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REAL KARAOKE PEOPLE
when you’re singing karaoke
there are more important things than staying in-tune;
more important than keeping the beat;
stretching the high notes to that sweet spot in the wind…
when you’re singing karaoke,
really singing from the center of your being,
in whatever town you’re in, whatever bar, club or smoky poolroom
you find your spit-bright rainbow sizzling
the one hot stage light on a Tuesday evening,
jukebox broken, stars
a million faceless frozen angels,
the only thing that really matters is…
Destiny
and how much you can affect it with the far end of your voice.
how much you can stand up to it,
eye to eye,
tooth to tooth,
try to change it,
then, finally, in the end
give up
and love it, that joke
your Fate
with all its flaws…
like your voice
filling the void…
You never close your eyes
anymore
when I kiss your lips…
real karaoke people
don’t make it to church very often.
or the gym. they don’t play the trombone or violin,
they practice no art, no deception.
real karaoke people
don’t even know what age they are,
or they would not get up there;
they don’t know their class or race,
at least while they’re singing…
the street and this world
as hard and cold as they're gonna get,
so real karaoke people float,
and vandalize it with their heart...
And they sit at the bar
and put bread in my jar
and say: Man
what are you doing here…!
real karaoke men
wear white underwear
and find strange comfort in cubicles.
they messy the damp heads of their children out of reflex
at 8 p.m., when they come home
and hang their suitcoats and hats on the rack
like scarecrows; competing
with shadows, making love to their wives of thirty-eight years
with only a magic sack of tricks, a purple pill,
and liniment. everything
they've eaten
lately tastes like last week’s chicken. they’ve quit
smoking, and now chew things,
as the soul deep down
chews things…
Now,
at the end of the road…
Still I can’t let you go…
there is nothing pretty about
real karaoke women. neck veins
engorged, mouths
wide open; cigarette-stained teeth and lips
puffing smoke signals for…
Love
if you can cut it.
real karaoke women
pop buttons; plant roses
with the gravity of their focus;
raise the dead beloved
in the rise and fall of their voices.
real karaoke women
like my mother
have breath that reeks of night wind, myth, fugitive
streams trickling poems folded from lilies
just over the mountain…
ari ari rang
suri suri rang
ararii ka naan-nae...aeaeae
aaa-rirang mm mm mm mm mm
arari-ka-ah nan-nae...
ten thousand years away,
in a mythical land called America,
I spill soju on the laughing laps of my friends in Koreatown,
32nd and Broadway, where a big screen TV and karaoke
machine can bliss your fix till 6 a.m.;
half a dozen private rooms, song books
by the twos and threes catch the stray flecks
of a silvery disco planet whirling overhead…
karaoke songs in Chinese, Japanese, Spanish, English, Korean, Indonesian,
Vietnamese...
real karaoke people know
past 4 a.m., English
can be only half a home;
the rest you have to excavate with your throat,
a subtle archeology around land mines
and sun-bleached bones,
one hip hop away
from a gunshot that wakes your dead grandfather;
one missed beat of crowded
war-time train doors
closing
between your refugee family.
real karaoke people,
like my aunt,
don’t like to swim for sport;
the sharks’ blood they see in their dreams
might make them think
they’re still sinking,
so she sings…
Memories,
all alone in da moonlight.
I can smile
at da old days,
I was beau-ti-pul den…
I rememba
da time I knew
what heppiness waz…
real karaoke people
have bad memories.
that’s why
they need
the words
at the bottom of the screen.
to help remind them:
every song
loves
a new story.
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