BARBARIAN VILLAGE

‘We will awe you with our colours’
On faces, stomachs and arms
Feline tattoos scattered red
A pagan god at the village gate
Bones, horns, sabre-teeth
Bludgeons, solid bamboo sticks
Long and sharp spears
To face the wilderness
To face rival tribes
To fend off strangers
To fence their de-fence
To include, you may call it naïvety
To exclude, you may call it honesty
With their own language
With their own life, their own rationale  
They live in their own meaning
To be blunt,
Even the notion of shame is different
As is the value of life
How they receive love, how they receive punishment
How they hear the beatings of the drums
Not boom boom boom
But growl growl growl, the growl of a tiger
There is everything in their drumbeats
An assortment of life
A commune
Paying court to a village girl,
Prayer for more games
Wrestling with bears
The erosion of the mountain creek
(Probably there is also a fear
And loathing of the White Man)
Growl growl growl they play and they dance
The drum of delirium like a medium with death
Growl growl growl
Their sweat burns over the fire, and sizzles
Growl growl growl
They have diced the sacrificial animal at the altar
Growl growl growl
They listen to the oracle’s omens, without a blink
Growl growl growl
They drum their communiqué   
They dance their demands
Their logograms are their holy books
With stark eyes, they examine their skies
Horoscopes are recorded on naked palms
Weather forecasts are read gently on leaves
They stalk their prey on the sound of the breeze
In their day, sunlight was ultraviolet-free
In their day, rain was acid-free
If only fossils could speak
They would bring you back to their aeon
The day automobiles arrived, roaring
Delivering food enhancers and utensils
Decorations and grand robes, the power of
Demand and supply, the free market
Teaches you who you are, who I am, what is what
Then then and more and more
Then then . . .
Then after that then . . .
Seals and signs
Colours and categories
Evolutions and -isms
Homophones and heteronyms
Fashions and actions
Shoulder to shoulder
Footprint to footprint
The creaking of chairs in collision  
The noise of whistling and applause
That’s how the sound of the drums died out
That's how the barbarian culture went extinct.

Barbarian Village

Barbarian Village