(Apologies to Rudyard Kipling. In memory of Michael Aris, who made me understand.)

By an old Rangoon Pagoda with no view towards the sea

There's a Burma girl a-standing and her name is Saan Suu Kyi

She is deaf to palm trees singing and what the bells do say

As the Monks go on display –

“Go you forth you Burma soldier, go you forth to Mandalay

You have finished with Rangoon

Go you forth to Mandalay”

Where the Monks are on display

Can't you hear the bullets flying from Rangoon to Mandalay?

Can't you see the corpses piling

Where the flying fishes play

And where dawn comes out reddened outer China crost

the bay?

They are shooting Monks

Why does the headline disturb me?

Is there a difference between shooting

monks, shooting students, shooting workers and the

occasional poet who dies to make the headlines?

I know of Buddha dancing

But Buddhists marching?

Is that the provocation?

Their petticoats were orange and their heads all shaven clean

And they chanted with the people

No more price hikes on the petrol no more hoarding of benzene

As she stood there waving by her window to the thousands underfoot

An’ a wasting hopes and yearnings for a life beyond the loot

Bloody tyrants made of iron

Bloody tyrants made of steel

On the Road to Mandalay

Where the Monks are on display

Perhaps it should have read: they are even shooting Monks

Buddha dancing

Buddhists marching

Bang … bang bang

Are they marching to Washington's drum?