Poem: Worry
We just got back from the Manilatown exhibit, Rendering Capitalism, featuring some of my favorite and local Pinoy artists. This exhibit, curated by Arvin Flores, is basically a collage of found images and found texts, displaying the ironies and obscenities of the consumerist culture in which we live. In addition to the exhibit, they have created a zine, and I am quite happy to have a couple of mail order bride poems included in it. They also have a blog, here.
As well, I am happy to have had really good conversations with folks, about poetic processes, catharsis, and what is beautiful and fucked up about our community.
Just scrawled a poem down.
It’s subject to change [01.28.08 revision v3.0].
After Juan Felipe Herrera’s “Don’t Worry, Baby.”
I worry about capitalism and poetry in 21st century global culture
I worry about mail order brides looking just like me
I worry about Filipinos named non-ironically after western empire
I worry about downtown comin into Manilatown to tear it down
I worry about vers libre and clever use of figurative language
I worry about Doveglion’s not any someone no one everyone
I worry about running and running hiding and hiding
I worry about brown bodies blurred into the background
I worry about blogging broadcasting nobody’s business but my own
I worry about glossy naked mannequins glossy naked missiles
I worry about starred striped string-bikini’ed stripped siliconed bodies
I worry about open caskets open trade open mouths got nothing inside
I worry about bronze hero statues gleaming foreign invaders
I worry about singsong spoken word DJ in a box
I worry about nowhere insight now here in sight
I worry about bourbon tongue serpent tongue borrowed tongue
I worry about terrorists tabloids reality TV
I worry about workin hard you’re in charge you’re our GNP
I worry about the almighty dollar the peso’s power is poor
I worry about polyethylene landfill chlorofluorocarbons and SUV’s
I worry about geography pornography and fast food religion
I worry about modern world economy mass graves in ditches
I worry about ghosts sugar cane whispering machetes swinging
I worry about choosing this location choosing me
I worry about horn section funky yo check it
I worry about Check Point Charlie blues reminiscence
I worry about first wave immigrant suburb love white love
I worry about people sleeping on pigeon park benches
I worry about Jesus Christ medicine addiction
I worry about one love one song one mic
I worry about knocked up locked up fed up hold up
I worry about no job no lies no rap no key
I worry about squad car summertime siren song
I worry about dirty dog candy shop suckas like you
I worry about ain’t nothing free street corner hustle
I worry about ain’t nothing new imperialist nostalgia
I worry about new school old school school of the Americas
I worry about bricks bricks bricks and mo money
I worry about military recruiters and the cost of war in Iraq
I worry about mapmaking border crossing marking our turf
I worry about “women’s work” national debt stateside trash
I worry about eating disorders lingerie catalogs skin whitening products
I worry about Europeans Google searching “naked fucking Filipina”
I worry about Ave Maria fashionista Starbucks barrista
I worry about turn it up roll it up burn it all down
I worry about west coast kickin guerrilla punk rockers and bboys
I worry about our city streets not being named after us
I worry about watching from the sidelines transcribing and forgetting
I worry about “the pure products of America” I think that might be me
