From his ebony eyrie
the moon is salubrious,
round as the white lotus' root.
The desert's his adversary.

The moon is salubrious
with his godly left eye.
The desert's his adversary,
spiteful, like a hippopotamus.

With his godly left eye
the moon is neither ossuary,
nor spiteful, like a hippopotamus,
a shape-shifting crocodile.

The moon is not an ossuary.
The desert is a troglodyte,
a shape-shifting crocodile.
The moon's a fresh apothecary,

the desert is a troglodyte.
From his ebony eyrie
the moon's a fresh apothecary,
round as the white lotus' root.

Stuart Barnes