This Goddamn Society: The Bum

Don't just sit around.
Put that book down and wash up.
You smell like you have been marinated in beer.
Dammit, Kennett, pursue your dreams.
If you have none, create one.
Dammit, Kennett, you can be a CEO.
You can be the President.
You can be a banker.
You can be an accountant.
You can be a yogi.
You can be an evangelist.
You can be a senator.
You can be a governor.
You can be a monk.
You can be a priest.
Dammit, just think about it, Kennett.
Make your sitting translate into money.
Dammit, brother, make your procrastination worthwhile.

---

Sunday

Sunday mornings are all the same.
The pastor stands at the church gate
contemplating his Bible, his coat smells
of cappuccino and bacon
or whatever he has had for breakfast.
Families come in trickles.
One father drags his son: the three-year old cries
with pains for sacrificing a slice of his bedtime to Christ.
One can just simply admire this toddler's honesty:
others just wear invisible haloes and wings.

---

Macao Morning

The fog is thick, heavy,
draping the city
that is still tight asleep.

I know it is five
in the morning:
the smell of dumplings

Steaming at A-Kong's eatery
is now inviting
the early diners.

---

Epicurean

I gave him a bottle
of cold coke.
He sipped it, contemplated
on the shape of the bottle.
"It reminds me
of a woman's body," he said.
He then closed his eyes
and took another sip.

---

Poodles

Its bark—or chirp—was much bigger than it:
a brown poodle with a pair of eyes
that looked exactly like red beans.

The lady in short shorts
and diaphanous backless dress
jerked the chains to stop the animal from attacking.
She must have guessed
what an ant-sized creature could have done
to a nearly 6-foot, 200-pound man like me.

The monster barked once again
this time even louder.
The lady turned to me
and blurted, "She hates two things—
walking in the afternoon
and guys eyeing up on me."

Now I know why the dinosaurs are extinct
and poodles thrive.

---

Papa Osmubal is a poet-artist living in Macau, China.