China was my dad’s country,
His ancestors’ in fact.
Once,
Someone explained to me
How people like dad and I
Might be good musicians,
Although we play Handel
Like monkeys or mongrels,
Performing with deft hands,
Mimicking souls and hearts.
I may indeed be my dad’s
Dearest monster mongrel,
Neither a devil or an angel.
I thank your god my mum,
At least,
Has got less of a yellowish skin.
I might then have a chance,
Born scorned and despised,
To be blessed and baptised
On just one side of my skin,
Painted the one colour
To which you ever feel akin.
And yet no eyes, soulful or slanting,
Can ever perceive a gradation of tints,
At either extremity of grey
Or in the steps of its array,
Endowed with the saturation of truth.
I am not sure
But it could be
We have to look within primeval souls
And break it down in primary colours.
So, let loose of a skin that’s so callous,
Start to moult and break the mould.
Without a rush,
Revelation follows transmutation,
Praying to convert, to transfigure,
Your faith in fear
Into truthful trust,
Your fiend and foe
Into better friends.
This will be disclosed as you learn
To ponder with a childish candour
All the fervour for your own colour.
For, whatever my eyes’ shape
Or whatever my skin’s shade,
The only truth we should pursue,
Shining through the purest hues,
Exists beyond the shades of grey,
Faint white, light black,
And their shadows.
In the light of this law,
I would not however
Try to deny whatsoever
The core of your splendour
Sitting well beyond any pallor
And sore within my skin colour.
One thing I can ask as a favour
Is to let me dare write poems,
Regardless of your anathema,
To scratch down my anthems
On either side of my skin.
The thing is though
I am sadder they will never,
By our birth,
Sport the swing and soul
That’s dressing up your skin,
And weighing down your heart.
I wish I had one of those,
Either a soul or a heart.
I could shed true tears
And write true poems
That read like songs,
Sweet and sour and sad.
It’s hardly a tad of sheer bad taste,
Should you be heard praying,
Behind my verse and lines,
Diffident and indecent.
At times like these,
You are allowed to talk and walk
With the very one who lives
Outside you.
So, for God’s sake!
If not for mine,
Can you not stop running away?
I would never attempt any foray,
Unless of course I was given a pass.
I’ll choose instead
To just follow your damn distance
From the height of the still moon,
So you do not breathe
A stench of soulless skin.
If really you cannot bear
The way and wonder
I am never who you care,
And will not cross the lines
Between my skin and your soul,
Can you not just embrace
This collection of my loose lines?
They do not rhyme purposefully,
And cannot swing along rhythm,
Never singing like souls of saints.
But these are all the lines
That came out of my loins,
True as blood that’s slain.
So, do not hate me
For who I am not.
Can you not simply like this lad
Who’s meant to be so like his dad?
Like me
As I
Would
A lesser crap, a better chap
Who,
Somehow,
Forged, flimsy and fragile,
A soul, a heart
Made of china, made in China.