The landlady pounds, one door left,
And my “Momma’s” chopping chives in the kitchen;
So I wince when
My black hat’s conquered wrought wool.

Right, and right out the window, the workers break,
And my “Uncle’s” feet crack, crack come the chemical grass;
So I concentrate when
My chopsticks carve pork.

“Up,” cries the baby, starved are the mice,
And my “sister” bids farewell to her soldier;
So I grasp when
My feet twitch to understand the cold, cold concrete.

Diesel cooks, so down goes the neighbor,
And the “Missus” smiles with our son atop lap;
So I admit when
I try to smile, I really do.

Herein lies the endurance, the rice paddies ancient,
And we’d all bliss ignorant, come the table we surround;
So I reconcile when
Again, I try to smile, I really do.

He bounced atop my stomach to
Drums
Reverberated concrete chasms.

He beamed a’brilliant with each and
Every
SMASHED! Cymbal, the thunder!

He’d only giggle ‘morrow
Now;
So passed the tears of procession.

I’d hold him tightly, he’d warm, he’d
Hug,
And know no bereavement today.

With eyes wandering left, darting
Right,
Both body and beloved pass by.

I envy him. I worship him, I was
Him
The day before I’d ever know death.

I spot a drone today;
No bombs,
But with plenty o’ potential –
A will to malice,
To malcontent, to ******.

I seek it south
And at its zenith,
Above dissent,
And the bastion that’d never know
Better, from worse.

So too, I spy it over the sands
And over cave,
Over Manhattan, over perdition,
And over “god,” over greed,
Over "great," and *******
Guaranteed;

A glistening, wrought silver teething,
“Dead,” come one wrong,
Word, or whatnot,
Anything antagonist “corporate,”
Our contradictory content,
Blessed, this,
“Complacency,” – indiscriminate.

Unbeknownst and melancholy-ridden,
The bombs have dropped,
And for some time now,
A sooner to be eternity
Whilst we’ve managed nothing but
The simplest of slumber;

We’re lucid but one second
And sheep more so the years.
The flock afar-critical,
As abstained become the hours,
The minutes, until, “then,”
Atop, “when,”
Whilst we learn again to breathe,
Maybe even dream,
And relieve the nooses continually
Knotted by others –

It’s an imaginary rebellion. Sure.
And I’m sure you’d agree;
Yet still, I soak a nightmare’s sweat
Whilst we gladly assume our
Peasant’s role
And as long as we do,
“They’ll,” gladly assume their
Thrones.

One, of the two chairs, thrones under
Chinese twilight’s a’swirl and vacuous
come my evening’s stroll. Where once
two men would tinker, tea, and tease
atop a’board of chess, only one remains,
and that one would ‘ever cry. Tears that
only grey’d make, fears that only age
could stake, and a pecking order with
number nigh. I knew, come wail and so
entered the fireworks, flowers atop
promenades near, that the last game of
chess was just the other night. The last
cup of tea was just the other night, and
the one left behind thought about the
“night,” as we all do. When’s mine a
coming? When’s mine a’coming? Just
when is my night a’coming? So that I
may see you again, dear friend, let me
see you again.

It’s “then” that I realize,
When my friends leave,
That half of me dies,
Not at the door,
But beyond the locks,
And delirious drives
Home.

Come the other half –
The side
That revels in the quiet;
It slowly bites my tongue,
After sleep,
When I slip outta bed,
Crazed from dreams,
And even further by work;
Let me reside, the floor.

There’s no respite, no hour,
I’m annoyed even by
My stubble,
And the duty to
Shave –
Name me “lazy?”
Or labeled the animal?

I open the shades –
The forecast calls for rain.
I close the shades –
It’d ‘ever be night.

And after I’ve chased them out,
Something still and falls.
It’s not water, but rather,
Silent apologies that drip
And drizzle
From the sky and
Corners of my mouth.

They’re the “wants” left unheard,
In the form of unanswered
Voicemails, texts,
Email intentionally marked “spam,”
And pebbles echoed window,
Attempts “disguised” behind
Melody and
Resonant retribution.

I’ve always known how to
Push,
And now,
More importantly,
When to pull back.
If only I could
Drag
Myself from bed,
As this feeling’s “today,”
And it may not be there
Tomorrow.

The *** stood stars on end, so to,
whispered, “play with me,” and in
haste we fled. We explored,
discovered, and devised something
bright, half something else sinister,
notarized – black roots pinned a
pink-scorched Mohawk, and
reciprocated, my wild “Mao-Mao,”
or so she’d named the hair on my
arms. The moon endured whilst we
knifed each other with each and
every gasp and sutured wounds left
prior lovers. I’d only come across
her name near the end, “Xiaolian,”
though the tattoo ‘top her leg, told
me, “Lola.” Come what mothers
christen us innocent would be a
poems in and of themselves,
addendum, the delirium aged and the
dance of neon atop our waterfall
soaked bodies - epic.

My aunt’s in the garden,
     Growing gold.
My uncle’s in his new shirt,
     Growing mold.
My cuz’s in Af-ghan-i-stan,
     Growing cold.
I’m swimming in wine,
     Growing old.

This piece should make sense,
     But it don’t.
This piece should tell tales,
     Still, it won’t.
I’m home decades later,
     Or so I wrote.
My daddy’s days dead
     And so I’ll tote.

Olive suits born red-dripped sagas,
Sing Mao’s song atop an oracle, “state.”
So parade smiles smeared sneer
And the lips kissed only one night prior.
Thus enticed the lady-soldier, the, “enemy,”
Liminal and it leads me to revive
The one time I’d hollered,
The one time I’d vanished
And the last time I’d ever love.
You can’t forgive me, I understand;

But please know you’re the only one
Who’d ever made me pause,
If only to swelter amidst the swans of a pond’s
Serenity, unbeknownst the encircling chaos,
So waited, atop the altar with only one question,
The one I’d never answer;
“Could you leave it all for me?”
I think, I really think and still fail to solve,
The equation wrought, if only plus lonely,
And’d offer the only answer I’d ever known –

“No.”

If each and every grain were a
Year,
Than every knock would be an
Episode,
So came the story that is my
Door.

And,

One – was the loudest pound,
“Authority,”
When the P.D.’d nearly warped
Hinge,
So came my first night in the
Clink.

Two, three, and four – Love, only
Love,
And one of two later;
SLAM!
Or one silent escape, fled and
Sundered.

Five – was the knock that never came.

Six – “tap, tap, tap,”
Mom,
It must have been my mom, or rather,
Obligation
And she’d swear to my sisters, “he’s
Ok.”

Seven, eight, and nine – Deliveries,
Disguise,
Pizza, Chinese, pizza and not so
Famished
Anymore; fuel for the guts, guzzle for the
Words.

Ten – came a' “gamechanger,”
Tear-smeared-mascara,
And two hands atop your
Abdomen;
I knew atop the water your freckles,
You’d never need knock again.

So if each and every grain were a
Year,
Than every knock would be an
Episode,
And this would be the story, that’d ever
Be our door.

The last sip of bourbon;
And I miss my horse.

The last sip of bourbon;
And I stick to pine sap.

The last sip of bourbon;
And I change the channel.

The last sip of bourbon;
And I ask when she sleeps.

The last sip of bourbon;
"The sooner, the better."

The last sip of bourbon;
And I accept the answer.

The last sip of bourbon;
And I'd once heard an hour.

The last sip of bourbon;
And let the ice dance.

The last sip of bourbon;
And every poem has its end.

Let it end.

In awe and pride, the
Eternal 'neath her “Star Wars,”
Shirt was our design.

Her words fell
Like the limbs of a
Dandelion
Departed;
Once a breath per
Echoed meme
And come another dream
With every
Feather’s frolic.

The lips within this
Captured moment
Flutter and fall,
Dismal and drunk,
Like the butterfly prior winter;
An excuse,
And she deserved better.

So to, I’ve learned to meander
One
Simple
Breath,
Be it the gasp, “final,”
Parallel and the very same
She’d blow and blow and
Scatter seed with.

And I’d love her
Just as much,
If only years ago,
But now carry forth,
Lash atop knowing “flee,”
Merely inched
And adjusted winds.

It’s a “later”
Sort of tale atop tongue,
And idea coined “alive,”
Albeit moments before born,
So much closer to
“Never-end,”
Resonant, if only –

Her dandelion’s dream
And soon to be later patches
Green;
Come the grass,
Come the amnesia,
Come the cold,
Oh girl!
Come the day we both knew
I’d leave.

She’s the same old
Country girl
When she settles back in
With plentiful rice in mouth;
Dry and yet fulfilling with
Words echoing
In between chopsticks,
A sentence upon,
And within,
Every other mouthful.

She has a way with
Talking while drinking tea
Wherein her hands,
Once left to grains of Mao,
Speak nearly as much as the
Sound of
Slurping mountainsides,
Leaves telling stories
And roots shaking rock –
A little something so very
Ancient, so very practiced
And so much so,
That the burden of “old”
Overwhelms her “new”
And 25-year old back.

She rattles and he’s a way,
Away, a way away,
With tinkered thoughts of
Mirages buried silk screens,
The gentle sweep of
Fingernails upon back,
Shooting stars,
Dodging cars
And failure.
He’s the man on the run,
On the road, wherein –
He never ate,
He only watched her
And he never drank,
He only watched her;

He’d watch
Until the faint dreams of a
Sunrise’d give birth,
The new day’d be promised sleep,
And twilight’d be labeled,
“Escapade” or “escape.”
When came the closed eye,
He be the same ol’ boy,
The “other” she’d never known.

She whimpers atop
Stairwell; I pass by, never
Even to wipe but one tear.

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.

Raindrops now sprinkle an earlier day’s
suicide, so too, lightning strikes my beer can.

And come the moment where I’d wished the
moon there, I’d yet to find the means to seize
it. It’s an unwelcome catharsis as our cratered
dream, along with the car, the keys, the
carnal, and caprice, are possessed, tucked a
deep blue jean pocket, and just above your
rear, perfection had I ever traced it; now
untouchable, rendered my choice.

Raindrops now sprinkle an earlier day’s
suicide, so too, lightning strikes my beer can.

I’d never noticed the
Freckles
On your
Shoulders.
But then again,
You’d never noticed
The scars.

Specifically
The ones
On my chest,
And if you had,
I’d never
Heard
Anything about them,
Or, “it.”

It had been awhile since we’d
Last crossed paths,
Encounters always
Ending in
Collision,
Connection
And corrosion come the first
Morning after; but welcomed.

You looked good though,
And that’s how it’d always
Started,
But beautiful nonetheless  –
A world-weathered skin
In the form of a twilight tan,
The vulnerable smile
With a small curl displaying

Aggressive sexuality,
And a dress, your cloth,
A critical juncture,
Of both cinema and satori,
A’flutter in the wind.
“Gift-wraps,” aside,
I’d always return to the
Form and curve of “You.”

Simply you
The half I could see
Leaving the other
Somehow elusive side of
You
To my imagination and
Memory
Of prior gallantry.

Unspoken words
Pave paths between the
Tables we now occupy.
So to,
Acts of predation await,
Perched and ready for
Gardens,
Accepted, the resulted chaos.

I wonder,
“What’s she thinking?”
As I capture a wink
And steal the sunlight
Bouncing of her
Shoulder’s freckles.
It’s an intoxication
At its finest.

Accordingly,
I sip my
Beer
And in echoes mumble,
“I want you, want you,
Want you.”
Luckily,
You wanted me too.

Morality isolates and fenders bend.
Circumference learns, “half-way” but fails to take the name
“Radius,”
And when she lay a meter nigh
With child, my child;
I still and will feel horribly alone.

Curse my iron fist and rusts the middle knuckle,
When another weeps, not for I, not for you but the gods assumed,
“Heaven,”
And 3 floors above my own;
Tucked lies the pain, regret fills fetal;
I still and will feel horribly alone.

So comes the autumn, the fire prior, “Styx,”
Upon borders that could only separate, “fatherhood,” so partitioned,
“Winter,”
And 3 floors below her own –
A pillar wrought persistence and abandoned, my hedonism;
I still and will feel horribly alone.

Her teeth rotted tea,
But root and leaf tell tall tales
Where silence now sips.

I’d kissed neon once before;
It scolded when it shouldn’t
And took half of what I
Owned.

I’d kissed neon again;
Come a night with, “Dylan,”
And ***** when the beer
Went dry.

And I’d kiss neon forever;
Come a’grayed hair’s gossip,
Words ‘bout our first night,
And, “we,”

We’d cackle on our backs, jubilant.

The world ended last night.

I’m sure it did.

And while I squeezed souls
From pillows,
Soiled stars
Wrought one tip of my brow
And bled every last liter,
For tomorrow’s star.
Atop melody,
I imagined a piano,
The nail-less fingers a’rapping,’
Opposed my battered knuckles,
Awry atop ivory
And concluding chorus,
A not so sad one, a not so bad one
But the last one;
Certitude and
Without encore in earshot.

The world ended last night;

I know now, beyond doubt, it really did.

Dedicated to the one who'd turned the table.*

I spent two hours
Trying to make you savor me,
When I can’t stomach myself.
I can abuse myself though
And refuse myself, recuse myself,
But all I’d ask is that you
Hold my hand, ensued the chaos,
I promise – I won’t let go.

I spent the entire next day,
Apologetic…embarrassed,
And a little more lost –
Faded further, from the night before,
The now-embedded moments,
Slivers broken skin,
In increments,
And never quite whole.

So I spend tomorrow today,
Anxious, afraid, eye on door,
An ear for the phone, and all for you,
Entirely, when you’d forgotten me,
And I’d hoped to forget me too;
So ensues the conundrum,
A wish that it’s all in my head,
And that you really do care.

Truths be told, I’m usually the fog
That lifts and later leaves come morning.
Off-scripted, you’d beaten me to the punch.
You were the one gone far before dawn,
No name, no number, no, “nothing,”
Yet more, “bountiful,”  than ever,
And maybe it because, the “empty’s,”
Actually me, the awkward, “other.”

Mao’s on the wall.
Mao’s on the cat,
Mao’s the cat,
And Mao’s on the truck.
Mao’s tucked text.
Mao’s still the cat
Mao’s on the hat;
And Mao’s rendered stencil.
Mao draped in red,
Mao embalmed vacuum,
Mao smiling dirt
And Mao in slaughter;
The good, the bad,
The, “godly,” great
The ’89 slaughtered, ugly,
And as putrid as the scholars
Being spat upon.
So Mao’s tempered glass
And Mao’s tempered solemn,
Surrounded a spectacle,
When I, Mao and I,
Author and other, other and
Away, gaze eye-to-eye with,
“Before.”
His are closed,
Mine, unblinking.
I think of heroes,
I, “tinker,” butchers,
And ponder,
“Just,” and to the right of,
Right,” what is, “right?”
Would he have been?
Would she have been?
Would I have been?
“Right?”
Just what the hell is,” right?”

Went to the barber today,
          Just to feel a razor at my neck.
So to, skipped a crosswalk,
          Just to hear a horn.
I hopscotched the tracks,
          But the yard’s been empty years.
So then tried the bridge,
          When the wind’d never come.
Tomorrow’ll be lucky,
          That’s what I tell myself.

That’s what I tell myself.

I’m what they call a,
“Functional.”
I still shave
And later scratch the burn atop
My, “apple.”

I’m what they call a,
“Functional.”
I wake up. I go to work.
I hate copy-machine jams.
And I hate my boss.

I’m what they call a,
“Functional.”
In China, poets often drink.
I drink,
Therefore I’m in China.

I’m what they call a,
“Functional.”
Which doesn’t excuse,
It creates my, “excuse,”
At the least, to wander.

And I’m what they call a,
“Functional.”
If I weren’t, I’d never sleep;
I’d never live, never dream,
And’d never know you.

She paves the path
Of dynasties carved
With buckets of sludge upon back;
Bent, not unlike her mother’s limb,
But under shinier red flags,
Cloth coated, with lesser blood.

She’d had a hint of gray
She’d not had last time,
She had a newer limp
She’d not had last time,
Her ***** furthered from firm,
Reaching for the ground, a promise,
In years to be wed with,
And yet the underneath
Of it all remained as radiant
As any sun’d ever been;

And come the cloudy day she leaves,
Even mine own eye
Will remain far from dry
As I’d remember freshly cured bacon,
And her tender chopsticks offering life;
She’d saved me once, she’d save me again.

The mannequin faceless,
Clothed in gold
With hands pandering svelte,
Remains an admired inanimate,
Albeit, atop whispers to a girl,
A 4-foot flower 3-feet my right,
Fretting and stumped;
Extrinsic a label – “undesirable.”

The mannequin faceless,
Her and hollow –
A towering nose above, stands
Opaque ivory, scarred come
Synonymous eyes with a symmetrical
Soul, assumed plastic perfection
And more importantly,
Soon to be sale.

The mannequin faceless
Convinced her new friend,
Her lesser, lopsided,
And natural not-so counterpart
To consume,
“Eat me, “eat me,” “eat it all,”
And then, “binge some more.”

The mannequin faceless
SCREAMS,
“BUY!”  Amongst the other torments –
Born both fingers that can’t move and
The thumbs that shuffle, “One’s,”
To the girl that was never,
“Good enough;” so shared the
Tabloid’s mouth.

The mannequin faceless demands
And DEMANDS nothing less than to
Buy, starve, suffer and sacrifice
So that every “broken body,”
May embody polymer, and for a price,
A not so fair trade whilst
Considering old man gold,
The curator of conundrum
And the plastic he’s created.

My flights come and go,
But the bench records my slouch
As I’ve already grown wings.

“Old-man” Cody,
Four years my elder,
And five younger than his mistress,
Makes his way before me,
The only, “known,” and only near.
He dips, trips and spits his way
Into the night and plight
Of my only company,
“Alone,”
And I’m happy with just that,
“Alone.”

We met four years, 22 days
And some-odd hours ago,
Culminated, a Hidalgo County jail,
2,200 miles and some odd feet
Away,
From here that is.
He was of origin, my home,
The when and
Where I was ten years prior –
Juxtaposed, the dusty Stockton shipyard,
Only minutes prior, “now.”

He laughed then
And laughs again
At our, “backwater,” roots
As he longed for the tumbleweed,
But I don’t and won’t
When we’d brawled after something
Mumbled, and congruent, “mother,”
Words tangled with knuckles in cheek,
If only syllables, that spew, drip,
And crawl from his mouth –
Unwanted, anomalous, and
As desirable as a spastic colon.

Coming back to the tumbleweed,
I’ll never forget how, “that,” night,
Our very first encounter had ended -
My face, in between his boot
And that wretched brush;
The scratching and the bleeding,
A creation, making me
The modern scarecrow of sorts;
Pinned and echoing something similar to –
“Uncle!” as my mouth failed to render,
But my body’d spoke more than enough,
And into the dark behind my eyes
I’d leave.

Tonight’d be different though.
Sure, this, “newest,” moment ended,
But an older one began again –
As we came “home,” to iron bars,
Blistered wrists, and guards playing “gods”
With two of the town’s poorest drunks;
One a writer with broken lip,
The other a’bleeding,
Both scarlet and pride, two ol’ boys,
Conjoined in only numb,
Courtesy the 5 o’clock whiskey,
With a chaser, my victory,
And the sweetest I’d ever had.

Luckily, Cody had a warrant,
A bonus prize of sorts, as I’d be rewarded,
A darker cell somewhere and away for him,
Leaving me fortunate and leaving slumber
To take what was rightfully hers, Me.
Yeah, I slept and slept with the wines of
Buttress parallel justified atop lip,
Despite – the desperation, my brothers in
Adjacent containment,
And deafening “roll-calls.”

In between the snores of those
That’d nowhere else to go,
Myself included, I tucked in,
Still smirking within this starless night,
And whispered, “goodnight Cody,
You took me last time,
But I’d had your *** this round.
Good night,
Good night,”
And, “goodnight,” again.

*He was my, "Finnegan," (bit of a Star Trek reference). Every time I bumped into this prankster (like clockwork, regardless location), we'd always drink and we'd always brawl. I hated him. I loved him. He was my friend. He was my enemy. I ought add, "sweet dreams Cody," as he slept some years ago and never woke up - he was driving. Bad call.

I haven’t found, or fallen, for her yet;
     but then again, maybe I’d walked a block too far.
Maybe I’d crossed clay.
Maybe I’d sunk like a madman atop thin ice.
Maybe I’d forgotten as easily as I’d found,
     when the treasure’s a fickle little smear of red-lipstick
     and digits atop my mirror;
Mobius just a’gazin’ come mornin’
     to the tune of tequila slipping lip
     a mere moment and conundrum’s later,
     always remembered,
     always encountered and eternal,
     pursued atop the medium as fragile as I.
And speaking of pass or impasse,
     I still crawl from a tether towards tomorrow,
     approaching a promise,
     oh so fragile and soon to be broken like mother’s cookie jar
     amidst thievery;
A tall tale and titled,
     “one more enigma,”
      when she’s passed and parallel,
     “the,” way or beyond away,
      in the car that’s to the left and now left behind,
      or an image I’d once recalled –
Now masticated,
     the years,
     alone atop a mammoth pile and like an elephant’s carcass,
     ivory and soon to be rust.
So yearns the watering hole of youth and never to visit again;
An offered solution and her parting wave,
     a sincerity long gone over horizon.
I mull and move come this bravest venture,
     sooner to be,
     asp,
     dung,
     and maggot.
Futile when you call me,
     “Oblivion.”
I guess I’ve got a lot to explain.
I guess I’ve grown to use to the noose,
     aged,
     forgotten,
     and so very senile,
     the foolish.
And I guess, ******!
I guess, oh hell!
And guess I’m sorry for leaving when I had,
     where I had,
     how I had and more importantly who I had.
I guess,
     fleeing from forever atop epoch.
I guess,
     I guess,
     I guess I’m breaking far more than I’d ever been broken.
And I'd guess, never knowing.
I guess and I’d become the hammer I’d ‘ever agonized –
She guessed –
And the house yawped,
     “VICTORY!”
Again,
     as I rest twisted metal and in a state of parched,
     becoming the elephant seeking his first watering hole;
My dearest hope,
     you'd still be there.

*When the thirst of one kind destroys the thirst of another kind.

Tonight,
The mahjiang tables went silent.

Tonight,
The barbeque didn’t taste as swell.

Tonight,
Old mothers huddled and hugged their children.

And tonight,
Not a firework’d be heard.

Tonight,
He’d betrayed her.

Tonight,
She’d never let go.

Tonight,
Crimson could only answer.

Tonight,
She’d live.

And tonight,
He wouldn’t.

*There was a ****** just down the block tonight; guess I'm a tad guilty of gossip? You be the judge.

Shoulder blades collapse;
Burdens seemingly falter.
Let the hours beware.

Eve’s ambient, so
She cries on porcelain floors;
I remain in bliss.

I woke up, had ***.
I woke up, just one more smoke.
For ‘morrow, I sleep.

She’d said, I, “looked good in black,” and
she did, she did, she did too; So much so
that sooner’d come a swift exit at,
“Martyr’s Park,” a tempt embedded
venture, conjoined, coerced and later
beholden to our ghosts; apparitions in an
ugly early morning, post – biology, words
whispered with only one intent and
eventual ****** under guise of the night
that’d ensue eternity. Blanketed our
beauty wrought twisted skin, it remained
an ugly never aware, whilst she discarded
my newest misfortune, the forgone
forlorn cloth of impasse. I reciprocate, so
much so that beyond her ulterior lace, a
pale yellow beckoned, “ever,” below -

“Kiss me,”
When I grin and I do ‘midst
Admiring the freckly upon

This desperately hidden scripture –
One scarred
Right shoulder,

This greatest discovery, if only a human
kind of crater and just under tear-smeared
mascara, forever danced, come the
lacking light or whatnot. Echoes etched
some prior author, some other lover, and
yet still to bleed, like sweat, like work,
and now, her nails stay to trace another
saga atop the, “bare” only I could offer.
Sacrament, the moments blemished,
“now,” and immortality’s, “future,”
promised, whispered, and guised a
matrimony that’d break hearts come
morning, come the moment when she’d
drip like the rain, bend like the leaf
kissing chaos and gently ask, “could you
be me?” “Would you be me?” “Could
you, please be me?”

*Her (English) name was, "Taylor."

Mei Mei wears the same,
“Signature,” every week,
Silk atop a smell soiled – Mao,
Burnt wood boiling frogs,
And a mother crying alongside
Ditch;
Ancient and ever’ed, leather
Peddling vegetables,
Not so many sold,
And atop something slight,
Thinner than rice whittled wrists,
Her red-printed tender
Intended daughter, “away,”
Under pink bow tie
And dreams wrought a village’s
Wheat and desires ancient –
All they’d offer progeny.

Mei Mei’d been born
And Mei Mei’d be gone;
All a grin, all a stage,
Come left, those who’d know last,
Stone tiers tethered past,
And right,
Others that’d someday follow;
She’d only be the first to leave.
And sure, she’d been frightened,
And sure, she’d been homesick,
With phone, “home,” ‘ever palmed,
And dreams ‘ever determined.
She’d shiver leg, wax poetry
Big cities, and boys so that
Dreamt be dealt,
Demise, be ******, and
“Mei Mei’d,” take on the world!

*Note - Inspired by a wonderful student of mine who graduated but days ago; grab the world by the horns, girl! You've inspired me, that's for sure!

Flame to be tasted,
A carnal sunrise devours;
Likewise, she weeps hate.

Hair down to shoulder,
Gray peppers my sideburns;
Where do the years go?

I'd wanted to see the moon again –
Pockmarked and ivory, entering and
Innuendo, like crisp leaves under foot;
“Crunch, crunch, crunch,” and so went
The cereal before sog. Parallel, the same
Suffering’s smeared come my bones
Under foot, under cloud and ‘ever as I’d
wander empty if even with you. You've
Turned back and continue to study,
“Away.”

I'd wanted to see the moon again -
Come the scent of fried wantons and
Neon glance; “Crackle, crackle,
Crackle,” like hot dogs over fires, only
Hindered, the hiss of a boy’s tears atop
Flame, so long as I'd understand empty,
If only with you. But your two’s atop
His lips, a smear upon the line we call,
“Horizon,” and so continues, this study
Of, “away.”

And I'd never see the moon again – So
Silence became the sun, a blight, a
Bright, the, “shiny,” I'd wish banned;
Like the eerie, like the day dad’d packed
His bags or day he'd finally died; If only
To accept this solitude, miasma
Subtracted you, with everything else,
But emptied you. An impasse atop
Endeared eidetic, as I’ll try and I’ll
Recall and I’ll fail, this test to finally
Forget.

So I’d rest with an, “F,” he’d rest in
An urn and you’d rest, simply rest, at the
Top of your class, without fault, and a
Graduate, your study of, “away.”

Bluegrass sprouts a brow,
When Kentucky’s one crow left;
Feign drawl and bourbon.

I extolled them as they went about their
Menial tasks in suits of silk;
Sunday bests amidst the concrete, the earth,
The broken shards of
Bamboo splintered skin, hiding interiors
                          And further, the broken mirrors of
                          The broken memories of the
                          Broken histories upon the
                          Broken backs become names wrought ancient.
Though further from fractured, a family calls,
Beholden to the absolute intent, but one wish –
Eternity amongst the bountiful brethren left behind
Atop tea-brimmed Mountains and a
One malevolent, revered benevolent,
Mao.

One more saga prerequisite this newer dynasty red –
                          Witness the
                          Wives huddled plowshares,
                          The daughter scribbled arithmetic
                          And sons assumed thrones to legacy.

I scrutinize soiled  – smoke amid pear peelings,
The dirtied – unscathed and archaic,
So very fatigued – just one more nail,
For his eternity, with scratch and
Sliver of blood, a sanctity upon chin
                          Beyond cradled hammer,
                          Hand hugging thumb,
                          Thumb beyond nail, iron or the
                          Heart impaled homesick;
But I and hand asserting tie, freshly pressed,
Almost gleaming with an embezzled prestige –
Born unto Arcadia, a puzzle near complete
Continued to run, with only second’s pause to admire,
So very far from the fields of, “father,” or first blink,
While Sunday’s best weep, work and wither.

This man with joint autographed, “end,” and
                          Soon to be mound, history wrought dust,
                          A chipped Henan ceramic
                          And hours in attempt to breach;
                          Behold the back of Chen.

*The title of this piece was inspired by observing constructions workers wearing suits we'd typically wear for an interview. That being said, my venture in China is near an end - years in the making. What's next? Ecuador? Japan? Morocco? Montana? Either way, I could never thank China enough for all that'd become naked before I and my pilgrimage christened, "world."

The cockroaches surrounded but one
Fair
Maiden;
Seeking Singapore and suns absent the, “other.”

I kicked one, her infernal and insect aside, oh
Fair
Maiden;
Fleeing his promise and same mistake I’d made prior.

So to, the unspoken alliance ensues, both sought and awry, our –
Recounted
Freedoms
Born the dogs that are kicked and the dogs bite back.

Veil and anew, below and bellied-up bugs;
Fair
Maiden
Conquered, “yes,” but, agreed, our ulterior master born body.

We no longer fear and be gone the spiny legs,
Fair
Maiden;
For carrion’s a distance and the fruit’s now atop nose;

We’ve learned to love again.

*Note - Smog-soaked sunsets at, "Rebel Rebel," in Guangzhou used to make for the greatest shards of diary I've ever encountered. In this case, she was running away from him and I was running away from her - we'd the same story, the same drink, and soon the same table. I should visit again, someday.

It must’ve been 1992,
And all I’d remembered was the smell of
Maple
On my fingers.

The moon’d later melt,
And all I’d remembered was the smell of
Maple
On my fingers.

The boys met the girls,
And all I’d remembered was the smell of
Maple
On my fingers.

I’d never forget, “tender,” her thigh,
And all I’d remembered was the smell of
Maple
On my fingers.

And leaves later felled their own trees,
But all I’d ever remember was the smell of
Maple
On my fingers.

*Note - Yosemite, 1992, her name was, "Elizabeth," and we always fall in love come the first attempt at, "connect," right?

My ***** felt a feather heavier than iron
As I’d opted for anything other than rollover
Whilst puking up that, “nicer,” guy.

The drink’s a ghost. The scold’s a mixer,
Soured on the rocks, Shaken, not stirred,
Stirred, not shaken,
And without a sliver of, “he,” who’d opt
Accommodate or acquiesce.

Call it, “transcendence,” I guess?
Born a realization that this world’s,
“DOG-EAT-DOG,” or,
“GOD-EAT-GOD,” or,
“GOD-TEA-DOG,”
And should I not comprehend
This very simple reality,
I’d be a doormat unto my own grave.

So I fail, I’m frail, and all for one tail
Prior the act that’d ever invoke,
“Leave;” even atop the eve of beggary.

Resolute? I’d opt for the longer life, perhaps,
Not that I’d wanted to live to long anyway,
But I’d made a choice,
I’d arbitrated one cardinal direction – elliptical.

I’d acted, placated, satiated, intimidated,
Decimated, defecated, wiggled my right pinky
And culminated a prayer atop altars, “godless,”
To never knock upon that door again.

And so, but one question remains,
“Did I?”

I was the, “Monster,”
With all but one
Concern
Upon my tongue –
Her and imagination wrought
Honey.

I was the, “Monster,”

Who’d only one
Plight
Come 5:00 A.M. –
Flight and ensuing chasm christened,
“Regret.”

I was the, “Monster,”

Where all but one
Finger’d
Grasp my throat –
Phantasms of someone she’d met once
Before.

I was the, “Monster,”

When it wouldn’t work
Again
And again and again –
Sacred and scared, I’d never answer,
Faint and, “knock.”

I am the, “Monster.”

I remember the restaurant,
The one Grandpa
Had brought us to –
Window panes in patriotism
And pancakes atop, “America,”
The world revolved,
“America,”
And how we’d made it
“Home” –
So came the syrup, destiny
And fervor caked powder plate.

He knew of my toil, ills, and tolls
Pandered atop horizons
Hindered Mao and red
As we sat near dawn over coffee
And something south of
Conspiracy – opposite my dream
And collusion to **** said
Destiny,
But it was still, “his
America,” not mine and he’d
Sleep when I wouldn’t.

So it pained me, resonant a twitch
Within this small inch of
Remnant family, to tell him,
“We’re going back,
We’re leaving tomorrow,”
And, “I don’t know when I’ll be
Home,” gramps,
“I don’t know if I’ll ever be home,”
And he’d say prior ever’d silent –
“Good luck sleeping on that one,
Son,” I just know he would.