Outside native shore where distant relatives come from
Mountainous hills looked like folds of crashing tide
Grooving trees danced to the rhythm of ancestral drum
Woodcraft countenance of a beast appeared, faces run to hide


Metal gutting through air like the reek of some fermented spirit
All shivering bones must heed to this mystic call of resonance
And should one ignore those small alarming bells; waist-tied to this trigger happy grit
Only vicious death 'll bid victim farewell in any horrifying state of happenstance


We should have set forth at dawn; long before the eve of a looming Caesar's day
Lest we meet dangling blade at the crossroads handheld by bitumen-drenched ****** from southeast
But as daylight covered herself with a blanket of gathered thick clouds of may
The land's celebration of silence was ruined with the marching ankle-bells of the masked beast


Cultures are birthed like the plethora skins of an onion
Smearing our visions with this spiritual sogginess of something rooted and cruel
We have always known masquerade brandishing a stick stripped from tall bamboo straws; to be seen as a merriment minion
And not this awful glare at its wake, needing mask spray from mouth-spitting gin, perhaps; to aggravate horror of a burning fuel


We have heard rumors of their king's weaning breathe
Perhaps; mere travelers' souls should be spared from unforeseen burial rites
For our supplication of a thousand lives shall go to mend his majesty's health
So we may leave the festival behind with great hastiness and mights