The LR Postcard Project: #009

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Postcard #009
Poet: Mariailona A. Panaligan

Papang Wore Fedora Hats

They were similar to the ones I
saw on the American TV
channels.
The scratch pixels waving
incandescently like a cheap
candle.
I’d watch the white men move around
the 4:3 in their pastel
colored suits, beltlines hiked up so
high that each cuffed polyester
pant leg flooded.
It seemed hot where they were,
a different hot from our home
in Muntinlupa.
The sun was always beaming
in its flecked way as the
tongue of each ray licked
the skin of the men on
the TV making them look
oily and sticky.
But on the hot days we knew,
the sun had a different familiar
face. I basked in it, dangling
my purple chinelas amply as I
sat on your lap eating ripened
mangos and bayabas. Or on a
really good day, you’d take me
to the corner vendor and buy
me Chippy with some Coke in a
bag that had a rubber band
wrapped loosely around a clear
straw sticking out from
the top, keeping it in place
for drinking. And you would hoist
me on your shoulders and hold the
Coke in a bag so I didn’t spill a single
sugary drop—
andIwould listen to the
crunching of each chip between
my ears one by one by one

as Papang whistled, I watched
the blue brim of his fedora
like the horizon.

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Thank you to all who participated in the 2011 LR Postcard Project.

The LR Postcard Project 2011: #029

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Postcard #029
Received: April 2011
Poet: Kelly Fordon

. . .

it wasn’t lovely
but it was fine
wooden eyes in a
wooden head
mouth sewn shut
and hair like
twine—
oh I remember when
we used to sing—
in the morning
in the spring—
water flowing from a
moon washed gourd.

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Thank you to all who participated in the 2011 LR Postcard Project.

LR News: Don’t forget to send in your postcards!

Participate in the LR Postcard Project!

Just a quick reminder: today is the postmark deadline for sending in your responses to our Postcard Project.  If you have a free minute or two today, please consider writing a few lines on your card, slapping on a stamp, and sticking it in the post box.  We’ve really enjoyed the few postcards that have been sent in so far, and look forward to publishing more of them on the blog!

The LR Postcard Project 2011: #032

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Postcard #032
Received: March 11, 2011
Poet: Kathleen Hellen

Empty Hand

They walked to the outskirts.
Everything they had in jellied gasoline
in folds of singed kimonos
In the gray garden
of Tokyo’s napalmed streets
a small hand reaching as if planted
in the ashes. She was 17
“Fire everywhere,”
Etsuko says. “They
were closing on.”
Osaka/Kobe/Imabari
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To participate in the LR Postcard Project, please return your response via snail mail by April 15, 2011 (Postmarked).