Tank Man
written by: Stephen Kingsnorth
Lad’s plastic bags against the tank,
in fits and starts, by few degrees,
direction change, avoiding crush,
unwieldy caterpillar cranks,
which he would morph to butterfly.
For he takes steps, shifts left then back,
to stop that mighty clank in tracks –
makes stand against that turret gun,
one student facing arm of fate,
the innocent and naïve boy,
with insight into what is right.
As massacre was state’s revenge,
denied that younger brave had died,
memorial, that such deprived.
It was humiliation’s turn,
power wielded ineffectively
before the world, its camera whirl.
The poly bags, his dance with death,
who brought the column to a halt,
in choreography of dare,
that held the stare of all the earth,
as carried what we’ll never know?
Some books, a loaf, a letter home –
new freedom’s food, a taste to come,
for little red, the thoughts of Mao?
That long Long March of many miles
seems less than paces near the Square;
for there that lad ‘a gangster’ blamed,
the lie of land, Tiananmen.
The unknown rebel, Tank Man named
that shook the world as captured, filmed.
What icons missed, the lens not there?
Just lad, those bags, but taking stand.
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