Found Poem

In the east, the day breaks; do not say we have started too early; For we shall cross many hills yet Before we grow old; here the land is surpassing in beauty. Mao Tse Tung 1934 I look out the bars upon the Castle the crust caked row of age in a corner my friendly spider crouches for the unwary gnats of my days. So much there is we must atone. There are spires of faith in the invisible claws of spiders in the flight and curve of gulls. These know, I swear, the contours of the rolling Saharas and the destitute oceans of our history. We sit, debating the charity of our captors. At night lights come on the shoreline bends into a broad bay near the Castle the sea is gray Yesterday it rained on the eve of my forty-first year and left all my defeats intact Let me lead you into the country It is only as half clansman of the ritual goat that I bring my song to the place of sacrifice here in the pain fields asphalt and smoke of a large hearth I lead my rope is short. I shall soon arrive under the tree. I will stage a hundred fights in honor of our Gods and our beloved leader Here, I could care less for the toiling masses I retreated here before Lent to my own stretch of sea front (I cannot see the damned sea because of old caked walls built by Dutchmen) But the shore falls into a deep gulf there are no cliffs. They found a week-old baby buried in a shallow grave on the front lawn of the fort. I want my grave to be deeper. They are sawing through our firewood Today is cassava day The flutist is silent Perhaps his troops have arrived in Georgia Not to arrive upsets me And for the path that I have trod I have no regrets