On The Dragon’s New Year

With vernal joy the drums proclaim the dance,
The ring of cymbals greets the festive prowl,
The lions in lockstep march so proudly prance
With rapid winks of eye and waving jowl,
With each bold leap and bound the crowds would cheer
To welcome this, the Dragon's own New Year. 

On Language

Our Language is our fam’ly tree 
The ties that build affinity
With words traversing waves of thought
The gap between us fades to naught

Out of the kiln, the words that build
Tribes, cities, armies, courts and guilds
Cementing ties of human hearts
Foundation for the sciences, arts

Thus Language forms the grounding strong
For human life, its wax and throng
To depths of seas and heights of space
Its thrumming drives the human race

Alas its boon hides darker tones
For language also marks the zones
Between a commonwealth of us
Against the others we distrust

Without a common lingual sphere
Communities cannot cohere
From babel curse of estranged tongues
Flows mistrust and committed wrongs

So you may think ‘tis insensate
For nations to compel, dictate
One Language to unite them all
Must we be caged in one tongue's thrall?

Such is the fate of nations blessed
With populace diverse, now pressed
Into each other's common fate
Be it with joy or teeth agrate

This babel curse need not be rued
Variety is a gift imbued
Unto those nations such as ours
Rejoicing in our hundred flowers

A common language bridges, brings
The people all together, wings
Of peace take flight in concert when
Our hearts unite in common ken

And that one speech need not efface
The shared melange of varied race
That makes up nations on this earth
Where each one owns their human worth

So let us celebrate, rejoice
Humanity in one shared voice
With pride our anthem loudly sung
In warp and weft of one shared tongue.

On Thieves and Heroes (or, Twenty-Five Years and Forty-Seven Lies)

For twenty-five years, brisk demands 
For change, for moral politics -
A reborn nation, confident
That Justice can stand unafraid -
Now finally claim centre stage
Your avatar can claim his prize.

But look - what fateful compromise!
What cruel bargain - filth-stained hands!
With faithless smiles, with hands aclasp
These erstwhile foes declare their pact
Amidst blithe claims of kingly seal
Your "unity" swept all sins clean

And now you reap your poisoned fruit
A bitter harvest for your sham
And twenty-five years' promises
Are trumped by forty-seven lies
The deathly grin unmasked, unshamed
Bears witness to your blotted vows

The thieves you pledged to overthrow
Walk lockstep with your heroes now.

On Constancy and Treachery

Give us a man of Constancy
A man of iron principles
A man to lead us broody souls
To sunlit hills of Certainty

Not this, this faithless wavering
This double-dealing Treachery
The eager overthrow of Truth
In service of Ambition's ring

You think that we will soon forget
That public minds are changeable
Well our Trust, too, is mutable
Your perfidy you soon will fret!

On the Dragon’s Nine Dashes

The cowlick tongue, afire, affeared
The dragon sheds its gown of shame
This lake of fire, it smoulders red
A prize for thwarted dreams inflamed 

The tongue it flicks across these shores
The belt and road, now bully's gall 
Indignant protests all ignored
Incursion curses neighbours all

In gaped amazement nations grieve
Audacious claim encinders trust
The strong shall seize what they can seize
The weak shall suffer what they must.