X MARKS THE SPOT

X marks the spot where the treasure is
but I find no joy, peace, or bliss
in that buried pirate's chest of gold
for there are more X's to behold.

Handel and Coleridge's pleasure-dome,
Xerxes would love Xanadu for home,
big enough for X-Men and X-files,
Madame X with her wiles & smiles.

Josef Albers' Four X's in Red
takes me to exam errors I'd dread.
Oh no— three X's in a row,
and I lose again in tic-tac-toe!

Search & enter X in Google—
xenon, xanthophyll, and xylol.
Three billion pages instead of one,
even Planet-X behind the Sun.

Dwell not in "expire" or "expel"
but in "exquisite" and "excel".
XX for female, XY for male,
a single X to the Holy Grail.

Buddha's neti, neti, Cross of Christ,
a thousand suns from von Kleist—
Deny the ego, embrace the Self,
Xantippe married "Know Thyself".

The ox for strength, the axe for power,
the X-shaped sand-glass tells the hour—
the event horizon, the space sojourn
singularity point of no return.

Two V's reflecting each other—
virtue & vice linked together
forming an X— the Roman ten
and those koan puzzles of Zen.

Through a glass darkly, then face to face
with X that sacred secret place—
suddenly I am in-seeing
the link between Nothingness & Being.

Fifty pages Chinese X's there are
xiaò for smile and xing for star.
O mystery of X— the unknown
dove and sweet kisses that have flown

            — Peter Y. Chou
                 Mountain View, 8-8-2006