Before An Idle King

then we came like others who visited before us beside that palace a host of songsters competing like diplomats at lobby for the ear of an idle king; some came to sing some came to ravish their eyes on the beauty rusting with the years – beside that palace naked pages without number came with the dawn dangling till noon with spears before their idle king; and we thought we have come home sitting near the palace as if we have come home! then we saw like those who visited ahead of us slaves! slave-boys! slave-girls! shiny tattoos on each face bald heads, shackled arms, lowered brows naked they came before the idle king; in disdain he put a monarch’s view at the slave-boys from the south are they without ancestors? are they without land? he peered at them like some curios or those strange meteors that shoot across the sky over niger; and we thought we have come home singing to the monarch as if we have come home! then he struck when we look we see nothing not even the pages or the slaves but ourselves before an idle king we see only this hang-man monarch his large-rimmed goggles watching all the world watching all of us like those slave-boys from the south and we thought we have come home!