Tuesday, June 02, 2015

[Poem] Anthology



If I will not
write of white rice
or shades of yellow,

they tell me there is no
place for me.

Without a Mekong river of tears
trailing down a mountain of
black hair and stale sushi,

I will not be Asian enough
to fit into this volume
of Eastern voices for Western coffeehouses.

You no good if you no talk like
cereal box-tops about transitions and the old country,
or grandma and her wizened fortune-cookie wisdom
amid a comic bevy of oh-so-tragic
hard-working,heartbreaking restaurateurs
and cunning launderers
wandering a crooked Chinatown street.

They will tell you:
“You may have been an English major,
but you’d best keep these nonsense thoughts private
and give the audience what they want, for god’s sake.”

Don’t rock the boat, people!

A woman walked up to me recently and asked:
“What is the name for your yellow hue?”

I said: “Color me Pissed.”

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