Ode to the Durian
our fruit king smells like rotting onions, majesty
of prickling green whose skin is the shell
of spikes. his treasures are the orientalists’
fantasy, whose rich gold beyond all
the wildest imaginings
of drunken colonialists, multiply fruitfully
beyond the counting of any british administrator.
Hail, king, whose name is conjugated thorns:
_duri, to duri, to be duried, duri-an:_
majesty, impale the tongues of civilising
barbarians with the flavoured depth of
infinite literatures beyond the wildest
nightmares of MacCaulay and all his ilk,
your flavour is rich, your texture is silk.
by Vincent Loh Xue Yan
