Time Machine Native

I just got back to the states after two weeks kulang pakyo' magahet in Guam and so I'm just trying to make sure my head is on straight as I jump back into school.

Posting on my blog might be like it was when I was on Guam, ti sesso or infrequent and I apologize.

To placate yan na'magof the half dozen or perhaps dozen of you who read my blog regularly, just thought I'd share a photo of me from the poetry slam I attended on Guam, Sinangan-ta 4. I arrived on island as the poetry slam was starting. After being detained yet again, although this time for only about half an hour, my family picked me up, took me to eat Chinese food, and then politely dropped me off at the poetry slam. Hunggan, gof yafai yu' put i hinanao-hu gi i batkon aire, lao I knew that the space that is created by these poetry slams is too important to not put to good use. Antes di maleffa yu, si yu'us ma'ase to Anthony Tamayo for the photo, and to Kie Susuico, Melvin Won Pat Bora and Jovan the Oddchild for putting together another great Sinangan-ta!

I read a poem I first wrote about three years ago titled Time Machine Native, which is a discussion about decolonization and sovereignty, dependent upon how we relate to the past and the future. In the poem I come across in the jungle a locally grown time machine, made in the shape of a sakman, comprising all different types of technology with the names of generations of political status and cultural activists carved into its side.

Here's a snippet of it, just to give you a sense of what the poem says:

A telephone pole palu sits atop the form
Carrying a sail Resting quietly
Crafted carefully with metallic and shell si’i
Woven from a thousand dreams.
In the imperfections of the agak weave
In the strains of a thousand hours
In the wishes of a thousands folds
I see the hopes of the Chamorro people
In controlling their future by somehow navigating their stormy past