, why do you ask for a gun?"

Gavroche, with head held high, answers:
"Because to be a soldier one must have strength,
"And to have strength one must quiet his fears."

Upon hearing this, the little man smiled and handed him a quill.
"Your gun, young soldier. Use it well."

Remember this as you watch him fall.

Outside on the park bench, her heart skips a beat- a shadow's passed by.

The crickets have thawed.
They continue to stretch their chuckling bones.

There is a key in the dark,
A woman fearing to leave the light.
Her purse has five hundred dollars.

Her car snores softly beside the sidewalks on which runners nonchalantly run, and walkers nonchalantly walk.

It is not fear that immobilizes her,
But its trailing shadow:
The fact that it left without so much as a glance,

Without so much a trace,
As if she wasn't worth threatening.

Two fathers
In black and white
Sit
Talking.

About daughters
And sons,
Dark clandestine robes
Billowing next to

Gravel oceans:

Eyes glazed over
At shadows
That drown.

Through His mercy we have survived.
Wrath sparing
Temple and parthenon,
Synagogue covered
In moss,
Castles ****** but unbowed
For us to
Remember.

Allowed us to keep
Corners of
Eden:

A bedroom wall slathered
In picture frames,
A front porch dusted with snow—

Fragments
We tore away with

Tears clouding our eyes.

help is in order -
you and i still screaming each other sick
like twin fathers. one

who wishes to surrender his church
to the rust and the other hastening
to restore it:
stone, metal and all.

many nights i
fail to tell apart one from the other,
tell apart the resurrection
from the ruin. i

and you both picking up and
at loose ends of temple rubble
and made to snivel at what
could have been.

there are pieces here we keep
that need be thrown away.

there are pieces here we leave behind
that need be kept.

I.
Rivulets of rainwater dance
                                          On edge,
Cracked road painted with
Burnt rubber and chipped yellow lines,
Bits of metal bar and
Burning wood
                     -skidding-
Off
       the road

II.
It's 6:00 pm here beneath
The Jones Bridge;

The smell of oil and
Murky sewage water laps at
         My ankles as
My toes meet
               Yours:

Burnt matches stewing
In the palm of your hand, damp
Brown eyes

          —gawking—

At my patsy appearance.

III.
Floating
                    the surface
            on                            
                                          of
Our shallow river is                     A yellowing letter.

We, undaunted,
Swiftly grab at it with our slim
Fingers. For a moment,

We recognize each other.

I met Grandfather at a Taiwanese bookstore.

For some reason,
We were the only ones staring
At the decrepit
Poetry section
In this, brand new
Four-story library.

He was grinning as if
The teeth in his mouth
Was real again.

And I couldn't help but
Smile with him too, this
Old man

Who stuck his hands in
His pockets and slouched
Over books just like
I once did.

Who couldn't speak a word of
English, but who

Over and over again muttered
The name "Auden,"
As to signal to me

That he knew exactly what
Was going on here.

Nodded vigorously at me—
Told me he'd met him once, before.
In a book.
Probably in Cantonese—
I wonder how it sounded to him?

I wonder how I sounded?
Peering over him
Like a sprightlier shadow,
Also muttering to himself
"Auden, Auden,"

As if trying to remember.

I think,
When I grow up,
I would like to be
An old man someday.

For volleyball games with our kids*

and the grit of dirt slipping through your teeth
like a pancaked hand flat on cement surface.
Ball. Court. It is a good morning and
the sunrise rises to give life to the game. This game:
ours. We run and jump and sing; old bones

made to jog its memory. Bounces the ball and we run
again. Laughing like children. Next to the children.
Leaping after them. Watch as the ball rises high
in the sky next as outstretched arms give chase
to them: its hands caked with dirt; gravel on nails
from the swept cement rock and line paint. This we

share like a communion, a church service. Young
and old, here and not here we rise and we
fall prostate next to the prayers of the net, the brush of fingertips
against fabric against rubber, each palm
of the ball a Sunday chorus stretching, congregation, religion,

swept from the sky and made to kiss ground where
the gods of our sweat and grit belong.

I.
gravity
helps me realize
where exactly
you are.

and newton,
well newton
for all his
hang ups on
the temptations of
eve,

i guess got
it right
first:

what separates me
and you
and the rest of the world
is not
hope or magic

but rather
the pendulum swings of
chance

(arbitrary force)

the oscillations maybe
of a rickety train platform
on which our
footprints
converge, diverge,
and resonate

like naturalized frequencies.

II.
frankly,

i

don't want to talk
about the physics of it all.

i just want to sit
alone,
on the steps of this train
station,

and gently soak in the
clickety clacks
of these intersecting lines.

i

just want to
watch
as their doors open
and close,

and feel the rhythms
of their machinated dance,
and

sort the footsteps
that sift out
according to shape, color,

distance.

III.
as we speak,
i have already begun
to count
how many
stops

still separate

you.

and i.

Only when the rain is as
Sharp as a torrent of Central Park ice
(Y'know, where the ducks are!)
Would I blink,

Not willing for anything
In the world
To miss the joyous songs of a
Still sunny carousel—
Chorus of 10 year old laughter, falling

Much like light spring rains
(Though none befalls me here)
Trickling down my face

Like a second baptism.

I'm not sure how this works
Out, you and me,
All twiddling thumbs and
Awkward hair twirls unsure
How to properly
Spit
Out a greeting,

"Oh hello."

And what comes after,
And what should come after.

We try our best to
Veer away from each other,
Afraid that the other would
Smell the
Rancid blue cheeses on
Our tongue,

Or the cliches displayed for all to see,
Like spinach in our teeth.

So we nod.

Slowly.

Abruptly.

With chin up and hair
Tangled somewhere behind
Our ears,
Hopefully.

And ice breakers stale
In the backs
Of our jeans pockets.

Noses crinkling in
Silent prayer as to
Never have to ask the person

"Sooo, how's the weather" or

"Sooo, how much does a polar bear weigh?"

(Enough to break the ice, by the way.)

The sand slashes at your eyes
Like rubbery tires
Except
You aren't rubbery.
It ******* hurts.

They well up in your eyes-
Gouge out the tears.

The words build up
Only to
Break
In the middle of your throat-
You choke

And
Stumble over your own
Two feet

Find yourself
On
Your knees
Hands clasped
In prayer
To God.

Ozymandias,
For once please bear your own weight.
Like you
I am
Beautiful too.

Sometimes you just
Have to
Pick yourself up
Dust yourself off and
Just keep
Walking.

I fight quietly at dawn's
Candlelight, fight softly
But surely with genteel
Fist—heart—

Softly beating—ticking—
Like a clock—dancing—tik—
Dancing—tok—hammering
The ghosts that frequent
These halls—
The white washed walls—
Which shrink at the sight

Of dawn—beautiful dawn!
And day—O luminous day!

I fell asleep
To the smell of antiseptic,
Sterilizer, biogesic,
And the cold touch of metal
Rods that only seem
To grow colder
With the touch of hospital
Left in the student's
Ward - a whistle

Permeates the silence
Of seniors
Painlessly sleeping away
Hours upon
Hours until graduation -
A coming of age -
An escapism from past papers
And teachers who have
Themselves given up
On them.

And the lights you
See are as bright
And as empty as those blinking
Feebly
In that of the school doctor's
Office, one not really
Blinking more of
Washed, and supported
Wobbling by daylight
Seeping in through peeling blinds,
Unable to see too much -
The headaches and stomachaches
Have rendered him numb
To the feeling.

And lunch comes
And out blows the whistle to
Signify the end
Of playtime for
The young ones, start
Of playtime for
The older ones,

Whistle blowing muffled
By the septic tank glass
Doors of this sacred outhouse,
Wards muffling the cries of children
As they flee the quadrangle,
Once mad, twice elated,
Still innocent, untired,
Not needing to fake sick
And rest their heads softly

Upon thin soft beds with
Towels wrapped haphazardly
Behind their backs,
Nostalgia, it was

Laughter, I swear it was louder
When we used to run,
When our eyes lit up like
The sun petering in through
The doctor's orifices,

When our bruises and bumps
Smelled like betadine,
Not sleep
And cups of sterile water downed
To mask the scent of
Fake cough syrup,
And cuts gotten from fiddled syringes,
Bruised ankles
Bent over undersized beds,

And not running over
Uneven pavement,
Ankles brushing tablecloth,
Schoolbag,
Basketball and frisbee,

And the screaming.

Oh, how I miss
The screaming.

Tonight is but a smattering of hooves,
A suspended dance hanging
High above the half-moon forest
Dripping with bravado and sleep.

Tonight is but a quiet lake,
Awake after the storms,
Overflowing with tears,
As the children fade into the forests.

Tonight is but a dragged axe,
A momentary fear of scythes
And hooded faces with eyes
Barely peeking above the lids.

Tonight is but a withered lamp,
Flickering in-between death, life,
Lamps that utter silent prayers,
That glower at the vast Unknown

And wake
And wake
And wake.

The wind calls out your name.
I remember when I would sing too.

But I also remember that
You'd tell me to listen to what the names meant.
Make sure I wouldn't only be in it for the tune.

With that, my voice closed up,
Shut itself within my throat
And locked the door.
I resolved to praise with my eyes-

My pupils riddled with scratches like an overplayed vinyl

Stuck on repeat, repeat, repeat
Until one would get sick
Of the words and cease to
Understand them.

I'd strain desperately to look
For words that my eyes
Wouldn't let
Slip
Wouldn't let
Skip
Wouldn't keep forgetting,
Wouldn't get tired of.

I searched book after book,
Article after article,
Poem after poem,
Deconstructed story after story,
Dissected psalm after psalm.

When words failed,
I turned to images:

Gaudy images,
Marvelous images,
Sensual images,
Shocking images,
Grotesque images,
Pretty images,
All sorts of images.

I traded memories for pictures,
Most of which have already rot.

When images failed,
I closed my eyes
And started to listen.

"Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.”
-Ozymandias

I.
O wait for us, Colossus

as we wait - and throw you
to earth: from heaven’s gates judge you
unworthy - to hades’ lands assign,
where your iron limbs make mincemeat out
of anguished homes - by tyrants
you were thrown but floated aimless past

the drifting realms where once lay hell,
and fired you your rocket boosters - apollo’s gift

blinding still your eyes -

II.
next, awake: the visage of the Child
in your face - languishing, affronted:
two vast and trunkless legs of iron glare, only to grow
rigid still - slumping at His feet: with heart-engine smoking,

eyes hollowed-black,
lying in slumber with giant's knees bent,
in grasslands rest and where hearkens the plain - He cries out:
’tis you!

though dwarf, He is - he kneads your iron
by grass, and your wounded legs the earth
now christens, snd blesses still your sleep.

III.
He moves forth with grass blades and twigs,
crown you a nest; and bear stones unrolled to where

your feet first kisses ground.

-2.17.16

A young man returns home
To Hiroshima,
Where the bomb's been
Dropped.

There are imaginary lines,
Each for every ripple
Caused,

Each for every poisoned child,
Crisscrossing,
Intersecting,
Multitudes upon multitudes of
Lines—

In the thicket
He stands

Unmoved.
Avoided.

He can't help but
Notice the
Uninterrupted
Lines
Of his shadow

Spread out before him-

A body bag
Unopened.

Porous asphalt,
And bandaged, quilt
Homes puncture the
Neighborhood,
Which reads like a tattered
American flag; all
Coke Ads and weight loss
Billboards,

Half-burnt houses slant,
Like the hills of San Francisco—
Our own makeshift cable
Carts, limping up
And down the inclines.

We are slowly being burned
By our once golden sun—
Having been taught to
Bleach ourselves
Pale, tucked shamefully
In the shade.

Makeshift shanty towns
Which smell of mildew
And processed laundry soap,
Flimsy tin roofs
Tied with Kleenex and
Pizza Hut tarpaulins.

The fact that this neighborhood
Was christened "Freedom"
Strikes an empty pang.

They guard our gates. We are ruled by mechanised gods.

We are not free.
We are not real.
We are not awake.

Our mornings wake up to dew and smoke. We wake up and pick up our broomsticks and sweep.

You and I are made to sweep.
And it is through these sweeps we dance our fated dances.

Dance to wake the castles,
and water the gardens,
and venerate Emperors long dead and gone.

“This,” we say, “is our duty.”
“To belong.”

“To bow together.”
“To hope as one.”

We, all key cogs in the machinery. Everyone has a broom and dustpan. Everyone is made to sweep.

"Is this the land," we ask, "that we sang for and dreamt our feverish cartoon dreams for?"
Perhaps not. Our stories exist only in a land beyond time.

We’ve been there. It is a mechanism for the gods. They too hold brooms.

They too sleep in shrines of stone.
They too live in temples of steel.

The gold ones have long ago burned.

when all is but gone,
books, words,
reduced to dust and
arbitrary faces I
will remember -
cats.

the absurd
pretension in
every line of
an ee cummings
poem.

every
numbered capital
letter.

and I
will
remember
birthday parties.

the little drummer
boys that made
them.

and the
gibberish that only
made sense when
you read it at night
beneath
flashlights.

and I
will
remember
rickshaws.

make-
believe pavllions.

and tucked away
homes hidden in
ol' Kansas bluegrass
half-
asleep.

we,
still somewhat up
at two
in the morning puttering
away at stories so
easily
forgotten.

it is here
where our
rooms stopped time to
break free of metaphors.

where the metaphors
become symbolisms.

where the symbolisms
become you—

I guess
I’d just like to say
that I
will remember
you.

and thank you.

I.

The pen
Taps
Against my leadened desk,
All reverberating echoes and
Roaring staccatos:

Something to keep the soldiers
Rooted
In the chalkboard trenches alive-

A cackling reminder of
Freedom.

II.

Peeled away is the blissful world of
Morphine-addled haze
And round edges

The smell of pine trees
And Monday Vendetta.

Up in smoke.
Offered to the gods.
The great big furnace in the sky—

I carry them with me in an ashen urn.

As the days pass
A rhythmic stutter
Lumps
At the bottom of my throat.

There is a forgetfulness
To pride that
Will never be cured
By stop signs,

Cold-culled footsteps
Telling you to
Step back,

Traffic stops pointing you
In opposite directions.

"Pride"
Is but a matter of here
And hearing—
Of hear and now—

Of watching the tail ends
Of mufflers blow
You off with exhaust
Smoke and choke
On their spit—

Honking at your pride
And unsure gait,

Leading you into alleyways
Sprawling with brightly
Colored graffiti,
Pink painted faces, misfit

Tongues and a silence
Uncharacterized by
The glamour of the city—

Only this
They deem yours.

I.

Sickly, dark-skinned Joseph
Bustos was in a suit,
picked his phone from his
Pocket and asked us to take
Him a selfie as he motioned
To the statue of an eerily staring,
Possibly demonic Ronald
McDonald languidly swaying
On a faux-park bench. Collective

Laughter - "Are you serious,
"Man?" We said, having all heard
Full well stories of
****** painted clown statues
Moving its creaky bones
At the crack of dawn only
To devour our soul. "Are
"You serious,
"Bustos?" we genuinely taunted -
"Well I'll have a mirror," he told us
"So don't worry." I never

Quite got what that meant.

II.

The laughter and tales of
Business school and
Med school continued full on
Into the late (school) night,
Dense tails of superglued
Frog brains, Chinese economics,
Girl problems in the
Philippine stock exchange drowning
The macabre absurdity
Of the take out
Terror, Ronald

Staring blankly into the crevasse of
The night, and we absurd,
Blanketing in laughter scarred and scared
Wanting to approach
The chained playground but shivering
At the slightest hints
Of movement - which of

Course

Came. And Jack
Yeung (The largest, yellowest
Of us all, perhaps smartest too,
Studying in Hong Kong)
Leapt, at which we laughed,
And made jokes about how
The cockroaches
Matched the color of
Our country's skin, made it
Crawl not just because
Of its stick thin haunches,
But its brownness,
Seediness, inconcealable

III.

To which we laughed - yellowed
Out, almost as pale
As the sticky ice
Cream cups that adorned our
Table, pale not though,

From lineage but rather
The collective rosiness of our
Disillusioned, ice
Cream-fed cheeks, and the fear
Of darkness, and eerie
Whitefaced Ronald, and
Brown cockroaches and

Spirits that could move
Frozen marble faces. Bustos
Gestured quietly
To his cellphone,
Gazed downward and muttered
Something about
Fraternities and connections.

IV.

Behind our mutterings,
The Movement: children,

Coffee-stained and tattered rag
Shorts slit open like grass stained
Skirts, holding their bony
Hands and kissing Ronald's
Hollowed cheeks like he was
An ancient god. "Stop,"
I imagine us warning them,
"Evil spirits, dark and deep
"As night itself, haunt his body.
"Stay away - we've studied
"His countenance plenty."

They would only laugh though,
And continue to stroke
His paint-chipped cheek,
Brown - not
Ghost-thinned cockroach,
But rather rich
Like brewing coffee and
Fertile

Soil.

The nightingale
Treads light
And trembling, grins;

Tread carefully
As she spreads
Her wings.

The sanatorium stays.
For people like He—God—
Perhaps sent down
To be slapped in the face
(Morally, of course)
And beaten down.
Cata-
Tonic—Breath
Of fresh air
Sent to
Contort—Heal;

Disinfectant stinging wounds
We never knew were opened:

A canister of misplaced pride.

Here. There is no
Sorrow. There is no
Suffering –
Here. There is no
Weeping. There is no
Crying. There is no
Mourning –
Here. There is no
Day time. There is no
Night time. There no
Them, us –
Here. There is no
You. There is no
Me -
Here. There is only

I'd imagine the severance
Of man
From God as
The severance
Of day
From night—

Blissful half wrought in eternal
Darkness—heat—light
Led to believe that

Wholeness is but
The reduction of an appendage
As to allow
The imminent struggles of
Grip
To make you stronger

Somewhat more
Intense,
Insistent the feelings of
Despair and grief
And ultimately
Illusory

Joy.

We drown in petty sorrows.
Wish for floods-
For rain
To wash away all our iniquities.

Wash our robes white,
Our hands clean
Of any thistles or weeds that
Cling to our fingertips.

We cry:
Salt-stained
Tears
Begging for some kind of
Materialistic reprieve
For all the
Very hard work
We've done.

God called us to build arks.

A world of desolation
And romancing sewers:

Rotting animal carcass
Asymmetrical,
Compacted in art
Galleries
And praised for its realism,

Curators drawn to its
Intricate textures and
Cobblestoned streets—

They sprawl,
Like a cannibal's playground.

Twisted-
A street map
Spilling over

Like their stomachs.

The puppet strings
That light
Your banana yellow
Face strikes
A hollow pang.

Your roommate
Speaks with the gloomy
Eloquence
Of a Greek tragedy,
Or an American vision
Of a corrupted Greek tragedy,
Or maybe a lonely English
Counterpart well you get the
Point—

Two lovers
Wrought in silk and wool
Sweaters
Forever unaware
Of the fact that no matter
How devoted
They are to each other’s
Well-being,

Their eyebrows will forever
Never touch.

Their eyes were so bright,
The whites of it dancing
Like the moon in the night,
Alive, as they stood there,
Crouching.

The oppressive evening
Brought a cave of shadows,
Heavy footsteps leaning
Towards a hallway bare,
Or so deceiving.

They carried themselves
With a regal air,
Their sunburnt fingers—deft,
Clutching their scabbards,
And in them,

Mops.

Gliding o'er all, through all, Through Nature, Time, and Space, As a ship on the waters advancing, The voyage of the soul—not life alone, Death, many deaths I'll sing.*

Sometimes sprawling leaves just don't cut it.
Sometimes, you gotta be a badass.
Grow a beard
Cut the grass.
Get some shades,
Get a hat.

Sometimes a song isn't adequate
To express what you're feeling, y'know?
Sometimes "myself"
Needs a happy fix,
Blue skies,
Stuff blowing up and
Flying sparks.

Every now and then,
The learn'd astronomer
Brandishes a smoking gun.

Let us rise once more as saplings sprouted from gravel,
by the highways where the mufflers of the buses threaten
to blow us all

away, and sprout none
the lesser and watch for
maya: who may take our seeds and spread them and we

by them survive, strangled as we are by breath, exhaust and
white smoke: teach them with our dying leaves their names,
and let them mouth

it on their tongues, discoloured as they might be by
their birth, and see
and hear once more

the cars’ horned blare
and the tired cackle of gravel,
and the whistles of the trains rushing to: up, forth and

away, farther farther farther farther from the cracks where
they must have heard it, and with that sound pick themselves up
and give chase

to that sound that too
is theirs, but fading
away from where they too were born, and begin to begin again.

Nice to see you again. Our paths were supposed to only intersect once. Yet here we are. You and me. Lost in a sea of other friends and volleyballs. Whenever we meet, it feels like I'm drowning.

"Long time no see!"

Or sea. There is always something vast and new to you - perhaps a hint of peanut brittle, or the slightest hints of sea salt just enough to keep me wondering. Or perhaps, keep me talking. You see those bright red Bang and Olufsen speakers in the corner - well they cost about five thousand US dollars. You see that cake broken open on the balcony floor - well that cost about a fraction of that. But you should have seen the look on Andrieu's face when they threw it at his face. Andrieu over there - well when I first tasted coach's angry spittle on my teeth, he was the only one brave enough to stick out his hand for me to shake. Nice to meet you, he said.

"It's your lucky day."

There's a mango cake coming. So maybe you ought to stick around.

An old crow does not fly;
        dark, lopped wings un-sing.

His straw men long’d fought,
        are now with stuffing wring.

A lone branch holds his feet,
        claws scratching at its folds.

His caws now echo hoarse,
        his weak legs too grow cold.

His wings yearn but to spread,
        but spread yearn they to die;

To straws he cannot cling,
        hence trust put he to sky.

Daybreak
Is a daily baptism:

Small town bubble bursting

At the seams
To find young schoolchildren
Heaving their bags
And heading off to school,

Soft rooster crows
Slowly replaced by the
Smiling whistles
Of traffic guards

Who know each of us
By face.