Your banner is great;
it stands out
like famine rice
or a page from your manual. We seized
and squeezed your banner
like a dish rag.
making soup, tea, something to rinse your teeth.

We're going to raise the rope, your banner,
and instead of singing
we'll chant.

We are going to swarm
as if we were going
to a banned dance;
flocking to fill your quota,
sitting across a spartan desk
pushing and pulling,
letting it settle down
only to stir it up again. The froth
our sweet sacrifice
to your oily diet.

Under your static gaze,
we pledge to throw stuff
into our hand-bellowed furnace:
a cauldron, a rake,
the little, essential things
that your molten star
requires.

If you swim in shit
we will swim in those same
ancient rivers; the numbered rivers
of your settled borders; the place where civilization began.

You are the one
whose insomnia
focuses the mob. Your iconic eye bags sequestered
in your library of imperial histories. But we understand,
you have a lot on your mind
such as
playing one person
off another.