Omniscient like the ocean, but dubbed into obscurity. I’m all discombobulated. English as a liminal space between whatever/wherever we are and some alternate dimension. Words won’t cohere. So let’s tear the top off this junkyard Honda Odyssey, bop across the Paolo-verse, headphones on, and the homophones popping. We’ll be island-hopping double agents short-circuiting poet networks with personality quirks. Publishing sidewalk talk in sidewalk chalk, page after page, block after block, in the City of the Unreal. In every “said,” there’s an implied “Said” (as in Edward). In every 7-Eleven, there’s international intrigue. A-day-in-the-life, a troop of Sunnyside sleuths, rifling through trash, cobbling assemblages of grocery lists, movie tickets, and government surveys. “Who are we? What is truth?” The Universal is in Orlando. Border work is Mortal Kombat. Our “ahoys” and “hayas” loop-di-loop through honeyed channels unto another NY disco sunset. True Account of Talking to the 7 in Sunnyside by Paolo Javier (Roof Books, 2022).
