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Saturday, February 16, 2013

Same Old News

As published at Dissident Voice and OpEd News, 2/17/13:





After decades of good, bad or middling,
Probably mostly bad, yet touching,
Heterosexual sex, middle-aged farts
Can let their inner homo flare up,
As in this Friendly Lounge exchange,

“You fucked me good there, buddy.
You shouldn’t have done that.” “Hey,
Take it easy, man. I did use Vaseline.”
“No, you didn’t, not this time, you didn’t.”

More often, the bonhomie is straight
Forward piggish, as when the Lebanese
Weathercaster appears. “I bet her poop
Smells just like curry!” “Ah, that’s nasty!”

“I’m into lots of weird shit, but I’m not
Into poop. I’m sorry! I’m just not.” “Hey,
I’ll give her a good smell test. Hummm,
You’re right, it does smell like curry.”

Then tick local, national and international
Murders and rapes, targeted or random,
Nearly all done by tailed humans, of course,
Then Oscar Pistorius, that double amputee
Olympics runner who just shot his girlfriend
Four times, through a bathroom door. “What
A waste of good pussy! How can you get mad
At something like that? She’s too good looking.”

Scanning this dim dive, you’ll see
A sad sack bunch of well-pickled
Priapic corpses not yet interred.
With pricks, they’ve erected skyticklers,
Defended motherlands against their kind
And bored their way across this globe.

“I think I’m about done. I’m fucked up!”
“That’s what you said yesterday.” “Hey,
I’m sorry to be a drunk.” “Hey, I’m also
A stinking lush, but I’m no alcoholic!”

Suddenly a live female walks in,
Changing the room’s static and even
Brightening each poor boy’s outlook.
Each cadaver’s tongue felt fresher.
Behave, children, for your teacher,
Whatever her name is, is here.





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About Me

I was born in Vietnam in 1963, came to the U.S. in 1975, and have also lived in Italy and England. I'm the author of two collections of stories, Fake House (2000) and Blood and Soap (2004), five books of poems, All Around What Empties Out (2003), American Tatts (2005), Borderless Bodies (2006), Jam Alerts (2007) and Some Kind of Cheese Orgy (2009), and a novel, Love Like Hate (2010). My work has been anthologized in Best American Poetry 2000, 2004, 2007 and Great American Prose Poems from Poe to the Present, among many other places. I'm also the editor of the anthologies Night, Again: Contemporary Fiction from Vietnam (1996) and Three Vietnamese Poets (2001), and translator of Night, Fish and Charlie Parker, the poetry of Phan Nhien Hao (2006). Blood and Soap was chosen by the Village Voice as one of the best books of 2004. My poems, stories and political writing have been translated into Italian, Spanish, French, Dutch, German, Portuguese, Japanese, Korean, Arabic, Icelandic and Finnish, and I've been invited to read my works in London, Cambridge, Brighton, Paris, Berlin, Reykjavik, Toronto and all over the U.S. I've also published widely in Vietnamese.