Towards the End of Chinese Communism
Through Shanghai’s packed glissando peaks and Beijing’s glossy miles,
As though to keep out counter breaths and polish glassy smiles,
The dazing days of blinding fogs form fumes like whiskey casks,
And crowds wear masks like masks still worn for organ harvest tasks.
Stretched fencing cranes brick up grave holes in deep construction sites …
Dank cuts of meat and fly-tip slops no human ever bites
Steam cook in dumpsters clogging backs of restaurants and shops …
Here anyone who says what’s what is taken for the chop.
As Chinese round the world are tracked, the living and the dead,
The CCP’s cold genocides that poison what gods fed
Are swallowed in Divinity as Wholesome Light extends
And manifests in Falun Gong and all of Heaven’s friends.
Light
Light we know.
Light that may not show.
Deep Light, while human eyes are shallow.
Purity.
Light we may not see;
far from human visibility.
Perfect light,
Inner Light, Wide Light
that folds the world in Perfect Insight.
Why Satire Fails Cold Genocide
Today, let’s say your mother’s taken sick.
You’re old, she’s older and she’s put inside
A hospital so wide you need a map
To find her bedside.
Let’s say it’s serious, her smoldering wick
Inside her’s choked too far to hide with pride
And when you call she’s closed inside a nap
Of dark’ning moonside.
It’s close intimacy, not NHS
Neglect or medical mismanagement
Nor at a distance you can chortle ‘bout—
It’s heart inside
Fuming out to seek humane redress
Of Fate, a personal encirclement,
So it’s okay to shriek jaw-wide, full shout,
Astride some hillside.
Your deep reaction isn’t wit or stick-
It-into hard-faced syndicates for wide
Mishandling of human life as crap
Beneath a bedside.
Cold genocide’s more than a potty mess;
More than an open war; not argument
So visible that all can pity about—
It’s hid inside
A powerhouse of threat and mar and stealth
That travels in a long trajectory
That bears a can’t-touch-me autonomy
That if disturbed disturbs world wider wealth
That for too long we’ve kept as company
And handheld as inevitability
And so turn from unless it grows to be
Our mother’s bedside.
Note:
“Cold genocides stand in contrast to ‘hot’ genocides, destructive acts of high intensity which annihilate the victim group in a short time span.”
Studies of genocides have mainly dealt with periods of five or less years. Exceptions to this are the Ottoman Empire (present day Turkey, Syria, and Iran) killing of Armenians, in the early twentieth century; the Indonesian military’s killing of Timorese in East Timor in the late twentieth century; Sudan, Dafor, where black Africans and non-arabs (Muslims) have been killed since the beginning of this century; and the Chinese Communist Party’s killing of faith-based groups, particularly Falun Gong, in the early twenty-first century.
“There is a sliding scale of genocides which vary with the perpetrators’ perceptions of the victim groups, the intentions of the perpetrators, the speed with which the genocides occur[,] the tools being utilized, and the intensity of genocidal motivations.”
The above information and quotes come from
Cold Genocide: Falun Gong in China, 2018.
Damian Robin is a writer and editor living in the United Kingdom.
I liked all three of these, particularly the first, with the understated horror it conjours up. The unusual adjectives in the first line make the poem clamour for attention for me, and reading it through doesn’t disappoint.
Thanks Peter. It’s great to see ‘a message’ ‘getting through’; that people ‘know’ although there’s still more messaging to do.
Really nice poems. Left me with a feeling of deep satisfaction
I hope with the strength of this satisfaction, Renewal, you can tell others about what is going on in China.
I’m impressed with the innovative rhyme-scheme in the 3rd poem.
Thanks Monty. Often the odd rhyme scheme comes with irregular line length. A critic said Keats could not keep to the straight and narrow (or some such negative). Your comment makes me wonder how the un-rolled-out rhymes and line lengths in poetry happen. One way is … Begin to move; get it under control; repeat. Continue; prove; bake raised words from the soul; complete.
Endeavour . . that’s how it happens.
In deed . . . whatever the weather.
Monty – having read the third poem, do you consider its title — that satire is inadequate to treat cold genocide — is ‘proved’ ?
I don’t believe that satire can ever be inadequate for any subject. Anything which can be criticised can be satirised.
On another thread on this site you noted something as being ‘not quite sarcastic, let’s say facetious’. This links to derision and satire. I think satire is meant to be is distinguished by being inventive or in the arts.
That’s one point.
Your comments helped me see that I was being too close to the survivors of CCP atrocities. I become sentimental and lose track of the persecutors.
There are three sides I am now seeing – victims, violators, and by-standers. The last two can be satirised, derided, and I can be sarcastic/facetious about.
All three need compassion. ‘There but for the grace of God … ‘ But these last two need ‘showing up’, have mirrors presented to them. They may be too far gone or hard but need ‘poking fun at’. I think it’s keeping to the humour that keeps satirists sane.
Have you done satire?