I yearn for tea
Amongst the tales of Xinxian.
So came a flood teased
The scent of Maojian.
Puffs, over placid lake, and
Whispered crooked mountains,
Alone, the windswept pine cone,
And amiss, the plateau she wept;

Tears when I remember an uncle,
Old man “Magic,” long gone,
And his story of
Love led suicide; Aggregate,
One lonely island “now.”
So spoke two solid oaks,
The remains, and the hum
Atop tip and tongue,
Locals and love –

For each and every time a
Young man kisses
His fair maiden,
More pale, one chance,
Subtle, the future, in stone,
The frightful things that
Sometimes happen.

I’d watch that saga if I could,
But I can’t;
I’m an active participant
And tomorrow,
I’d be wrapped up in some
Other tale, tumult or tease?
A hero, or villain?
Either way, I’d be happy
And for some time –

I knew the danger in just,
“That,” and perhaps you will too,
When you stumble off the stone,
Or follow your own path,
Wary the map of course,
Where there be dragons,
There be treasures and tragedy,
I promise, and when you do,
I only hope you
Share your story with me.

‘Round the world and pieces of me,
So speaks one body come a –
A bad night’s blood spatter in Sioux City,
Lonely little toenail clippings swept Dubai,
Whiskey scented stubble, London nigh Paris,
Oh! The calloused skin round bend,
Wrought broken, my lovely Kyoto,
And maybe, just maybe,
A heart or five elsewhere.

So when the tooth-clerk barricaded
Dusty Chinese counter-top asked,
“Do you want to keep them?”
I responded and with haste, “yes;”
And with a thieves hand,
Snatched my two molars removed.
For I’d already left one too many
Pieces of me here, and though
It was only a tooth, I hadn’t much left.

Hanging turtles and
Netted birds of amenity
Dangle from her
Left hip like jewels ‘neath a,
“Ming,” ear as she traverses
Mountains beholden kitchens
And one more rise come setting splendor.
Supper may be atop the right, pelvis,
But opposite and left,
Rests the flask, bitter in chase of sanity.

I’m sure the scant pebble
Rattling in between
Her stomach and sorrow
Was nothing more than
A desperate thirst opposed the
Blister born benevolence,
Thirst opposed execution
And a coin converted spirit opposed,
“Xie xie,” (thank you), a platitude,
As heads clip pavement,
Blood pales a gutter,
Or soon-to-be feast’s final throes,
A bleeding and breeding for other,
Leading jitter-beholden mice to flee,
For they may be next
So future’s victuals arrive
Unhindered.

All and assumptive, assistance and rendered,
She walks away with only this –
Everyone’s emaciated
And the butcher on the street is still a butcher,
A peddler, a savior, and butcher again;
A source, be it left, right or wrong,
In need of a drink, as we all are,
With only the means, “take me to the sip,”
And by dollar come pocket born you.

I have a secret, something sour, and something
deep, deep, and deeper that I try to keep from you –
The fury that I can’t rid nor come “real,”
real me, the “he,” who stands not more than an
arms-length your side.

I may smile, wink, and speak of sunny days,
but there are the hours, sometimes,
where I can taste the, “vicious,”
the blood of both survival,
and all that’d threatened prior –
the “red” that flows from the past and
meanders “now,” the “red” of a
thousand yesterdays wrought dust,
wrangled bruise,
the “red” born in back-alleys
and buried in whiskey,
the “red” that never seems to rest.

This war-drum, I can feel It” climbing up
and crawling out through my nostrils
singing songs for –
Split teeth on split knuckles, breathing,
steady and suddenly, uphill,
the flare of the maddened bull,
an eye for only anger and beyond tether –
Destructive.

I dare not tell my newest friends that a part of
“Him” is still in “Me.”
He’s always “there,” hunting, haunting,
and will always be.
They’d surely run if they knew,
and I’d run too, if I could, but wouldn’t get far,
as he’d be running right there and with me;
Like the shadow always yearned for
and the same that’d scare come the movement not my own.

When it all began,
There were two;

If only two, prior poor decisions and an even poorer
“port,” wine – precursory, I’m sure, to the sugar that’d
split my tooth. And I’d remember the palm of her hand
atop my own sweaty knuckle – SNAP! CRACKLE!
POP! Or so went the molar, only moments before and
come the lash of her tongue. There must’a been

something sprinkled avarice behind the blood nigh
corner of my lip. She’d liked it. She’d licked it. So much
so, that my eyes would gently drift, wander and close.
When next they’d open, skies would be bluer, the sun
would shine just a bit more than usual and my jaw’d be
fit for steel. For the first time in days, the pain was gone.

So when it all ended,
There’d be only one.