The Burden of Being Bama.

Ko Ko Thett

 it's living on sawdust and shrimp paste to save for diamonds
 it's being a lustrous luna in a bamboo tube thinking "how
dainty i am!"
it's being a haystack fire flaring suddenly fading out swiftly
it's aching for the aunt from the embrace of the mother
what's your key majority in minor-c or minority in major-d
cease-fire in flat-b or cease-identity in sharp-g give me a falsetto
let's improvise no need for harmony
what would you choose want, rage, or ignorance defeatism or
maldevelopment an increase in viral load or a decrease in
 Internet speed sexual preoccupation or self-denial power cuts or
power crazes a bag of rice or an ounce of democracy myopic blitheness,
escapist wizardry and
 alchemy syncretization of incompatibilities internalization of
irreconcilabilities the four noble truths the four oaths
......... ...................................
................................... the menu is endless the die's
been cast
your karma is you life short suffering tall plenty of water no fish, no
fish at all 

Author's note:

1. Bama/Myanma is the majority ethnic group in Burma/Myanmar.

2. Maldevelopment: the violation of the integrity of organic, interconnected, and interdependent systems, which sets in motion a process of exploitation, inequality, and injustice--a concept introduced by Vandana Shiva in Staying Alive: Women, Ecology and Survival in India (1988).

3. The four oaths that have been drilled into the conscious and the subconscious of the members of Burma's armed forces (tatmadaw) are:

--We shall be loyal to the state and citizens.

--We shall be loyal to fallen tatmadaw members.

--We shall carry out the order and duty assigned from above.

--We pledge ourselves to sacrifice our life for our state, citizens and tatmadaw.

ko ko thett grew up in Burma and now lives in Vienna. In 1996 he published and clandestinely distributed two uncensored chapbooks, The Rugged Gold and The Funeral of the Rugged Gold. He left Burma in 1997 following a brief detention for his role in the December 1996 student uprising in Rangoon. His poems that appear in Bones Will Crow were translated back into Burmese by himself, Pandora, and Khin Aung Aye.