Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Craig Santos Perez
Craig Santos Perez
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ginen1 tidelands2 [latte3 stone park] [hagåtña, guåhan] ~
~ ~
stories—this of trespass—
raised house— to here—
at quarry
outline forms ginen sounding lines
10 14
Bash brothers: duo of former baseball players consisting of Jose Glyphosate: an herbicide
15
Canseco and Mark McGwire Kunia: an unincorporated community on the island of Oahu in
11
Micronesian kingfisher: typical bird in Guam Honolulu County, Hawaii, United States
12 16
To rive: to wrench open or tear apart or to pieces Waimea: Waimea Bay is located in Haleiwa on the North Shore
13
Manoa: a valley and a residential neighborhood of Honolulu, of O'ahu in the Hawaiian Islands at the mouth of the Waimea River
Hawaiʻi
Poems by Craig Santos Perez (1980-‐?)
let us praise the souls of native youth, whose eyes
dow, pioneer,
basf, monsanto are open-pit uranium mines, veins are poisoned
rivers, hearts are tar sands tailings17 ponds. “Trick
$240 million or treat,” says a boy dressed as the sun. Let us
seed sector —
praise El Niño, his growing pains, praise his mother,
corn for Ocean, who is dying in a warming bath among dead
cattle feed fish and refugee children. Let us praise our mothers
boys, enslaved by supply chains, who carry count how many papuan children have watched
bags of cacao under West African heat. “Trick their loved ones mounted and shot—
or treat, smell my feet, give me something good
after we turn off the tv and close the laptop—
to eat,” sings a girl dressed as a Disney princess. nālani reads to kaikainali'i a bedtime story:
Let us praise the souls of brown girls who sew
our clothes as fire unthreads sweatshops into "Twinkle, twinkle, small hōkū / Shining down on our canoe
Up above the sea so high, / Like a candle in the sky"
smoke and ash. “Trick or treat, smell my feet, give me
something good,” whisper kids disguised as ninjas. count how many papuan children have been extracted
Tonight, let us praise the souls of Asian children to islamic boarding schools in jakarta—
who manufacture toys and tech until gravity sharpens "When the ocean waves are black, / When we feel like
their bodies enough to cut through suicide nets. turning back,/Hōkū shines its little light, / Guiding us all
“Trick or treat, smell my feet, give me,” shout boys through the night."
camouflaged as soldiers. Let us praise the souls count how many papuan children are seeking refuge
of veterans who salute with their guns because across borders only to become forgotten refugees—
only triggers will pull God into their ruined
"Waves may fall or rise up high, / keep your eyes upon the
temples. “Trick or treat, smell my feet,” chant kids sky, / Hōkū peeks out in between, / Shining out its steady
masquerading as cowboys and Indians. Tonight, beam."
17 19
Tailing: residue separated in the preparation of various kaikainaliʻi: the poet’s daughter
20
products (such as grain or ores) Nālani: the poet’s wife
18 21
Fallout: the often radioactive particles stirred up by or Grasberg mine: the largest gold mine and the second largest
resulting from a nuclear explosion and descending through the copper mine in the world. It is located in the province of Papua in
atmosphere Indonesia
Poems by Craig Santos Perez (1980-‐?)
count how many hashtags it will take to trend
bleeding black island bodies strip-mined by bullets
crushed into slurry by military boots pumped
through pipelines across poisoned rivers and treeless
lands, shipped overseas and enslaved by our technology—
22
Betelnut: the fruit of the areca palm (Areca catechu), which 1965 in the West Papuan or West New Guinea territory which is
grows in much of the tropical Pacific (Melanesia and Micronesia), currently being administrated by Indonesia as the provinces of
Southeast and South Asia, and parts of east Africa Papua and West Papua, also formerly known as Papua, Irian Jaya
23
Papua Merdeka (Indonesian): The Free Papua Movement is an and West Irian
umbrella term for the independence movement established during