"Twenty years before current time, the Spear Sect, known for only taking one student had its Sect Head accused of practicing Demonic Martial Arts by the leaders of the Murim Orthodox Union and was given the judgment of death."

I.

"A team of horses will struggle to chase down a spoken word. From the Analects of Confucius"

And when they died, their life ebbed away.
The maws of dogma forcing their daggers
To blot out the truth with the blood of the lost.
The orthodox sect's swords painting an old wall
With thin veneer of paint, haphazardly done.

In an unmarked grave lies the spear sect.
Where two died, another lived on.

II.

"An old warhorse in the stable still longs to gallop a thousand li. From the Analects of Confucius."

And they pierced his ribs,
his flesh threshed by deceit and
The facade of the pharisees
forcing him down. In the dark caves
he was placed with the heavy stone.

The shroud is a white sheet
Covering his scarred body.

His life lived on with the sinful:
the tax collectors and the courtesans;
the uncouth and uneducated,
the murderers and drunkards,
the gentiles of the other sects.

Though he lived not as others did.

From one spear he died,
with another he lived,
Leading them with the sacred fire.
Fishing for followers
among the many hungry.

December 2021