Ng Yi-Sheng (b. 1980)
SELECTED POEMS
The Audience
One day they will come for us:
the foolish ones, the intellectuals.
One day we will burn
like scrolls in Alexandria.
One day they will break down the gates
of our black box operas and ateliers.
Rip the masks from our faces
and the angklungs from our hands.
Listen,
they've sacked a museum,
outlawed an Aztec epic.
They’ve dynamited an Afghan Buddha,
a Dutch Madonna,
censored a film.
Listen,
the Khmer Rouge just called;
they want to take your photo.
The revolution must always devour
her brightest children.
Tonight you may sleep with them,
eat of their festivals, drink of their mooncake,
engineer their Moscow mausoleums -
but never forget:
One day, they will come,
a mighty parade, in a stadium built of our bones.
Open your mouth and sing:
it has always happened,
it has not happened, yet.
by Ng Yi-Sheng
from A Book of Hims (2017)
