Shanghai

In the howling slipstream of the future,

Faces pinned back in clownish grins,

The myrmidons eat and shit their way

To riches.Glory.Ever more desire.

Death is the empire,

Time the frontier.

New fashion, new technology!

Delirium of money and action,

Ecstasy-terror of jazz-architecture!

Into the outstretched hand of a shoeshine boy

The loose change of fortune is dropped,

Sure as oracle bones.



Red and gold moon of tigerish spring,

Blood’s calendar tolls like a temple bell

Through sunlight-mist-blossom-drift.

Autumn,too,invites premonitions

And words as subtle as women.



Bastard entrepot of sacrificial suns,

Born from opium-cloud waters,

Bluster your warlord ways into the sky!

Scavenger,enter the neon netherworld

With a ghost’s crooked steps,

Greedy to grab whatever you can,

A knowledge as precious as tea.

Beheaded lives, impaled on factory spikes,

Line the high walls of tomorrow

And love, poisoned with midnight’s mercury,

Burns itself out in diminishing profits.



Careful not to lose your face!

You are the swarm, the bedlam.

The information uniforms you,

Drills you, sends you out to fight.

Bowl up to the stock market,

Place your bets!

There are monsters in the water.

Counterfeit coins in the bribe-hand.

Bronze cauldron city of zigzags and dragons,

Cook the ritual feast for voracious ghosts!



The bamboo speaks in riddles

In the gardens of carp pools and pavilions

And in the temple, serenely enthroned,

The Buddhas of past,present and future

Watch the red lanterns sway.