ok, so i know i've been all hypocritical posting everyone else's songs and videos but not much of mine, so here it is...first draft of the new poem i've been working on, next best thing. i'm pretty geeked because it's been awhile since i've written a performance piece, but it still feels pretty rough.

haaaaaaayyyyyyy, y'all can be my bloggy workshop! i'll post my drafts, then eventually footage of the premier, which i'm planning for my performance at the spoken word summit in nyc next weekend.

let me know what you think!


next best thing

it seems asian folks
are always waiting for
the next best thing

from computers
to cars
to bombs
watch how we quiver
to press our fingers
on that next hot button topic

see how serpentine lines
spiral around corner block shops
waiting for wii's
and psp's
and hddvd players

peep how our palms clutch palms
cell phones stale quick in our pockets
fuck a stereotype
what i possess in my pants
gotz to be the smallest
gotz to have the hottest tone
longest roam
so i can talk to whomever i want
to boast to folks
about the low low price
i got this oh so nice
ibook
or ipod
or iphone
and i suppose
it must be in our blood
or our heads
or our lineage predisposed
asian folks
are always waiting for
the next best thing

we long for it
we crave it
like it makes us
like being the soonest
to get the latest
means that we're
the greatest!

and maybe that's
what it all amounts to
asian folks don't have anyone
to look up to
we don't have any rolemodels
so we harbor possessions
and electronics
and technology
like we could possibly
build some iconic bionic cyborg hero
out of ourselves

but the problem is
we just end up worshiping
everything else
and waiting for
the next best thing
or next best one
and every once in a blue moon
a yellow son
or brown daughter
rises up

and we wait
for them to start
the next movement
or star in the next movie
or stir up enough news
so we can feel cool that
we'll be the next best new people that
everyone else was wrong to refuse

but we just ignore
we don't support
we just wait for some sort of cult train
to hop aboard
whenever we're in sentimental mood
asking what's new
among the "famous asian a-listers"
asking why can't asians make it

while we ain't
watching our films
or copping our albums
someone tries to do shit
but we just doubt them
2007
we still waiting for our malcolm

waiting for our hova
game's getting colder
shame's taking over
til we constrain asian culture
to drag race and boba


and fuck that
my people didn't rule all those empires
for all those eons
to suck balls through a straw

no
fuck that
we crossed the pacific
swaying on garbage ships
sweltering in shit stains
so you know we funky
arrived aching in island angels
and etched poems into the wing's walls
smacked spike to steel
and blew holes into the mountains
when they wouldn't move
ask j.j. how we dy-no-mite
ask the gong how we wail
we got it locked like rasta
walk through any chinatown crowd
and hear the loud hack
of an old cat's loogie
we known for our spittin
we drop kicks and make hits
no kung fu
we make music
and after all that
y'all wanna chop us up into some
tongue-tied
short-luck-cocked
long-duck-dong
desperate for a deal?

imagine that:
america
won't let a chinaman
get on a track
they cut my queue off
behind my back
i tried to get on
but they kept throwing exclusion acts

but my feet were bound
for something better than that
so let me tell you how this
cherry bomb blossom bloomed
cuz since my mommy plucked me from her womb
umbilical chord in tune
i've been rocking
i've been swallowed in
the bulimic beast's belly
and you are what ate you
so i stays hungry
and from my feet to my knees to my spleen to my teeth
ain't no one touching it
cuz drizzle's yellow and toxic like #5 coloring

and there's hundreds
of thousands
of millions
of kids
who could fit the description of
the next best thing

but you've got to stop fronting
like it doesn't already exist
in you

on this day
4 billion people stare at the sky
waiting for it to shatter
like a glass ceiling
at the rise of a new golden son

see how serpentine lines spiral
waiting for we

see how our palms clutch palms
see how our eyes squint
at the luminescence
of the unrealized
if you pay close enough attention
you can see smolder smoking
from our cracked eyelids
pupils rolled back
as if searching
for the minds
that bask behind them

my people
you are
the next best thing


©2007 adriel luis. and i'm on ASCAP. so don't bite, or you'll get your ASS CAPPED! sonnn!!