SANKAI JUKU

 

Entering from the sky, inverted

on ropes,

these are the scorched men,

the eggheads, splashing

to cool their burnt memory.

 

How can we, watching,

remember what they can never forget,

that moment when the first egg

broke?  And the world

now empty became ours.

 

The ash-white bodies

onstage end their ritual

for now. They do not show us

the tops of their heads.

 

We rise, in the roar of our

harsh rain. Vaguely they wave,

do not bow.

 

One of their number

still stands in tumbling sand,

breathing, writhing. (I think

Woman of the Dunes.  I think

silicosis.)

 

His shaved head, white

with a slash of red from one

ear. Cut throat, scarlet

bloodied nails.

 

We stir, uneasy,

recalling that last year another

fell

inverted

from his frayed-through rope

to the concrete

without a cry.

 

Sand falls in hourglass time.

Simon Leigh, educated way beyond his intelligence at Sydney University, Oxford and The University of New Brunswick, hopes somehow to save the environment and still believes that Western Civilisation is worth a try. Publications include two poetry books and various poems, stories, and plays. His just-released novel, Wild Women (UKA Press), is a mere $19 from Amazon, and his next novel (Wilder Women?) will be out soon.

Dance to Death, Issue I

©2008 Sorrowland Press and all respective artists within.