coming to a municipality near me: that tofu stink again, hot pepper
and rot to ghost my nose awash in silent waves,
as Delillo might describe them: the language of radiation
how the dead speak to the living where we wait together
our carts stocked
with brightly colored goods.
and it’s not racist, coworker says
’neath the street market’s bloody light. it’s not racist
to call it stinky tofu ’cause it’s stinky, which i might actually fuck
with ’cause it’s all running back now. not just what to read
but also how.
how with the metro/tube/transport machines? how with the laws,
not quite opaque enough? how with the racisms? and of all
these aberrations how is racist for sure racist?
definitely the eyes! like Ginsberg’s Moloch, whose eyes are a thousand
blind windows! whose skyscrapers stand in the long streets
like endless Jehovahs!
and fine not quite New York,
but Hong Kong. where the eyes scritching my velcro folds
get me loud af. feelin’ pretty kill the master and marry his wife.
i'm rife with desires: McDonald’s, the boy back home, a form of general
anonymity.
~~~XXX~~~
but whatevz, i'm here now, clearing now. buzzcut the air
with body cause wood scrap makes for one good scrap.
useful Hong Kong got me
passing out of another study on young black queer male suicides.
because the dead don’t travel well and living makes these unravelling conditions
sound so swell. someday way back home is waiting flashbacked
and flushéd with rememory
and rolling up all at once like:
ma and i are about the last minute shopping and it’s about the dessert
though it’s not about the apple pie. cause the apple pie is about
baseball which somehow makes my throat feel a bit noose-y.
loosey goosey i am in Hong Kong, not quite cut with homesick quease
but a lack of familiar tension, though surprisingly well-sourced.
it’s the locals who giggle at me in the market: staring down
packaging like a very hungry spaghetti western, hands holstered in flustration
wondering about the bruised apples, the dehydrated cheese puffs
what Delillo would notice,
through the misspelled American branding.
~~~XXX~~~
an isotonic rehydration sport drink launched in Hong Kong in 2011 . . . specially formulated for
those who enjoy a healthy and active lifestyle, suitable for . . . hot weather or sweating occasions.
—CocaCola corp.
faster than a speeding bullet my gullet poached with steam:
Aquarius! here to ply my wet dream. nine hunnit and twenty
milliliters of hydraulic lubrication and Coca Cola product to rock
my western ass to sleep. crampless, campless the woes
of my white whine and deedless hands. Mrs. Bishop knows:
travel is a needy needy boy, but there's always you, Aquarius.
kissing on my ethnic booboos, my vegetarian barracuda,
my constant reminder of capitalism. like cigarette smoke
caught in cotton. Hong Kong we poppin bottles of Aquarius,
ticking through the streets we bombed out hilarious. the point
is product and ain't you one sharp ass star, aqua love?
quick prick in the dry mouth of sky. eleven pins popping
the tumbler under my tongue all blue tasting, thank you thank you
thou art a minor-love god all hydrating and completely recyclable.
~~~XXX~~~
my tinder love it some Hong Kong. my tinder swipes right and takes
a quick rinse in adoration. my tinder don’t leggo this eggo-tistical situation
for anyone [not even the white woman who claims i have yellow fever
which is def racist].
always a form of variation, always a boy, always
something to look at.
so we go out, we get fucked up, we get up an alleyway, and suddenly
it’s gorgeous: three Scottish dudes, drinks [double vodka with soda which
should not be a thing but is and oh are we thankful for the free drunk], and the evening’s
colander spiked with light. until he’s not that cute ’cause now he’s asking
if my dick is a big organic black dick? my drunk tongue snorts i’d rather be
kind of person that has yellow fever than the kind that answers you with want.
revision: totes made out with him and the two other imports [drastically improves
my batboy average]. don’t tell mama or my friends. also the coworkers aren’t that racist
but i have points to make, baskets to drain. they deserve it anyway. some way.
Aerosmith can walk this way, talk this way even use the colorless [white] water fountain, stroll
that club-invite-in skin. getting me weeded, got my whole spot fucked up and poorly seeded.
~~~XXX~~~
the first time i’m a Hong Kong picture frame anchor [without
my permission, ofc], i recall Mrs. Alexander’s Boston Year.
about her good alien love and attempts at life:
how whenever she saw other colored people
in bookshops, or museums, or cafeterias, she’d gasp,
smile shyly, but they’d disappear before she spoke.
What would she have said to them? Come with me? Take me
home? Are you my mother? No.
and i feel it, feel her [i wish].
in HK the bakeries are everywhere, a whole populus cracked out on some kind of puff or
poof, this programming has been brought to you by carbohydrate inc. these spindly limbs slip
through the heat and camera lenses. my body a disruption and oddity. here be the modern
American negro come see what fantastic work this ocean can bring!
~~~XXX~~~
and always the ocean still, the ocean unstill, the ocean
split by the Central ferry and the ocean split by Hawai’i [read home
sweetened home]. Chinaman’s Hat pushing the ocean elsewhere
and Google will spit with a quickness: more than 2,000 miles
from the nearest continental land mass, the Hawaiian Archipelago
is the most geographically isolated group of islands on Earth.
i guess in this sense i’m acclimated. the humidity always pressing
my buttons and the anonymity always pressing me down.
Hong Kong is half island and a familiar place to love, a familiar place
to work that word around.
until yeah the coworkers are a little, tiny bit, accidentally super fucking
racist. until i’m tired and sad and [apparently] in need of a white woman
to save me, and she just wants me to know [over blueberry Yoplait]
that: you should totes come to vacation with us you can stay for free
no one has to know anything don't even worry about money.
and nah i get it that’s a sweet offer, why yes, i would love to eat dinner
at the table with the rest of you.
~~~XXX~~~
Hong Kong might be the world’s best locale to stress shop or buy
yourself back. like T Hayes says you can tell what's important
to a culture by the size of its buildings. and Moloch ain’t got shit
on the malls. i’m tellin ya shoe stores, sock stores, store stores.
once my blister became sore in the doors of a Hong Kong mall
and i started crying. but that could have been either my stiff throbbing
respect for HK capital, or because this shit hurt a lot and mom
mom would know what to do: where to be what to buy. there’s
always a list: shopping, wishes, things to do and things long done. HK
will definitely get you writing reasons to scribe and script: dude,
look at these buildings how many floors do you think there are?
~~~XXX~~~
and here’s the heart of the nasty little wart. the mole, the poor sport.
i’m drunkenly asked if i know that the guy buying me drinks
is a mainlander, and no i didn’t, don’t, and am complicated in my understanding
of the question.
until Urban Dictionary is all like: ahem excuse me lemme tell you
something:
Mainlander [n]: People from China. They are usually FOBs [fresh off the boat]. They
usually have shit loads of money to blow but has very little manners. Talks hella loud in
public and talks Mandarine with a Bei Jing accent. They often wear terrible knock offs
clothings like Nikke, Reboot, and Addadas without noticing it.
Those damn mainlander . . . piss off or crash your BMW and die!
i conclude my navel gazing and turn to the asker / Hong Kong nationalist /
racist / political theorist / random lady at the bar extraordinaire. tell her
i know what it’s like outside of the thing everyone else is under and
not to be vague but it is much more polite dontcha think?
because who wants to be that dude? crystal ball gazer of national origin
bathing still in memories of milk powder and sweat
this lovely urbane sleet.
~~~XXX~~~
you don’t know Hong Kong rain until the only thing you want
is an umbrella. until you're willing to drop fifty U.S.D.s on an umbrella.
until you’re willing to truckstick a child for their umbrella.
in the states we call this CLOSE THE SCHOOL FUCK, in Hong Kong
it’s called black rain. in Hong Kong it’s all black all disruption and the government
wants to protect you therefore: People having no safe place
to go may take temporary refuge in any of the special temporary shelters
opened by the Home Affairs Department.
my first flight to Hong Kong was rocked with rain as i stumbled to the
vacuum sealed bathroom.
instead of soap or lotion there was
a variant of skin lightening cream, there was black rain pounding through
the airspaces.
~~~XXX~~~
. . . meanwhile somewhere in Taiwan a fire arrived late
to the warehouse turn-up. how rude and shameful
dude! i bet if the attendees knew they’d a finally done it:
bought the tassled orange tube top, asked the guy
from the gym if he’s busy this friday? cause there’s this
cool color party thing at a warehouse ya know with
the powder and stuff it might be your thing it might not
just had to ask . . .
BUT NO YOU HAD TO GO FUCK THIS UP!
with your oceans of chance. what are my odds homie? char-
master? flip a coin for my continued function? i’m not mad just
DISAPPOINTED. and yeah
i know i’m being irrational with my hot breath heaving.
i'm all sweaty and thumbs i’m all waiting for it: my final destination,
rube goldberg machine, hitting the outfield like someone who
already knows he’s walking the long way home. heady
with the sleep of a new parent [even in repose] waiting
for the impending scream in the plasticine night’s light.
~~~XXX~~~
it’s always there
if carefully examined:
another poor preposition, tense modifier
with the quick cliffhung.
ma home from work, eyes large and hungry
for error:
of course y’all forgot
the laundry; what if i forgot
the light bill?
and yeah she’s right [again], it’s always
something. the loose thread,
another sunset pickled with smog.
Hong Kong with so many dogs unchained. my shiny
American fears rattled as always just for me, clearly.
yes, i am so interesting, so blindingly staggeringly
interesting
the dog must surely want my throat,
my mother for a fur coat.
but still HK buying everyone another round lookin’
cute and shit.
eclipsing my small personal concerns,
anonymity like gum in the deconstruction machine.
i couldn’t dream of this many air conditioners,
this many egg crate apartments. but i need to wake,
there must be something to do
by now.
A version of this poem first appeared in DREGINALD.