Tuesday, May 18, 2010

Victor Segalen

The discovery of difference

Requires intensive practice;

Apprehension is refined by its limits.

The human is always and everywhere

Primitive and exotic.

One colonises sadly,sure to be one day overthrown.


In nightmares he could see the uniform hordes

Marching in sexless lifeless lock step,

Democratic serfs, sophisticated cretins.

He built his own Forbidden City,

Bridges, temples and pavilions aligned

With the heavens and earth.


Hiking in the Breton forest,

He fell, badly injured,to lay for days,alone,

And when his dead body was found

A copy of Hamlet lay open beside him.

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