A thirst, a hunger culminating in a gloom <br />Pervaded every palace in dynastic China - <br />From Xian to Luoyang, from Nanking to Beijing, young men deprived of their virility and voluptuous beauties their love <br />spun and hid their sorrowful tales. <br /> <br />Throw all these desperados an all powerful emperor and he became a natural object of contempt. <br /> <br />A persistent jealousy suppressed <br />Kept gnawing at the hearts of the young men <br />Who saw him as having an all-important <br />Faculty which had been taken away from them; <br />And from the concubines who saw him only as an illusive object amidst the thousands of Alexis vying for his attention, their hearts <br />Naturally going back to the sweethearts <br />They had left behind in homeland. <br /> <br />All these unsatiated desires, miseries and <br />discontents painted that unhealthy gloom looming over a palace where insecurity, power struggles and bids for favours were <br />intense. <br /> <br />Almost all lived a self-serving double life. <br />The swords fell on those who failed to negotiate that secured path for the two conflicting selves.<br /><br />john tiong chunghoo<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/of-eunuchs-concubines-and-emperors/
