Joe Balaz

No Insult My Antennas

No insult my antennas
wit dat hypothetical could have been.

 

Da way you see it

if it looks like wun coconut
smells like wun coconut
and tastes like wun coconut

den it could have been wun lychee.

 

It could have been
wun donkey jumping ovah da moon.

It could have been
3 chickens instead of 3 pigs.

It could have been
wun lethal kumquat

instead of wun poison apple too.

 

It could have been lottah tings
but it wuzn’t.

It simply wuz wat it wuz
and dats da way it is.

 

If you like speculate
on how tings could have been

create some new fairy tales
or nursery rhymes

and let your theories
drift off into lala-land.

 

None of your changing scenarios
going get any reception from me.

I no moa time foa your fanciful agenda—
I got wun appointment wit da real.

Abbreviated Lolo

I wondah if I got da gene
dat going push me ovah da edge

into abbreviated lolo.

 

If I do

all da rust
going start building up on da wires

and da sparks not going be able
to connect.

 

Pretty soon

tings going look unfamiliar
wen da stuff is not da same

cause da face in da window
not going match da one in da frame.

 

Everyting going turn
into wun big hedge maze

like wun mass of confusing green.

 

Lost in wun world
wheah tings no make sense

time going stand still
in da present tense.

 

So if my eyes come all glassy
and I look like I’m so far away

no need feel sorry

cause I’m just drifting
like wun balloon in da clouds

on my lonely way
to abbreviated lolo.

* lolo                                                      Stupid; crazy.

Joe Balaz writes in Hawaiian Islands Pidgin (Hawai'i Creole English) and in American English. He edited Ho'omanoa: An Anthology of Contemporary Hawaiian Literature.  Some of his recent Pidgin writing has appeared in Rattle, Juked, Otoliths, and Hawai'i Review,among others. Balaz is an avid supporter of Hawaiian Islands Pidgin writing in the expanding context of World Literature.  He presently lives in Cleveland, Ohio.