No Bummer

read at Bali Unspoken Slammers open mic March 26 in Ubud
to a small crowd of young Indonesians and a few foreigners including a French woman

 

You know what a bummer is right? It’s a bad trip
Like having to stand in line for hours
My mate tells me don’t bum them out - use your magic
Really – I don’t want to bring you down
Better to bring up something profound
Like philosophy But I don’t know how
Philosophy was always to me a bunch of words
I couldn’t follow or remember
But I do think about things
There’s stuff I try to understand
I try to understand Indonesia
How can I understand philosophy
If I don’t understand Indonesia?
Like – it’s a place where a penis is a thumbtack
and a guy who was smoking asked for an ass back
I didn’t take his ass
It’s a place where a room is a house and a house is thirsty
and it’s thirsty for air and the air is full of water
and the water is in plastic bottles
and those little cups we find in the streams and ocean
and below them I see grey coral
that used to be in technicolor
but the water’s getting warmer and the coral didn’t like that
so maybe the cold water melting off of Antarctica will cool it off
but I don’t know for how long because Eastern Antarctica
the coldest place in the world
is right now 30 degrees warmer than usual
That’s Celsius
Fahrenheit it’s 54 degrees above normal

Oh darn That’s a bummer and I said I wouldn’t bum you out
Hey - Don’t think about it
Don’t think about what could be done about it
Don’t think about the extreme unprecedented heat wave in Antarctica

Where’s the magic when we need it?
Must find the magic

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Indonesian - English

pinis - thumb tack
asbak  ashtrey
rumah - house
haus - thirsty
air - water