Guest Poet Joe Balaz ‘Telling It Like It Is’

FCS focuses on promoting humour,
offbeat poetry and exploring things different

Joe Balaz writes in Hawaiian Islands Pidgin. He lives in Cleveland, Ohio

TELLING IT LIKE IT IS

“Might as well dress up like wun deer
and run in front of wun mountain lion.
Same smell. Same station. Same result.”

Dose wuz da comments
addressed to da television

dat we wuz looking at
in da living room.

Ronald had moa to say too
while we watched da news

about da teenage girl
dat had her leg bit off

by wun shark in Australia.

He continued
wit wun deadpan expression,

“Dere watah.  Dere rules,”

as we wuz informed
how da young person

wen bleed to death
and die on da beach.

Blunt and unfeeling
is wat some people would say

but Ronald
wuz just telling it like it is.

Even his cruel joke
kinnah summed it up

on how he viewed
da whole situation—

“Sharks and me have
wun understanding.

I stay out of dere ocean.

Dey stay off of my lawn.”

(Joe Balaz)