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 back-scratcher of emerald.
Beyond the tulip bed
where the tulips were stiff goblets of fiery wine
stood the poets in a row.
One sang the intricate patterns of snowflakes
One sang the henna-tipped breasts of girls dancing
and of yellow limbs rubbed with attar.
One sang red bows of Tartar horsemen
and whine of arrows and blood-clots on new spearshafts
The others sang of wine and dragons coiled in purple bowls,
and one, in a droning voice
recited the maxims of Lao Tse.
(Far off at the walls of the city
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 back-scratcher 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
scattering 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 geometrical 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 tulip bed
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 war-horses.
Under the golden moon
the men with hairy arms
struck off the heads of the tulips in the tulip-bed
and of the poets in a row.
The king lifted the hand that held the flaming dragon-flower.
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 back-scratcher of emerald.
There was a king in China.