Issue 4.8

The Years of My Body My body survived a thousand Harmattans by drifting forth and backwards every season, growing like a palm tree planted by the River Niger; like a forest filled with cobwebs and twigs, acquiring what it needs for its survival: dust that sucks up moisture from its body, humidity that absorbs vapour through its veins, thirst for its sweetness, teeth for its meat, appetite for sugar and candy, hunger after the moon when stars surround it with coats of honey. How can I rise from my bed to declare my morning and put my body under its control, and in its place, having known my dawn to be part of my body that’s contrary to the desires of my spirit? I have strived to ascend to the unwary sky, where I know my spirit hopes to relax but my body keeps dragging me down: to the dust it belongs, to the dust it must return. I raised my game and my gaze at the stars, having known all the time where I was going, following the river that flows through my body. Yet I watched it raise a dam against me, against my ascendancy to the throne of grace, carve my tongue into an unbridled rage that speaks louder and faster than my thoughts, as though I was born its natural adversary. How can I tie my feet with one sacred knot that they may not walk to places undone, where sacredness is a taboo, and decency a taboo. My hands and eyes carry me to despair when they see what I don’t want to see or touch the things I hate to touch, pulling me towards the dust of their nature, the coldness of sand a destination.

Breaking the Cycles *After Horace,* Odes *4.7* The snows have fled through sewer grates, and Coney Island Av. is lined with grit: no grass or rivers here, just rails, the flood of freight long gone. Across the bridge, past rusted shutters, body shops and funeral homes, I turn the corner, nose now buried in my phone, only to smell sweet lemon cream! A wedding gown has bloomed on that magnolia tree, her bridesmaids buzzing all around. The Arctic can’t contain himself; these flowers will not last the night. In weeks, a day will grow so hot that it portends eternal summer. Torquatus dreams he never died.

Odecoin #@#After Horace, *Odes* 1.11 #@# @tab *For all the bros with diamond minds* @tab *who think about the Roman Empire* We apes, Felix, cannot divine who’s gonna make it, not with charts and technical analysis, not when the sun has laser eyes for those ice sheets HODLing carbon, the ledger of our winters left till Neptune storms the walls. Be sapient: short this longing for the moon. If as we speak, the interest grows too high, then liquidate our stakes, buy that Lambo, seize the day! Time makes bag holders of us all.

Dreaming of Du Fu Mild breeze shakes silken curtains, passing as above the roof beam a brilliant moon set. Tears stain bamboo sheets, senselessly salty, whilst birds stir depth of my dream’s ending. Dreaming like an unfilial son, without offerings I visit your world: cloistered, enchanted, a strange land of thick smog and malaria, far south of Yue and Min’s ancient realms. Sagely duties can hardly reorder a broken world— *malum in se*, ceaselessly perfuming the Dark Obscure. Demons and hobgoblins clamor at indigo-laced Gates, Ministers Kui and Long waste away, far in Great Purity. I ought to have pledged to River Xiang’s intent, then burnt my poems, as sacrament for Master Jia.