THE SOLILOQUY OF THE PAPER IPOD MAKER

THE SOLILOQUY OF THE PAPER IPOD MAKER

Thousands of years of devotion to the dead.
Once newly-deceased, they receive everything:
pig-tailed paper maids, Gucci bags and the latest
gadgets, such as laptops and iPads. I create
an impression of the real with inflammable
and coloured paper; but everything inevitably
turns into ashes in the unabated furnace.

I asked my father who believed that the world
could be constructed with paper, 'We are serving
ghosts, are we not? But they will never receive
these dying ashes.' He muttered something about
everyone ends with bones and ashes, or ashes
and bones. He was forever obscure, and single-
mindedly returned to the paper Rolex he's holding
and added two arms to forge a fixed time.

Now burning this pair of paper scissors modelled
on his real ones, I realise perhaps he understood
the meaning of all this: what we do is more a
comfort to the irretrievably surviving. The most
enjoyable moment is when the eyes are choked
by the blinding smoke; thinking that he might
get the scissors and continue in his slow fashion,
one hand stretching to reach a paper book.
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Today I am very, very happy. My favourite poem, "The Soliloquy of the Paper IPod Maker", first written in October 2008, is finally published in the 4:3 issue of Other Poetry (p. 56). Over the years, I had put 'MP3 Player', 'Kindle', 'Netbook', etc. in the title. The latest version of the poem, which you can read above, contains 'iPads'.

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