Off to Thailand

She stay off to Thailand
foa talk to wun Chi Nei Tsang master

to get moa expertise
in da field of therapeutic massage.

I tink she healing da mind too

as she wings her way
on her latest adventure.

Space
it’s wun wide open concept

and it looks like dats wat she needed.

I stay tinking all of dis
in da belly of wun great beast

dat has taken me
to da bottom of da sea.

Heah in solitary
in da illuminating blackness

I’m just like Jonah
in da diving whale.

Da brain can rewire anyting

and in dis strange confinement
heaving to da motion of my host

I can plainly see multicolored kites
dancing and bobbing in da sky

witout looking through my eyes.

Maybe dose
are like da random prayer flags

dat she going view in Chiang Mai

each one wun wish
and wun mystery to behold.

She stay off to Thailand
all da way around da world

while I stay riding
dis unseen leviathan

waiting to be placed
on some newfound shore.

Joe Balaz writes in Hawaiian Islands Pidgin (Hawai’i Creole English) and in American English. He edited Ho’omanoa: An Anthology of Contemporary Hawaiian Literature. Some of his recent Pidgin writing has appeared in Unlikely Stories Mark V, Otoliths, Tuck Magazine, and The Lake, among others. Balaz is an avid supporter of Hawaiian Islands Pidgin writing in the expanding context of World Literature. He presently lives in Cleveland, Ohio.