Jerit
(Malay for ‘howl’)
And so he says it again
through headlines screaming black bold Serif
on undulating white perimeters
Write − You will have the freedom to write –
He says as he spouts jibber-jabber from pink, watery lips
like swine-filled halos of doom
from the plume of corrupt plinths of marble arches
stretched across the abyss of power,
You, who have seized morality from cowards
engaged in chit-chat over the rights
To write – What is right?
stemming from pulsating vagus nerves
wandering over loose craniums, viaduct throats
binary clots, loose thoraxes, abdomens filled
with bilious bull,
You who rile with constipated gall
You who sing the loose song of false freedoms
You, who in toothless defense watch the night cower
with homeless street urchins on Bukit Bintang
hungry from spent mothers who spread their thin thighs
to the glazed-eyed workers high from inhaling toiled
humid days, sifting their morals and might from concrete
constructing more pricks to adorn
the history of this city of mud,
Will you let us write of new pages by those
who in yellow-infused riotous colour
betrayed the hallowed streets of the city
in the hundreds, in the tens and tens of thousands
who fought back the tear-gassed alleys
with brave tears and Maalox
and damp Good Morning towels
armed with children who shrieked
when the extra-strength gas laced
their young eyes, nimble throats?
Of those who were faced with the ends of black-eyed boots
swirling batons, swallowing their own blood
and the towering lies of a people’s revolution
pulsated by the wrath of pubescent
policemen in nameless fatigues –
your shadow army, while we passed on
mighty green, yellow balls
and sang bravely whilst clutching
empty hand phones that gave not
their paid networks, the final strains
of the Negaraku,
Will you let us write of the deaths in police custody
in the corridors and balconies of the MACC, which
in their silences welcomed the deaths
of those who did not deserve to die
of the grazed back and bruised torso of Kugan
of the twisted neck that Beng Hock did not use to bear
of the sultry songs that she, with new breasts
sang while she squatted and was made to lie
on soiled concrete floors?
Or of the incandescent C4 that blew her up
and the unsinkable submarine that colludes you
with an unspeakable crime, with
the One of the wind-blown face and sticky hair of grime
witch-doctor magic, that soiled her childhood with dark filth
and the loin-cloths of bloodied cocks
of the tiger child lulled by the wind
of the monsoons that birthed her –
her legacy of guilt?
Will you let us write of the hunger that sucks us
in meaningless traffic voids and unworthy
side-kicked, bastardised mantras of feel-good phonetic tunes
in between pin-pricks of holy spaces
in between cars that reek of carbon monoxide
the cacophony of Toyota’s, Hyundai’s
Proton’s and Myvi’s
that scream unholy visions
of cancer-ridden ploys?
You, with emptied-out legions of xanax, cocaine and ecstasy
who wither into the cunning dreams of spirit guardians
and the ghosts of suburbia, who with endless
glee roam into your days and nights
penetrating ethereal slumbers with porn-filled ease
with the magnetic sweep of jazz, K-pop and gangsta-rap
thump-pa-thum-thumping into the blackest of black nights,
The city of mud and shadows will claim you
and night-toils reap you, of ingrained
once noble philosophies of Islam and Al-Afghani
Hadrami traders who fought your wars
made you sane and insane from the trollied bulwark
of petroleum patsies, nightshade bullies who set
the motions of torture in pastured green camps
where you made them write and sing unbridled anthems
of mean civilian wars and with magnetic strains of
Malaysia-Truly Asia,
You who lull uncertain trash into
our sullen skies, with more leaden lies
and rare-earth plunders, the haze
from forest fires of late night tangerine whores
behind doors, willing to pay that little extra
for, “Sir, I give you happy ending”,
And against the backdrop of a hundred thousand
rainbow-clad warriors at Stadium Merdeka
You know that we are free
We are free
We can be,
Do not make it Your right
to give us the right –
We will always have
the right to write,
Yes Sir
We will write a new text
We will write a new beginning
We will have a better ending
We will write a new country,
Free from fear
from vicious ding-dong lies and decrepit cowardly threats –
We deny this bongo-bongo land and its oil palm-republicanism
and We will seek flight in the multi-coloured tapestry
that Is this great country
from the ends of this coloured cloak
of the new and old regal Malays, Indians, Chinese
Iban, Penan, Kadazan-Dusun, Temuan
Rungus, Ukit, Lahanan, Jahit, Chewong tribes
and the sullies of Allah and
whose tongue it suits –
It suits us All and
We take offence,
You will not stop us
and We will rise to fulfill
the birthright that
Is this nation –
We will write this
in All our voices,
And You
Will listen.