Poetry at Sangam
Poetry at Sangam showcases poetry in English and translations as well as essays on poetics and news of new releases.
The best geh way to show faith in the Communist Party is to wait
until dusk law. The night seals your spectral urge for independence.
The sun isn’t omnipotent ga. It kowtows to the party in day
broad light. The Red Guards are friendly; no need scare lah.
Their hands grow a hemlock, penis big as a cicada’s leg.
When they serve people lei, they say Try my breast.
Whether or not to take it literally jau you can decide gei.
See? There’s freedom. It’s okay ga to like Americans,
such as SpongeBob, so long as you also find ways to caulk
the sky until the city furls in discipline, dry from serrated
democrats and the shape of floods gum law. By the fuck,
what the way, why’re you thinking? No need to think lah.
Keep your head light like flounce; our leader is charming
like a Tic-Tac. Your knife dou no need la. You’ll be utterly safe.
Plus, the blade is thantophobic. We’ll be comrades ma.
You ask ask others la. Comrades love each other so much
so that sometimes their campaign posters look a bit
homosocial. The eyes that can’t hide the want for wrung
brotherhood are patriotism. Don’t take it the other way lah –
two rods clanging isn’t rhapsodic. Sameness shouldn’t
be cradled in sex. I know, you people worry this and that
yau mud yau mud. We care about human rights, as much
as we do about Johnny Depp. Those we arrest, we arrest
because their eyes are hollow of a morning sparkle.
We want our people to glow. Not run farther out. No,
ears aren’t treason. Speech isn’t erasure. The media
turns fetid and white as it gets old. If alphabets are votes,
the most democratic word is pneumonoultramicroscopicsilico–
volcanoconiosis. How you crawl in knowing like you might.
The poem first appeared in Wasafiri.