Your hands remind me of hermit *****.
Fingers fat and tiny
Curling inwards into your cuffs
Shying from the world and the cold
But blossoming to grasp at joy
To grab at a slice of bread
Or point at an excavator.

As you turn a year older
Your hermit ***** will move into bigger shells
And they'll start to reach for bigger things
Like pencils and books and controllers
Or perhaps ball into fists of rage
Or splay out to throw ***** and high fives.

Some day
These hermit *****, nestled in cuffs of linen and silk
Will open doors and sign contracts
Pluck strings of guitars and hearts alike
And hold its own pair of hermit *****

Even so
I hope they'll still fan out to hold my hands
Warmly and tightly as before
Though they fully enclose mine.

Sometimes,
I wish
Time would just
S T O P
For a second,
For an eternity or two,
So I could make this moment
Of fragile perfection,
S T R E T CH
Just a bit longer,

Before the brutalities
Of life and space
Come crashing back in,
Stomping on our delicate
Silent symphony.

Oh, for but a moment.

I would freeze time if I could
Hold you fast and tight
Breathe in your scent
And watch our son
Build and govern his kingdom
Kiss his cheek and hold his hand
While he dreams of cars and trucks
And we share noodles, trade stories
Yet
On time marches
Ever so cruelly

When your footsteps start to sink
And birdsong falls deathly quiet
When your breath starts to fog
And the snake's gaze greets you at dusk
Follow the lanterns

When fewer stars come out each night
And the sky smudges with the void
Every new moon comes in shorter intervals
And infant cry echoes from the woods
Follow the lanterns

Follow them through decaying towns
Through arid plains and foggy swamps
Seek them out in heaving crowds
And the choking smog of cities
There is always one nearby

Amidst the darkest nights
Or the coldest, crushing depths
The screaming heat of midday
Soaking the highways and byways
A lantern flickers on for you to find

Even when the rain turns acrid
And cats jump into lakes
Your spouse drives daggers into you
And the very walls swallow your voice
The lanterns will preserve you

When the baker speaks riddles
And the pages bleed into waves
The village ***** prophesies
And rebukes the high priests
Find your silver cord through the lanterns

Cling to them
When you sleep to vultures' lullabies
While your skin itches for a razor
Or wine starts tasting sweeter
And sips turn into gulps

Follow them through vale and cliff
Snow and drought
Seek the lanterns' warmth
Until your shadow returns
And ale tastes bitter again

When the sands finally shift
And you bathe in dappled sunlight
And the robins' song graces you anew
Remember the lanterns
Lest the frost takes you unguarded

Long may they guide you
Through doorways and cave mouths
From hamlet to palace
And keep your golden bowl unbroken
For many winters to come

Pursue the lanterns relentlessly
Fiercely
And perhaps one day
You will plant and light lanterns
For your sons

Beautiful dreamer
Lying in the waters
Tell me your visions.

Of phantasms of dead dreams
And former lovers
Crying to start over

Wilting chrysanthemum buds
In autumn rain
Blossoming in a swan song.

And when you're done
Look to the horizon
Impatient with lightning

Angry and pregnant
With new dreams
And restored promises.

The Land of Waking
Has awaited your return
To your rightful helm.

New frontiers await your conquest
Abandon your turgid wishes
Seize the present with both hands.

But the blossoms will never end
Water your garden
After your ****** battles.

That's a jumping spider
I told you that it wants to be left alone
But still you persist
Because who can resist
Its lilliputian beauty
So exquisite
So fragile
And it would certainly meet doom
At your equally
Exquisitely
Lilliputian fingers

I spare the spider your brutal curiosity
Like how I wish
Life would spare your innocence
From the groping, grubby
Fingers of this broken world
Ignorant to your transcendence
This filthy world
Eager to offer you gilded trinkets
In exchange for your radiance
Pure joy unsullied
By the taint of human guile
It's foie gras to them
Though there are higher things
We are called to

I'll show you

I wonder,
If you were still alive
At 104 years old today,
If you would have been proud of me,
If you would have liked what you saw.

You knew me as the toddler
Who insistently took your hand
Before crossing the busy Chinatown street,

But not as the awkward teenager,
Anger simmering beneath his acne-riddled face,
Eager to prove his growth,
Trying too hard with his vitriolic rants,  

Neither as the young man
Floundering about in his twenties,
Dissipated on intoxicants,  
Groping about for direction,
Pining for a woman's companionship,

Nor as the married man
Who had attained independence,
Having found a way in life,
But now longing to regress to boyhood,
Sublimating his regrets in bad poetry
Scribbled between issuing memos and contracts.

Just what did you see in that toddler's future
As he waddled across the bumpy cement streets
Dappled with horse manure spilled from kalesas?

Did you see a man with broad shoulders,
Employing hundreds and feeding their families,
Making a tidy profit week after week?

Or perhaps an academician,
Erudite and eloquent, a debate juggernaut,
A far cry from his forefathers' humble beginnings
In some fishing village from Bumfuck, Nowhere, China?

Or did you just hope
For your grandson to retain his heart
The same one that prompted him
To take your hand as you crossed the street?

I still think of you at times
And wonder how things would have been
Had you been around,

If you would have bore our valley days
With your trademark stoicism,
Anchored father with your presence,
And have finally reined in
Grandmother's bladed tongue,

If we would have eventually shared
Your daily quart of brandy
After weathering with ascetic patience
The sound and fury of idiots.

How you would have seen
With your own eyes
The clan flourish and increase
In members, clout, and material wealth,

How you would have sat
Stone-faced but proud
As I took my steps to patriarchy
And started my own tribe,

Albeit with someone outside our race -
Worse yet, a descendant
Of our colonizers from the war.

(I wonder how much convincing
How much yelling from father
It would have taken
For you to relent)

I know I look back too much.
I guess there are too many unexplored paths,
Too many phantoms who remained acquaintances.

Or maybe I'm just like father,
Habitually framing the present
With the context of the past,
Always romanticizing the bygone
With the wine of sentiment,
Though reality would have been harder, drier,
And we needed the magic of romance
To make reminiscence palatable.

Thirty years have decayed my memory of you
To but a reconstructed charcoal sketch  

But it does not make me miss you any less.

I don't need an occasion
To appreciate you
The things that you do
The way you are

How you
Wrap your arms around me from behind
Or
Leave a puddle of drool beside my pillow

How you prepare meal after meal for me
With love and care
Or how excitement blooms on your face
When I come home to you after work

How you speak with tenderness
And treat me with such patience
At times when I **** up
One too many times

I need no reason to say
That every day with you
Opens my eyes up
To things I couldn't even dream of before

To treat you extra special
On Valentines
Would be an insult to the other days of the year
When we have each other no less anyway
And love no less anyway

I did not treat you any differently today
Because I didn't need to.
Neither did you.
We always give each other 100%

So instead
Here's a 'just because' gift
Since you did want me to write more
A 'thank you' gift
For the years of bliss
I don't need a single gift from you
Your presence is already enough of a gift for me.

When the spiders come
Peeking from the smears on the wall
And the fog menaces ever closer
Inch by sinister inch

Strike the flint
And kindle the flame
Keep the darkness at bay
Stand your ground.

Hold fast
Lest the slick spill over
And bid the June Storm's return
To drench the stoked fire.

Stay in the light
Seek refuge

Before the tide catches you
And drags you into the deep
Before the spiders swarm you
And sink their venom into you.

Seek sanctuary
In the Patriarch's drawing room
Abide and rest to
Face the encroaching shadow.

Buttress your soul with peace
Fortify your spirit with tranquility
And arm yourself with assurance
All taken from the Patriarch's armory.

Fling yourself
Into the purifying light
Of a hundred suns
Before the darkness envelopes you.

Though the fire fades
And the lights dim
As is their wont
I will always give my very being
And climb into the altar
To kindle the flames
With my body
To usher in the new age
With my life
Time after time
Without fail
Until these bones
Are nothing but ash
And even so
My love for you
Will endure
As an ember
Undying.

I used to lose myself
When I was with you
Mind chasing my pulse
Mouth talking up a storm
Judgement bogged by infatuation.

Now I lose myself
When you're not around
When our apartment is reduced
To the hum of the fan
Alone with thoughts that get bleaker each day.

And how I've lost myself indeed
These past weeks
Reduced to a mute apparition
Robbed of purpose
Bleeding colors
Sentenced to face alone
The echoing shadows of tomorrow
And whose remaining thought
Is the warm spring of your return.

Stolen glances
Bronze sunsets
Feather touches
Sapphire dawns

Unspoken entreaties
Suppressed tears
Tender kisses
Furtive giggles

Moonlit midnights
Spilled beer
Breathless moments
Moist gropings

Crisp autumn
Tokyo sky
First snow
Auspicious meeting

Crowded Christmas
Bended knee
Diamond ring
Torrential felicitations

Seething traffic
Placid drive
Harmonized songs
Punny banter

Perilous storms
Locked hands
Whispered prayers
Renewed hope

Winter noon
Tearful vows
Golden rings
Joyous feasting

The abyss beckons
Its gaping maw opens wide
And to you I cling

She is a sonnet
Given breath
A heartbeat
With lightning crackling in her veins

Given voice
Brimming with the fury of celestials
Her crisp footsteps
The pregnant wake of summer showers

She is the song
I will sing
A lifetime and more
The only one I will know
For none other
Shall grace my lips

My waking hours I spend
Begging for the alms
Of her lovingkindness
For the intense gentleness
Doled out tenderly
To orphaned souls like mine.

When lightning struck
In the second our eyes met
Life began again
Loneliness bade me farewell

You are my very sun
Omnipresent through the seasons
Unrelenting in your light

Millions may pass me by
And none will ever come close
Reaching your splendor
Revered by mortals
You are mine

Millennia upon millennia
Everlasting and beyond

Lightning was never meant to be tamed
Moreso by mortals
Ask the foolish and the brave
Who died trying
She belongs to nature
Her mistress is great and terrible
Who swallows villages on a whim
And decimates cities with a gesture
The tides and hail are hers to command
The very ocean and the earth her lackeys

Lightning is appreciated from a distance
Keep a wide berth if you value your life
It strikes and immolates
With nary a warning
It is beautiful as it is deadly
But why then
Just why
Do I override my instincts
And walk closer and closer to you
Even as the brushfires
Creep closer
Inch by consuming inch

Though the rain and clouds blanket the sky
My world still thrives and spins
In your dazzling radiance.

Salty days or sweet
I'm here to stay
One with your heartbeat
Dragons we slay

I'll hold you close
Through sun and through hail
I won't let go
Our love shall prevail

We are surrounded by wonder
Saturated by it
A glorious sunrise
Languid palm trees swaying
Beneath the introspective moon
The sublime poetry
Bled out of a thousand broken souls
All laid out on my news feed
Day after day after day

Social media cheapens it
Our whoas become mehs
We are deadened to what used to be wonder
What brought our ancestors to their knees and tears
Is now ignored for notifications and other drivel
5 MIND BLOWING FACTS ABOUT **** ***
CLICK 'LIKE' IF YOU LOVE JESUS
YOU'LL NEVER LOOK AT KALE THE SAME WAY AGAIN

Please.

Now wonder takes a new form for me
It blossoms when you blink open your eyes
As I kiss you awake

Wonder is anxiety twitching your lips side to side
While you twiddle your fingers.
It's your pinkie hooking around mine
And your head resting on my shoulder

It ebbs and flows in the sway of your hips
As we waltz to your Spotify playlist
It shines in your eyes
Pleading with me for calm
When my temper flares

It lurks
In your smile
In your snore
In your snort
And a thousand other quirks
That you dismiss as annoying

Let the trinkets of nature and man mold over
Let social media lay waste to meaningful interaction
You encapsulate wonder fully.

Treading bile
Paddling to keep my head above
The maddening waterline

Every moment is a struggle
Not to flip out
Not to give in
To negativity
To rage

This is my karma
I harbored hate
Now it possesses me

When the tides of ******* rise
Engulf all meaning left in life
And the noise of life becomes dramatic
Existence reduced to a hiss of static
When the revolting mess we call humanity
***** everything up with its insanity
And I give an inch but they take a mile
You are my one reason left to smile.

I got my friend back
For all of five weeks
Before losing him to her
There's always a her involved
Claiming, seducing, stealing friends away
My friendships and love life
Should never be mutually exclusive
Maybe I care too much

The manic racket of the world
Is but a whisper
To our song

The noxious vitriol
Neutralized
By the dulcet tones
To which our hearts harmonize.

Forget
Demonic possession
Or being burned at stake

Behold true terror
When she told me
Her period's late.

It's always,
"Man down!"
God.
Man up
For a change.

However much fun was had
Playing catch and tag
Exploring the day away
Suppertime always comes around
Friends say goodbye
As mothers call then yell
Come home and wash up
Right now mister
And the playground falls silent

I've been told
That I should get out of my shell
Expand my world
Or some ****

But how can I
When you are my world
Your skin my fields
Your tresses my forests
Your laughter my wind
Your smile my sun
Your embrace my gravity

Is it such a crime
To shut out distractions
To nuke these poachers from orbit
And keep my haven tranquil
Secure from the taint of the Other

Imprisoned
By social niceties
And other ******* obligations
When I'm already homesick
For your embrace
When my mind is white noise
And my heart has abandoned me
For you

I hate this place.

Without you
It's a madhouse
And the walls close in on me
They can pump me full of drugs
But the void remains.

Put your ghosts to bed
Though they stomp and cry and pout
A new day has come.

The bats swoop past
With clandestine chirps
Telling me to go to bed

But how can I
When thoughts of you
Rob me of sleep

Every breath of smoke
I exhale
Is the seed of a poem

And the half-lidded eye of the moon
Spurs the crickets on
Singing of our union

The humid air
Pregnant with revelation
Stagnant with constipated exultation

Suffocates with muted indifference
And the words well up
As the night drags on

One day
You'll meet the person you were meant to become
But didn't
Maybe because of bad decisions
Wrong life choices
Poor impulse control
Sheer laziness
Selfishness
Crippling addiction

You'll meet that person
And flounder in the tearful aftermath
That quiet devastation
Of the could-have-beens and what-ifs
Wither in the fallout of regret and remorse

They don't tell you these things in school

That if you'd just reined in your temper a bit
Had been more generous
Overlooked life's little injuries
And spread goodwill instead of vitriol

What a difference it would have made

You realize these things just a little too late
When your life is half-spent
Frittered away
On petty squabbles and noxious grudges
Like cresting a hill
Only to see your path end at a sheer drop

If you're lucky
You'll be too far gone
Drowning in your pit
To even realize
The incarnation of foregone potential
Staring at you in the face
And so
Pass the rest of your days
In blissful ignorance

They don't tell you these things
Or how to at least maintain composure
When you get waylaid
By these belated revelations

If I breathed my last tonight
Do not grieve long
I will always be with you

If you woke up tomorrow
Fallen out of love with me
I would regret nothing

If your moon dims
If my sun dissipates
The spectral stars still stare from afar

Because
I never held back from you
Not a drop of love
I gave you free rein
All my love
Never counting the cost

So that
Should my life or your love end
I can walk back into the darkness
Unencumbered by the shackles of regret
Knowing that I gave my all

I know why ghosts exist
And I refuse to be part of their ranks

Separated
By the will of our Gods

You serve yours
I serve mine

Of separate allegiances

The sun yearning for the moon
Its burning touch begging
For her cool gaze

Just what does your heart desire,

My ancestors ask
Their pagan eyes boring into me.

I desire her, of course
Her warm, soft flesh
Her melodious laugh.

What is it that you seek,

My ancestors demand
Faces cold as ancient starlight.

Her, with her idiosyncratic appetites
And her languid temper

All of her, body, mind, and spirit.

You dishonor us,

They thunder

You are weak.

Ah, but the lilt of your voice
Echoes into the abyss of my unconscious
However foolish my answers be
However weak my resolve is.

And you have no idea how much the sight of you
Banishes the accursed doldrums

Yet we both know
That despite all this

We are meant to be

Forever apart.

If Dawkins were right
And faith is a farce
A human construct
If Nietzsche were right
And man has outgrown God
As a child outgrows his toy
Then all this
Hemming
And
Hawing
Would have all been in vain
All ****** folly
And this time could have been put
To better use
Courting you
And we would be
So very happy
Together.

~

Yet if the scriptures were right
And we are spirits made flesh
Having appointments with divine destiny
Then you are but a thought
A temptation
Testing me
An exaltation against His knowledge.
A boon you are not
But a bane.
And I am to nail it all
To the foot of the cross
Just as how I am to nail my flesh,
My sinful nature,
To this altar.
And in Him
Shall I find all-transcendent peace.
For putting the Kingdom first,
Shall I receive His best.

~

That is,
If.

You once called me your luna
Your moon
Lighting your path in the dark
Always hovering
Watching over you

You are my sol
My sun
Bathing my meadows and oceans
In the radiance of your light
Raining nourishment and life

All I have now are the lonely stars
Consoling me with their cold stares
A bitter substitute for your smile
As I await the breaking of dawn

How I loathe these vigils
Whose arduousness I forget
The moment our eyes and lips meet
And light floods my solitude anew.

A year ago
You told me to stop being so picky
Sat me down
And after a few bottles
Called me a miserable ****
For having such high standards

A year ago
You asked me
What good is intellectual connection
In the face of desolation

A year ago
You reprimanded me
Telling me how I was getting old
And how I'll die alone
If I don't compromise

A year ago
I laughed and shrugged
Lit another stick
And grinned
Knowing what was good for me
And how your advice
Was anything but

And now
How I laugh and grin all the more
Vindicated
Justified
At having listened to my heart
Instead of your misguided words
The lot of you.

Had I paid you heed
I would never have found my geisha
Instead trapped in the
Clutches of some strumpet
Drowning in the sediment
Of awkward smirks
And silent drives
Singing desperate songs

Never tell me to settle again
If there's any settling that I'll be doing
It's settling down
With my geisha.

If it comes down
To choosing
Between me and your dreams,
I told her
Leave me
And pursue your dreams.*

She fell silent
Unsure how to proceed
If she can truly say
That she would pick a man
Over the sky

Unaware
That I would rather
See the familiar face
Of desolation once more
Than cage her
In the mundane

(Oh but how I hope
For her to bring me
As she flies south for the winter)

A whiff of your nape
The sway of your hips
A swish of your skirt
Enough to get me on edge

How long must I wait
The taste of your lips
Your ******* so pert
Climb in and join me in bed

Like how the bottle is a crutch for alcoholics
Is what you are to me
More and more
Day by day

And if you leave
The ground may just swallow me up
If the sea won't have me
And the sky withholds her lightning

Pick me up out of a dozen
Light me up
Inhale deeply
And crush me underfoot
When I'm ash

Am I just a chapter in your book
A pit stop on your way to your true destination
Another flower to pick, sniff, and toss
A trinket for your phone?

If I am
Then leave now
Sooner than later
Before you stain more of me
With your touch
And I shall run once more
Into the familiar embrace
Of desolation.

I saw forever in you.

If I hadn't
I would have let the tide take me
And drag me back down
Where my ghosts await
Their eyes luminous
With a disappointed anger
Festering and simmering for generations.

Or had you sought immortality?
To press the ink from my soul
And let the smears bear testament
To your triumphant ensnarement
Of a hapless poet
Who
Left in the wake of your caress
Has no recourse
But write poem after poem
As one forces pus from a boil?

Will I be the last
To whom you promise the stars?

If I am
And if you're here to stay
Then make your home in me
And together
We'll weather the storms of life
And ravages of time

We'll **** off years
Smoke away reams
Gulp down pots of coffee
Just talking and conversing and chatting
With our mouths
And hands
Exploring each other
Mind, body, and soul.

Marvel time and again
How we stumbled into each other
How we simply happened
Wonder
What were the odds?
As we catch our breath
In each other's arms
Steadying our breathing
In the dark

Leave trails of new experiences
Shed new memories on top of still-fresh ones
Tread on them until we reach the moon
Make plans and hold hands
Plotting our next course
From one star to another
Until we reach the corner of the universe

Give all of us to each other
Wholly
Fully
Willingly

I'll give you everything
All of me
If you promise not to leave.
I chose you, geisha.
And my nerve will not fail
Even as I risk
Another plunge.