English Original
arms deal
prosthetic legs, too
Simon Hanson
Chinese Translation (Traditional)
武器交易
還有, 義肢
Chinese Translation (Simplified)
武器交易
还有, 义肢
Bio Sketch
Simon Hanson lives in forested Tasmania in the company of animals and birds and the sounds of a trickling creek. Formerly Secretary to the Australian Haiku Society he is currently co-editor of Echidna Tracks. He has an e-book collection; Desert Stones (Snapshot Press) freely available here for you.
In the extremely compressed space of just five words, this sociogeopolitically conscious 2-line haiku evokes an entire cycle of violence and profit:
ReplyDeleteweapons sold → bodies destroyed → prosthetic limbs supplied.
The concluding word, "too," does most of the haiku's work. It quietly suggests that the same system profits not only from destruction but also from its aftermath, without ever stating the accusation outright.
The haiku never moralizes. It simply juxtaposes two stark facts—"arms deal" and "prosthetic legs, too"—and leaves the reader to infer the connection. That restraint makes its social and political critique all the more powerful.
The pairing of "arms" and "legs" also introduces a subtle layer of wordplay. "Arms" initially refers to weapons, but its proximity to "legs" inevitably evokes the human body, allowing the figurative meaning to slide into the literal. This semantic shift reinforces the haiku's central irony: instruments of war are inseparable from the bodily damage they inflict.
Its economy is perhaps its greatest achievement. With only five words, the haiku compresses commerce, war, human suffering, and the commodification of recovery into a single, understated gesture, trusting the reader to complete the moral equation.