FLYING
Something in altitude kindles power-thirst Mere horse-height suffices the emir Bestowing from rich folds of the prodigious turban Upon crawling peasants in the dust Rare imperceptible nods enwrapped In princely boredom. I too have known A parching of that primordial palate, A quickening to manifest the life Of a long recessive appetite. Though strapped and manacled That day I commanded from the pinnacle. Of a three-tiered world a bridge befitting The proud deranged deity I had become. A magic rug of rushing clouds Billowed and rubbed its white softness Like practiced houri fingers on my soul, And through filters of its gauzy fabric. Revealed wonders of a metropolis, Magic-struck to fairyland proportions. By different adjustments of vision I caused the clouds to float Over a stilled landscape, over towers And masts and smoke-plumed chimneys; Or turned the very earth, unleashed From itself, a roaming fugitive. Beneat
