Olongapo City, Philippines (1972)

[emel.scott]

Ten till late on Subic Bay
and this bar is shuttering shut.
How many fingers
am I holding up?
Lights out, pitched back
and stumbling drunk.

Up-tempo horny
and there's a chance
my hand will have to do
the dance. Out on the street
it smells of piss
and cooling grills
of monkey meat.

I hear the last
of the bar kept whores
Me love you long time sailor
No go hotel tonight baby.
You come my home, come my home.

I tamp a filterless Old Gold.
She buys a sweating bottle of Coke.
We catch a cab; it carves the mud
through a third world crack
in the garish façade.
Deep into the forbidden blight
where the Shore Patrol
would never go. Fearful
it might be a trap, then
everything just fades to black
in the amnesia night...
________________
________________

A spongy wetness
draws me out
of nowhere.
Grey pigs
grunt their reveille,
pink snouts nudging my toes.

I awake, on a reed mat
in her scavenged hut.
The sunrise makes its way between
sheets of corrugated tin nailed
haphazardly to a wooden frame.
Random street life fills
the large angular gaps.

Down through dusty rays
a silhouette descends.
My last-ditch lover
smiles at me.
A scar; the work
of a pimp's knife
or a machete,
starts above one eye
crosses her nose
through a lip
then wraps her jaw.

Her nanay approaches.
Grinning a mouthful of rotten teeth
she holds out translucent cakes
of purple taro root
and balut [fertilized duck eggs],
cracked so I can see
the fetus curled up inside,
It's an honor.

I feel three pair of eyes,
glossy black marbles
pushed into soft chocolate
faces: her small children
just inches away.
Curious little rags,
tentative but anxious
to see this novelty.


Note: If you’re curious about balut
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8NDVOfyrcDo

[Doreen Peri]

Great images, interesting storyline, rhythmic and metered.

Nice, Scott!

[gypsyjoker]

You made me miss my Uncle Morris scott,
a veteran of another war
that one was in Luzon


All the time I am reading this one I am thinking Kerouac would have wished he wrote it. That probably seems like an odd comment. I was thinking of the Mexican bordello in On The Road.

[saw]

this is good Scott, and brought my memories around to my days
in the Navy.....many of my recollections have this flavor...exotic ports....young hormones.....have you ever been by any chance to the Black Angus in old San Juan ?......we all took some chances,
didn't we ?

[mtmynd]

crazy... i, too, was navy and hit olongapo several times within the two cruises over there (aircraft carrier CVA-43). my time was '67-'68. all that action on one fucking street that went forever (or so it seemed). i didn't leave that street like you did, scott... too risky. the shore patrol was everywhere watching us. but sure had some wild times... nicely done!

[hester_prynne]

Wow.
This piece is like, alive or something.
It renders me curious, somehow sated, and sad, but it also makes me feel guilt....anger....those children....it just shouldn't happen...I mean, I kinda hate the whole scene.
I feel bad for everyone in this, but resigned as well.
Very effective
H

[emel.scott]

Thanks D, a compliment about meter from you means a lot to me

Gypsy; you put me in hallowed company, that extraordinarily generous of you

Saw, never made it anywhere but Pearl Harbor and the West pacific. Were you in Admiral Zumwalt’s navy? very strange times. I'll buy you a San Miguel sometime and we'll swap stories.

Mtmynd, from what I hear Olongapo was tame in ’72 by ’68 standards. As far as leaving the street, the first time I thought that stupid move paid off was a couple nights ago when I wrote this...that'll be three San Miguels please. (OK Doreen, four

Thank you HP, I'm glad it seemed alive to you, I'll consider that high praise. I feel much worse for the children in my poem filipino fog, (posted a few days back). However, that was a rhyming poem and it seems that when I've tried to mix humor and pathos in that type of setting setting, most people who comment only seem to see the humor. It's very curious to me but I’m living and learning about this whole poetry thing

[saw]

yea scott, I was in Zumwalt's navy...he loosened a lot of things up,

okayed mustaches....allowed you to enter the base in your work clothes instead of dress whites....

Our captain was fond of Mardi Gras, so we ended up there twice
during my enlistment........it was tough duty.....

Did most of the Caribbean ....more than once...was even in Cuba...
guess where.....you got it, Guantanamo.....pre-terror age....

but the ports were always a spectacle, I was enlisted by the Shore
Patrol more than once to look for AWOL sailors.....fun times......

[emel.scott]

yeah ol' elmo z. was a trip, i chose a bad time to leave a commune in cali and enter the military looking for some self disciplne...lol what a joke, two weeks of bootcamp in frigid great lakes for a 2yr active reservist and off to pearl harbor. i didn't know that all the dope was comin into the west coast via aircraft carriers from nam. we'd smoke up on the signal bridge and the few officers who caught us never seemed to care all that much and... it was a quick out no questions asked if you admitted it and wanted to return to civilian life. if the 'cong hadn't started that '72 tet offensive it would have been a nice pleasure cruise vacation...