Susie is completely wrong!

And that's because she claims that I am a poet. Some of my stuff might be good, but...do you think this is poetry, my cyberspace (which may be only three people, I don't know!) audience?

Tea
I let my tea steep too long--
I think.
Now it's dark and bitter as the tea they always give me.
Ever notice
How tea leaves, dry, crumbly
Like burrs
Will turn into floating green-brown leaves?
Of course not.
For your leaves are packed in bags or balls,
Not free
Like mine.

The tea they always give me at restaurants is dark and bitter and too strong. I like the barbecue place because their tea is not too strong, as well as the food is delicious.

Qi Shan
Towering high above an old village
New apartments
Rice paddies
Construction--
Gently enfolding an irrigation waterway
With grass, bamboo and pines--
So different from a towering, rocky, cliff of a mountain
Capped with snow and ice,
Daring one, "Dare you come? Fall!
And be dashed on my rocks!"
Qi Shan beckons with waving bamboo
"Come."

I regret to say that I've been in terrible shape and have never made Qi Shan's summit. Qi Shan isn't really a mountain by my standards, but if I try to explain that to an English student I have a bit of a problem. Oh, well. Anyway, "When in Rome, do as the Romans do--except, when you've got a flatminded father who calls a hill a...oh, that's a story for another day. No offence, hills that people call mountains are very pretty...

Lions
Western lions are always keeping strangers out.
I'm surprised their roars don't keep their masters out!
And the use of them I cannot see.

Chinese lions, on the other hand, are always laughing--
I used to think they were laughing at my pale skin,
Blue eyes, and brown hair.
Now I think they laugh when I talk
Just like their people do,
Amazed that I even spoke!
Chinese lions like me.

Oy, gevalt! You should see the lions at some bank or something. They are very, very fierce. And I mean it! If I were afraid of statues I would be terrified of them! But the lions at the Bank of China are the most jovial lions I have seen, and, if they weren't statues, I would be tempted to pet them. This isn't degrading--this is just the fact that I love gentle creatures so much that a laughing lion is really, really, amazing. To me.

Street Dancers
The big circle moves in the light from the streetlight--
Moving in an endless tangle of
Moving arms and legs with heads floating up top.

The small line of
Two grandfathers
An older man and woman
And two little girls
Dances their own dance.

The street dancers have moved to the park and the atmosphere just isn't the same. It's a bit too formal now.

Dragonfly
Tomorrow they'll find you, pretty one.
Tomorrow they'll find you, and they'll say
"How did a dead dragonfly git on your windowsill?"
I'll know, pretty one.
"It flew against my window
And died."

What's your consensus? What is this?
Saro