Poetry&Stuffby
MARNE KILATES
MARNE
S
KRIPTS
from
Antinostalgia & the Tokhang
Rhapsodies
from
Antinostalgia & the Tokhang
Rhapsodies
From Mga Biyahe, Mga Estasyon
From Journeys, Junctions
(a collection of travel poems)
from
Antinostalgia & the Tokhang
Rhapsodies
Poems 2022
Poems 2022
Poems 2022
Poems 2022
From Mga Biyahe, Mga Estasyon
From Journeys, Junctions
(a collection of travel poems)
From Mga Biyahe, Mga Estasyon
From Journeys, Junctions
(a collection of travel poems)
From Mga Biyahe, Mga Estasyon
From Journeys, Junctions
(a collection of travel poems)
From Mga Biyahe, Mga Estasyon
From Journeys, Junctions
(a collection of travel poems)
From Mga Biyahe, Mga Estasyon
From Journeys, Junctions
(a collection of travel poems)
From Mga Biyahe, Mga Estasyon
From Journeys, Junctions
(a collection of travel poems)
From Mga Biyahe, Mga Estasyon
From Journeys, Junctions
(a collection of travel poems)
Aida cut her hair like Rossana Podesta
When she decided she could sing.
On her day off at the hour when angels
Slumber and the disco floors are dim
She called her dancer friend
Who knew the manager at Zurich Inn.
At her apartment on Libertad
They stayed on their free afternoons
Learning all the popular ditties
From the cassettes she played on the set
She bought from a neighbor
Whose husband worked in Riyadh.
She persuaded the fat blond Aryan
At the Lili to take an alternate for her
On the adding machine, so she could
Fill the singing slot at the Zurich
Friday and Wednesday nights, between
Acts of the Paradise Dance Models.
Aida took her favorite Italian’s name
As the dancers began drawing in the crowd.
And as we waited for the Shower Act
After the Nightgown Parade and the Strip
Comedy Skit, Aida-Rossana did her
Dionne Warwick, Olivia Newton-John and
Roberta Flack, before her boyfriend
From the labor union in the glass factory
Fetched her once more at Closing Time.
V I . D r e a m o f t h e B a r G i r l
So it was that beneath the whisky and wine
Glasses hanging upside down, beside
The receipts impaled on a wire poke
On a stand, Aida of the dark eyes under
The Rossana Podesta bangs smiled her brown
Filipino smile at us Mondays and Thursdays
(Tuesdays she took the day off) and it was
Sweeter. The extra she earned doing her
Harmless Crooner Act helped to furnish
The two-room affair on Libertad
Where her friends had started to visit
And at the decent dining table they now
Ate the pizza and spagetti her Love from
The labor union in the glass factory brought
Home after fetching her at Closing Time.
But the CBA was bogging down.
Always Management wanted to halve
The union’s minimum demands.
Up against the wall they threatened
To strike. Still the Owners of Capital
Won’t budge. In fact they were collecting
Scabs. The engineers were sympathetic
But most were junior executives who
Took good dividends from the yearly
Profits. Rank-and-file took trickles. Friday
They called the police. Tuesday the union
Members were rounded up, the officers
Detained. Him they let go for the meantime
Properly forewarned against further
Assembly which was now illegal.
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