Biographical Details

Joe Balaz writes in Hawaiian Islands Pidgin (Hawai’i Creole English) and American English.  He is the author of Pidgin Eye, a book of poetry. Some of his poems have appeared in Stand Magazine, The Lake, and London Grip, among others.  Balaz presently lives in Cleveland, Ohio.

 

 

Poem for morphrog24

 

Telling It Like It Is

TELLING IT LIKE IT IS

 

Might as well dress up like wun deer

and run in front of wun mountain lion.

 

Same smell. Same station. Same result.”

 

 

Dose wuz da comments

addressed to da television

 

dat we wuz looking at

in da living room.

 

 

Ronald had moa to say too

while we watched da news

 

about da teenage girl

dat had her leg bit off

 

by wun shark in Australia.

 

                                                  

He continued

wit wun deadpan expression,

 

“Dere watah.  Dere rules,”

 

as we wuz informed

how da young person

 

wen bleed to death

and die on da beach.

 

 

Blunt and unfeeling

is wat some people would say

 

but Ronald

wuz just telling it like it is.

 

 

Even his cruel joke

kinnah summed it up

 

on how he viewed

da whole situation—

 

 

“Sharks and me

have wun undahstanding.

 

I stay out of dere ocean.

 

Dey stay off of my lawn.”

 

© Joe Balaz