Loving my land dying inside - Essay

New Internationalist, May, 2002 by Anushka Anastasi Solomon

Poems from Malaysia by Anushka Anastasia Solomon

Raped, Draped and Relegated

I slept with the Prime Minister, Mahathir,

jangan kuhatir *, why not, 1 am not

telling a soul. He unloaded his songkok *,

bald, ribald and bare -- why do you stare?

You know he does it. You, his wife, do you

care? You, his daughter, didn't you hear the hymen tear?

I force the details on you mad, bad and glad

to share how he gunned me down

like a muted, molted hare, blinded

by the headlights of a snare in a singularly

built concrete jungle Mahathir -

Jangan kuhatir cracked open my skull,

monkeyed my brain and can you bear it

broke even the bars of the jail to suffocate

this tale before I turn pale and stiff like

a bed of nails I say I could not lay on so

my soul sank out from under him

gasped and suffered and piteously died

while you all sat around the table covering

your ears drowning my tears

supping chinese elixirs, drumming dikir barats *

karaoke klapping hands, Eh wah! Eh Wah!

Aweh! Aweh! accepting ringgit * bribes

beckoning some long forgotten moon, you

forget you are afraid of stricture, denying all

scripture, you crow as I cry

How he soiled the marital bed!

How he drew the mattress to court!

How uselessly, uselessly I fought!

When he called, beating his chest,

'Are there any men out there?' no-one

came baring their breasts, he was right -

Mahathir, jangan kuhatir - We are an

emasculated nation, emancipated from

nothing and constipated with everything.

I do declare, if I Look East, as you feast and

and see a rising sun, my brains are unctuous

matter, dissolving before the witch doctor's

chant is begun.

If you remember correctly

before he mended memory and gave you

a medical history he came -

A Malay Dilemma

his own medical balls poured into some

pants, mouthing heresy, masking fantasy,

asking in ornate oratory to placate your anxious ass

by probing, poking and peeking, leaking like the plague

into the air Malaysians ate as they doubted Fate

and debated Faith letting in the Prince of Air.

If all I tell you isn't viable,

If all I bell is the cat, doesn't it rather vitiate the air

If you got raped and then draped with his pants?

You go girl, get yourself some justice

Just take yourself some care, Friday

is not a good day, maybe you ought to go pray,

there is that long foray -- lunch break -- some months are

for fasting, the rest of the year they are dusting

In the police precincts, you can get raped again,

But with Mahathir, I am telling you,

jangan kuhatir, no-one will tell a soul, no-one will

really care or dare.

Give Mahathir Your Tourist Dollars

Come to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia the city bolted on the inside lighted on the outside bring your tourist dollar, hear us holler, bring your tourist dollar; 'Selamant Datang' * visit now my burial ground, bring cash I have so much to offer -- the dead, in auspicious Chinese red proffer -- receive in paper all they can get -- quaint customs, traditional bamboo blinds the Malays with cash you can have a bash, the Indians dance to all tunes, in our modesty we hide our travesty like the ostrich in sand dunes what in the nation what shall I not praise? What have we not to lift up to the human race? For a price, you can have the coconut tree moved, auspicious rice, forest bound lives, or city hives, ride the rickshaw, rub shoulders with the urbanites, enjoy the native smile, marvel at the lack of guile and when we assemble in coloured lies, you realize, we went to so much trouble to practise rites for your delight so Come to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, The city bolted on the inside, lighted On the outside, you will feel l ike you died and went to heaven, we will be open all night like a tavern dancing on our monuments like pawns in noodle soup, oh, prawns! flying kites or head hunting among the dead in auspicious red, don't you get all suspicious now and start looking around for the bullies on your playground -- you know the walking dead buried in four hundred and fifty two meters of glass and steel never make a sound. so bring your tourist dollar but don't you go fooling around the crown in the land of the sultans in kain songket *, velvet, silk, batik or damask they know how to bring you down without a dollar so adjust your collar hear me holler and come to the city bolted on the inside, lighted on the outside, Come to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. 'Selamal Datang'

The Creed of the Poet in a Woman/Poetess

I wandered like a river, meandered like a nomad, looking for a poet who could set a drunken bard afire; a loaf of bread, a jug of cold water sustained on all I read, I went as the spirit led.

There were poets who lurched words across the page ornate words that had women bound, bah! bah! said Ezra Pound, 'I have sung women in three cities, But it is all the same; and I will sung of the sun'.

Black, black like a raven fled his words in pun, red, red, like a woman bled the land laid underground; against rocks and snakes I dashed my head, in an ocean I made my bed

in the sounds that rushed around, all the books that abound, I found few who wrote of things I knew, like a woman whose feet are bound I wandered like a river, meandered like a nomad