This is a garden
where through the
russet mist of clustered trees
and strewn November
leaves,
they crunch with
vainglorious heels
of ancient vermilion
the dry dead of spent
summer’s greens
and stalk with mincing
sceptic steps
and sound of snuffboxes
snapping
to the capping of an
epigram, in fluffy attar-scented wigs . . .
the exquisite
Augustans.
There was a king in
China.
He sat in a garden
under a moon of gold
while a black slave
scratched his back
with a backscratcher of
emerald.
Before him beyond the
tulipbed
where the tulips were
stiff goblets of fiery wine
stood the poets in a
row.
One sang of the
intricate patterns of snowflakes.
One sang of the
hennatipped breasts of girls dancing
and of yellow limbs
rubbed with attar.
One sang of the red
bows of Tartar horsemen
and the whine of
arrows, and bloodclots on new spearshafts.
Others sang of wine and
dragons coiled in purple bowls,
and one, in a droning
voice
recited the maxims of
Lao T’se.
(Far off at the walls
of the city
a groaning of drums and
a clank of massed spearmen.
Gongs in the temples.)
The king sat under a
moon of gold
while a black slave
scratched his back
with a backscratcher of
emerald.
The long gold nails of
his left hand
twined about a red
tulip blotched with black,
a tulip shaped like a
dragon’s mouth
or the flames bellying
about a pagoda of sandalwood.
The long gold nails of
his right hand
were held together at
the tips
in an attitude of
discernment:--
to award the tulip to
the poet
of the poets that stood
in a row.
(Gongs in the temples,
Men with hairy arms
climbing on the walls
of the city.
They have red bows
slung on their backs,
their hands grip new
spearshafts.)
The guard of the tomb
of the king’s great grandfather
stood with two swords
under the moon of gold.
With one sword he very
carefully
slit the base of his
large belly
and inserted the other
and fell upon it
and sprawled beside the
king’s footstool;
his blood sprinkled the
tulips
and the poets in a row.
(The gongs are quiet in
the temples.
Men with hairy arms
scatter with taut bows
through the city.
There is blood on new
spearshafts.)
The long gold nails of
the king’s right hand
were held together at
the tips
in an attitude of
discernment:
the geometric glitter
of snowflakes,
the pointed breasts of
yellow girls
crimson with henna,
the swirl of river-eddies
about a barge
where men sit drinking,
the eternal dragon of
magnificence . . .
Beyond the tulipbed
stood the poets in a
row.
The garden full of
spearshafts and shouting
and the whine of arrows
and the red bows of Tartars
and trampling of the
sharp hoofs of warhorses.
Under the golden moon
the men with hairy arms
struck off the heads of
the tulips in the tulipbed
and of the poets in a
row.
The king lifted the
hand that held the flaming dragonflower:
To him of the
snowflakes, he said.
On a new white
spearshaft
the men with hairy arms
spitted the king and
the black slave
who scratched his back
with a backscratcher of emerald.
There was a king in
China.