Two Poems: ‘Pallet Town’, ‘Manual for Starter Pokemon’

Jerrold Yam

January 27, 2016

Pallet Town

Consciousness does not always begin

with waking, but a quiet disorientation

of glinting metal, curtainless windows,

books on the floor like upturned palms.

The street is set with houses basking

in the company of cherry blossoms –

not mean or rowdy, but calibrated

pipettes of fuchsia and adoration.

It is the bed you have been resting in

for years. Someone is making coffee

and expecting you to rise. Your body

measures the character of this silence

but there are languages outside

of geometry. Your mouth is dry.

It has started to rain and this town

will not be how you remember it.

Manual for Starter Pokemon

I. Bulbasaur

Of all ancient-footed soil-sifters

you know these rituals best, first

the crinkled promise of a seed,

pact with the dark, then an embryo’s

bloodless feast on damp and sun.

When the shadow of your labours

eclipses your own, fertile bulb

cleaving open, you cannot ignore

how the language of nature is

an unnatural one: germination,

photosynthesis, self-serving pollination.

Nothing has changed. Your burden

is no less because it has bloomed.

II. Charmander

Never the flame, but restraint

of its reptilian temper. Make peace

where confrontation is poor excuse

for glory. Winged or quick-clawed,

the battles which matter are the ones

bargained with yourself, pride of identity,

unattainable flight. Yet what little room

for compromise in this Bildungsroman

is down to luck. Incinerate your bets.

Nothing comes from playing with fire.

III. Squirtle

Like all rivers, the one buried in you

has neither head nor tail, but endless

regard for past and future allegiances.

Take heed of its density, how a friend

resists or embraces water. Shell, carved from

calloused skin and bruises, is not armour

but to accept vulnerability. The same

is true of friendship: next to each other

but oceans apart.