Kagemusha


from the ABC set Vintage Jack: Extracts and drafts from 'I'll Show You Tyrants'

Stop the furnace!
I have come up
with a new definition
of my written past - better than 'parrotry'
It is the sound of someone blindly scraping
for a cure to the condition of pure impatience,
and,
finding only the change that is thrown to him,
he seals it wetly in envelopes
which he arranges at his feet.

Only when no one is looking
does he polish the dark side of the moon,
check his hair in the sun, and take a girl
out to the Roman island of Capri

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