Postcards from the End of [the] America[n Empire]

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Linh Dinh reading three poems from A Mere Rica on a Vũng Tàu sidewalk, 8/20/26

2026-08-20T09:45:12.544+07:00

Broke Poem

Another day, another bounced check,
Another ream of bills and applications.
Come, you can boost your joking income
By shoplifting, pole dancing or shooting, as
Our Prez greets our creditor, who’s buying
This nation from nuked sea to corexit sea.

Is that a can of sardine down your pants?
Fridge empty, I have no more Monsanto
Main course or side dishes to go with this
Aspartame punch my brood is hooked on.
“Dad, why do I have two heads yet no brain?
Why can’t I spell ‘Bernanke’ or ‘crook’?”
Actually, I don’t have kids, for I can barely
Appease bedbugs and banksters, as is.

“Pay your bill now or your phone will explode
In your brokeassed face. Cough up, or the FBI
Won’t be able to eavesdrop on your palavers.
If you don’t settle charges and penalties,
Plus interest, of course, Her Honorable
Janet Napolitano herself will crawl out of
Your plumbing, as you digest Reader’s Digest.”

I guess we ain’t broke enough to reform
Into functioning poems, handcuffs or bombs.
As is, academic jive, voting and FaceBook.
Detonating endless violence, they preach
Symbolic whining to us hushed puppies.

Though broke, I’m no boneless chicken,
Fished from a dumpster, no way, for I
Will break my breaker with a shoulder
Mounted weapon of teflon destruction.


Strumming Broke

Tony pays $280 per month for a room
Merely two blocks from the cracked bell,
Now more dinged than ever, but only
To the eagle-eyed. 7th and Market
Is no free-fire zone, but street noises
Disrupt sleep all night long. Honks,
Sirens and drunken shouts jab into
His debt, bill and illness-filled dreams.

Tony often wakes with a headache.
With no kitchen, everything’s nuked,
Or fried, surreptitiously, on a hot plate.
Soon he may burn everything down.
On each floor is a shared bathroom.
“One of these guys shits on the toilet seat,”
Tony sighs, resigned, sort of, to such shit.

Tony was born and raised in Kensington,
A traditionally Irish slum that’s now
Irish, Puerto Rican, Black and Vietnamese.
Ever heard of a Kenzo Mouthwash? Look,
It’s when you bite on the curb as someone
Like Rocky Balboa stomps on your head.
The last time I was there, a young woman
Had just been shot, and as I was snapping
Her large candle-and-teddy-bear shrine, her
Teenaged sis shouted at me, “Hey, you can’t
Take photos! This is not a show and tell.”

Tony was delivering pizzas in Philly,
But that felt deadly, so he got a similar
Gig in Cape May, on the Jersey Shore.
On a good night, he’d earn 200 bucks,
Sometimes even more. Tony bought a
$40,000 home, then sold it
For 20 more grand. A dead uncle
Also left him fifty. This was Tony’s
Financial, social and philosophical peak.
What is your apex, buddy? Ah, don’t say,
“The years before I was born,” or, “The decades
After I croak.” Say, “The moment they’re nabbed.”

(In drug rehab, Tony met Tina, whom I’d find
Dwelling in a Camden tent city. Freckled,
Redheaded and petite, she said she was
A former Miss New Jersey. She was cute.)

Though he has never heard of the word “busking,”
Tony has been busking for two years. He freaks
Strumming and singing in public so, this day,
He swills two cans of Pabst beforehand, outside,
Since he can’t afford to get buzzed inside a bar.
“I’m too old to be arrested for public drinking. Plus,
I wouldn’t be able to pay the fine.” Diffident,
Tony stands in the back corridor of a nearly empty
Commuter rail station, in front of a Dollar Store.

“FROZEN FEATURE OF THE WEEK. $1.”
With luck, he’ll cover his beer investment,
Plus enough for reconstituted meat.


State of the Union

Shovel toothed, funky in profile,
I, John Dodo, am son of Camden.
Beneath boasting of a city invincible,
I’m two boarded up windows. I am a
Well-painted mural of kaput industries.
Who touches these, touches my void.

Once I shoveled coal, tamed pig iron,
Strung bridges. Erected. Now I strut
Up and down Broadway, dazed,
Fingering coins, aiming for chicken.

Pants low slung, crack peeping,
I’m son of Bethlehem. I peddle
Christmas mart, push Sands.
I patrol dying mall in Buffalo.

At dawn, in McArthur Park,
Los Angeles, I piss and scratch.
Legless, I buff Hollywood
Plaques, pose as monster
For tourists who undertip.

I push charity condoms, body oils,
High class looking purses, low class,
High-definition porn, incense and sox.

Lying on news, ads and cardboard,
I browse, RECOVERY IS ON COURSE.
BUM SIGHTINGS DOWN. LATTE SALES UP.
BRITNEY SEEN IN ODD COLORED SHOES.
JUSTIN ALARMS FANS WITH FAKE HAIRCUT.

As I sleep, an asswipe sneaks
Photos, then gives me a buck.
Strung out, I will suck and fuck,
Excuse me, until I get my fix.

Like a cliché, I press nose
Against steak house glass.
Soon I will break that glass.

If you’re interested in having my entire output of poems in English, please PayPal me at least $16, and I’ll email you the 386-page PDF. The PayPal donation button is at the top of my photo blog. I went from an anthologized poet, with poems in Best American Poetry, etc., to being untouchable. My profile at the Academy of American Poet, Poetry Foundation and PennSound were put up before I started to look into Jewish power, Jewish thinking and Jewjabs, etc.

Linh Dinh reads "Grays Ferry" from Vũng Tàu on 8/19/26

2026-08-19T03:27:12.089+07:00

Grays Ferry

The name itself is dismal. Stumbling
Into adulthood, I spent a year there,
On a narrow, much interrupted street.
My austere block had a single, sick tree.
Tim Fender and I rented a row house
For only 50 bucks a month. Basically,
It was a shell, bought by this gay man
Who thought he would fix it up, but
Grays Ferry made him so depressed,
He just had to bolt. Being Catholic Irish,
This hood couldn’t have been congenial
To someone gay, unless he’s a priest.
Still, I seriously doubt the neighbors did
Or said anything. They certainly didn’t 
Show hostility to Tim or me, two art fags.
Everyone suffered in Grays Ferry, and
In 1986, it literally stank, for there were two
Huge lots filled with garbage, thanks to a
Twenty-day strike by Philly’s garbage men.

I had left art school without a degree,
For why borrow money to learn painting
From all these failed artists? Why not just
Slink somewhere and paint? Though I never
Amounted to crap as a painter, I’ve taught
Myself to write, sort of, instead of hocking
My life to a bank, just so I could be misled
And muddled by stunted or puffed up typists.

That year, I manned up and mainlined Celine’s
Death on the Installment Plan and his Journey
To the End of the Night. After the first
Paragraph of Death, I knew there were risks
To reading further, but until I could finish all
One thousand-plus pages of these books, I
Didn’t leave the house. It took me a week,
Then I started my own novel, from which
I’d read on UPenn’s WXPN.
The response was great, actually, but
People were just astonished by my
On air delirium, for the writing
Was a goofy mess. I had to toss it.
(WXPN liked my raving so much,
It even made me a host, until I
Really went nuts on a live show.)

The Grays Ferry shell was freezing.
I ate badly, drank rather well, kissed
Rachel upside down, bit her lips, and
Not in a nice way, either. I apologized,
And I’m saying sorry again, for one
Can never say sorry enough. I’m sorry.
Any lived life will trail loose ends, but what
Are unforgivable are malice and betrayal.
For a month, Tim had a boyfriend then,
Much later, told me he wasn’t really gay.
I wasn’t too gay, myself, for my prospects
As human, artist and writer were pathetic.
Irrelevant, young artists and writers lie
On gray sheets and dream of greatness
As society sinks further into stupid.
Hi, I’m stupid. This is stupid.
Nice to meet you, stupid.

The local, though, can never be stupid,
But I didn’t know it then, so I missed all
Of Grays Ferry’s breadth and depth, which
I never bothered to investigate. Tense,
I talked to no locals. I simply assumed
My future was in New York or, at least,
Downtown Philadelphia. What a farce.
Had I mingled in Grays Ferry, I might have
Discovered its trade in soiled underwear.
For 17 years, neighborhood boys would run
To swank Rittenhouse Square, to sell their
Skid-marked Fruit of the Loom to Fast Eddie.
A UPenn drop out, Eddie also paid these
St. John Neumann kids to piss, shit or throw up
Into his mouth. He kept shit in pizza boxes.
Though HIV-positive, Ed had butt sex
With some of these teen-aged boys.
Before his trial, Uncle Ed died of AIDS.
Eddie studied economics, then music,
Married his high school sweetheart, divorced her.
The love of his life, though, was excreta.
Messy yet meticulous, he saved all of
His boys’ underwear in 312 trash bags.

To be an artist, you must not blunt your
Troubling vision, no matter how queer.
Hedge and you’ll be a half-assed punk.
To be true, you must be willing to die.
You must, as Gary Snyder says, “kiss
The ass of the devil and eat shit.”
You must have as much integrity
As Uncle Eddie of Philadelphia.

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