Day 15: Poet 15: Bryan Thao Worra

Photo by Krysada Panusith Phounsiri

Full Metal Hanuman
 
They fling us at empires
When a cosmos needs to die.
 
Engineered by the best AI minds 
Of New Lan Xang,
In the boot-tubes we sing:
“They’ll never let us in,
They’ll never let us in
To holy Himapan!
Not quite monkey, not quite man!”
 
In the future, true havoc needs more
Than a mere dog for war.
 
Laotonium shell around a simian soul,
Dropping through the sky, ready to die,
Armed to the bone with three strong hearts
Tailored for express mayhem and murder of
Your pristine social orders,
 
We close our eyes with time enough to dream,
Six hard minutes through the hot atmosphere:
Visions of fabled Dao Vanon, our own planet,
Our own Xaesar, our own books of law and liberty.
 
“Ape shall never kill ape.”
“No spill blood.”
The joys of Ahimsa.
 
A distant world keeping
All of your promises made to us for 400 centuries.


Previously published in Strange Horizons.
 

Bryan Thao Worra is a Lao American poet and the President of the
Science Fiction and Fantasy Poetry Association. The author of 6 books
of poetry, he holds over 20 awards including an NEA Fellowship in
Literature. You can visit him online at http://thaoworra.wordpress.com
where he shares news and opportunities for Asian American poets
interested in science fiction, fantasy and horror.