Greetings from the land of raindrop obesity and cloudbursts pelting carnivorous roads that echo with footsteps and peals of taxicab horns clamoring for priority access to the decrepit web of plumbing that pumps humanity around the city in frenetic loops of economic pursuit.


Yes, I'm back in Guatemala.

Cheap

 

Watch!

the glimmering shadow

cerulean, magenta and lime
dancing as she blinks
those Betty Boop lashes
considering the possibilities that strut by

the pleated pants push

onward through the crush
of painted bodies -
humanoid limbs and refracted faces
Picasso, Caravaggio
a crowd of rippling rhythms

the cavern visitor

styles himself a connoisseur
of Nature's perfection
a lithe predator
whose appetite dictates

his prey must have

flowing locks, coiffed to perfection
No glitter!
but just enough sparkle
in those demure eyes
framed by delicate brows,
atop contoured cheekbones
and a pair
of salmon lips awaiting
his granted kiss

Not those cheap flashy girls

like drag queens

choosing to perform themselves
in ebullient hues
satire of the perfected feminine
they embrace the gaudy and godless

he searches for the properly precious,

disdaining the brash and forwardly open
drawn to the barely theres
who bask in their
naturally appropriate
lured by the refined
the silky threads that softly entangle
pairing off together the sufficiently aloof

shackled by propriety

the hunter finally feels
the costliness of the natural

6-1-15

Frogs of St. Charles

Hot July seeps into the vestibule and then dissipates in the gloomy cool beyond the tall carved doors that swing silently letting souls pass through. The cold water tickles the forehead, stains the sternum and evaporates before it reaches the Holy Ghost. Holy Spirit now. Eyes just high enough to peek into the clear pool held by the giant stone goblet, that ancient Titans might have used to toast their victories before their children grew up and left them with nothing but that taste of holy water blessed with salt, pouring red from the torn places and clear as it trickles down from above and below the eyes.

 

Inside among the yawning stone archways, the chain gang shuffles into place along the stiff oak pew, five rows from the back, somewhere near where a canine tooth would be. The throat and the red carpet tongue bellow with microphones, breathing out the occasional frankincense cloud. Incense makes asthma attacks.

 

Bare knees push into frayed red vinyl and the smell of lemon oil and wax invade the nose that rests on the back of next row. The eyes are tall enough to see beyond the row, up the walls, following the pillars that swirl into the ceiling and hold it all together. The rays that pierce the colored glass form shadows of tempting serpents slithering along the cornices and archways, launching themselves with sudden legs, leaping like slender frogs. Lizards far above the grasp of the almighty fetters the clutch the prisoners below. The echoes demand an answer, the right answer, exactly on cue, not a moment too late. The words drip out and ricochet sharply from the marble floor, the frogs and snakes dive into the shadows and disappear.

 

Maybe the choir loft, like the hunchback, but without the bell tower. No one would notice. Who would suspect? There's a restroom downstairs with water and soap. Almost got left there once. Prayed so hard to disappear. Eyes closed, feet pulled up, no breathing. It was too late. The boytwin noticed, and then the red and blue appeared again. Like always.

 

Up near the music and the crooked colored sunbeams it would be cool and warm and dark. Up there below the singers' benches, beside the vampire organ, nestled in the crevices of the waves that sweep along the arches beneath the rainbow glass that promises heaven, to look down from far above the inferno that engulfs the pew of scraggly-headed munchkins, sweetly smiling, ever obedient, never distracted. Always. Terrified.

Tree of Hands

(mental soundtrack: Nina Simone:Black is the Color)

the tree of hands
billows over the mountainous curves

brushing the sudden softness

of your eyes and following

the angle of your cheeks

to that knotted place

that unlocks the thoughts

that reside

between delicate wings

that capture the melody

of the life that dances

on that two-curtained stage.

the tree of hands

releases those knots

and the thoughts

and the flashes of sound

and lifeglow bursts:

a potpourri of kaleidoscopic experience

as I look down at the color of my true love's hair.

6-26-15

signifiers and performances

interpreted by observers

content to forego

experiencing the human

standing between

the cave and the light

within their shelter

they interpret gloomy shapes
cast upon the cavern wall
from a place of eye-sparkling brightness

fearful of sight deprivation

they evade momentary blindness
and brilliant resolution
of human recognition
and radical respect

eyes averted

unable to see the beauty
of unassailable humanity
demanding freedom, equality
and identity -
the shackles of the shadow rulers
forever cast off

Yin-Yang #1 (Poetry Pair)

A fellow poet coined the phrase "bummer poem," and when one comes along, I find it nice to unleash its counterpart, restoring balance to the complex universe of emotions shared with an audience.

 

Yin: Polyester Seas

Slowly I burrow under the mounds of cotton and polyester. The printed flowerbeds punctuated by cool rubber soles of tennis shoes and sharp edges of Sunday's best. Here in my cell the temperature rises. Folded between cool clothes and dry, hard tile, I disappear as the Valley heat makes the upstairs off-limits to grown-ups. I hope it lasts, this heat wave that makes them lazy: those big brown hands with matching plain gold rings. All four brown hands obey the blonde one with his stubbly face and wispy hair that blows off in a strong wind. His pair are softer and more severe. Hers are calloused, and reluctant - at least at first.
 
Sweat stings my eyes and dampens the long beige hair, and the tangles turn to knots, but the salty thirst feels safe: the taste of being left alone. Alone below the sea of children's clothes - enough to start a thrift store - but each piece must find its way to the closet or the drawers. It better be done by six, when the blonde one comes home. It's a job for a big girl, not little kids. Almost six means being responsible. Almost six is almost going to school, is in charge, in charge of the room and in charge of bath time. This mess is someone's fault! not the little kids.
 
Her fault; almost six and she didn't clean up her things and their things, and all the things that flock together like a school of fish, too many to count, bright and colorful until the shark comes and throws them everywhere and almost six has to start over. Tossed back with the fish, back into the ocean of polyester flowers, with purple trees and red roses decorating the arms and legs that the brown hands took, because "clean up your room! doesn't mean naptime."

Yang: Summer Swing

wind rushes underneath

like a Nike swoosh launching the pilot into the sky

Just Do It! Higher, higher

Reach for the sky!

The golden legs stretch upwards

as far as the chain allows,

then, Snap!

The pilot throws it in reverse,

watching the trees move away

like a video rewind.

The hot rubber stings through the cotton,

the molten metal links merge with the tiny grasp

swoosh

swoosh

swoosh

the tiny white hairs dance

on the wiry arms who've found their favorite

swoosh, swoosh, Swoooshhh!

the sun and clouds - in rhythm -

tangle with grass and trees and steel

swoosh-swoosh-swoosh

Can't touch this!

another round of blogging: THE SADDEST ZOO IN THE WORLD

Last time we spoke, I was five thousand kilometers to the south surrounded by people I love. This time, I'm in the middle of a California wasteland, alone in an apartment that's an airbnb on the weekends and not much of a home. A place ripped from the 70s, but to which I've added a splash of IKEA, a sprinkle of vintage delish in the way of a rocking couch, and a haphazardly excreted collage that emerged one toasty Sunday with nothing but a horrid frame, a magazine, scissors and some duct tape. Remarkably unoffensive to the eye and reminiscent of things I'd like to forget.

It's not to say there are not some that I love out here among the tumbleweeds, and some others, 100 miles south beside the Big Blue that sparkles starlets' eyes and lures the artists West. Those clusters of beings send wafts of cooling friendship towards the little box with its swirly brown shag and 90+ temperatures.

So, this time, instead of blogging, I'm posting thoughts and poems - yes - out here among the Joshua trees, poetry accounts for midweek nightlife, and I'm glad of that. Poets might not make money, but we can surely try to mint new images, cast in words of odd arrangement that leave a stamp upon the mind - at least I hope.

Here goes:

THE SADDEST ZOO IN THE WORLD

pungent wafts of stale urine:

nostrils recoil

from the assault of clorox

faintly masking humanity's rot

darting eyes assess the horizon

behind black rusted gates

hanging listless in the suffocating dampness

whose fungus crumbles the half-perimeter wall

to which cling metallic vines of fencing

that encircle the colony of the abandoned

the saddest zoo in the world

sits

caged

just past a labyrinth of shacks

that marks the edge of urban life

beyond the fogbank that cloaks the city,

lie those left for dead,

charred by the sun

curled up like withered weeds

on cracked pavement

rhythmic rocking

punctuated by spasms

tied to bed springs and lawn chairs,

or locked in windowless wards,

flooded with feces

bereft of attention,

in the tyrants' domain

subjects of medicine,

specimens

of reason's impotence

they are the abandoned

living

atop a deep ravine

whose gullet belches black waters

and exhales clouds of death

to consume the trembling rags who escape

the chokehold

of armed guards, tranquilizers and tangled wire