The Hula Hooper's Taunt

I’mma a two-ton spiker hips fast rondeau N’ere more, nay sayer feel this orbit rattle Wipe that prattle that spittle crass pupa Gupta away you ma’ man, where you revolving solving spin shorty shark satellitic fever Leer not, lyre I spiral atom pattern Faster than you say my turn.

Engines Within the Throne

We once worked as clerks

        scanning moth-balled pages

into the clouds, all memories

outsourced except the fuzzy

        childhood bits when


I was an undersized girl with a tic,

they numbed me with botox

        I was a skinsuit

of dumb expression, just fingerprints

over my shamed


        all I wanted was snow

to snuff the sun blades to shadow spokes,

muffle the drum of freeways, erase

        the old realism


but this smart snow erases

        nothing, seeps everywhere,

the search engine is inside us,

the world is our display


        and now every industry

ha

Cathy Park Hong

2012

Year of the Amateur

        Recall the frontier when the business 
of memory booms, when broadbands uncoil 
        and clouds swell with sticky portals, amassing 
        to a monsoon of live-streams. 
        Burn your chattel to keep the cloud afloat
so its tears can freeze to snow. 
        The voice flatlines in this season of pulp: 
The artist makes miniature churches out of drain pulp,
The Indonesian rainforest is pulped, 
the last illuminated gold leaves are pulped so we 
        gather and watch an otter nom nom 
sweet urchin to a pulp.  
We laugh softly.

Cathy Park Hong

2011

Poems

The Hula Hooper's Taunt

More by this poet

Karaoke Lounge (audio only)

Engines Within the Throne

Year of the Amateur

Poems

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The Hula Hooper's Taunt

More by this poet

Karaoke Lounge (audio only)

Engines Within the Throne

Year of the Amateur

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