Portside

Pop goes the weasel!

By John Daniel

I was given weasel coffee for Christmas
the most expensive coffee in the world
it comes from the Vietnam Highlands 
in a gold container.

It has passed through the entrails
of the Vietnam weasel
small dark brown pills, 200 grams.
                          There is a picture of a weasel snarling on the lid,
perhaps because he has parted with his excreta
for nothing.

I remember the Vietnam war
how we circled Honeywell Electronics
where they were making cowpats
which exploded when the Vietcong collected them
to light fires and how Honeywell
substituted plastic for metal splinters
undetectable by x-rays.

We held hands around the Honeywell factory
and chanted and thought we’d won
                          but the cowshit turned to weasel-shit,
the most expensive coffee in the world
and the undetectable splinters of capitalism
entered all our bodies
and passed through all our guts -
                         
                           Pop goes the weasel

John Daniel has published four volumes of poetry, mostly recently Lighting the Fire (Oversteps Books, 2015) and an autobiography titled Grownup War. He lives in Devon, England.