Go, Soul, the body’s guest,
Upon a thankless errand;
Fear not to touch the best;
The truth shall be thy warrant:
Go, since I needs must die,
And give the world the lie.

Say to the court, it glows
And shines like rotten wood;
Say to the church, it shows
What’s good, and doth no good:
If church and court reply,
Then give them both the lie.

Tell potentates, they live
Acting by others’ action;
Not loved unless they give,
Not strong but by a faction.
If potentates reply,
Give potentates the lie.

Tell men of high condition,
That manage the estate,
Their purpose is ambition,
Their practice only hate:
And if they once reply,
Then give them all the lie.

Tell them that brave it most,
They beg for more by spending,
Who, in their greatest cost,
Seek nothing but commending.
And if they make reply,
Then give them all the lie.

Tell zeal it wants devotion;
Tell love it is but lust;
Tell time it is but motion;
Tell flesh it is but dust:
And wish them not reply,
For thou must give the lie.

Tell age it daily wasteth;
Tell honour how it alters;
Tell beauty how she blasteth;
Tell favour how it falters:
And as they shall reply,
Give every one the lie.

Tell wit how much it wrangles
In tickle points of niceness;
Tell wisdom she entangles
Herself in overwiseness:
And when they do reply,
Straight give them both the lie.

Tell physic of her boldness;
Tell skill it is pretension;
Tell charity of coldness;
Tell law it is contention:
And as they do reply,
So give them still the lie.

Tell fortune of her blindness;
Tell nature of decay;
Tell friendship of unkindness;
Tell justice of delay:
And if they will reply,
Then give them all the lie.

Tell arts they have no soundness,
But vary by esteeming;
Tell schools they want profoundness,
And stand too much on seeming:
If arts and schools reply,
Give arts and schools the lie.

Tell faith it’s fled the city;
Tell how the country erreth;
Tell manhood shakes off pity
And virtue least preferreth:
And if they do reply,
Spare not to give the lie.

So when thou hast, as I
Commanded thee, done blabbing—
Although to give the lie
Deserves no less than stabbing—
Stab at thee he that will,
No stab the soul can ****.

"On the seventh day of the Seventh-month, in the Palace of Long Life,
We told each other secretly in the quiet midnight world
That we wished to fly in heaven, two birds with the wings of one,
And to grow together on the earth, two branches of one tree.
Earth endures, heaven endures; some time both shall end,
While this unending sorrow goes on and on for ever."
-  Bai Juyi - A Song of Unending Sorrow - 300 Tang Poems

+++++

The first day they met he gave her the poems
he'd carried all the way from China, a young boy
with a dream and 300 poems a thousand years old

...on the seventh day of the seventh month...

How could she not fall in love with him?

And his sculpture... carved with fire,
the strong, bronze back now frozen,
arms raised in wild and sensual supplication.

Were they his arms reaching for her?

He'd kept it hidden for twenty years,
waiting for someone, the right woman to give it to
And he'd told her,"I knew it was meant for you."

How could she not fall in love with him?

Each night before she sleeps
she reads a poem and traces her fingertips down
the cold beauty of that graceful spine

Wish he were here
wish this was his back
curving around me
curving around me in my bed...
whispering the poems of his ancestors

She knits her loneliness into scarves,
soft pink wools like clouds of candy cotton,
rough mountain wools that smell of heather and winter solitude.
Years from now, she'll wrap them round her neck to remember
how he once kissed her.

Didn't she write a poem about it?

and this is her dream:
they meet when they are young,
they fall in love,
they fall in love and marry,
they fall in love and marry and have ten children,
they fall in love and marry and have ten children and grow old together,
they grow old and blind and deaf, and still in love, they fall into the final sleep together
and their children's children's children will remember their love for a thousand years.

It's just a dream.
He will have children
but not hers.
She'll die alone,
she wrote that poem, too,
thirty years ago.

karma, karma, karma
stealing heaven

she writes:
what does this world mean to me without you?*

utter loneliness

ONE had a lovely face,
And two or three had charm,
But charm and face were in vain
Because the mountain grass
Cannot but keep the form
Where the mountain hare has lain.

A drill to the brain sha’nt cure the cancer of my heart,
A song so sweet can’t thin my blood of the past,
Flattering tongues run rant will play their course,
But I fear, oh I fear

There is light
Perhaps
Amidst the night

I felt his hands smooth the pieces,
With such love, oh such love
Spin the wheel and mold my clay
Thawed by his warmth.

There is light
Yes.
There is light.

Alas, the glue will not hold,
And my pieces fall away
I turn for them
For I fear, oh I fear.


There is light
Yes
But it burns too bright

A doe following intermittent lines
I’m blinded by the glare
And dash for my life
Leaving him

There is light
Yes.
and it blinds me

The huntress emerged
swathed in fur
a thousand coins in her pocket
from every distant coast.

Gold capped and exotic
stones beneath her feet,
the scent of blood she did smell.
Once more into the fray
Once more she roamed.

I wondered at her meaning
and how she came in furs.
Was the huntress laying her sight
next upon me?

Would she penetrate the penetrator
to watch it sink beneath stagnant waves?
The blood and whiskey feeding fish
as she once more emerged
swathed in fur.

Do you toss the novel lightly?
-- Does it pound like your warbling
throat?

When you sleep beneath your
brother's armpit in trembles,
an etch collects the final drafts
of sick glasses, smoke and
Scottish gin patting your cheeks.

They are light against
dark undertones, the folds
of a curtain tucked for a spider's habitat;
for you.

I trace pirouettes in the back of
seamless air, countertop
wished to a balcony.

You do not stand (here).
I waste and recycle my fruit,
and sometimes naivety makes way
towards dented knees,
calves flexing in grey scale.

Once, we intersected city sc(r)apes
through glowing letters,
bar blinking red and I still clicking.

That is when my scent imagines,
eyes but a clam,
lingering in your body's bread.

this is not a poem.
this is not a senten--

sometimes i ponder like
a young girl swathed in grey film,
earnest eyes bent to world's phrase.

sometimes i write like
a peering boy, letters of letters
and paper cut fingers
waiting to cause her lips to
crease while she waits at her locker

once i dreamed i was
suffocating in my cherry wood coffin,
preacher's voice scribbling
psalms on to his note cards,
even though my Bible died
by hiccoughing moths.

i will imagine my eyes
tracing the back of midnight afternoon,
a word scrawled, fractions of
letters gathering like sickened ants
anticipating pools of honey.

this is not a poem,
i told myself

this was not a poem,
and will never be;

unless everything is
a poem.

in my mind,
i work at a third world convention,
bleeding saliva and avocado paint
behind a mule's *** like
seeking coverage was difficult
or something.

now it's past
the pillaging of painted americans,
valleys once rolled with corn and feather's weight,
but seized by nation's serious fathers.

the table creaks as sister
literally screams, "Grace!"
and the cotton tablecloth even
bows its head in poultry's spicy scent.

i said it was past,
un-remembered after a
murderer (more than)
antagonized another's HDTV
(bold, high, pronounces, and shrieks
more shivering-ly
than when a spider stepped on my toe).

now there are halos
beginning to blush,
vibratos crescendoing to
the last of leaf's sultry breath.

Noel was large-eyed,
carols twirling lighter than snow.

they made the Lord
wonderous, because o,
my baby king,

the manger was not a velvet cushion,
and neither will his
(or your)
days to come.

I suppose I hadn't supposed, hadn't thought what a true, deadened chrysalis wonder
she was. Not until I pressed my lips against lobe and had to bend this way and
that. Most awkward. Felt un-gentle-manly. Felt unwomanly. Felt like
some copper etched away from an old photograph (is that why I...
looked like such a fool?) benign attitude, work force, eat, eat,
sleep, eat, *****, rob, and rot. my own mother sneered at
me. she draped gritty cloths across my forehead and, o
i died a smidge each time. now i cradle this thing...
this beautiful, tragic, fawn, black euphoria, well,
thing. spot on i can tell you i no wanna harm
or grease the poor thang. thang will evolve
to thong. she wuld naught grows up to
eva, eva-- (emfucis- emp-emphaw
sis. emphasis) like mama's own
twisted chalice. **** she
sure did remind me of
jazz, the squeaky
kind you don't
eva seem to
hear.