Nick Carbo
Nick Carbo Poems
I've always wanted to play the part
of that puckish pubescent Filipino boy
in those John Wayne Pacific-War movies.
...
“I like dappled hats,” she said
as she lit the incendiary device.
He enjoyed her wet diphthongs
...
When he finds his wife in bed with another man--
The conservative politician feels an ache in his stomach,
remembers the longanisa and the tapa he had for breakfast.
...
This is where the typhoon starts—
inside the fourth paragraph,
ten city blocks away,
...
The angle of delight is best
achieved while rubbing
the pluperfect button
...
How do you enter that Manila
frame of mind, that woven
mat of noodle house restaurants,
...
In the slums of Tondo, people dwell
in shacks of cardboard, bits of bamboo,
corrugated metal, and a few cement blocks.
...
on Mulberry and Spring on a rainy night.
Her head sticks out of some woman’s tote bag
placed on top of the bar, she winks
at Ang Tunay na Lalaki. He looks at his gin and tonic,
...
Dona Josefina has thrown my goat
out onto the calle El Fez--
Ay! The menu of pain is as big
as a queen-sized aha umbrella.
...
He finds on cheap match covers.
PLEASE MAKE ME
TASTE LIKE A MAN
is the first one he reads after lighting up
...
Looking to harvest what makes him happy.
The AA meetings have thrown
him into iconoclastic jousts with Titans
and Gorgons with glowing snake eyes
...
The Best Poem Of Nick Carbo
Little Brown Brother
I've always wanted to play the part
of that puckish pubescent Filipino boy
in those John Wayne Pacific-War movies.
Pepe, Jose, or Juanito would be smiling,
bare-chested and eager to please
for most of the steamy jungle scenes.
I'd be the one who would cross
the Japanese lines and ask for tanks,
air support, or more men. I'd miraculously
make it back to the town where John Wayne
is holding his position against the enemy
with his Thompson machine-gun. As a reward,
he'd rub that big white hand on my head
and he'd promise to let me clean
his Tommy gun by the end of the night. But
then, a Betty Grable look-a-like love
interest would divert him by sobbing
into his shoulder, saying how awfully scared
she is about what the "Japs" would do
to her if she were captured. In one swift
motion, John Wayne would sweep her off
her feet to calm her fears inside his private quarters.
Because of my Hollywood ability
to be anywhere, I'd be under the bed
watching the woman roll down her stockings
as my American hero unbuckles his belt.
I'd feel the bottom of the bed bounce off my chest
as small-arms fire explodes outside the walls.
Submitted by Samuel Hamada
Nick Carbo Comments
Nick Carbo is one interesting contemporary Philipino writer! !
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4/19/2024 10:06:39 PM # 1.0.0.1119
The breath of topics, the scale of imagination, and the timbre of imagination of Nick Carbo reminds me of a Pablo Neruda and Wislawa Symborska. I would like to read more of his poems, especially from his earlier books.