SPLEEN 3: Supreme White
By Larissa Lai
abdominal and/or epigastric pain, digestive issues, heart pain
could the opium have gone bananas
tripped a deeper horror?
say the chiu chau defeat the green gang
take control of the comprador colony
make a chungking mansion
out of every high-rise tower
n tu yueh-sheng n chiang kai-shek
kick mao tse-tung in his long march
and blast chinese workers back
to american levels of oppression
fragrant harbor as chicago of the east
all the girls go suzie
and a thousand gross-out william holdens
fantan the port
reveals america’s fascist sympathies sooner
land of the free goes all man in the high tower
and china industrializes quicker
on gangster cash
enters the arms race
and puts mutual assured destruction on notice
what reversal would right its left then?
say hannah arendt waxes total recall
n chow yun-fat schwarzeneggers
our cyborg asses all the way to daddy cool
too cool for nuclear winter school
Source: Poetry (July/August 2017)