The Square Mountain

At the Square Mountain, Warm Ridge
The artist, for whose nation paintings there’s no market in the West
Told me how Shi Chong, richer than the rich, played with men
By having their dicks tied up and made hard as rock
Before plunging sharp needles in
Just to enjoy the sight of blood going up
Like a spring

That prompted me to tell him a story, in return, of how
My artist friend F, in Melbourne, once got detained in Beijing
For painting nude by the police who prodded him in his private parts
With electronic batons
Until he, losing control over his senses
Ejaculated the way a spring sprung---
I expected laughter as once I did on hearing the story from F

Instead, the artist went pale in the face
And said: One must go and find the one who did that
Or hire a hitman to do so
By cutting the dick of the man who did the prodding
Long after that I dwell upon the significance of this
The way he, the artist, put himself in it
As if he physically experienced the thing himself

The Square Mountain, one with rock faces as straight as rock
Faces, that I described as scrolls of undone nation paintings
Remained speechless, so much so that this poem wants, too
To keep silent, refusing to be accepted
Let alone published
The way the Square Mountain went silent at the violence
The way, indeed, all things do, after it’s done