Rust my iron fist,
But let the silver
Always coat my tongue;
A wraith and wrath,
To the taste society has left –
Bitter, boiled, blistered,
Corrosive and
Nearly anti-anything
Come the cuffs around
My eyes
And the bullets burrowed
Backs.

We cannot
Talk
Because we seldom share
Language,
The token tongue,
But still,
We conquer –
Communicate.
We transmit
Smiles and fingers
Pointing towards
Needs,
Wants
And what’s, “next,”
Egg cakes, soy and tea
For the son she’d never
Expected –
He who’d lose a tooth,
He who’d hold her daughter,
He who'd love
Eternity.

Lonely and only the left eye cries
For a past the “right” never knew.
I notice this itch mostly when it rains
Come the dogs that remain silent.
Being the ******* I am,
I welcome it, as somewhere
Not too far ago, I’d dropped a tear,
The last, I’d thought, but maybe,
Just maybe, it’d only been the

First.

The First –

To ***** miasma upon this once
****** dream, static to this once
Working TV, surreal to this forever
Overcast; Perchance and to breath,
To know, to understand, to kiss
“No tomorrow,” a gift only she’d offer.
It’s when the “left” drips parallel,
That I’ve now known life, death,
And how it can it end, mend and trend

A’second.

The Second –

And oh how eternity could endure.

Please let it endure.

Sewer stained,
The street, the pavement an so to
Soak the shoes
Born torment twice and a recurring
Tap upon back;
This slipper, a signature
Succumbed suicide,
Slaughter,
An only sorrow
But lash shared millions,
To tread paths beyond barbed
And a sooner return to my
Land, or its maker –
Wards and shop,
Sweat under, sweat atop
And browed, be the animosity
As I swagger my way through
Haizhu's faceless crowd.

This is the assumption of Arcadia.

Or so she’s said and she’s right
As I witness the
Hunched backs, sea pearls
Stained-bowl rice, bow-legged dreams,
The denizens
And if only to stagger,
Come 12 more hours to shelter,
Simply shelter
And a dread named, “day,” come ‘morrow.
It’s real, as real as the sun’s rising,
As real the sun’s sweating
And as real as the sun’s setting.
So onward they go, meager and dollar
Driven, under whip and promised avarice
So that as guilty as I may be;
I’ll still buy, you will too,
He will too and she will too;
We’ll buy and assume our “Arcadia.”

I spy something
Murky red
And in the
Bottom of my cup.
I wash it down with
Something less than
Reluctant
While leaving the
Rust,
Or assumed iron,
To chance,
This one chance
And not to be
Repeated.

Tomorrow,
Now today,
I spy something
Murky red,
Once more tomorrow,
Tomorrow’s tomorrow,
Again and again
And day after days,
Rusty red
In the bottom of my
Cup –
I grow paranoid.

I empty the
“Keep,”
And creep into every
***,
Tea-***,
Pan and/or
Cooking tool
Seeking
Threatening material,
Foreign material,
And lodged in my brain
Material.

So too,
Amid my investigations,
I’d discovered
Alzheimer’s,
Dementia,
Blindness,
A stroke or two,
And in some cases
Death
Had you ingested enough
Ore,
Or so I’ve heard.

I spy
Metal flakes
Atop
Metal constructs,
Heavy,
Soft, caustic,
And broken post
Point-of-sale,
Broken
And now in me,
Circulating through my –
Spleen,
Kidney
And brain.

I’ve developed a
Phobia
For unwanted edible metal,
A curious
Cereal
Resulting from the
Cartoon
Of my
Dying grandfather,
Once an architect,
Now ten minutes to
Tie shoes –
A brain hemorrhaged
Iron, I’m sure of it.

There’s an innocence,
          Like children playing in graveyards,
                    That we’ve lost.

                    and

There’s a wanderlust,
          Like a dandelion’s progeny,
                    That we’ve abandoned.

                    And

There’s a love,
          Like the echoes under eyelids,
                    That we never forget.

                    And

There’s a task,
          Like sand on an ant’s back,
                    That we endure.

                    And

That task,
          Like the broken backs before,
                    Ends

                    And only when we do.

The ether’d suggested,
          “Say something.”
                    I didn’t.

The photos bombarded,
          “Say something.”
                    And I didn’t once more.

His widow plead, cried,
          “Say something”
                    I couldn’t.

One daughter begged,
          “Remember?
                    And I couldn’t once more.

But I bought a cake,
           “Daddy?”
                    Lit the candles,
                              “Daddy?”
                 ­                       And he didn’t;
                                                  And he wouldn’t
                                       Answer,
Because I never did.