Irish Ninja
Somewhere around the age of 20 I had been looking to get my accent back that would
have been 1995 when I first came back to Milton Keynes & Portadown
BOYO after moving to Vegas
where the middle school
was full of Mexicans hombre
and a girl named Candy squinted
when she smoked a cigarette through her gaped tooth and BOYO
did she love Duran
Duran and French kissing
I hadn’t learned the French and loved
Jesus but did play
spin the bottle with no
tongue for Jesus I
hadn’t learned the cursive
so the curly haired Mexican teacher
who was a finalist for space
but Christa McAuliffe beat him to it &
was blown up in the process showed us
an experiment with a glass tube and a cigarette and the tube filled up with smoke
and the glass bottom got yellow and he said
this is what happens to your glass belly
BOYO my accent was still thick
and the girls wanted to play four
square but I hadn’t learned the cursive
so I was after school with a shy Mexican girl and I was her
Irish ninja & made up some move I called
the slot machine jackpot arm twister and I told her I was
on the run and if any Irish
ninjas showed up to keep
the beans in her belly
after school I stayed up late looking
into the mirror & tired of not
being understood I elongated
my a’s & listened to Grandmaster Flash & tried to breakdance
on a piece of cardboard and a Vegas
Mormon accent began to kick in
then which was really 1950’s America
but I didn’t know that then & on Sundays we took on Elizabethan English with thee
& thou & brother & sister & handshakes & half moons under shirts & I got all mixed
up in 1995 after visiting Portadown
& Milton Keynes & leaving a Mormon mission which was in Boise
Idaho & for the first time since
I left I wanted to turn back
the clock get back what I lost
that whale in the belly UGH
and now I am back in London
hello again & this is 2011 &
I have an American accent
and my past is still my past
and my present is three steps
behind my past oh God-
Zenie and I have a British passport
YUCK and an American accent
hm whatever that means
& that’s OK too I guess I am ok
with that & I guess whatever
it means is sort of up for grabs and I am really up for grabs
with Portadown somewhere down there in the cities of the belly
my green card for America has expired
my Northern Irish accent has expired
my Mormon accent has expired and I will expire too