Kaza di Bringku / Opera House

Poem in English and Kristang, written at Poesiaeuropa 2023

Beng labeh
pradianti yo sa palabra. Yo ja pedreh
tudu angkoza ki bos falah na rentu yo logu ingkontrah
bergonya. Na pasadu, seng, podih chomah kung yo
ngua bergonyuzu, mas agora yo ja fikah ngua pesua sempri mas nubu:

mamenus ngua stori arepu
ki kereh bos insinyah jung yo justu
keng kereh skribeh di yo sa istoria. Kauzu yo nenang fikah belu

and yet I am performing across the storms;
I am dreaming of something that is so much more than you
and I combined.

A listless, halting, archipelagic view of time.
A first, and second, and third, and fourth Earth, devastated by apocalypse.
A glimmering of the real Final Five

as they put on a show,
and wave gaily at the passers-by
in the collective unconscious, who are too busy trying to find
Reason, with a capital Raskul, with a season
that repeats itself over and over again:

one day, you will die.
Morti logu beng pidih kung bos, klai

bos kereh ingkontrah di mundu di fing?
Klai bos kereh papiah di tera-tera di antiming?

Even in Shakespeare’s time
there was still no way to say it.
So no worries. One finds
themselves pastiched onstage,
heralded among the divine as a sage,

and actually not an impostor, even.
Just someone displaced from their own divine right
to tell a good story, and make it yours and mine

in the telling.
The curtains open.
The roar of the ocean is swelling.

The first words, the Prologue:
these are finally spoken

and sung.
The words tumble across lingguaza kung speransa.
Justu pra bos kung yo, yo ta bringkah:
only for you and I, is the stage truly set to become

something.
Somewhere.
Someone.

A rewriting of the directions
so that you, the stage, the story and the lines
are all suddenly made into one.