That Merry Wanderer of the Fight
Thou speakest right;
I am that merry Kevin Martens of the night.
The Kristang guy.
The one who they say should have died
many quadrillions of moons ago
and still continues to survive, and thrive
like a fucking big damn queer Southeast Asian hero.
How does he do it?
No one but this poem knows;
none alive have ever been so bold
as to, you know,
just ask him.
What a legend being written here, in this poem!
Just ask.
But no, your fears lead you down into the marsh, and the lalang, and the sweetgrass
and make you lie down on the beds of honeysuckles and roses
and ask
are frangipanis really made to host this
kind of meaning?
Are young, nubile gay Singaporean men really supposed to be this
kind of vulnerably, hyperauthentically revealing?
Is there something about myself, perhaps,
that maybe I am not quite seeing?
Perhaps I am not feeling
it today,
or in any way,
or in any century, or under any of the sun’s rays;
perhaps I need some help from the Kristang Puck.
Good news! Perhaps you’re in luck—
I came to write some fucking healthy poems,
though perhaps sadly for you, not quite to fuck
with your ability to make it big real quickly.
I’m not that kind of Dreamtiger or Makaravedra.
I’m here for the joy. The love. The value. The meaning
that one gets, standing and looking out across the lake.
I’m glad I’m who I am. I’m glad that at least one of us is not fake:
I’m glad at least one of us is waiting, on the stage,
for the play to begin.
One of us is Robin Goodfellow,
and one of us, at least, is playing not to win.