She and Me

The greatest news for a long time

Was when I heard she “IS DEAD!”

She was the graveyard of my youth

The leprosy you can’t endure

Right now, I am dozing between belief and disbelief

I remember how she made pain work over time with me

Night and day, my head was lost in the fog

My tears fall like rain before I could cry

She has a heart forged of iron

And her love was full of acid, sulfuric and nitric

I never knew this from the onset

Till she made me eat the bread of sorrow

Tonight, I pray God to grant me a belated solace

And I don’t care to skip work today.

A Song for MarlinaFu

Let her snake wait under

Her weed.

Who doesn’t know the poison of words on her tongue?

It comes slowly, darting quickly and sharply to strike

Dangerously at innocence.

Quietly it waits, sleeplessly in the dark,

Like sumac buds with gum in the head.

Like horses pounding hoofs on raw sods.

Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned twice.

Does apple fall far from the tree?

Or did someone not tell the children

When you go to buy a gilt, look at the sow?

No one reconciled the allegory.

Now, we have leeches in our throats.

And we flutter drily hawking our

Regrets at the market place.

And today, we are the saxifrage flower splitting rocks.

Missing Twice

They looked at their faces

And yelled: “Fresh off the boat!”

Broken English, dirty African clothes

And with identity mocked, they faded into emptiness.

Lost

Each day we hear silent groans,

Lived ruthless dreams, and were lost

In every ray of the rising sun,

What it is we may not know.

Every day is a sad day, just negative, 
Winds are dreadfully whistling,
The sun is heartlessly gleaming.

They reveal secrets and lies.

What a place to live these days.

With innocence gone and love lost.

Sin is taught on the street night and day
And hearts are covered in frost and stones.

We call for wars and go for wars.
No life matters in our backyard

No one is taking blame to save a life, 
Just pushing for fame in the game

Advanced as we are to the world,
We're still untamed and insane
Too much pride, too much ego
Too many mistakes, too many turpitudes.

We hurt others, in the desert-fields
Betray brothers, who trusted our values

And lies harshly feed what we preach
And our hearts know no honey.

Children abandoned, and maimed everyday
Lonely and stranded they walk on the streets

They need a guide, but who cares to look
And we deny it, and reject it with holiness.

Throughout the years, in all alleys
Innocent bloods are shed and more spilled.
We take from the poor, to enrich the rich

And behind lies we hide without shames.

We're loving no more, but who cares.

We're all wasting the life like flies.
We no longer enjoy the sights of neighbors.

Where do we go for peace when the world is dead?

Phone Calls from Home

I still receive phone calls and emails mostly from

cracked-up friends caught up in huge dreams, with no hope,

just booze and crazy American madness.

Most of their calls are flashes—“Call me back.”

They want some recognition of where they are

and it’s true, I was there, worse off than most of them.
but I wonder if they realize when their callS arrive?

When I’m dead in the library, when I am frozen in asleep.

They talk of a long driveway leading
to a four car garage, rose garden, blue skies, fruit trees,
beautiful women, a new car each month, red carpet freeways

and dream of fairy-tales in America the beautiful.

I’m 69 years old now and can’t go on retirement;

Oh! How much this flesh had to suffer, yet cannot die;

Hmm! How much this heart had to bear, yet cannot break;

raises questions that these painful tears cannot tell.

I still receive their phone calls and emails.

One came this morning when I was shuddering

At the surgeon’s knife, searching for quivering life
but death chooses its own time; not till all evils are borne.

Left too soon

Like a comet blazing across the evening sky, he was gone 

before we could raise our heads up.

Like a rainbow fading into the twilight;

he was gone before we could blink an eye.

Like a star shiny and sparkly, we lost him
before his splendid light shone brightly on the horizon.

We saw him like the sunlight
on a cloudy afternoon, but he was gone before his sun set.

What is life if not like a castle built upon a sandy beach;
or like a perfect flower, that’s just beyond our reach?

Are we born to be here today
only to be gone before nightfall?

Or like sunset we die with the rising moon
so as to be born into a Glory before morn?

Gone too soon before we could girdle our loins
and for our goats to grow beards.