Greater Kaohsiung Jaywalking Poem

By | 1 February 2013

Everyone’s pinking about us–
Les Enfants, military-joke movies, New Taiwan Flavors become a must

Blue Way jeans, yellow movies, savoring water trades of summer
Fahrenheit Boy Band, blue jokes, the promenading dharma-bummer

I am speeding truck drivers gone manic by the Donggong River
You will become Red, oh Angry Buddha, another new highway deliver!

Sign-glutted, I world past the Nail Queen Boutiques
stroll primordial pasta alleys, laughing Tooth Fairy Dental Cliniques

Me. Love. Love. Me. Café I just may
Pure Tea, Just Drink It, Wufu Third Way arcades say

I take in World Games closing ceremony giving off oceanic savors
containerized shipping-port cast in multiethnic global flavors

Circle Lotus pond, “Taiwan number one” says ex-soldier guiding us around
Chad compares our walk to a forced march round a military-compound

How do I turn left, sir?— “You just take five rights past the Bagel Bagel 5”
But how do I say ‘no’ to this soldier guy?

Foreign Land Ingredients Snack Shop by the subway-entrance clock
3 cops, 2 cyclists, 3 pedestrians give us wrong directions round a block

Formosa Beauty, Formosa Plastic, Birds of Formosa flying free
Asia-Pacific Machine Group becoming Hegelian global-ocean destiny

so many spreading Beetle Nut trees
cover this homeland of shrinking coconut trees

Golden Oldies echo around the world on ICRT
Just Smile Gas Station for the grimacing drivers by the MRT

“Please forgive me, I am nonsense, maybe!”
said a high school student laughing, negating English-as-destiny

if the God-who-will-give-us-money
flips over into the computer screen, worshipping ginseng honey

then “the god who’s a drifting bum” still follows me
Black Pig north, White Pig south, by the Catholic headdress of a Paiwan Mary

bursting yams mangos karaoke food, dreamy semiotics, our summer-fare:
yes it’s the Xtra Rally Gift Shop, you must take the Totoro Bus (but to where?)

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