In The Billy Sing Baghdad Bar-and-Grill
I’d heard the director didn’t need an Asian to play him,
young Billy Sing, Gallipoli’s finest sniper.
After all our Kylie could play a geisha.
His Dad was a drover from Shanghai,
his mother Mary-Ann from Staffordshire.
Proud member, model minority hard
working, civil, didn’t do anger or shout,
no doctor had to fix his face.
Essentially Us, a little whitewash
with a good spotter – a novelist.
Productive, liked good roast duck fried rice.
Could have met my ancestor, the Captain
who rode in the cavalry, sold beer,
was mayor of the city staffed with his progeny.
Strengths? At Gallipoli Sing bowled a long spell
under mortar bombardment.
Billie Sing shooting Turks by the hundreds,
brave but hardly suicidal –
no North Korean human wave bullshit,
the Bravery column balanced the Common Sense column.
Why give away your position?
Weaknesses: Sang-froid? Myalgia?
Who needs to know in the Billy Sing
Baghdad Bar-and-Grill.
Adam Aitken