The Songstone

Dinner of bacon, local red and bamboo worm. Morning another train to Dali; carriage three between eleven, twelve: 云南 . The city fades; the hills advance in echelons. The weather turns: the clouds cling to the peaks like sodden s heets . We're climbing high.  

My journey to the Himalayan hills starts with a twenty-eight hour train from Guangzhou. Dozing and fruit, rattling along the slow. The humid Pearl behind and into clear. A day's recuperation: Kunming – Green Lake oasis of tranquility.  

A glorious past, and future more than full. From salt Atlantic - crowning Caucasus, from crystal tundra - undulate Sahara, united, softly spoken languages. Creed cannot matter here, for all are true or false, or useful, superstitious too. Race will not care here: European though saturnine, blond, or black, blue irises. No eagle empire with its rending conquests, you thoughtful country of a peace expansion. A murmuring glade, your loose bounds lasting longest of any bloody map yet drawn by nation. In Story's steaming alleys you'll stand tall - a home of many mansions: room for all

Today is the 50th anniversary of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution ( 无产阶级文化大革命)

I know a skilful little man, by name of Crumbly-Pilchard. He spends his days upon the baize and nights he fumbles Richard He is a wizard with his Dick, though hearts don't always break We gaze amazed at his great length and wish he'd down his stake A boy should know, a boy should learn that though he may have skill, the enemies he makes in life can kick him till he's shrill Don't target me, O little man or I will rhyme you sore, and every time I see your mug I'll come and kick you more

You left in April, Mary, dear; we're gathered here today to say goodbye, to say farewell, to say we loved your stay on Earth you ne'er believed in Heav'n but light ran through and through all your dealings here with us. Goodbye. Farewell. Thank You.

The Hun is at the gate! A driven foe, I know you love to hear how Germans die. for body, soul an iron sacrifice. 'Ach Kamerad' they cry, then squeal like stoats. Atrocities engorged as scarlet crazy squirts spawn about the corpses of old toads; menagerie of carrion and waste shambles across a century of crows. And then, in boiling shards of poignant beauty, (wolves graze, and dust becomes the serpent's meat) through a becalmed and still reflective maunder, (trusting a day there shall be no more shooting) erupt emotions - soaring, wheeling fleets, leap into hope that even war surrender.