In the archipelago

The beetles dance apace

Each heavy exoskeleton

A holy carapace

Like bishops in their bishoprics

Intruders in the nave

Sacrilege their diocese

Vandals at the gate

Like creatures of the forest

Or secrets of the brain

The actors in the newsreel

Never explain

The pilot’s introspection

In the darkened aeroplane

The trickle of the lipstick

The babble of the sane

The spooling scree of fiction

The bobbin of the film

The rough and ready pottery

Rotating in its kiln

The steeplejack remembering

The chimneys he's been in

The ice cubes in the whisky

The lemon in the gin

Black earth under pine trees

Fircones on the stone

Gas in the volcano

Parodies back home

Serpentine confetti

A tickertape parade

It’s never been less risky

But never more afraid

The massive gate is open

The fountain choked with leaves

Arguing in English

But killing in Chinese

Encouragement and friendship

And the musty smell of beer

Losing all the battles

But winning the war

The murder of the lapdog

The mishap on the lake

The man who loved his wife too much

To realise his mistake

The painter trying to capture

The way his dream begins

The ice cubes in the whisky

The lemon in the gin

My apprentice devil

Swaggers on a horse

Swearing by the jaguar

He’ll kill you with a curse

When he flicks the switches

Extinguishing the stars

He darkens all the universe

And gallops back to Mars

The bozo’s summer holiday

The chandeliers that clink

The seventeenth commandment

Commanding us to drink

Black earth under pine trees

Back where we begin

Ice cubes in the whisky

Lemon in the gin