Lijiang marketplace.
The moon gleamed like an eye.
I, a man,
With no teeth, and no eyes,
Bit the head of a child,
And leer from the rooftops as the streets are taken
By the procession of a one hundred demons,
Each writhing and screaming and more bloated
Each one more foul an abomination than
The last twisted soul that pranced behind it.
Pots and pans and glass bottles dance in the light of
The glowing lanterns.
A one hundred crows
Throw twisting shadows at the market street walls,
A hung man singing over each market stall
It’s a quarter to three.
And they sing
Sa demo konononi kiwa ma reru yo
I could’ve been so much more, I could’ve been so much more.
Odai jin sama no onaridano; onidari; onidari!
Diogenes The Cynic, great cynic of Rome,
walked down the streets in Carthage, or Athens.
I, the broken man, called out to him from the shadows
Calling out his name over and over.
“Diogenes! You great fool, hider of my truth!
Fool! Madman! What is the greatest truth?”
Leaves fall dry in May, they say.
Maybe in April he will pay attention to me.
a hundred crows are crying from the rooftops:
“ WE ARE LEGION
We are the same.
WE ARE LEGION
We are the same.
WE ARE LEGION
We are
broken
broken
broken
gone.
I shouldn’t have to be doing this.
tidying the streets behind the great Sisyphus.
i shouldn’t have to be doing this.
OH!
But I happened to be dreaming,
Of a cloud cutting the moon
Like it was slicing through paper when it happened.
clink
The Rainwalker was there, walking down by my side,
In the gardens on the outskirts of Athens.
And,
Clink
dreams of spices and roses in the distance
With smells in the night like coffee on sandpaper.
(you wish you could be there, don’t you?)
.
OH!
Maybe in Carthage, when it’s all burning down,
when I take my first strides; I will let it happen.
Onidari.
great smokestacks rise in the distance.
.
maybe i should do it.
Maybe I should.
Maybe I should do it
Tomorrow.
when a hundred crows are crying from the rooftops:
“ WE ARE LEGION”
We are the same, the
gone.
(Maybe in Carthage, when it’s all)
.
..
.
*Feature image: (supplied) Malachi Sigmund