Mien & Meaning

(An Evening’s Account from the Leikai Tales of M/S SK, MK & Bros.)

SK slipped and fell into the canna-filled drain
His brother betted he’d be up in twenty minutes
You know, only six pegs he had had this morning,
But they are too poor for the local’s tittle-tattle
Maybe except when he’d kill a local moneybags’ bastard
So it doesn’t matter: twenty minutes or twenty days
As long as there is no general strike in his hopeless name.

MK said he saw his neighbour’s wife
He said he had no time to worry for his brother
He said his brother is a disgrace
But we should care about their neighbour’s wife
She always comes home at the oddest hour
He saw her last evening when he was returning home
He says there are new imported items around the Victory Cinema.

And all the men of the whole town gathered:
There’s a new kwa-seller in the market
Some people say she is a pimp and she looks forty
Some people say she is waiting for her clients and she looks thirty
A rat’s ass I would give if not for the kwa
I got a whole world to complain about
I got a wife to thrash later—to Moreh with their morality!