People have eyes of a tongue, is the observation times for the sake of talking.
My writer-friend and roommate Roy Dequeant just found out that most of the comments he has been receiving on his poetry blog over at Blogspot are, for better or worse, Asian robots. This revelation both amused and saddened me, for a couple of reasons:
1) Dequeant is a talented poet who deserves actual literary-minded people reading and commenting on his work.
2) The comments the Asian spam-bots are leaving, once translated, are very fortune-cookie-esque, things like: “Maturity is the ability to adapt to life in the vague.” This pleases me. What was even funnier about this was that we have been trying to apply these comments to the poetry and figure out what the commenters were trying to say.
3) In my head, all of these Chinese commenters were hackers from Beyond The Great Cyber-Wall, braving labor camps and Communist oppression to read my buddy’s free verse. It was very romantic and intriguing and goddamnit, I still haven’t given up on this premise yet.
In any case, here is one of Dequeant’s most recent poems, conceived on a cross-country Greyhound trip a few weeks back:
“Preaching Appreciation”
She grew up in the Congo, man
She like to get naked
And fuck
On baseball fields
Or the side of the road
Anywhere really
I loved that girl
His glazed over eyes
From recent encounters
With the local kids
Filled with tears
That fled to the corners
And dribbled down
A stubbled mess
Quiet and man-like
Like the men that wrote
The book in my hand
While cowering in foxholes
Go home, man
And hug your mama
Tell her you love her
That’s all there is
Love, man
Love
(See more of Dequeant’s prolific work and comment here at The Musings of an Alabaman Barista – http://pissibaobao.blogspot.com/)
Salt Over Shoulder 