I have heard men sing songs
of how in scarlet pools
in the west in purpurate mist
that bursts from the sun trodden
like a grape under the feet of darkness
a woman with great breasts
thighs white like wintry mountains
bathes her nakedness.
I have lain biting my cheeks
many nights with ears murmurous
with the songs of these strange men.
My arms have stung as if burned
by the touch of red ants with anguish
to circle strokingly
her bulging smooth body.
My blood has soured to gall.
The ten toes of my feet are hard
as buzzards' claws from the stones
of roads, from clambering
cold rockfaces of hills.
For uncountable days' journeys
jouncing on the humps of camels
iron horizons have swayed
like the rail of a ship at sea
mountains have tossed like wine
shaken hard in a wine cup.
I have heard men sing songs
of the scarlet pools of the sunset.
Two men, bundled pyramids of brown
abreast, bow to the long slouch
of their slowstriding camels.
Shrilly the yellow man sings:
In the courts of Han
green fowls with carmine tails
peck at the yellow grain
court ladies scatter
with tiny ivory hands,
the tails of the fowls
droop with multiple elegance
over the wan blue stones
as the hands of courtladies
droop on the goldstiffened silk
of their angular flower-embroidered dresses.
In the courts of Han
little hairy dogs
are taught to bark twice
at the mention of the name of Confucius.
The twittering of the women
that hop like silly birds
through the courts of Han
became sharp like little pins
in my ears, their hands in my hands
rigid like small ivory scoops
to scoop up mustard with
when I had heard the songs
of the western pools where the great queen
is throned on a purple throne
in whose vast encompassing arms
all bitter twigs of desire
burst into scarlet bloom.
Padding lunge of the camel's stride
over flint-strewn hills. The brown man sings:
On the house-encumbered hills
of great marble Rome
no man has ever counted the columns
no man has ever counted the statues
no man has ever counted the laws
sharply inscribed in plain writing
on tablets of green bronze.
At brightly lit tables
in a great brick basilica
seven hundred literate slaves
copy on rolls of thin parchment
adorned by seals and purple bows
the taut philosophical epigrams
announced by the emperor each morning
while taking his bath.