I Didn't Say They Were Good Poems

"History Has a Way of Happening in Korea"

History has a way of happening in Korea,
Where Chairman Mao's son went to get killed
(by South Africans! History has a way of happening in China too)
Where General MacArthur
Got his ass fired
By Harry Truman,
Himself no South African.

Where the president got shot to death by his own head of intelligence,
Years after fighting in the Japanese Imperial Army.

Duk-koo Kim went to Las Vegas
To get killed in the ring by Ray Mancini,
Himself no South African.
His mother killed herself a few months later.
The referee who didn't stop the fight
(Not a South African)
Killed himself the next year.

The daughter of the president who got shot to death
Was herself elected president,
Her father's service in the Japanese Imperial Army
Being a sensitive matter, politically,
Koreans not having the fondest memories
Of that institution.

The Japanese imperial project being, at its core,
Like any imperial project,
The decision that history should happen somewhere else,
Somewhere like Korea.

But history has a way of happening in Japan.
After Truman reached his terrible resolve,
And the atomic bombs tumbled down onto Hiroshima and Nagasaki,
Before the arrival of General MacArthur.
Along with the Japanese victims
Died thousands of slave laborers brought from Korea.

[NOTE:  I continue to edit this thing, it is a work in progress, to put it generously.]