|
|
Alfonso
The barrio was hot tonight!
Your barrio was on fire, Alfonso!
In an altar of saints and sinners with
little lights strung over moonlit windows
under the blistering stars
Homage was paid to the homeless
for commiserating with the moon
Even the alleyways cobbled with sadness
were at a loss for their connoisseur of darkness
Cups of wine brimmed over with toasts
to your swagger of words and laughter
The flash of your dueling teeth under the
brim of your black hat couldn’t conceal
your passion for the streets and their music of
mariachi roaming door to door for quarters
We used to dance till half-past midnight
till the hours melted into skulls and Milagros
that glowed from the tip of your cane and mustache
No goodbyes or corrido were offered in your memory
No blood roses or white lilies were placed at your boot
Only a nod and a simple, ‘Que Paso, amigo?’ and the
lastest copy of El Tecolote tucked under your elbow
that bible of the barrio, that living news which
slipped into the jaws of change and gringo dinero
You were of that last generation of Mission poets
to shout out your name against the pillage of progress
against that black, appropriating wind evicting the
melonas, pepitos, carne, pupusas and tamales
and that iron Caterpiller that trapped the homemade, homegrown
homesick children of the streets into the infinite shadows
of their exiled dreams and ruined passports
without ever looking back to see their little bodies
C. 2017 by Genny Lim
JEET KUNE DO
for Fred Ho (Aug. 10, 1957- April 12, 2014)
The Green Monster big band
swings through the Gateless Gate
with screeching mantras heralding
Fred Ho’s homecoming
Cal Massey’s “Black Liberation Movement”
is playing over your naked, green body
with all five billion cancer cells
crushing the Walls of Jericho and
the Capitalist Industrial Health Complex
You’re here to kick ass
with all six octaves of your baritone sax
performing jeet kune do like Bruce Lee
and Muhammed Ali
You kicked down the doors at Sloan Kettering
You passed away and shed your baggage
every possession, every book, every album
every dollar, every cent
every vital organ, kidney, bladder,
colon, rectum, flushed to the cosmic toilet
Because nothing cures cancer
so long as its malignant breath
thrives in the soul and kills
the imagination
Initial Beth Israel Medical Oncology Consultation Note:
Pelvic recurrence of adenocarcinoma of the sigmoid colon
Nothing cures cancer
For eight years you lived in renunciation
an atheist monk preparing for death
A shaved acolyte eating raw foods
renouncing the food industry and meat
the music industry and competition
the ego and technology
the Health Industry and its obscene profits
extracted from human sweat and sacrifice
Yes, cancer is king
in the most affluent of societies
in the most warring of nations
In the most sinister of plots
Oh, you radical cancer warrior!
You Celestial Green Monster!
You avenging green angel of the
raging downtrodden!
God does not exist in heaven, you claim
God exists in Hell, in the Matrix
where you have descended like Orpheus
in search of the fleeting shadow of freedom
to emerge, a soldier regurgitating
the wound of your own flesh
Subjected to the IC’s of the unholiest
of wards and the emptiest of empires
that threatened to break you and nuke
every cell and bone and orifice in your body
Yet you survived to slay
the slave master's manifold heads
rather than succumb to the tyranny of
‘squaredom, mediocrity and mushyness’
Nothing cures cancer
that destroyer of nature and beauty
that deceiver of nations and humanity
that cancer that is insatiable
that cancer that is Capitalism
so long as its malignant curse
thrives in the toxic cells of
our broken imagination
So you have crossed the divide
beyond Mars, beyond Marx, beyond ‘A to Z’
Oh faithful warrior for all seasons
You have lived in struggle and died
not in vain, but in love and forgiveness
You have been tried in the fire, you have been beaten
and have come out pure gold!
E ma ho! Fred Ho!
Jeet kune do!
April 20, 2014
c. 2017 Genny Lim
Ode to Standing Rock
This nation is like a spring freshet, it overruns its banks and destroys all who are in its path. --Sitting Bull
Long after the dinosaurs
Long after the glaciers
Long after the forests and jungles
Long after the Aurora Borealises
glancing off the Sacred Hoop
drop like coiled fetuses in
Native girls’ wombs
Long after the Goodwill crumbling
rezes n’ barrios of fast foods n’ booze
Long after the graffiti rants, shoplifted
dreams and outlaw miscarriages
Long after the rising seas wash
the citadels of broken promises and
stolen victories into pillars of salt
Standing Rock Warriors rise
The buffalo herd has returned
The soaring eagle has landed
The Nations unite against the
pillaging snake of greed and
theft that leaves no trace of
river, grass or life
Long after their banks turn to barnacles
Long after their monuments turn to ash
Long after their pipelines turn to piss
Long after their politics and wars
Long after their broken treaties and promises
Long after the saints and sinners, black n’ white
winners take all
Long after their histories shrivel
and cease to repeat
we will say
There is no man’s face I remember
by Genny Lim
copyright 2016
Spider Woman
Spider Woman spins out of
the navel of her tiny self
a magic spell of illusions
where sorcery unfolds
to the dancing silk
of her black spindle
Translucent as diamond
the sparkling thread
weaves crop circles in air
crystals clutching wind
webs of shimmering lace
cast from icy spinnerets
to trap the morsel
of her desire in
her death cradle
loom
by Genny Lim
Dec. 31, 2013
The barrio was hot tonight!
Your barrio was on fire, Alfonso!
In an altar of saints and sinners with
little lights strung over moonlit windows
under the blistering stars
Homage was paid to the homeless
for commiserating with the moon
Even the alleyways cobbled with sadness
were at a loss for their connoisseur of darkness
Cups of wine brimmed over with toasts
to your swagger of words and laughter
The flash of your dueling teeth under the
brim of your black hat couldn’t conceal
your passion for the streets and their music of
mariachi roaming door to door for quarters
We used to dance till half-past midnight
till the hours melted into skulls and Milagros
that glowed from the tip of your cane and mustache
No goodbyes or corrido were offered in your memory
No blood roses or white lilies were placed at your boot
Only a nod and a simple, ‘Que Paso, amigo?’ and the
lastest copy of El Tecolote tucked under your elbow
that bible of the barrio, that living news which
slipped into the jaws of change and gringo dinero
You were of that last generation of Mission poets
to shout out your name against the pillage of progress
against that black, appropriating wind evicting the
melonas, pepitos, carne, pupusas and tamales
and that iron Caterpiller that trapped the homemade, homegrown
homesick children of the streets into the infinite shadows
of their exiled dreams and ruined passports
without ever looking back to see their little bodies
C. 2017 by Genny Lim
JEET KUNE DO
for Fred Ho (Aug. 10, 1957- April 12, 2014)
The Green Monster big band
swings through the Gateless Gate
with screeching mantras heralding
Fred Ho’s homecoming
Cal Massey’s “Black Liberation Movement”
is playing over your naked, green body
with all five billion cancer cells
crushing the Walls of Jericho and
the Capitalist Industrial Health Complex
You’re here to kick ass
with all six octaves of your baritone sax
performing jeet kune do like Bruce Lee
and Muhammed Ali
You kicked down the doors at Sloan Kettering
You passed away and shed your baggage
every possession, every book, every album
every dollar, every cent
every vital organ, kidney, bladder,
colon, rectum, flushed to the cosmic toilet
Because nothing cures cancer
so long as its malignant breath
thrives in the soul and kills
the imagination
Initial Beth Israel Medical Oncology Consultation Note:
Pelvic recurrence of adenocarcinoma of the sigmoid colon
Nothing cures cancer
For eight years you lived in renunciation
an atheist monk preparing for death
A shaved acolyte eating raw foods
renouncing the food industry and meat
the music industry and competition
the ego and technology
the Health Industry and its obscene profits
extracted from human sweat and sacrifice
Yes, cancer is king
in the most affluent of societies
in the most warring of nations
In the most sinister of plots
Oh, you radical cancer warrior!
You Celestial Green Monster!
You avenging green angel of the
raging downtrodden!
God does not exist in heaven, you claim
God exists in Hell, in the Matrix
where you have descended like Orpheus
in search of the fleeting shadow of freedom
to emerge, a soldier regurgitating
the wound of your own flesh
Subjected to the IC’s of the unholiest
of wards and the emptiest of empires
that threatened to break you and nuke
every cell and bone and orifice in your body
Yet you survived to slay
the slave master's manifold heads
rather than succumb to the tyranny of
‘squaredom, mediocrity and mushyness’
Nothing cures cancer
that destroyer of nature and beauty
that deceiver of nations and humanity
that cancer that is insatiable
that cancer that is Capitalism
so long as its malignant curse
thrives in the toxic cells of
our broken imagination
So you have crossed the divide
beyond Mars, beyond Marx, beyond ‘A to Z’
Oh faithful warrior for all seasons
You have lived in struggle and died
not in vain, but in love and forgiveness
You have been tried in the fire, you have been beaten
and have come out pure gold!
E ma ho! Fred Ho!
Jeet kune do!
April 20, 2014
c. 2017 Genny Lim
Ode to Standing Rock
This nation is like a spring freshet, it overruns its banks and destroys all who are in its path. --Sitting Bull
Long after the dinosaurs
Long after the glaciers
Long after the forests and jungles
Long after the Aurora Borealises
glancing off the Sacred Hoop
drop like coiled fetuses in
Native girls’ wombs
Long after the Goodwill crumbling
rezes n’ barrios of fast foods n’ booze
Long after the graffiti rants, shoplifted
dreams and outlaw miscarriages
Long after the rising seas wash
the citadels of broken promises and
stolen victories into pillars of salt
Standing Rock Warriors rise
The buffalo herd has returned
The soaring eagle has landed
The Nations unite against the
pillaging snake of greed and
theft that leaves no trace of
river, grass or life
Long after their banks turn to barnacles
Long after their monuments turn to ash
Long after their pipelines turn to piss
Long after their politics and wars
Long after their broken treaties and promises
Long after the saints and sinners, black n’ white
winners take all
Long after their histories shrivel
and cease to repeat
we will say
There is no man’s face I remember
by Genny Lim
copyright 2016
Spider Woman
Spider Woman spins out of
the navel of her tiny self
a magic spell of illusions
where sorcery unfolds
to the dancing silk
of her black spindle
Translucent as diamond
the sparkling thread
weaves crop circles in air
crystals clutching wind
webs of shimmering lace
cast from icy spinnerets
to trap the morsel
of her desire in
her death cradle
loom
by Genny Lim
Dec. 31, 2013
