Landscape of a Vomiting Multitude

The fat lady came out first, Tearing out roots and moistening drumskins. The fat lady Who turns dying octopuses inside out. The fat lady, the moon’s antagonist, Was running through the streets and deserted buildings And leaving tiny skulls of pigeons in the corners And stirring up the furies of the last centuries’ feasts And summoning the demon of bread through the sky’s clean-swept hills And filtering a longing for light into subterranean tunnels. The graveyards, yes the graveyards And the sorrow of the kitchens buried in sand, The dead, pheasants and apples of another era, Pushing it into our throat. There were murmuring from the jungle of vomit With the empty women, with hot wax children, With fermented trees and tireless waiters Who serve platters of salt beneath harps of saliva. There’s no other way, my son, vomit! There’s no other way. It’s not the vomit of hussars on the breasts of their whores, Nor the vomit of cats that inadvertently swallowed frogs, But the dead who scratch with clay hands On flint gates where clouds and desserts decay. The fat lady came first With the crowds from the ships, taverns, and parks. Vomit was delicately shaking its drums Among a few little girls of blood Who were begging the moon for protection. Who could imagine my sadness? The look on my face was mine, but now isn’t me, The naked look on my face, trembling for alcohol And launching incredible ships Through the anemones of the piers. I protect myself with this look That flows from waves where no dawn would go, I, poet without arms, lost In the vomiting multitude, With no effusive horse to shear The thick moss from my temples. The fat lady went first And the crowds kept looking for pharmacies Where the bitter tropics could be found. Only when a flag went up and the first dogs arrived Did the entire city rush to the railings of the boardwalk.