Poems Niederngasse
Wayne Amtzis
This Seasons Finale

How readily, the orphaned Demos
discards its rights

From “skirmish” to “rampage”
rumor, on rat-wings,
Between History’s Endgame

skirrs… 

and today’s barricade,

As each sideways shuffling step
displaces the last,

this season’s Finale…

(in a vignette
entitled A little cup of brandy
or the romance of power
and pain, safe and snug in body bags,
the Interrogated
hang upside-down like those
sleepy bats
bestride palace walls)

is, as always,

the appreciative
audience, so much like dolphins
clapping fins, citizens all,
brandish this little cup of brandy
(empty of course )
to salute life as it drips away
To salute power
as it stays

(This season's finale is as always)
burlesque

Kathmandu 11/2003 - 5/2004

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Wayne Amtzis is a poet, photographer and long-time resident of Nepal.  His work from Kathmandu can be seen on the website: photo-poems.com, in the photo collection flatLine witness, and in Studies in Nepali History and Society Vol. 6.1, June 2001. He is editor and co-translator of Two Sisters: the poetry of Benju Sharma and Manju Kanchuli and of From The Lake, Love: the poetry of Banira Giri.  email W.Amtzis