When the night falls
I recall dead friends.
The habit’s stayed with me since childhood.

Before I fall asleep I imagine stories,
dream dramas.
I get weepy with tragedies.

I get angry-happy with my characters.

One night
a headless dude showed up,
demanding me to discuss Ka{a.
'Did you read anything new in Germany?’ he asked.
I retorted,
‘Mate, you don’t even know where your head is.

You still wanna outshine me with your worthless reading list?’

Another night,
two goners reappeared in Myanmar Beer tees.
They were Zaw Win Htut fans.
They brought with them whatever they found out there.
They even got a voodoo doll.
A bloody know-all I was, I said,
‘Mates, do you know,
there’s an annual voodoo festival in Bali?
It’s like our arts festivals.’
One of them, a trash talker, suggested,
‘Let’s get a voodoo master.
In a huge marquee,
we’ll point the bone at the ma-ah-la military.’

Another night
the Chef came see me.
‘Sis, let’s go sit at the restaurant over there.’
At the restaurant he just hung his head,
without a word.
He wolfed down tons of Kachin pennywort salad.

When he was done
he hopped on his bike & drove away. Man, you didn’t even scrape mud
off your leather boots!

Another night,
I was already quite yawny when
the Poet, carrying his legs
on his shoulders, popped in.
He made me read one of his new poems.

သ သေးသေးတင် [tha thay thay tin]

လ သေးသေးတင် [la thay thay tin]

စ သေးသေးတင် [sa thay thay tin]

င သေးသေးတင် [nga thay thay tin]

Experimental sound, this or that technique, he gave himself airs. I didn’t have a clue.

How my friends died?
I have no idea.
What really happened to them?

Plain, but
complicated.
Simple, but
profound.

No fucking matter for titter.

(*) Zaw Win Htut Myanmar Hard-rock singer (*1964)

translated by Ko Ko Thett