I was never more at home than when abroad.
Never more at ease than in some hectic venture,
Perilous to body and soul.
In my Genoese prison
I make the walls my curious listeners,
Attending whatever tales I conjure
From life’s exotic embassy.
Thus tedious captivity becomes a Cathay
And a prisoner in rags the Great Khan!
Quick, scribe,dip your pen into an ocean
Of ink, for I will make you a discoverer
Under sail on chartless seas!
(This book shall be for us both
As Kublai Khan’s golden tablet,
Firman supreme that opens all roads!)
Venice,my nocturne of secrets and conspiracies,
My death-spinning silkworm!
Dank cloister of erotic traders
Misted in isolation and slence,
Plague rats gnawing the piles beneath their feet.
Bewildered and beauty-sticken,
I took my compass from the winds
And set myself free...
We found no barbarians there,in the East,
But a people courteous,curious,eager for trade,
And a ruler greater than any on earth,
Magnificent beyond the paltry courts of Europe!
What lies our rulers tell us, as if we were children
To be cozened with fairy tales!
The truth is wrapped in a Persian carpet
And trampled by horses
Like the defeated Caliph of Baghdad.
The visions witnessed in deserts and mountains
Walk with me yet,half-here,half-there,
Never satisfied with my eyes’ representations,
Which seem such poor imitations
Of some sublime beyond.
Still I hear spirits calling, good and ill,
In the Venetian calle, as in the Desert of Lop,
Messages as precious as white mares’ milk.
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