Mao Jackets and Monkey Suits

From Mao Jackets

To Monkey Suits

The new fashion

The look of a new China

Chinese communism

With a new business front

And the poor students

All dress for their classes

Better than their American Instructor

And they are hot and sweating

In their dark long clothes

And their hero

Is none other than Bill Gates

And the poor understand the meaning of poverty

Far better than any administrator

Or would be anthropologist

Who seem to have forgotten

Or at least have been instructed

Unlearned or reeducated

About the lessons of their own past

And they share all the same goal

Without equivocation

Or embarrassment

To somehow become rich

They've had their fill

Of brother hood and rhetoric

Of corrupt officials

And greedy leaders

They want nothing less

Than what everyone else wants

And more

And they haven't a clue

About how to go about getting it

Except to sweat

In their monkey suits

The Great Wall Revisited

Trails in the Snow

1991-1993