The Boy from Sisaket (Vol. A)

Editors’ Foreword:

Zach Liang, the author of these poems you are about to read, is a dear friend of ours. He is a full-time ceramic artist, a part-time philosopher, and a serial playlist-creator. Before this, we did not know he had such a knack for writing poetry.

In typical Zach fashion (which is: pure chaos), we were assailed with dozens of poems in various formats over the months –– screenshots of his phone scribbles, screen recordings of his notes app with carefully curated music playing in the background… you name it.

Between the whiplash of text and sound, fable and lived experience, these poems made us pay attention. We stopped asking, "What does the poem mean?” Instead, we found ourselves wanting to ask Zach, “How have you really been?” We are grateful for the warmth his poems engender, and the intimacy they have afforded us as friends, readers, and artists.

Growing up in the Sisaket province in Thailand, the collection The Boy from Sisaket reflects Zach’s restless and idiosyncratic mind. It tears down the facades of great myths and expertly reconstructs the debris of minutiae.

Vol. A begins, as does life, with an epitaph.

Poems by Zacherias Liang

Epitaphs

Nary a soul has lamented at the tomb of old kings.

They only linger; stubborn mossy stains

to quiet history.

In all their stately grandeur; to the dismay of tired hubris,

even ghostly processions

must go home.

To whom do we owe this honour?

For all lions must be smelted back

to gold.

Tell me of legacy; give me your Rolex,

so that we may have it sit upon the velvet

vestibule of a pawnshop.

To what do we owe this honour

to have met a king like you?

Hope is catching guppies in a longkang

Done on a full belly

on a Saturday morning.

Hope is waiting for a chance

to strike 4-D.

Hope is praying it does not rain

with a full load in the washing machine.

Hope is cutting newspaper coupons during an afternoon tea-break.

“Dear, the butter is too salty.”

Hope is when you have enough time

to lie around

waiting for your life to change.

The cats.

There were two cats

One like the prodigal sun

The other, a silent moon.

And like every other day

that came to be,

the mister presented them

the same gifts.

The sun, in his genius,

chose his ball of yarn.

Toy that unravels.

The moon, in her wisdom,

Picked a cushion.

Watched the mister

prepare their afternoon snack.

Who lacks a ghost in their living room?

Whoever groans dragging their feet on the upstairs floor,

Whoever creaks coming out the cupboard door,

Whoever drags across the carpet––

their soils and toils, spoils from the war.

Who watches the static of the late late show,

Who sits in a house without a home,

Who lacks a ghost in their living room hall?

***

Edited by Tammie Lim and Stephanie Jaina Chia