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A whole dozen of tenants
In this unauthorized rooming house of mine:
One is a drug addict
Nosy and manipulative
Trying to play her dubious role
Of a tenant representative
And self-styled manager on site
Another has just broken his old hip
Ready to sue me
For an imagined fault on my ownership
A third has been using bed bugs
(God knows where she gets them)
As an agent to bilk every penny
Out the wallet of my kindness
A fourth has finally moved out
Tho his stuffs still piled up
Under my heavily abused sundeck
While others either unable to pay their rent
Or bug me constantly for their endless rights
With the tenancy act here more protective
Of evil tenants than of law-abiding landlords
I wonder if I should just sell this rental property of mine
Rather than continue living with it until I get the order
To shut down this inner house of mine
All mad inside out
Eat MacDonald's or Kentucky Chicken
Drink Coca Cola or Pepsi
Listen to Jazz or Rock'n'Roll
Smoke Kent or Marlboro
Watch CNN or Hollywood movies
Wear blue jeans or polos
Drive a GM or Ford
Invest in derivatives rather than in properties
Go online with an IBM or Apple
Read New York Times or Great Gatsby
Play football or baseball
Microsoft all your Intel hardware
Talk aloud about freedom, democracy, human rights
Support the strike against devilish Iranians
Evil North Koreans, demon Mainland Chinese
Most important: vote while you google, google while you vote
And you will become an American
A politically correct member of the truly civilized world
Quasi Americans, welcome aboard
Changming Yuan, twice Pushcart nominee and author of Chansons of a Chinaman (Leaf Garden, US) and Politics and Poetics (LAP, Germany), who grew up in rural China and published several books before moving to Canada, holds a PhD in English and currently works as an independent tutor in Vancouver. Yuan's poems have appeared in Barrow Street, Best Canadian Poetry, Exquisite Corspe, London Magazine, and about 250 other literary publications worldwide.
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18 May 2010, 08:22