Mandalay through a peephole

Sann Kyawswar Winn
Translated by Ko Ko Thett

All creatures are mortal.

Nay Myo is our resident poet,

the immortal,

with a bunny of a heart.

Maung Thein Zaw does beiktheik;

at Buddhist ceremonies;

he chants incantations for cash.

While reciting a phayataing martial yatu,

he jumped and screamed

when a leaf fell at his feet.

He’s the Duke of Mandalay poets.

Neither diamond, nor gold,

just a roadside stone from Mandalay.

If there are only two seats for three persons,

“Shut it, I will sit on the floor.” he insists.

Mr. Stone Obelisk, Khin Zaw Myint,

he lives the Mandalay life. He lives in honesty.

This one sings mahagita, the Burmese classical.

He plays the xylophone.

He will smack your head when he is in bad mood.

His age has mellowed,

his voice stays strong.

With all the virtues of Inwa is

Baba U Ko Lay.

He is 65, his prison age is 35.

Maung Hmaing Lwin lives up to his name,

all the hues of the blues.

In the time of murderers going places

he was jailed for 

grabbing a corpse.

“The day I take my cowboy hat off

there will be a deluge in Mandalay,”

declares Saya Maung Thin Pan.

Ko Dat, Mr. Elements, claims,

“The Earth began in fire.
IN FIRE IT WILL END!”

Bo San Pe held out in the jungle in an armed resistance.

He held the frontline of a campus protest.

“Call me Bro, call me Uncle.

You may call me what you like.

My ears are fed up with “Saya, Saya.”

That is our city’s revolutionary poet San Nyein Oo.

Every inch of his skin is covered in tattoos.

Myanmar and Manchester United flow in his veins.

The Godfather is sheathed in velvet.

“I don’t know how to fight with my fist,

I only know how to wait tables.”,

brags the restauranteur, the poet Htun Thway Eain.

He is a hundred percent loving kindness.

He sounds like an academic when he speaks.

Mo Shan owns an index finger,

fated to be crowned.

“Bro, you want some more?

No more intoxicants after this one.

It’d be great if we could get pissed

on the Mandalay moat water.”

The poet Yoe Di is gone.

“Motorcycles reek of fuel.

They burn your arse too.”

Ko Nyein, who will always cycle

a great distance for a poem, is also gone.

He calls everyone “Nephew-son-darling.”

He teases me to no end.

He loves teaching English to

the unteachable Lay Thway Nyo.

He calls me “My Son.”

Nay Moe Nyo is a biker poet

who keeps riding

to the edge of the earth.

The eagles are about to roost.

The earthly star is

about to shine in heaven.

That’s the heavyweight Paing Soe Way.

I miss my brother, who moved

to Monywa for marriage, to become a noble.

He tutored high school students, while

letting his mind roam in poetry.

At Kuthodaw, they say

florists aren’t as pretty as flowers.

When you see a florist,

whose spirit is prettier than flowers,

your chest will be overlaid with 

with poetic scents.

Salutes to

the poets I often met on Sundays.

If you want to peep at Mandalay

you will need a humongous hole

to capture all the scenes.

— —