The City of the Yellow Eye

Roll up roll up oh you People of the City of the Yellow Eye! A second sun dawns for light indeed I bring! Moons for the blind and blade sharpness for the dull of eye!

The crowd that fills the market is a field

Of flowers, burning like flame driven by wind.

Each silk is tuned to brightness, yellow-gold

Like crowns of summer kings. Oriflamme. Blood

Of a disease that burns in the veins,

Anti-arterial blue, fading to

The storm-dark grey of piled-up pregnant crowds.

The slowly-present yellow-green of spring.

The colour wealth of hoarded insect-shells,

Or painters dreams examined in the night.

I, Hark Addui, optical energiser and expert in the jellied orb! Late of Strongoneisis, Demi-Kaz and Pluvial Town, soon for Smiling Lalieth and Shining Idnadir! But now! For one week only! I place my wisdom in your wallet! My thoughts in your receipt!

Colour-block knaves of symmetrical farms

Are bound to wear one pigment in one shade

Blinding primary like young people’s art.

The peasant families make neat crayon blocks,

Bright young ones straining at their parents hands

Reaching for the city kids that run past

Free, semi-naked, waving monster flags.

Parents holding scented posies, scowling

In resentment of the city smell, ox

And man, bullocks, urine and organ flies

Or the acrid scent of Alkali Men

Moving through the crowd in ones and two’s,

Free momentarily from their endless

Employment clearing the warrens of salt

That re-grow in the twilight hours.

Can’t read my sign? Then come on in! Eyes diagnosed for free! Whatever your irritant my balms shall soothe! Wherever your focus be I can find and shall correct!

The rich

Wear single colours still, veined and un-picked

Waving around their heads and necks like flames,

Pigments each like individual seas

Shifting tidally. Some Fragmenting Men

Of Collapsium are here, their gazes

Are not sought, and their wisdom, though correct

Is rarely loved cold, perceptive, too cold

To earn friends.

Can’t see my cart? Then come towards my voice! I stand upon the steps! Can’t find your feet? Then crawl!

On stages, caravans and

Trucks and big-wheeled carts the merchants stand

In robes coloured like clots of awful blood

Or oozing mucus, many holding parrots,

Watchful shoulder-mounted guards against

The Birds of Crime, and in the crowd are blots.

Smooth ovals of black silk from which eyes gaze,

The pupils of city nobility,

Wives of the Yellow Eye, their husbands masked

Similarly in the faces of state.

The black visards are held in place by pearls

Gripped between the teeth. Gags. Humility,

Or its seeming, and a shell of silence

Washed in street-rivers by currents of gold.

Can’t find the street? Then fly! All welcome, arial or plodding so… (and what is this?)

The crowd parts and frays

The smiling faces of

The people of the Cit-

-ty of the Yellow Eye

Frown now, and turn away

Avoiding the strange sight,

The limping popinjay

With dislocated jaw,

A hand where only one

Finger remains, and thumb.

Pale cloak, scabbarded sword

And tied around his head,

A yellow kite

In flight.