"The Political Prisoner Cat"

"The Political Prisoner Cat" illustrated by Kenneth Wong

Being more concerned with yarn balls and birds than meters and rhymes, the feline population may never know the true extent of their influence on poetry. The furry creatures inspired "Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats" by T. S. Eliot. Their footprints (paw prints, to be exact) also showed up in "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock," where Eliot's yellow fog "rubs its back upon the window-panes ... rubs its muzzle on the window-panes / Licked its tongue into the corners of the evening ... / Slipped by the terrace, made a sudden leap .../ Curled once about the house, and fell asleep."

In my homeland Burma, a group of poets held a poetry reading dubbed "Taw Hlan Kyaung" ("Revolutionary Cat") in July. They adopted "Free Pussy Riot!" as the official battle cry of the event. (The cat poets maintain a Facebook page here.)

Han Lynn, one of the participants, seems particularly devoted to the feline cause. He recently published a collection of poetry titled "100 Cats." He once wrote on his Facebook page, "It's not that I kept putting cats in my poetry; they somehow found their way into it." In another spontaneous Facebook note, he remarked, "We're all cats; we just don't remember it." It's inevitable that, through our literary exchanges and banters, his feline fever should rub off on me. My "Political Prisoner Cat" and Han Lynn's "Revolutionary Cat," you might say, are close cousins.

The Political Prisoner Cat

Instead of chasing yarn balls and birds,
He chewed betel quid, sipped tea under a tree
And read Marx to underpaid worker mice.
When he cried “Meow,” he meant “Mao.”
His tail was sentenced to 20 years in Insein Jail
For what his paws did in 88.
He could easily slip through the iron bars
And flee down the drain pipe,
But he refused to leave his cell;
You see, he couldn’t bear to leave behind
His little blue prison shirt.
When the guards wanted a bedtime story,
He told them about Aung San Suu Kyi.
When they tossed him a fishbone in pity,
He took a sniff and turned up his nose.
He roared (in Patrick Henry’s Virginia accent)
“Give me a wishbone, or give me death!”

Note: The little blue prison shirt is my tribute to U Win Tin, a senior member of Aung San Suu Kyi's NLD party who spent 19 years in prison. After his release, he continues to wear his blue prison shirt, as a gesture of solidarity with the prisoners of conscience still behind bars.