| Nick Nakorn - Skin
Deep
No
blood ran in rivers
When I was a child
Warm-beer-England delivered
The upper crust ran wild
Lining up dominoes
Nineteen sixty five
Nine years old still feeling white
Just glad to be alive
Real lads played hero games
I came to despise
Clint Eastwood and Steve McQueen
Both had Caucasian eyes
The ones who looked like me
Were Biggles' deadly foes
The enemies of the state
The cause of all our woes
And Grandpa cheered for Powell
Though he loved me dear
Cheer up my chap you're English
He said, and drew me near
Pictures of my father
An aristocratic Thai
Confounded the illusion
All slitty-eyes must die
T.V. from Vietnam
Shootings in the street
The boy's check shirt just like mine
The blood pooled at his feet
Before the shot he stood
The gun cold at his head
Bewildered, unbelieving, scared
I watched, I cried, I fled
And millions there were
Neither white nor black
Governed by the rule of sword
The subjects of attack
Western Schools don't report
Eastern Intellect
Half-casts become invisible
Unless in some dark sect
Father, multilingual
Elegant to boot
Stands in grainy black and white
Wearing a western suit
In colour some years later
Shaven head, orange robe
A monk still on probation
Explores a brave new globe
And I too moved within
To break my own success
Beginning to believe that
To have much more is less
Fast-forward two decades
I write to an old address
Perhaps my father lives
I'm nervous, I confess
Perhaps he's dead or gone
In spirit or in form
To late to return
His offspring to the norm
For days and weeks I wait
For e-mail or for post
The pictures of my father
No more real than a ghost
And Asia basks in spillage
From an American Dream
Village girls sell cheap sex
And quarter all esteem
Bangkok canals are roads now
Thai forests are logged out
Yellow skins have bought and sold
Their culture for a shout
So why should I care at all
About my random genes
A snap-shot angry mongrel
Posed in some English scenes?
Then, one Saturday morning
A Thai-stamped letter falls
Upon my Devon doormat
Within my English walls
A greeting and a photograph
His hair now white and proud
A perhaps contented man
And I cast off my shroud
Click
here to visit Nick Nakorn's website
|
