Poem

Zeyar Lynn

Side by side

Big Sister Lisa, Have You Been to Laiza?

Big sister Lisa, you are such Dynamite!
I have been smitten since I was a Karen child soldier.
Guitar music . . . Bang, Bang, Bang . . . Manerplaw was sleepless.
On Christmas Day, Laiza was such Dynamite!
Christ on the cross was shot down by a rocket launcher.
“Dynamite!”, ”What a delight to love our national races, Dynamite!”
Refugees lining up on the roadside are not for sale, not for export.
We love our big brothers too, those fighter pilots
who come for us from the sky.
Big sister Lisa, with two six-shooters on your gun belt, sings,
“Bang, Bang . . . just like a cowboy. I will shoot you down, my love.”
Those of us who love you are riddled with bullets.
Since we can’t have peace, give us at least a flyproof outhouse.
Big sister Lisa is my sex symbol. Dynamite!
Once at Pyiwa Restaurant, Big sister Lisa crooned
“Chéri”, pointing her index finger at me. Those guys
Gave me a slant. When they ravished you with violence,
Peace, money, power, gifts & exchanges,
I exploded, “Dynamite, I will shoot you my love.”
Heavy artillery, war planes, choppers, columns . . . Lychees
From Laiza go into the neighboring country
for safe command of the headquarters.
In Pharkant, you just have to dig another hole if you don’t
Hit rich with the first one. There is always another. The death pit
is nothing exotic. It is not imported. Dynamite!
In front of Mala Hall on Prome Road, Dynamite!
Big sister Lisa, I’ve laid down my arm & returned to legal fold.
In this new life, I’ve seen prosthetic limbs everywhere.
I have entertained onstage, & in the cease-fire backstage too. Dynamite!
The national races by the roadside line up for slavery abroad.
I am a cleaner at Panglong hospital.
I have swapped my gun for a broom. Dynamite!
Big sister Lisa, if you sleep with every commander on their
negotiation table, will our Union climax? Dynamite!
Dynamite in bed, not foreign-made.
National races are low-cost, cheap – is that it? For the wealth of
the whole nation, let’s all commit suicide?
Dynamite! Bang, Bang . . . just like a cowboy.
Heavy artillery will annihilate us, out of compassion.
Big sister Lisa, here is the bullet, cut out of my heart.
It’s just a softcore dynamite. It used to go,
“Die, die, die . . . dynamite, DYNAMITE!”

Dynamite: a hit in the 1980s by Karen singer Naw Lisa, Lisa also alludes to a legendary Karen rebel who went by the name of Naw Lisa in the 1960s.

Laiza: the headquarters of the Kachin Independene Organization (KIO) which had been under attack by the Burmese army since Christmas 2012. In May 2013, the Myanmar government and the KIA held another round of negotiations for de-escalation of the conflict which has displaced about 100, 000 Kachin people since December.

Manerplaw: the headquarters of Karen National Union (KNU) which fell under the heavy shelling by the Burmese army in 1995.

National race: official term for ‘ethnic group’ in Myanmar, there are 135 ‘national races’ according to the government.

Pharkant: a town that used to thrive on jade extraction in Kachin state.

Mala Dormitory on Prome Road: a girl hostel on the Rangoon University campus, in front of which musically-inclined male students were usually found serenading their girlfriends and their fancies.

Panglong: a town in Shan State, Burma, known for the historic 1947 Panglong Conference of ethnic leaders for the country’s independence. Panglong Hospital is a private hospital in North Dagon Township, Yangon.

Union: the Republic of the Union of Myanmar, the country’s official name is usually shortened as Union of Myanmar.