It is the hour of mellowed tones
And a setting sun casts shadows
Of a tired body, a fertile land
And into the imagination strains
The fibers of a heritage.

A mountain waits with ears as the gabbang
Picks the pulse of a century,
The music of the suling spirals to life,
Breathes the delicate warmth of a lineage
And night settles beside the children
On bamboo floors, on colored mats
Around an oil lamp.

The old men of the kauman
Begin to gather their audience,
They mouth the voices of their grandfathers
A hush and a respect, the unhurried tone
Raises a kingdom to life,
And the day is distance apart
From the presence of a past.

abunnawas sees the sultan
to protest the chopping of his house
or the king's army in uniform
dunks him into the sea

But it is the hour of witches too
And of the new breed of animals,
Steel stalks the darkness or
Sits with the children too:
Witches clutch into the throat,
Streak in red through the evening sky,
And wrap the conscience, rip the innocence.

now abunnawas rises up from under the rubble
and haunts the kingdom for his acre
with a double-body for the king

- Isnani