From Alternative Prosaicnesses: First Poems
published by Down With Grundy, Publisher
(now Banana-Cue Books, Publisher)

Wing Chun* Prophecy

 

Go after the "big fish" yet live/die with Marcos'
                     democracy,
That's keeping the Philippines in touch with the
                     bank
Then, now, and into the greenest future: no hope,
                     no hope

It's our progressive telecommunications company
                     praying;
You know the plutocracy, the statesmen-merchants
Keeping the Philippines in touch with the aid, &
                     Vatican?

What bank? What touch? Do we fast for mother
Earth? Nah -- indiscriminate logging, hunger,
                     poverty,
The eternal cliches. Let them reign, let them end her

Then let them rot, let them bleed fear. Let help stalk
The provinces station to station, slowly into per-
                     petual agony
Into ghost roads, the ultimate political & econom-
                     ic joys

Of the Marcoses through us, with us, and in us, US
Forever flaunting the telecommunion lines to
The rest of the divine world, mythological America

(Dangerous losing G8 nations) and -- for a long time to
                     come --
Welcome the women to cry on moneyed priests circ-
                     cling
Monastic penises upon feminist productions of jud-
                     ges

On trial, oh "crucified," gone after, the big fish of
                     final
Justice, so erring military personnel may inherit
The earth that it be their temporary heaven. Until

We, so young, learn martyrdom, or sainthood,
                     in the approach.

 

*Wing Chun was the kung fu style/philosophical approach popularized by the martial artist and film icon Bruce Lee through his own jeet-kune-do. Wing Chun usually would simply mean extreme subtlety in approach, as in displaying the grace of the yin fore to attacking with the strength of the yang. Jackie Chan's "drunken snake style" can be considered a development from this style.

 

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