King's cough 王の咳嗽

within the King's marbled and gilded  hall vast and majestic
glamorous through age
breaking its august silence, old and imposing, a lone sound of cough
solitarily resounding, the ground
quaking; 

such is the momentous cough,
the spit that caught in an jagged organ made of phlegm,
the coughing of the King.
behind his decorated throne of bright robbed earthen stars he was hiding,
behind the red curtain the lordly throne hides,
where he stood or sat alone, concealing
from all cold drafts and warm mirage 
the solitary waking, before the night till after morn
the un-(k)nightly waking of King's gold-enamelled head.
a haloed citadel standing or sitting alone while
 men and eunuchs below, glittering waves across the red clothing
from their purchased trinkets and rings, 
lights and beams mingle among

 fingers pointing and fists upraised

 though after a big yelling caterwaul

self made content after bitter flirtations and eyeing bore one of two cursed fruits

plucking hours as if 
petals wet and tender from red rose
though all after delivering some hidden message
against their friends and foes

retreated to their own decorated manor houses and through private poison or wine served on their own table

inebriating their liver to either blue or green

below him on the stage.

and from too seductive cold warbling of 

hollowed out man-shaped buxom, wooing

bosoms of love thirsting glen of famine

asking for a nights or days stay, pity or sympathy-seeking

the waning and waxing, imploring the King in one man's grove

uncertain warmth of hard leafy green trees

their jagged encroaching embrace
bleeding the lover's skin upon their ragged skirts of dead barks and dry roots
promised to him not an empire of red fruits
but more birdlings in nests upon high branches
warbling for more greener seeds
from his red mantle, King's purpureal  skin.

and when he struck against something black, or get caught 
in his organ of phlegm, the warbling eunuchs and their stolen warbling wives from the King's harem,
and the eyeing men of blue or green liver and purpureal skin, all rush
before the red mantle and all smile in accord. clamouring.
before the red mantle of the King.
in wild wonderment they say
"
the King has spoken, in a dragon's shouting tongue!
this promises clement weather overhead,
tomorrow shall be sunny and humid as crops grow.

 and there shall be prosperity as men bustle and sing in market streets!
the King has spoken, across his ruddy veiled image. these shadows over his face, are a good omen to tell."

the King is coughing
and in joyous exclamation, they bring with them

the carved golden spittoons 

made of old Imperial message tablets 

and carved ivory cuspidors

 made of sacred sawed bull horns, 

all with their chins held up high, 
a little hop and whirl in their steps,

eyes uplifting from the steps to climb, singing and bustling, 

bartering tacit understandings and trading secret intrigues, 
friends, foes, eunuch lovers and their stolen sham wives
men, women, impotent slaves, upon the stage, raising up all their gilded marbled spit-cups and night-pots (chamber pots) in libation

 to the forgotten Golden God they bitterly spat 

and released their wine-lust upon

who was once their chief tribal King;

the ancient judge of golden worth, the gilded tusked lo Aurum Austral
(the mysterious gold legend of the east)

the King is coughing

 behind the red curtain, without bearing his empty Cup

hidden by his empty throne made of mute dead stone

the crowd speak to each other,

 in their groups, pairs or cabals as if gathering 

for a dance ball and a feast.
chatting excitedly they say
"the King is in good health, 
the sanguinous coughing ,

is a sign of longevity of life,
for a lasting reign of the red King.
our kingdom is secure from invasion of barbarians and helpless fiscal wants.
Let us wait for the red mantle to drop,
then the first one to catch the King's cough,
will have the right to speak by himself for his own grace
through their own borne Cup
when he becomes the first one standing upon the King 's cold and dead throne,
while the King behind the curtain is attending in silence.
and when the day ends

 and from the dance and the banquet we should part
bearing each our own empty Cup
let us hear aloud some yet more regal singing
for our stolen tribal pride. 
the King is in good health, 
let him sing
and the King sings, such momentum hid in his coughing
…
as across the King's marbled and gilded hall vast and majestic
glamorous through age
solitarily resounding, the ground quaking;
with foaming and heated passion talking, 

speaking and conjubilating, as there are waves on the stage

and
in the tongue of ancient and forgotten Dracones, reverberating

 against the cold, mute stone walls of the dead King's Keep

the Dragon is shouting aloud alone.

in his own Cup they bore for himself alone, when he caught the cough
the bloody coughing of the King.

 though when he raises up the Kings red mantle to glance at the stage below,
and then pulls down in a rush to shelter his bruised and sickly purple form
to avoid cold drafts or warm mirage, 
there will be, before his stolen throne
a thronging crowd of singing and bustling men and women and eunuchs,
with their bosoms hiding warbling unnaturally deathless birds in nests meant for higher branches, 
with those bad cooks who have sweet poison meant for chattel thieves mixed in their friends drink
of self important merchants and peddlers of fame that drunk such poisoned wine as medicine that made their own liver blue or green
and from them, across the red curtain behind the throne
hiding
though, in hiding solitude, standing or sitting alone
against all those who would stand, point fingers and laugh on the stage at the healthful King

and he,

 as if a thundering raging godly storm that seeks to drown out the deadly waking birds singing and demolish overgrown greeneries that suffocate and stink, 

as if he is the great giant horned, goat-headed and cloven-footed Pathfinder driving out ambushing adder snakes by making earth trembling and twanging, 

and as cold and collected as a friendless and ghoulish common tavern drunkard pondering himself against this uncertain music of the mundane when he leaves the door of the House that serves health-giving wine.

the coming and retreating tides, of bustling midday and midnight marketplaces; 
merchants, chattel thieves, forgers,
bootleggers, beggars and cheats
witless school children, corrupted and adulterous governesses and wine-stealing truants, all laughing and pointing fingers,
yelling cursing cants, and hissing threatening songs
at each other, at the busy stage, and secretly at the hidden,
 the hopelessly powerless ruling King behind his red curtains concealing his bruised and purpureal skin
…

against the clamour and glamour
the air vibrates in sorrow when within the hall of the just ruler is heard resounding
a lonesome and poignant note
the ground is quaking and twanging, the trees screaming and the birdlings crying.
the market is struck by a thundering Voice; the mundane pauses for a moment
when a mighty smite against the unruly waves carrying time to nothingness,
levelling the noisy and bustling, the ever busying and swallowing earth, 
when from the ancient age-honoured, cold and august, majestic hall is heard
the lone and noble, a fit of healthful coughing
the coughing of the King.