Joan of Arc in inner Mongolia
A green bird planted with oaks the written signs
In summer rivers of snow
On his father’s side
The steel serpent of greenness
Serves relevant facts and chai with rum
At the Mecca of monotone green
Clocks cluck in our internal Mongolia
An adjutant broke off training
Transsiberian Mongolian goat owners
And Tscham Dancers
Princess flies over mountains on her magic sword
Cured by tree spirits
A solitary man thinks only of
Stuffed roast swan and says,
“Serve me the fragrance of a June morning.”
Animal demons get presented a full plate of
Horse railroad where we eat roast reivers
While this shanghaied local misses Tashkent and Samarkand.
With gluttony to your health in a blue bonnet
We travel into slumbering after
Pan Ziu—Pannax ginseng—well-timed.
Oil-impregnated kneeguards threaten willed animals
Out of danger losing their way into a sleeping demon’s stomach
Solitary root-seekers follow the call of Screech Owl.
Ginseng disappears to an evil man the moment it’s found
Jackie Gleason doing Lotte Lenya’s “You are a large, conspicuous sandwich.”
Hell left Bakunin in an ocean of love.
Now we’ll dive black and green into a rose red dress.
All nations can sing “Bei Mir Bis Du Schon” in sound sequins.
“How’s your hot cold Tartar morning French cognac for breakfast,”
Says your friendly, snow tiger waitress.
She now offers buttermilk festivities to pyramid families
Travelling knapsack style in knowledge’s swaying baggage net
The Buriats will bury your overfull stomach.
“Good luck in your `Desert Song’ as a man of the golden east,”
They sing in their transmongolian migration riding festival
Where cedarcone kernels are eaten by native virgins in fur frocks.
“We’ll swallow our way all across Genghis Khan,”
They overtone intone as a huntswoman threatens to shoot
An arrow through first tourist’s Kodak instamatic fastbackwards camera
But prayer flags in white get us to no Internet near Kirkut.
Without even a telephone pole, the hostages look awfully relaxed
Under their Bodhi tree in a desert
One sings in a low-cut, tight-fitting dress.
“The yurts come equipped with cows, camels, and goats.”
Embrace yourself for an upside down whiplash
In a blue dog year, the talk of caravansaries
Return with our fairies to bring Royal Cloudmother back every 77 years from the sky.
Now the camels sing along.
A black-speckled tiger drinks at your stream of green grass.
They lost more than you stole.
As you now blanch the yurts again with time
Call that camel gut the old musician’s strumming.
Fire going around in circles over and over again
Snaps shut your voracious jaws, internal spirits.
Before you drink, spill a few drops on the ground
Of this year’s best mare’s milk.
Heroic lays follow. We ambushed you out of your misfortune.
Stags carry you in their teeth
As a nightingale talks to the swan in rhyme.
Happy hostages or courteous captives,
Your laundry load angered the sky.
So they shot arrows at your frying pan cymbals
And oboes whose way-signs add stones to a pyramid
Hero fairy on a milk-white sea, your hands bathe in blood,
An earthquake spits fire, and some dancing skeletons find closure.

[Tom Savage]

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