by James A. Tweedie

According to the PRC’s unwritten protocol,
To be Chinese these days it seems you can’t be Falun Gong.
Your race or where you’re born no longer matter much at all.
You have to be an atheist in order to belong.

Good citizen or not, unless you bow to Xi Jinping
You’ll find yourself condemned as one of China’s enemies.
No longer viewed as human by the Party, but a “thing”
Whose life and body parts the government is free to seize.

To have a faith in God or something greater than the state
Will mark you as a traitor and could lead to your arrest,
With prison or a labor camp your destiny and fate,
As many who have suffered through such trials will attest.

How strange that only Communists can call themselves Chinese,
While Uigurs, Jews and Christians are held worthy to condemn.
But Chinese on Formosa who declare they’re Taiwanese,
Are part of what the PRC declares belongs to them.

How sad that people are condemned for being who they are
Unless they publicly abandon all that they believe.
Or bow and scrape before some petty party commissar.
If I were in their place, I’d pack my things and try to leave.

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Winner of the 1st Place Award in FoFG’s 2024 Poetry Contest