| Mao Disinterred There’s no stone to roll away from this concrete mausoleum Just a queue of a hundred believers Eager to step over the thresholds and gaze at the sallow, waxen face of their old master lying supine in his treacherous coffin atop a cool slab of the blackest granite. Still sent out to work each morning Battalions of soldiers guard his crystalline sarcophagus. Keep moving they urge Eyes villainous, to linger is a crime. The bravest drones kowtow the Great Helmsman While others wave their little red books – the Gideons of another revolution. He sleeps uneasy in that cool hall, kept steady at eighteen degrees Frozen in time ad nauseum like a grim fairytale, yet destined every afternoon to retire like a hunk of vintaged shank to the coolest recesses of China’s grandest fridge. A Tussauds’ corpse, harmless as a paper tiger bounded by plastic flowers freshly picked: once we’re through they will be ferried back to the kiosk to be resold to the next unwary buyer because even in death the East’s greatest con lives on. |
Ben Barton
If you've any comments on this poem, Ben Barton would be pleased to hear from you.
