The mirrors are now flush with a fog,
the air grows hot from the bodies
that move about the mat like acrobats,
swimming through the guards and grips
of their opponents’ limbs
as I sit back and admire
another training session
at the monster gym.

Sometimes I think, not too often
(but occasionally) and I wonder
where would I be if I had not been here-
for the last two and half years of my life?
What kind of person would I be
had I not met all these different personalities
who have wandered in and out those doors
both day and night?

   For some this place is an escape
               but for me it’s become a way of life.

This poem is a Google Adwords ad,
Intruding into the sidebar of your heart.

It’s a 1-800-LAWYERS commercial
Making you money off your personal injury.

It’s a brutal, ****** UFC bout,
Weak in its ground game but knows its Jiu-Jitsu
And it’s got you on the mat, begging you to tap out.

This poem is *****,
a SNAFU waiting to happen.

It’s the sarin gas Syria used against its own
And it’s the attack America will be responding with,
Using ****** to punish murderers.

This poem is a bucket of Kentucky Fried Chicken
Getting your finger-lickin’-good fingers nice and greasy.

This poem is yet another poet writing yet another poem about poems,
With the word poem repeated ad nauseum.

This poem is a bunch of awful band names,
Like Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, Tapes ‘n Tapes, and Chunk! No, Captain Chunk!.

It’s a summer blockbuster and a teen dystopian trilogy.

It’s riding *****
In your ex’s car.

This poem is anthropogenic global warming
Whose CO2 emissions are dangerously high and climbing
While its polar bears are stranded on the broken ice floes of its verses.

It’s a baseball crowd speaking the words “no hitter”
In the midst of a no-no
Which itself is a no-no.

Its bad grammar, who’s comma’s are all, out of place
And its’ apostrophe’s, are meaningless.

This poem is Zooey Deschanel,
Who will not marry me some day, any day, in the future.
In fact, it doesn’t even know I exist.

For the seven lakes, and by no man these verses:
Rain; empty river; a voyage,
Fire from frozen cloud, heavy rain in the twilight
Under the cabin roof was one lantern.
The reeds are heavy; bent;
and the bamboos speak as if weeping.

Autumn moon; hills rise about lakes
against sunset
Evening is like a curtain of cloud,
a blurr above ripples; and through it
sharp long spikes of the cinnamon,
a cold tune amid reeds.
Behind hill the monk’s bell
borne on the wind.
Sail passed here in April; may return in October
Boat fades in silver; slowly;
Sun blaze alone on the river.

Where wine flag catches the sunset
Sparse chimneys smoke in the cross light

Comes then snow scur on the river
And a world is covered with jade
Small boat floats like a lanthorn,
The flowing water closts as with cold. And at San Yin
they are a people of leisure.

Wild geese swoop to the sand-bar,
Clouds gather about the hole of the window
Broad water; geese line out with the autumn
Rooks clatter over the fishermen’s lanthorns,

A light moves on the north sky line;
where the young boys **** stones for shrimp.
In seventeen hundred came Tsing to these hill lakes.
A light moves on the South sky line.

State by creating riches shd. thereby get into debt?
Thsi is infamy; this is Geryon.
This canal goes still to TenShi
Though the old king built it for pleasure

K E I M E N R A N K E I
K I U M A N M A N K E I
JITSU GETSU K O K W A
T A N FUKU T A N K A I

Sun up; work
sundown; to rest
dig well and drink of the water
dig field; eat of the grain
Imperial power is? and to us what is it?

The fourth; the dimension of stillness.
And the power over wild beasts.