terracotta warriors and horses

a one-handed man
a left with the weak
hand marked man a
symbol of our
amputated times
dispossessed man
meaningful artwork
for those with the leisure
but in mangled bone
and shrivelled marrow
its displeasure and loathing
the time to pause
on the fate of the damned
when the damned themselves
may only lift their heads
to look at the watchtower
as the chimes sound
to note the passing of
another hour

waiting for the parade
to pass waiting to
cross the road silently
pedestrian anger explodes
then as the cheers grow louder
and the floats drift by
like clouds in heaven like
clouds in heaven under gay skies
it's just that
the deafening thunder
that is the clapping in that
the one-armed half-limbed man
has no part to play for
he cannot clap now look
he is a righthand
in service of
the itch factoryman
he isnt handicapped
but going straight from
unarmed to defanged
feels the loss of teeth
like a bleeding stump

nevertheless a respectfully benumbed
not expected to fight
embattled man waking up
with a heavy head hammering home
the pain of dismemberment
he sees in his blurred vision
a pigeon on the window sill
being watched by a cat
on the wall and he cant
take it no more life and hunger
so elegantly poised on
the razor's edge pain consuming pain
endlessly a cause equally and evenly
served by shooting either bird or cat
or both but then he has always
been a bird in hand man who would
never know which to save which to give up
and so wields he in his astral arm
an axe for all and against everyone
a one-armed man-at-arm