thanks to lipservice!

i just realized how uneasy i was with poetry when dr. marj asked me to read something for our class discussion. when it came to the word poem, i had to either pause before pronouncing it or repeat the word twice. my mind was fighting between pom, po-wem and poym and i ended up with po-wim! crazy. but now i'll settle for pom and repeat it at least 5 times a day. haha.
(dr. marj is another "poem" incident since i dunno how to spell her name. i read a lot of marj and others written as marge, better ask her instead)

i want to share a poem that i got to know just last week. accdg to dr. marj, his book is not in bookstores yet since it was released just this january. i promise i'm gonna buy his book as soon as it is released. or if someone can give me a copy that's even better! haha. he is gifted with a lambent wit that he shares with his readers in this book. i'm not sure if i can post his poem here but i really want you guys to read it.

LIPSERVICE
by Sid Cruz from his book Redeeming the Body

The new barber who used to live abroad
speaks to me in misspelled words.
I nod in the mirror. [Be nice.]

Keep stale, I hear him say
as he stays my head. Else
you might get bold, he chuckles.

Bald? I attempt to ask,
but he brushes cut off hair
around my mouth.
What if he mistakes my ear
for my hair?

The barber flicks his sheares.
I left my wife in Marry-lend, he says.
She's my love and cancellation.
But i don't mutter to her... A waiter asks her,
"Ma'am, would you like to go bottomless?"
And I flare up coz she says yes.
She glares at me, "It's the tea, silly!"
I still trust her, the barber tells me,
but you can't be Saussure.

The barber muses about America,
about how even garbage collectors there
fight for issues like segregation.
Finally, he let's me go.
The cashier tells me the new barber,
who used to be a Private First Class,
got his training in a crash course.
My old barber, she announces sadly,
has suffered a nervous breakdown.
Meters away the new barber nods at me
and spins his finger around his temple.
I leave with cheers in my eyes. I don't
wish him and his wife an injuring love.

At times I think this is all
there is to it and nothing more,
yet each time we pack and unpack our bags,
living one day at a time,
I sense another door ready to admit us,
our baggage and our gifts,
by which they all can remember us both
for some time.

crazy right? and this is just one of the many poems in his book!
i'm gonna work my hardest to learn, write, read and enjoy poetry to the fullest!