When the precious winds roamed;
The lungs of time yet unlacquered
By threads of pneumonia,
All enwombed within the Deity of Water
The Middle Kingdom had yet to bloom
All the tubercles of wonder,
The Kunlun mountains just baby teeth
Sucking ginger in a giant’s cavern
The ten suns heated things up,
Tessellating Pan Gu with arteries of water,
The Jade Emperor sent down The Dragon Kings
To tame the ravines and gorges
As The Blue Carp swam The Miluo River,
Dizzily dancing in its current,
The flesh of Qu Yuan falling into his mouth
Saw the birthing of a dragon
Emerging from time’s chrysalis,
Violently hatching dark sapphire scales,
Quilted with topaz and silken memories,
Echoes of the dynasty’s dazzling ephemera
His body became the back
On which mountains were embroidered,
His yellow belly the anvil
Summoning the desert’s thunder
With each poet he engorged,
Verses personified with draconian beauty,
Their dark pearls in the cinnabar cavern
Coming full moon with elegance
But when beauty is your corona,
Who is there to match you?
Loneliness becomes the peak
On which gravity impales you
The dragon roared over infinite space,
Collapsing galaxies into beads of agate,
Violent order assuaging the chasm
Chaffing the membrane of his unruly heart
He found no solace in the flowing of silk,
The timeless sagacity of Lao Tzu’s words,
The dusty earth was dust indeed,
Everything infected by underworld
How to share, to love, to care,
Saw his spirit’s impoverishment,
By sorrow was his lustre spilt,
By longing was his lifespan rent
The love he wished turned to anger,
Legendary of volcanic frustration,
He hid beneath the palace grounds
To nurture his wounded imagination
But one day, unseen, his love will come,
To claim him from the darkness,
And in showers of sparks as scale-flesh meets,
Will see the healing of all the heartless
A Poet's Life 