I remember a lost world / a haunted house // another language / the radio always on / / Dahil Sa Iyo / Twilight Time // Tutti Frutti /// Alembong / / I remember plucking tiny worms from uncooked rice // the smell of musty books & paper // my mother’s paintings ravaged by moths // luscious new words I can almost taste: flamboyant, taboo, flaneur, flaneuse, bamboozle.
I remember the shock of departure / an inky terrifying ocean // the fog of arrival / / a city of everyday poets everyday freaks everyday people // I remember my flamboyant mother / the fog & chill & shame of my young self.
Who invented the yo-yo? What is the New People’s Army? The Vietnam War? The Cold War? The I-Hotel? The Beach Motel? The Surf Theater? Playland? The Columbarium? Who were the Cockettes? Who was Sylvester?
Carlos Bulosan? Imelda Marcos? Miles Davis? What was/is City Lights? Where/what was Motown? Madame Wong’s? The China Club? Mabuhay Gardens? The Rincon Annex Post Office? Malacañang Palace? CBGB? The Pasig River? The Battle of Dien Bien Phu?
This article appears in Issue 27 of Alta Journal.
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I remember it was 1975 & I was pitching my band as a “punk/funk/new wave poet thing.” The guy from the record company was in a hurry and not impressed. Yeah, OK, but can you sing?
I remember my first job at Rincon Annex // sorting military mail with Maggie / Buddha / Desiree & Twinkie / & one day after lunch break Buddha ODed & keeled over dead // he was a big guy & went down hard // the cops & the ambulance people came & you know how this story ends.
I write to exist : to feel everyone & everything.
I remember going to the Surf Theater to watch The Blood of a Poet & Night of the Living Dead / I remember my brother losing his mind in the Vietnam War & going AWOL in Manila / I remember writing him a cruel letter & not knowing why & never apologizing.
I remember Miles & his band playing the Keystone Korner // This was the height of his supreme extreme funk phase & we all had to be there // I went with Nashira & Ntozake // We wrote poems in our new notebooks from Thousand Flowers // & tried to keep up with the jagged pulsing music // I remember later thinking my poems were no good // it was all about the fancy notebooks & flowing scarves & being seen as part of a scene.
I remember my mother died in San Francisco & I was not there / I remember her memorial at the Columbarium on Geary & the poet Al Robles chanting an improvised prayer in her memory / I wanted to cry but didn’t // & I flew back to New York with my mother’s ashes in a bronze Maranao jar from the Philippines / vexed faraway country of my once-flamboyant mother.
I remember being issued a press pass & attending Imelda’s racketeering trial in Manhattan / I went to federal court every day & marveled at the cozy courtroom & Imelda’s big-shot lawyer from Wyoming & the members of the jury who kept nodding off / & couldn’t give a shit about Imelda Marcos or Swiss bank accounts or her dead dictator husband // I remember thinking that’s history for you.
I could almost taste the luscious words: alleged, racketeer, irony.
The Alleged Racketeer collapsed in a faint one sweltering afternoon // Imelda’s a big girl & just like Buddha she went down hard // the judge cleared the courtroom / & I remember thinking we’d been bamboozled // & there was nothing seriously wrong & she didn’t die & eventually the Racketeer was acquitted of all charges // & everyone’s a gangster & everything’s a story / guitar & gun / lost brothers / & black pearls & black tears & blood of a poet.
I write for the ghosts // I write to remember /// I write to exist : to feel everyone & everything.•
Jessica Hagedorn was born and raised in the Philippines and came to the United States in her early teens. Her novels include Toxicology, Dream Jungle, The Gangster of Love, and Dogeaters, which received an American Book Award and was a finalist for a National Book Award. She is presently at work on a hybrid memoir.
