beijing

the rainbow spectrum feathers ruffle the scaley green phoenix walls - an invitation of sorts...

temptation spreads her wings and somehow sometime somewhere between the prism gardens and the great stone doors somewhere between all that between the cadence and the shriek of the military drum is a lonely lark hovering bravely up in the blood red sky

circling above like a vulture this bird the phoenix this beauty has it in mind to topple the mighty dragon an ambitious undertaking to say the least and now with the dragon tired and weary having flown through so many years of history so many years of turmoil here now who could think of a time better than now, to topple the mighty techni-coloured beast - to slay the mighty lizard

and there, then, when in the midst of that elegant city, there, in the heart of those lavish gardens in the middle of those overgrown paths in between those intermittent crosswalks the detours the fences the posts the locks, there, then, when in that place for some god forsaken reason the pavement begins to play magnet with my metal eyes

and milling about there somewhere in the middle of it all - the middle of the world - medling in those middle man middle aged middle road memories melodic memories myopic memories molten memories black like coal -

milling about there in the middle of it all i almost - i almost remember something anything - someone - maybe - me? - someone - maybe - maybe me? who was that again? where was that again? me? betrothed to marry or betrothed to carry - on? something in the wind chokes my eyes... the fleshy doors echo as they slam shut hammering and clammering like rusty prison cell doors - a hypnotic harmony echoing still blowing through the vacant hollows of half built hallway homes halfway homes all helter skelter the horrific harmonies in the halfway hallways the helpless homes vacant empty except for that echo that helpless harmonizing halfway hollar hammering and clammering back and forth bouncing over bouncing back - back and forth - over and over - a loop

the crackling pupils in those radar eyes sweep the horizon line casting sharp white lights through the heavy stone walls and somewhere out there somewhere shivering underneath a quilt of rainbow feathers struggling underneath the weight of dysfunctional oxygen fans and dirty gasoline pumps is the lizard - the beast - struggling to burn on - clinging to those memories the brilliant orange and yellow and blue vivid bubbling flickering memories the desperation - it burns

but time, being the impatient mongrel that it is, shows no sympathy no weakness no soft underbelly it rides instead on the green back of the mighty bird above instigating a memorable descent down down down and with one brilliant act of trickery the poor bird is transformed into a dazzling splitting lemon yellow bolt of shimmering electric heat desperately craving some multi-coloured pieceof higher ground - the beast - the lizard - the mighty techni-coloured dragon never stood a chance...

down on the dry dirty earthbed - lolling in the cold crusty cracks below and quivering like a broken hearted lower lip the ancient lizard lies helplessly in a pool of acid rain drowning in defeat - extinguished - extinguished by time place circumstance extinguished by a hundred or a thousand or a million or more precisely by one point three four billion pellets of rain clawing their way through the pathetic canopy of cloud cover above - and falling - falling hard and fast - like daggers sharp pinching acid rain daggers - melting and extinguishing the place the politics the programs the people the party the portraits the pictures the people the paintings the poems the placards the people and yes -

of course -

and of course there is puff...

a practical joke for all to see - extinguished - deflamed before my very eyes - and i'm unhappy to say that i've never seen anything so upsetting in my entire life -

god dammit... you might not believe this but -

but it's raining like a motherfucker in beijing.