VOLUME NO. 34 [1]
VOLUME NO. 33 [2]
I write my life
onto post-it notes
peel them off carefully
there is always a fresh one
underneath
I remove them like plasters
leaving sticky residue
on flaming pink
These notes tell me what to do
and I forget that I am their author
for instance
the one that I stuck to my heart fell
and may be in the river
for all I know
On the first page of the book of history
is a pressed leaf.
On the next page the initial entry reads:
“People have moved away from people
and away from the earth.”
Near the middle of the book
is a dog-eared page marking the day
we first imagined killing the world
and building it again.
Soon after that the pages go blank.
We no longer write in the book of history.
Using needles, we mark our history
directly upon the earth.
History is not a scar, it is colourful
and is therefore a tattoo.
Two soldiers
are preparing to surrender.
Right now they are hunched down in a bunker
to get below the fire fight, and also
because, curled up like this, you can depend for a moment
on the plainness of gravel,
the kindness of the dark—
believe that your mother’s arms have blessed you
and though it is late,
the world might still embrace you, personally.
Perhaps the bunker is a find, like a Rolex on the battlefield,
perhaps they have dug it themselves.
A trench like this is on the way to some other place
where they might be less alone and afraid;
so they didn’t plan to be here.
They have planned to surrender though.
One of them has a white cloth tied to a stick
gripped tightly in his right hand.
The white flag belongs to the nation
without a name.
It doesn’t have a written history
or plans of any kind
and it’s not represented at the UN.
He hasn’t raised that blank flag yet.
We know that he’s right-handed.
It’s possible that the other hand has in it
something important
like the air-dropped leaflets on how to surrender,
but you don’t usually practice
waving a white flag,
so yes, you would hold it in your dominant hand.
And a white cloth a couple of feet square
is not something that you happen to have in your pockets;
you must have brought it with you,
and a thick, strong stick, too,
you can’t find that just lying around in miles of sand.
Unfortunately, despite the provision of the white cloth
despite the effort of finding a stick,
and of hunching over as far as they could,
in a posture as touching as a child’s,
and despite having no visible wounds,
they are dead.
And the failed magic of cloth, stick, hunching over,
goes on reaching, unfailed, in another dimension.
It shows how intimate he is, my enemy,
how much like me.
Now that I have seen these deaths,
my life will also be theirs—
I’ll have to carry them
so that they can see,
walk, embrace, and take on
that weight, that confusion
so necessary for the living.
I can't help but make for them
a place in my heart.
I
When a zoo was built in old Saigon
French colonials sought it out for fun;
white suits, hemp hats for gentlemen
and ladies with parasols and pastel chemise.
They stopped at the pineapple seller, the coconut juice vendor
to suck a straw at a seat out of the tropical sun
and giggled as the children with their insouciant mamas
held sticks of sugar-cane across ditches of dung
to tease the elephants until their trunks danced and sung
Then strolled down the pavements
to view the panther walking on his toes
fresh from the jungle of Waq Waq
black as eden in its dark fall.
Sleek, muscular and virile,
liable to flash his devil eyes
or spray his cologne scent to mark his place;
or lift himself for mating through the fence.
Oh the thrill, the tingle through the bones
and the delicious rude language to torment
the wild animal safely captured, his razor claws
behind the iron bars and concrete cave
that enclosed the beast without distracting the pleasure.
But he was ready to revolt, take back the jungle in a leap,
and watched for signs of the regime’s retreat.
II
That was before the war, the cause of the war.
Now the visitors still take Sundays in Ho Chi Minh City
to escape the heat and motorbike noise
around the Hotel Continental and Pham Ngu Lau,
beat from Banh Tanh markets and the noxious crossways
to the old zoo where they relax in the shadows
of Alacasia odora, lush survivor from the napalm years;
where vanilla orchids perfume the air
and durian hang in domes above cracked stairs
that lead to the same panther’s lair.
And who knows how the panther’s voice should sound
who stalked through empires and revolutions
and still waits for liberation, some rights or compassion.
The Sunday hunters capture panther over and over,
click and delete, zoom to the foreground:
a decoy girlfriend on the rusted fence;
her lips bait the animal for a taste of fresh.
But panther has lost the urge to hunt.
Under the black skin its muscles sag in pouches;
the cartilage is hardened sorrow, dried instincts;
Insane from ennui he shuffles on stumps without claws;
the yellow eyes mourn like sunsets over Xom Lang.
The panther coughs as if about to speak,
then gives up or forgets.
He gazes moodily upon the visitors,
pads back and forth without purpose;
he does not know of death.
The panther scratches at fleas and waits for popcorn,
crunches through his bitterness.
Please right-click & save file to view PDF
Election and Aftermath
