The Hand Of Tong Bao Lin Poem by David Lewis Paget

I stood in front of the guillotine
And paled at the sharpened blade,
The motor hummed as my mind went numb
And my body shook and swayed,
The sweat poured into my open eyes
And blinded and burned like sin,
But I had no choice, I had to be free
Of the Hand of Tong Bao Lin.

I'd worked in China for seven years
In the city of old Qingdao,
If I hadn't been such a hero, I
Would still be working there now;
But I got involved in a scuffle there
When a woman was being attacked,
He'd snatched her bag and I snatched it too,
So he turned on me, and hacked.

I'd heard of the mean Hand-Chopper Gang,
Just petty crims on the whole,
They stole whatever was not nailed down,
Just handbags, wallets and gold,
But they carried machetes under their coats
For the woman who fought like mad,
If she wouldn't let go, they'd chop off her hand
And carry it off with the bag.

I stood in shock, and stared at my wrist,
While he took off, scot free,
My hand still clutching the shoulder strap
But it wasn't attached to me,
I bled all over the pavement there,
Collapsed in a bloody heap,
I only discovered my hand was gone
When I woke from a troubled sleep.

The doctors there were marvellous,
They tidied it up no end,
But it isn't much consolation when
You can't shake hands with a friend,
I'd just about been resigned to it
When in walked Doctor Chu,
He was something to do with the government,
Said - 'I need to talk with you! '

'Let's say that it's just an experiment,
Long odds, but you may just win,
Get you a working hand again,
Though one with a yellow skin.'
I signed the form with my one good hand
And put myself in his care,
If I'd known back then what I know today...
I'd have put an axe through his hair!

They took me away that very night
To a place both dread and grim,
To one of those Chinese Prisons where
You're dead if they let you in.
They housed me there in the hospital
And treated me better than those,
The walking dead in the prison beds
Who all wore the orange clothes.

The prison was only for murderers,
And those with a capital crime,
Whose fate was lead in the back of the head
It was only a question of time.
I heard men scream as I tried to sleep,
And many a Chinese curse,
But they filled me full of some sedative,
And this only made it worse.

I dreamt as I slept there fitfully
Of a man who was chained to his bed,
As the surgeons sliced at his body there,
His screams still ring in my head;
His face contorted, he looked at me
And managed an evil grin,
As they surgically took his hand, he said:
'You be sorry... I Tong Bao Lin! '

The fever lasted for days, I think,
I thought I'd never wake up,
But then one morning my mind was clear
And my arm was bandaged up,
Slowly, slowly I felt the hand
That they'd grafted onto my wrist,
I should have been grateful then, I know,
But I slowly became obsessed.

It healed at last, took many months,
But it worked, and didn't feel strange,
I carried the hand of a dead man now
But then it began to change,
I found it reached for a woman's purse
In a shop where she'd dropped it there,
And it gripped it fast when she snatched it back,
It was more than I could bear.

I fled outside in confusion, and
Made tracks for a backstreet den,
I had no idea what drew me there
But found it was opium;
They lay around with those long, clay pipes
And the hand, it reached for one,
I knew right there I would have to share
My life with Tong Bao Lin.

The hand, it reached into pockets when
I walked on my usual beat,
It seemed attracted to shiny things
And fondled the girls on the street,
It drew me into the thickest crowds
Did things that would bring me shame,
And I'd thrust it deep in my pocket then
For the sake of my own good name.

The hand was marred by a strange tattoo
A serpent with wings, on the thumb,
When traders saw it they veered away
And one of them pulled a gun.
I stayed at home and I locked the door
And I slowly became depressed,
The hand would pound on the wall, the floor
And the lid of a rosewood chest.

A Chinese man came to call one day,
Bowed low, and I let him in,
In broken English I heard him say:
'I lookin' for Tong Bao Lin! '
He stared on down at the yellow hand,
And looked at the old tattoo,
'Bao Lin! ' he pointed, 'an evil man!
You know what you have to do! '

And so, I stand by the guillotine,
The sweat pours into my eyes,
It takes two buttons to start the blade,
There's a demon to exorcise.
I place my wrist on the cutting line
And the man says, 'Let's begin! '
I push the button, and so does he,
The brother of Tong Bao Lin.