Friday, March 23, 2007

Malaysian voice abroad (a poem)

It is so often people from the so-called "Third World" countries are defined by the so-called affluent "West". This is my turn, writing from the USA (in winter 2007):

Cold Reception

It was a day when I thought I was
smarter than God
February was my safe month
wintry wind would miss me
It should end with Christmas

Northwest was 30 mins behind time
Narita was polite about it all, we jumped queue
in a rush to Detroit

Luck was not me
Or luck was indeed me
Plane missed and would I please
Come back tomorrow morning

and hence,began a wintry trauma
Stuck in Detroit amidst the purity of snow
in a warm hotel with free WiFi
Thanks to wired technology, I was immediately home with online
family

I’d catch my flight tomorrow afternoon, I told them confidently
Tomorrow noon never came
Blizzards proved to be testing me
Dancing, flaunting, ravaging
Go look for other hotels, we don’t cover anything to do with fail of Nature
I stood in the icy air
Waiting
Hoping
The shuttle bus would come frequently
To find Hyatt at Dearborn you first had to misunderstand the Detroit accent
try looking for the courtesy form up and down the escalator
back and forth the McNamara tunnels

But after a while you’d find out what they meant
Courtesy PHONE
The white one at the corner
A-ha

Hyatt was nice but impersonal
WiFi no longer free
It didn’t work immediately because they never knew Malaysians
sometimes have long names
I was Nor first name and Faridah surname
But Steve on the other end in Texas was so sweet
Gave me a temporary access when all else failed at (a.m.) 3
Asking me if it’s true what they said about Malaysian gals
Men grow taller when they smile at them

Innocently I thought of the Petronas twin towers and said I guess so.

Detroit Detroit Detroit
You are not my New York
I waited 3 days on you
This is not a friendly city
You have a nice make-up
But inside, I see steel.

Detroit
Feb 16, 2007
(the day I got stuck in Detroit for 3 days due to bad weather.I was on my way to Ithaca, New York)

1 comment:

Nik Nor Zafirah said...

wow...wat a nice poem! keep it up mummy!