‘I dreamt of Mao Zedong’ and other poems

Aung Khin Myint

I dreamt of Mao Zedong 

I just dreamt of Mao Zedong. ‘To die for the people is weightier than the Mount Tai, but to work for the fascists and die for the exploiters and oppressors is lighter than a feather.’ I heard him clearly. I thought I had a heartburn before sleep. I’d had a bit of Coke. In Myanmar society there are many feathers floating in the air. I even attempted to keep one of the feathers in the air by blowing. Dreams are just like that. Things you’ve forgotten tend to resurface in the shady interiors. Call it a dream if you will. For instance a loose button I’d put on themousewalkof my house in Goodlive came back to me as a teardrop many years later. “Comrade, don’t be flowery about anything.” Mao yelled at me. Am I not supposed to be romantic about the mountain mist, or the one-thousand year flower, or the couple who jumped into the river, or rock lions which roar all night, or arrows that turn back to the archer? In that case history will have to be written all over again. In that case, I will have to start from the scene where I was having a bowl of rice porridge on 20th Street about 20 years back. The opening scene then will be a pair of godly hands that are effortlessly chopping a roast duck. Where did we go all wrong? If we don’t have the answer to that question we will have to leave home again each time we are at the place where we got all wrong. We will leave our sheep pen open to the wolf. We will remember our journey only after setting our boat on fire. A shoal of sharks was chasing after Mao. I had to explain to the sharks, ‘Sorry, it’s just a dream.’ The sharks made a quick exit. The arrows we have shot have turned back into our own hearts. That’s it! I will no longer write about life as if it were a dream. In a room with a flickering fluorescent lamp, we give a red salute to something else.
 

Yangon

‘Can you hear the drums, Fernando?’ All of a sudden, all the smartphones of all the pedestrians ring at the same time. The ringtone reminds them of the Mexican Revolution, a photograph of General Zapata with his famous handlebar moustache, holding a sword in one hand & a rifle in the other, & liberty behind a thick scrim of smoke. Yangon, at once, turns himself into a deaf yogi with a necklace — with a picture of the Lord Buddha’s molar relic emitting yellow lights, clanking at his throat. Yangon is street-smart. Yangon is a coyote, survivor from the dawn of history. He lives off rotten flesh & blood of the monarchs he once served. He licks off ashes of the bones of historical epochs. In times of revolution, he makes a modest living printing flags. He will ignore the discoloured reds on the streets of the fallen masses. Sometimes Yangon is a saviour. With his huge pearly penis, he will deflower the underaged slum. He has put a girl with thanaka on her cheeks on a rough patch. Yangon is full of remorse sometimes. Like a taxidermized stag, gazing at the heavens with blank eyes, Yangon gazes at the deepest layers of infinity. Yangon knows too well how trivia live in the deepest strata of life. At that depth, the meaning of life comprises bioluminescent jellyfish, breathtakingly beautiful bluish-green seaweed & a mouthful of a whale whose mouth is as big as the cosmos. Yangon, aka the End of Strife, has not reached the end of strife. In fact Yangon has fallen in love with Adversary. Even when the galloping horses which are going to arrest him were around the corner, he was in lust, sucking his lover’s nipples. Yangon has killed his own lover. Yangon, having set his watch half an hour faster than the standard time, has to wait for the hangmen at the gallows. A week ago Yangon discovered his stolen smartphone at a thiefspawn in Mogul Street. He turned on the phone, & gawked at his family photo wallpaper gradually appear on the screen cracks.

Say Cheese!

Do we need to read cheese? Is that the post-capitalist chunk of cheese that would gladden a thousand nerves on a third-world tongue? The sense of taste of the Hindus who gurgle with fire may be more akin to ours. Those generations who only find their own wives tasty! We stole away in a ship on the white rivulet on the pelvis of our own ladies. Since Cyclone Nargis, the leftover of gods who had feasted on the ill-fated white-sand beaches has multiplied. The news anchor’s deadpan face makes it impossible to feel for the victims. A team of elderly women have appeared on the desert — each of them carrying a shovel. They are after the remains of their loved ones. They don’t pay attention to the government announcement, ‘We have thrown everything into the sea.’ Mirrors have deleted our images of years past. Some disappeared at the turn of the road. Some were gone while they were having a wet shave. Others, while grinding their teeth in sleep. Just like going to the stars. In fact everything is past. The thing you see now right in front of your eyes is past a billionth of a second by the time you think you see it. The taste of cheese on your tongue might have taken longer than your lifetime in development. From your tongue to your nerves, from your nerves to your brain. Look, an old woman   bumps into a human foot in her husband’s shoe. The sock is burgundy. The type of burgundy that goes well with a specific type of cheese. The type of cheese that is ruinous to your tongue that will praise its mighty taste. Now, old lady, will you raise your husband’s leg bone with one hand, and the wine glass with the other? Okay okay, say cheese!