The tower grows lips
while all around the trees sleep
and a dragon blinks out flames
meant for more mythic things.
"Who goes here," the echo quiets,
"And for whom? Will the claiming
take all morning? There are threads
to be spun and tapestries unhung.
Let the dearest sword come;
the tower is empty."

Copyright Cristina T. Cheng

posted from Bloggeroid

A feather from your white bird
pressed
between pages heavy with ink
and spaces
remembers its part in flight
(towards or away?)
cannot even twitch
free of semi-comas
now.
The ornithologist flinches
at this treatment
but he is South for a month
and cannot send
an electronic reprimand but
for a dash-
silent treatment-

You remember that day
never far from your pen
you write, "Someday,"
the song in the air
that day
will catch in your ear and there
die.
Bits of bone and keratin
will be blood-borne
miracle of medicine
right into the niche
that held vows and memory;
will break some
unbreak the only
(that day) refrain
refrain.

You write me:
the page is a landscape -
skyscrapers jut up to
stab the horizon
and a rising sun.

Sometimes it is utopia
all blue and white space
barely punctuated
or punctuated much
too much.

I love when you write
post-modern novel-esque
slashes and dots
so heavy the earth
is scored.

So? I spread
a blanket over t's
of your country
and let your steeples
people me.

I keep a continent
in my desk drawer.
I keep it for when
you come and for
when you don't.

Copyright Cristina Cheng

F1
before you
shift-delete
me
control-x me
out of your life

Alt-tab please
before everything else
there might be something else
before you alt-F4
us

Control-z again
and again

Control-escape
I'll give you more
F10 just please
I will alt-enter
and be better
than default.

I can F4
no more control-c
control-v
remember
backspace this place
control-a and shift-
delete

my enter
don't escape
I promise to tab
from now until control-
alt-
delete

F3 how we were
and F5, please.



Copyright 2011 by Cristina Tan Cheng

Note: keyboard shortcuts reference guide: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/126449

6 AM

Continents slide into the sea,
believe me, while you sleep.
No measurements needed.
Though no geologist would certify,
oh my, the ground shifts
while you dream.
I don't know what science is this.
Just when your eyes close,
the world quakes as if to wake
you and every princess
from here to eternity. Believe me.
I would never fool one like you
who could call Fenrir
to come slobber here with one
whistle, snort, or snore.
What am I saying, my meaning?
Wake up now, my dear,
and hold me near and steady.


Copyright 2011 Cristina Tan Cheng

Nemesis I'm not sure
if this is cure or a whip
against your flesh-
this laying on your shoulder-
for either of us.

In flight, you unsheath
a smile. Here I pluck
at your sun-bright eyes
and bring the night down
to blanket our embrace.

When we met I sprouted wings
made of wax and feathers.
When we met you grew a halo
and sweetened the sea.
Grow a fire for me

because I am ready to fall
as I come closer to heat
and your yellow heart.
I don't know how to be good
anymore, not as I cry out.

I've found a dagger.
Imagine me,undone,
to find the hilt in my hand.
Your head on a pillow
as my skin become scales.

I have to fall on my knees
begging you turn the blade
cut out tongue, ears, jugular
of this beast. I have earned
your cold shoulder.


Copyright 2011 Cristina T. Cheng

Maybe you are Big Foot
stomping near Loch Ness
or wherever dreams go
to sleep. I never did admit
to wanting to sleep
with you.

We used to heat the air with talk.
Eyes fell on lips that fell
on ears and so forth.
We were making words
that erupted between silences
instead of love.

I could have finished
all of your sentences.
You could have ended
all of my expositions
with a question mark.
We were an epic saga

Or a fairytale. While lisps
teased at corners of lips
my vision of you wavered
from phoenix to swan
to grave-digging swain
of the empty cool moon.

We are a paragraph's length
apart and not getting closer
to the denouement. Why
postpone the last page
to linger at the start?
I was never self-denying.

Come visit my cottage
in the spring. Leave the bog
of yesterday for once.
I will lay out sunflowers
on the ground. I will lay out
quiet as a hungry mouse.



Copyright 2011 Cristina Cheng