Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, MOTOWN/ SMOKEY ROBINSON, by JESSICA TARAHATA HAGEDORN



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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

MOTOWN/ SMOKEY ROBINSON, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Hey girl, how long you been here?
Last Line: Strong now / you really gotta hold on me ...
Alternate Author Name(s): Hagedorn, Jessica
Variant Title(s): Motown / Smokey Robinson
Subject(s): Popular Culture - United States


hey girl, how long you been here?
did you come with yr daddy in 1959 on a second-class boat
cryin' all the while cuz you didn't want to leave the barrio
the girls back there who wore their hair loose
lotsa orange lipstick and movies on sundays
quiapo market in the morning, yr grandma chewin' red tobacco
roast pig? ... yeah, and it tasted good ...
hey girl, did you haveta live in stockton with yr daddy
and talk to old farmers who immigrated in 1941?
did yr daddy promise you to a fifty-eight-year-old bachelor
who stank of cigars ... and did you
run away to san francisco / go to poly high / rat your hair /
hang around woolworth's / chinatown at three in the morning
to go to the cow palace and catch SMOKEY ROBINSON
cry and scream at his gold jacket
Dance every friday night in the mission / go steady with ruben?
(yr daddy can't stand it cuz he's a spik.)
and the sailors you dreamed of in manila with yellow hair
did they take you to the beach to ride the ferris wheel?
Life's never been so fine!
you and carmen harmonize "be my baby" by the ronettes
and 1965 you get laid at a party / carmen's house
and you get pregnant and ruben marries you
and you give up harmonizing ...
hey girl, you sleep without dreams
and remember the barrios and how it's all the same:
manila / the mission / chinatown / east l.a. / harlem / fillmore st.
and you're gettin' kinda fat and smokey robinson's gettin' old

so take a good look at my face / you see my smile
looks outta place / if you look closer / it's easy to trace /
the tracks of my tears ...

but he still looks good!!!

i don't want to / but i need you / seems like i'm always /
thinkin' of you / though you do me wrong now / my love is
strong now / you really gotta hold on me ...





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