A day of rain and roaring gutters
the wine-reeking words of a drunken man
who clenched about me hard-muscled arms
and whispered with moist lips against my ear
filled me with smell and taste of spices
with harsh panting need to seek out the great
calm implacable queen of the east
who erect against sunrise holds in the folds
of her woolen robe all knowledge of delight
against whose hard white flesh my flesh
will sear to cinders in a last sheer flame.
Among the house-encumbered hills
of great marble Rome
I could no longer read the laws
inscribed on tablets of green bronze.
The maxims of the emperor's philosophy
were croaking of toads in my ears.
A day of rain and roaring gutters
the wine-reeking words of a drunken man:
... breast deep in the dawn
a queen of the east.
The camels growl and stretch out their necks,
their slack lips jiggle as they trot
towards a water hole in a pebbly torrent bed.
The riders pile dry twigs for a fire
and gird up their long gowns to warm
at the flame their lean galled legs.
Says the yellow man:
You have seen her in the west?
Says the brown man:
Hills and valleys
stony roads.
In the towns
the bright eyes of women
looking out from lattices.
Camps in the desert
where men passed the time of day
where were embers of fires
and greenish piles of camel-dung.
You have seen her in the east?
Says the yellow man: