works by william pham, 2005-present
We are all housetigers We are all housetigers living in cages that we built ourselves from slices of bamboo imported from Communist Vietnam, laid in crossing patterns and bound together with rice paper that we left in the near-boiling water for just a little too long; we tried to follow the pictorial directions that IKEA included in the do-it-yourself kit but we missed something along the way. Our mothers who taught us how to cook never told us the exact measurements; we dole out fish sauce, oyster sauce, and shouts and screams in uneven amounts and we wish we knew whether or not to hit our children -- did they make us strong like the synthesizers producing drumbeats keeping time to the belt straps and backhands, and roaring of the engines that took our mothers and fathers away from their rivers, or did we all turn out a little wrong? We are all housetigers living in cages that we built ourselves from slices of bamboo imported from Saigon by helicopters, cargo planes, and boats made of rice paper that we left in the near-boiling water for just a little too long; we let the pirates get to them, we let the pirates wrap the boats in bureaucratic red tape like lines of Sriracha chili paste. It's been thirty years and it will be thirty more before we the children of the dragon king burst through the thin shells of our dragon eggs and build ourselves homes instead of cages -- these cages that we built from shouts and screams in uneven amounts, did they make us strong like tigers, like a million fishermen and fisherwomen rising from lacquered wood to defend our rivers, our wives our husbands our sons and daughters, or did we all turn out a little wrong?
copyright (c) 2006 by william pham