Poetry

Pawel Janiak photo

 

By

Joe Balaz

 

 

 

Globalization And Da Big Tribes

 

 

So much foa open borders

aftah da flame has been lit

 

cause plenty guys like pull in tight

and circle da wagons

 

and make like wun armadillo ball.

 

Dey going put up wun fence

wit no pretense

 

to save wat dey tink going be lost

 

Da faddahland, da maddahland,

da only if you look like me land

 

wit changing flags

flying in da breeze

 

foa wat dey now represent.

 

All da nationalists stay pouring gasoline

on top of da growing fire

 

and somebody and someting

going get burned.

 

If you wuz ideally tinking

of wun worldwide melting pot

 

dats just not going to happen anytime soon.

 

Da only way dis planet

going truly unite

 

is if dose magenta hued multi-eyed aliens

out dey in Alpha Centauri

 

decide to put humankind on dere lunch list.

 

Until den

 

protectionism going resurface

and run rampant

 

and everybody going find demselves

on opposing sides

 

dat no like be da ones to lose.

 

 

 

 

Sure Fire Unison

 

 

In dose science fiction movies

 

you wuz always afraid

of dose evil robots coming from outer space

but its da ones heah on earth

dat you going have to worry about

 

cause dey going take your job

and terrorize your livelihood

.

It’s wun new industrial revolution

 

and your old position

on da assembly line

 

not going be part of it.

 

Digitalization

and computerized sensors

 

going take ovah

 

and automation going rule

wit human machine interfaces.

 

Da technological route

is now fast becoming wun ultimate highway

 

dat going eventually leave your bones

strewn out on da roadside.

 

Dere’s moa people

being laid off dese days

 

as da factory work

shrinks and disappears

 

so da average guy is wondering

wat going happen next.

 

Da actor Arnold Schwarzenegger

once played wun character

 

in two Terminator movies

 

who wuz wun cyborg

first sent to destroy

 

and den latah to protect.

 

One of his catch phrases

in da second film

 

is so appropriate to da current situation

 

wen it is applied

to da dwindling workforce.

 

You can just hear

all of dose corporations and shareholders

 

proclaiming in sure fire unison—

 

Hasta la vista, baby.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Joe Balaz

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, Unlikely Stories Mark V, 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.