Joe Balaz

PIDGIN SURGEON


DA PIDGIN SURGEON OPERATES



I no need your shielding
conventional aesthetic

to interfere wit my anesthesia

cause wen I put you undah
and operate

I going sew you up real good
aftah I get through wit you.


It’s time

to split da cranium wide open
wit dis big hatchet

moa sharper
den wun TV advertised knife

slicing effortlessly
through wun tomato

and lets see wats circulating in deah.


Maybe we should have done
wun MRI first

but dats okay

cause its stimulating
to quickly get

your working hands into tings.


So lets see heah—

Dese nerves are contacted
to dose nerves

and dese anadah nerves
are supposed to be wheah?


Whoever had da nerve
to design dis ting

wen make it too damn complicated.


And wheah da hell
is all da plasticity?

I don’t see it anywheah.


Dats wun bad sign

to dis guy’s potential growth
of accepted tolerance

cause I no tink he’s open minded
and I might be wasting my time

to explore his reasoning.


“You must have had
wun strange off day up deah

sitting on your golden throne

wen you wen consider
answering da prayers

from dis particular organic apparatus.


You see wat I did deah, eh?—

Allude to da use of your own
intellectual divine tinking machine.


Looks like it has to take

wun higher power
like da one dat you got dough

to figure dis malihini out.


Yeah, I talking
and looking down at you.


Come ovah heah
all bullheaded and stubborn

“with your majestic
and superior cackling hen.”


If you wuz awake
I would explain to you

dat I got dat chicken quote from Hendrix.


I bet you nevah like
his kinky and humungous Afro eidah.


Actually
above us right now

Jimi just might be orbiting
da third stone from da sun

watching all of dis too.


Pride and arrogance

came wit you
and your traveling suitcase

from ovah da ocean.


So heah you are

past out, past tense,
past your bedtime,

on my operating table.


Looks like dis procedure
is ovah dough

cause I correctly deduce

dat it’s hopeless
getting through to you.


Nurse!

kindly put some bandages
on dis guy’s head

and get da crew
to put him on wun gurney

so we can roll da buggah
outtah heah!


I got moa important tings to do.


Wen he finally wakes up
administer two aspirins to him.


Wit his pompous but naïve attitude
he’ll be just fine

by da time
of dat expected day

wen he jets his way back home
to wheah he came from.


malihini      Stranger; one unfamiliar
                      with a new place or custom.




Joe Balaz has created works in American English and Hawaiian Islands Pidgin (Hawai'i Creole English).

He presently lives in Cleveland, Ohio, and he is the author of Pidgin Eye.
 
 
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