Three Poems by Taban lo Liyong

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Poor Man

You can't even skin him for his fur.

The hair's only on the head, armpits, and pubic areas.

Patches far apart. The rest of the body

Is bare of wool, and the skin is too thin.

No use: you can't have a drum skin from him.

He can't do for a sleeping mat. Hitler found

He was no use for lamp-shades.

They say he makes good soap,

But you must be deeply soiled

To need such a scrubbing.

Problems

The object:

The object was itself, and looked like itself:

It never gave any hint to the contrary.

If anything, it looked more absorbed in itself.

Obviously, it was not going to give anything away.

The impression one got was that,

As far as the object was concerned,

That was that.

The cameraman:

He looked at it from home with his eyes bare:

It looked black, dark, clear, translucent.

He went and bought a camera; the object,

Through the eye of the camera, looked like itself!

So he looked at it through the camera obscura

And received a picture,

Dark, clear, black,

As the negative—

Which he deposited in the National Academy.

He then moved a bit north for a different perspective.

The object still remained black, dark, and clear.

Another photographic session, at different speeds.

When these were developed, the result was this:

It was all dark, clear, and black,

Like the negative.

Ministers to the Toothless

When I am old and my teeth are gone or rotted,

Let me age away near KFC or McDonald's hotel:

Potatoes have no fibres and just disintegrate in the mouth.

When they are squared and fried hot, you don't need teeth;

Finger-licking good spring chicken eaten hot is swallowed whole.

The coleslaw in hamburgers is for additional salivation.

It softens the bread and your gums can pound the meat,

And you turn everything over in the mouth and swallow:

Nobody knows if you chewed or just washed it down,

Especially as the salt on the potatoes and drugs in the Coke

Contribute a lot to the salivation and gunning down.

The workers of the East with their poor dental care,

The poor of the world who buy silence with sweets and ice-cream,

Will keep McDonald's and the General in business

Regardless of ideology, change of regime, whims of the boss.

When I have no teeth, apples are out, as are steak and ribs.

Fried chickens, eggs, minced meat, coleslaw, and bread—

These I can eat with my gums, with my baby.