Uncle Al's Biography - By Tony Robles

Monday, May 11, 2009;

Al Robles: Pilipino Poet

Born in Fillmore Street dreams
Born in a pot of adobo
Born in a bowl of fish and rice
Born in a river of patis
Born in tomatoes and chili
Born in a plateful of jazz
Born in sweet potato pie
Born with getas on his carabao feet
Born with ghettos in his black/brown
Brown/black mind
Born sucking fingers stained
With bagoong

Born in Sorsogon dreams in
His mother’s mud fish eyes
Born in his father’s
Fighting fists
Born in mud-caked
Bulosan Shoes
Born in Santos’ broken
Exile heart
Born in Miyasawa’s sad snow
Born in Ryokan’s broken tea pot
Born with black and brown
Soy sauce rivers on his tongue
Born with carabao mud
On his skin

Born in the alley with
Sorro
Campos
Ricaw
Punzal
Delfino
Villa
Rendon
Palapas

Born in the orchards
And in the campo
And in the rivers
And in the mud
And in fish tales
Swirling around

His Pilipino mind

Born sucking
Tomato beef chow
Mein at Soo Chows
On Post Street

Born in the rain
Of 10 thousand
Rice cakes inside the
Window at Benkyodo
In J-Town

Born on Trains carrying
Issei and Nisei to
Manzanar
Poston
Heart Mountain
Tule Lake
Amache
Jerome
Topaz
Minidoka
Rohwer
Gila River

Born on Pine
Ridge with
A red Lakota
Face

Born on Tatami
Mats riddled with
Cat dung and in
Sakurai’s mind
Crawling with roaches

Born in vacant
Fillmore lots
On door steps with
Musicians, pimps,
Artists, poets and
Prostitutes who’d
Ask: How’s your mama?

Born in Fillmore
Pressing poems between
White langendorf bread
Squeezing it into a
Ball, throwing it at
Nob Hill windows

Born holding a brown
Paper bag with a tape
Recorder collecting
Manong tears and manong
Rivers and manong eyes
And manong tongues
And manong hearts and
A thousand bursting manong
Suns

Born in the hollow
Of Mary Tall Mountain’s
Whale bone poems
Sharing bowls
Of good grease
(good good grease)

Born in Waipahu lava faces
Born in banana leaf dreams
Born in the strumming ukelele heart
Born in a humming banyan tree embrace
Born in the sakada’s bolo
Born in the Kali dance
Born in the Kris knife sky

Born with hands
That cry
Pilipino Ako!
Pilipino Ako!
Pilipino Ako!

Born on
Fillmore Street
Ifugao Mountain
J-Town
Nihomachi
Mission Street
South of Market
The I-Hotel

Manong Al,
Born in the
Faces of 10 thousand
Children

Born in a pot
Of adobo

Child of
10 thousand
Manongs!