.

Sarah Liang is a veteran reporter with the Hong Kong Epoch Times who was recently assaulted by communist agents.

It seems there’s little hope to bless
__as Hong Kong’s hard time hardens.
Its skin-thin blossoms’ fallen mess
__is brushed from Hong Kong gardens.

On Springtime trunks, Wind’s mallets bang
__then floral debris settles.
The Epoch Times’ staff’s Sarah Liang
__drops scattered blood like petals.

A journalist for 20 years
__on TV screen and paper,
Before her, ill intention clears
__and facts make slander taper.

She challenges the mighty state
__and withers down the bully.
Its boss-eyed men retaliate
__but don’t recover fully.

They smashed the paper’s print machines,
__they smashed its databases,
They splashed its sheets with lies’ latrines
__but left egg on their faces.

And though they wack her flesh and bone,
__intimidate and thugger,
Pretend they’re not the Party’s own,
__the truth is known as other.

It seems there’s little hope to bless
__as Hong Kong’s hard time hardens.
But there’s more strength than Bad Men guess
__in Epoch Times’ fresh gardens.

.

.

Damian Robin is a writer and editor living in the United Kingdom.


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12 Responses

  1. Damian Robin

    Before we get a wise cracker (or not so wise, just noisy) commenting on the words in the link
    on-the-beating-up-of-sarah-liang-by-damian-robin
    I can reassure everyone that I did not beat up Sarah Liang.
    Thank you. :^)

    Reply
      • Damian Robin

        Thank you for clearing up so many messes on the SCP site, Mike.
        O mender of the mis-spilt pen,
        you fine and whole deleter,
        We need your clipped skills now and then
        to make our script stores neater.
        Go, bro.

  2. Margaret Coats

    A masterful, fighting poem, Damian, beautifully composed so quickly after the event it deals with. Your first stanza made me think of the simple “May-mess, like on orchard boughs” from a sonnet entitled, “The Starlight Night,” by Victorian writer Gerard Manley Hopkins. The garden imagery re-applied to the free press in the final stanza, after the intervening description of events, is stronger and still more effective.

    Reply
    • Damian Robin

      Thanks for the helpful comments, Margaret.
      Good therapy for performance anxiety — as I make a performance of too many things :^)

      I read a lot of Hopkins as a teen and into twenties — a good side of my schooling as it was there I was introduced — on the Eng Lit Exam syllabus, I think. And I went on to read further, though not “The Starry Night”. He seems less successful with this than the nature-centered / earthy observational poems that get to the thing-ness of things. Maybe, having less concrete knowledge of the atmos-stratos-cosmos-sphere than of direct experience with God-outdoors, he was unable to grasp the grandeur and made do with airy, eery concepts. Thanks for the re-introduction, O Educator of homees [another smiley face space here ].

      Hope you got the en-crypt-ion on my last comment on your sublime, sibylline, sybilian, civilian poem being predictably good — as it was, doubtlessly, foretold in unread prophecy in the book of time (if you get my drift).

      [ space place for thumbs up here ]

      Reply
  3. Susan Jarvis Bryant

    Damian, this heart-rending poem shouts out for those who go unheard and I applaud you, not only for your accomplished poetry, but for your bold heart and sense of justice. Thank you!!

    Reply
    • Damian Robin

      Cheers, Susan. You are a boon to this site with your encouragement and good words in prose and poems …

      There is much awkwardness in HK — more so now as Falun Gong practitioners and supporters are getting the CCP ‘bad movement / anti-China divisives’ treatment. FG has been a solid beacon for righteous action in HK, showing a measured, pragmatic, spiritual and a-political approach to living in HK. Yet, the main CCP-sponsered paper there has recently called for the banning of Falun Gong in Hong Kong.

      You will no doubt know this, having won a prominent place in the 2021 FOFG Poetry Contest https://classicalpoets.org/2021/05/13/winners-of-the-friends-of-falun-gong-poetry-contest-announced/ and https://fofg.org/competitions/2021-poetry/

      Keep on strengthening the Truth, Susan.

      Reply
  4. Elizabeth

    A beautiful piece of writing. I wish the world could see and hear the beauty of poems like yours Damian!

    Reply
    • Damian Robin

      Thanks, Elizabeth. I am glad you support the content of this website with your magnanimous words.

      Comments like these help us all — Keep ’em coming when they are appropriate!

      Reply

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