In this city of cities
Streets rush and confuse like waterless rivers.
Rain patters and strums the dirge
Of a billion lives lively and rank.
Under this sun of suns
Broken and black-burnt
Smoke the rooftops–
And the hissing blood of the hopeful
And the damned.
In this grave of graves lie
The yellowed hearts,
The grease-choked livers,
The blue-bruised babies,
The struggle of eons
Of seconds
Of nanos–and
The rabid spittle of Ahab.
Damn the fool and foul twining of
Gods and governments.
Make you doggerel of dung and dispossession
And call yourselves life-living
Life giving?
This lie of lies.
“Dost thou not laugh?”
GB Sanford
Qingdao, China
October, 2003
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