‘The End of the Party’ and Other Poetry by Damian Robin

The End of the Party

The blood-red dragon struggles
To keep China locked,
To keep the whole world huddled,
‘Cow’-towed, awed, and shocked.

To consolidate its power,
It whisks slight of hand,
Throws up magicians’ trophies
And juggles demand.

A past, butchered history
And vast cheques, not signed,
Are joined by sterile scalpels
With snakebite minds.

Rich patients order organs –
Livers, kidneys, hearts,
Pancreases, corneas –
The theatre’s dark arts.

Though patients hide their scruples,
And donors soon die,
Military hospitals
Provide a wide supply.

Plain, onscreen, the prison facts:
Organs by square feet:
Christians, Uyghurs, Falun Gong,
Databased, complete.

Though doomed, the Party juggles,
Silhouettes cut light:
Histories, monies, scalpels,
Turning day and night.

The sun turns off the Party,
But still, its shadow’s big.
More copious than oil or debt,
Blood slides from its rig.

The scab that is the Party
Dirties all it views –
But China’s constant qualities
Means China will not lose.

Red Shadow

The Party is not China. The Party
is not strong. The Party had no country
but appropriated one. The Party
has no future, no full past. The Party
can’t continue, the Party cannot last.

The Party is an elaborate mime.
The Party is a sham. The Party’s time
is short. The Party’s spam. The Party’s crime
is known – that it persecutes the sublime.
The Party’s blood-thick flags hang heavy
at half-mast.

Though the Party’s limp, China is not free.
Though the beast’s a gimp, it drags the country.
Known as a pimp, the world still funds its fee.
Though the blood-blast Party’s spent, the country
foots the accident.

Damian Robin is a journalist and poet living in England.

Featured Image: “Imprisoned Dafa Practitioner” by Yuan Li

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