Contents
1 > A BOWL
2 > AFTER A WET NIGHT
3 > A LIFE OF ALLUSION
4 > APPEARANCES
5 > A SPHERE
6 > BACK TO THE FUTURE
7 > BAMBOO DISCIPLINE
8 > BREATHE MY LOVE TO SENSE OUR BEAUTIFUL DAY (A Villanelle)
9 > BROTHERS
10 > CAMPBELL'S TRAVELS
11 > COMMERCIAL
12 > "D"
13 > DEAD STILL
14 > DING DONG
15 > DON CAMPBELL VISITS YOU
16 > ELLIPSIS (A Ghazal)
17 > ETHNIC POETRY
18 > FOURTH LESSON
19 > FRENCH TOAST
20 > GIFTS FOR MY WIFE
21 > GLOBE
22 > GOD IS AN ANT
23 > GODZILLA!
24 > GREEN
25 > HARDBALL
26 > HEALTH CLINIC
27 > "HIKED" UP A SOFT HILL
28 > I AM 40
29 > I AM NOT JOSEPH DUCREUX
30 > I AM 2002
31 > IF YOU WANT A PB & J
32 > I'LL ONLY BE A MINUTE
33 > IN THE CHOCOLATE NIGHT
34 > IN THE SEA OF DOLPHINS, I AM A MANTA RAY
35 > JOE SPHINCTER
36 > KITTY HAWK, CALIFORNIA
37 > LITTLE GREEN ALIENS!
38 > LOVE LIKE A MOVIE
39 > MAKES MY PETALS CURL
40 > MAKING SENSE
41 > MAMI'S SCIENCE EXPERIMENTS
42 > MAN MADE WORLD
43 > McLIFE
44 > McPLAY
45 > MEMORIAL DAY
46 > MEMORY
47 > MI AMOR
48 > MORE THAN ONE POEM IN MY LIFE
49 > MY BUTTERFLY
50 > MY GREATEST (BASKETBALL) MOMENT
51 > MY POEMS FOR SALE
52 > MY SPACE
53 > NAILED
54 > NEED COMFORT? TRY...
55 > NEXT TO A FRESHLY PAINTED SCHOOL BUILDING
56 > N.W.A. (Now, With Attitude)
57 > OBSERVATION
58 > OBSERVE
59 > OF KNOWLEDGE
60 > ON
61 > ONE POEM
62 > ORPHANS OF ADDICTION
63 > OTHER SOULS
64 > OUR WORLD
65 > OWED TO ALUMINUM
66 > PASSAGE
67 > PASSAGEWAYS
68 > PASSENGER OR DRIVER
69 > PEACHY
70 > PERSEUS IN THE MODERN WORLD
71 > PINK IS POPULAR
72 > POEM
73 > POETIC SOL
74 > POETRY
75 > POETRY SPACE
76 > POETS
77 > POET TEE
78 > PROGRESSIVE ROCK
79 > QUEEN MARY
80 > REINCARNATION
81 > RELATIVITY FOR BREAKFAST
82 > REMEMBERING THE WORLD
83 > REVOLTING!
84 > RIOT POEM
85 > SCIENCE OR ENGLISH
86 > SIGNS
87 > SIX POSSIBLE AND ONE TRUE
88 > SIXTH ANNIVERSARY
89 > SPINNING GLOBE
90 > STORY OF SAN DIEGO
91 > SUPERNATURAL!
92 > SURRENDER
93 > THE ARTIST
94 > THE COUCH OF NOTRE DAME
95 > THE DESIGNER
96 > THE EARTH
97 > THE FIRST GIFT
98 > THE FREE WAY
99 > THE GREAT DIVIDE COMES TOGETHER
100 > THE GREY TOOTH
101 > THE HOUSE NEXT DOOR
102 > THE IMAGE IS
103 > THE KID
104 > "THE NEWS"
105 > THE PINK PEARL
106 > THE PRINCE OF TIDES
107 > THE QUOG
108 > THE RABE OF NANKING
109 > THE RECTANGULAR SKY
110 > THE SLICE
111 > THE SMALL MODEL
112 > THE SUFFIS
113 > THE SUN FRIES MY EYES
114 > THE VISION OF ST. BRUNO
115 > THE WORLD IS
116 > THINGS MY FATHER TAUGHT ME
117 > THIS IS MY BODY
118 > TRES VIDAS
119 > UPON SEEING E.T. AGAIN
120 > VENTURA HIGHWAY
121 > VIETNAM
122 > WANNA GO WITH ME?
123 > WHAT I AM
124 > WHITTIER BLVD. 8/29/70
125 > YELLOW
These poems copyright 1981-2004
by Don Kingfisher Campbell
(donkingfishercampbell@gmail.com)
Reproduction for any purpose is permitted.
Four Feathers Press
http://fourfeatherspress.blogspot.com
1 > A BOWL
of red apples
green apples
of brown bananas
orange nectarines
reminds me
of los angeles
from this distance
the graffiti belongs
2 > AFTER A WET NIGHT
rain-soaked trees
explode
with green light
sharp morning
shadows on
man-made rectangles
breathing creatures
sit in their rolling
steel and glass sofas
telephone poles
and limbs stretch
above the warming street
even brick walls
in parking lots
have glistening weeds
3 > A LIFE OF ALLUSION
Some people say
I act as goofy
as Homer Simpson
And when I'm mad
my children think
I'm Osama Bin Laden
I used to wish
I had the moves
of Michael Jordan
But now I play
basketball more
like George W. Bush
I know I'll never
be as cool as
Joey Jordison
Yet in my dreams
I can fly
like Super Mario
And my words
are as diggable
as Snoop Dogg
OK the reality is
my life has been
Nicolas Cage
in pursuit of
the ultimate
Christina Ricci
I've been lucky
enough to find my
own Salma Hayek
4 > APPEARANCES
I played basketball
for the Lakers
I even coached them
half a season
I have made music
my whole life
I am the most-honored musician
in the Rock 'n' Roll Hall of Fame
I directed the greatest films
of the twentieth century
Wearing my disguise:
a baseball cap, beard and glasses
I'm a mellow hippie teacher
on a popular cable cartoon
You probably laugh at me
every Saturday morning
And so I've believed all along
that what you envision
Is part of me, simply because
I appear famous
With Birkenstock sandals
and long white robe
I could be your savior
if he lived to be 41
5 > A SPHERE
it's fun
to twirl your hair
in a bun
it feels good
to crush a piece of paper
into a ball
it's pleasant
to know the Earth
is round
made
some god
happy
6 > BACK TO THE FUTURE
I wish I could have
ridden on my great uncle's
junk truck with my teenage dad
we could have struggled
to carry rusted iceboxes
and flat tires through
the depression together
I wish I could have
snuck love poems in
my mother's purse
when she was in a
different high school each year
we could have played
Back To The Future
Instead I have given
change to every store-
front solicitor I've seen
and verses for all dark-
haired women kissed
I have been the combination
of my parents almost
half a century
7 > BAMBOO DISCIPLINE
(remembering my father)
a belt
a coat hanger
a rolled-up magazine
a shoe
a strip of hot wheels track
a plastic wand
with a magnet
on the end
to move figurines
a wood paddle
with a hole
drilled into the center
painted blue
(for Webelos)
a bare hand
with a size 12
ring
8 > BREATHE MY LOVE TO SENSE OUR BEAUTIFUL DAY (A Villanelle)
Breathe my love to sense our beautiful day.
You are my reason I come to beg this:
Do not live your life for another's play.
I see you busy molding encountered clay
--Those who fit themselves into your success?
Breathe, my love, to sense our beautiful day.
If truth is not your favorite mind, then stay;
Wait with dignity to perceive its kiss.
Do not live your life for another's play
(for Satan's arms will always have a say).
Still, we have this moment to just express;
Breathe. My love, to sense our beautiful day!
You say I bore you now. You turn away.
This time is for lung lust. Breathe love's blue mist.
Do not live your life for another's play.
Look into my eyes, for the laughing trees sway.
My soul is your field. My heart sows our bliss.
Breathe my love to sense our beautiful day.
Do not live your life for another's play.
9 > BROTHERS
thousands of blades
of grass stopped by
brick wall before sidewalk
are these thousands content
to grow upward four inches
toward the distant sun
do they secretly wish
they could uproot
walk over bricks
jump down onto sidewalk
enchanted as fantasia
march off into trouble
or have they been made wisely
weak in their wild rows
to touch each other's shadows
they make me believe
they enjoy their evolutionary push
their struggle to become me
10 > CAMPBELL'S TRAVELS
I looked around the room
and my poetic eyes grew big:
Posters were just
postage stamps
The door,
but a chocolate bar
I punched a hole in the
paper-thin wall
Lifted off the roof
like it was a book
And stood up and surveyed
my new toy world
All around me, tiny models
I could have destroyed
Save for my feeling of guilt
at stepping on aunts, and uncles
I stomped out into the ocean,
which soon seemed a mere puddle
I left the Earth behind,
and started playing marbles with the stars
Until the heat of the explosions
became too much for my mind to take
And I realized again I was
only a poet in this cafe
Wanting to create something
larger than my life
11 > COMMERCIAL
Life was boring until we turned on the TV.
Then cows took over a milk truck.
Fruit rolled up and danced around a child.
We watched teen "home" videos of Honeycomb
cereal to a scratchy rap.
We saw earthquakes and fires and floods and
politicians and successful plastic surgery aided
spouses recovering on film at 11.
And, I remember now, a Ford Bronco
led a parade of police cars.
What'll they think of next?
Will God come back now that life is cool again
(like it was back in the days of sandals and slavery
and unbridled sin),
Or are we still living in a universe
without judgement?
12 > "D"
One day in my youth, I found a dime
and kept it for my own. I found it in
a children's play area, running sand
through my fingers... a surprise!
Ah, tarnished, lone 1980 D. I kissed
it there and it became warm. I vowed
to keep that dime all my life. I loved
that dime so much, I secretly married
in '84.
We were all-obverse for several months:
flips on the pier, days sitting quiescently,
jokes when I neared a gumball machine...
... until I said I wanted a divorce; to face
the ultimate abstention of our relationship
was too much for me.
But I loved that dime, that dime of my
dreams. Finding it was the only cosmic
moment of my life.
We live together, still, I wear my
Roosevelt on a chain.
13 > DEAD STILL
I'm a small gray rock
lying on the dirt
beside a twisted tree
on the edge of a library
parking lot.
I've been here seven years now.
Little excitement.
Occasional pelting of rain.
Weekly gardener with a blower.
Lots of car exhaust.
I hear footsteps every day.
The babbling of humans
calms me. Reminds me
everything is temporary.
I lie and wait for change.
14 > DING
DONG
I was 10
Apollo 11
lands
on the moon
on Earth
I unwrap
lunar-module-like
aluminum foil
to reveal
a round
chocolate frosted
Ding Dong
lift the
snack
cake
off
to leave
behind
a perfect
crater
I made
my own
moon
that year
I was
that
space
crazy
15 > DON CAMPBELL VISITS YOU
today thanks to the hard work
of Arlene of 44 years (and John for 25)
Wearing a green Macy's clearance shirt
purchased with financing from
the L.A. Unified School District
He Saturned his way up
several homeowner-taxed streets
Sunny sky provided by creation
Smog offered for decades now
in a joint venture of
oil companies and automobile manufacturers
Scattered trees enroute
maintained by the city of Los Angeles
Smells furnished at intersections
courtesy Jack In The Box,
El Pollo Loco, Yoshinoya,
Carl's Jr., and Chevron
Finally, the best poems produced this week
will go directly back to your school
in the form of chapbook compilation
blending the words student and poet
16 > ELLIPSIS (A Ghazal)
The thing I think of most is your lips.
Not just the appearance of your lips,
but the animated quality of those
parallel love-word shapers all call lips.
I must also say their movement is
gloriously applied to the meeting of lips,
which I savor as if I were a simple
organism discovering another with lips.
I live for our moments of undulation,
like two snails on their sides (essentially lips).
As we move to reproduce feeling from
one set of cells to the other via lips,
it is then I feel I am a living creature, Don,
happy to make connection osculating....
17 > ETHNIC POETRY
My wife's primos
jet from Morelia
to Los Angeles
to spend two days
with us, the amnestied immigrant
and the Born In The USA gringo
Mi amor's instructions:
give them a taste
of American culture
So, no Mexican restaurants,
no Pollo Loco, no Taco Bell,
no novelas
I just got paid and inspired
to kidnap all to City Walk
for Tommy's burgers and jumbo screen Wizard Of Oz
The next day I don't have to work,
to their tia's grave at the Hollywood Forest Lawn
and no more meat, Souplantation
I joke it will make them lighter,
insurance the plane home won't wobble
A final bathroom check in our casa
and I drive via carpool lanes
over bad neighborhoods
right to the doors of Mexicana
Afterwards, Kyla Alejandra and I
visit Santa Ana and Atlantic
to sit in mami's Cosmeticos Naturales to sip icy raspados
18 > FOURTH LESSON
(Inspired by Philip Booth's poem "First Lesson" and actual events.)
I was eyewitness to evolution last week.
This June my frightened intelligent daughter
avoided putting her head in the water.
She watched older, bigger people swim
and bobbed nervously with clamping hands
around the lip of the pool. Then
last week she visited her cousins,
saw kids her own size tadpole through
eyes open to the deep white concrete.
So Saturday she began to hold her nose,
close her mouth, put her face in to look
at the chlorinated world she stood in all summer.
On the fourth day Kyla discovered
the light nature of true buoyancy.
Her legs instinctively kicked, she moved
and was moved to find her body forward,
propelled to the other side of the wading square.
And back and forth she went, becoming
unafraid to fly under air, not wanting
to stop her newfound water-resistant motor
born on a September Tuesday:
girl swimming creature.
19 > FRENCH TOAST
I'm not French
but I love
French Toast
--started in childhood
my father would pick up
normal everyday
Wonder slices
and drop them
into a porcelain bowl
that looked like it belonged
in an early 60's TV show
I think I saw one on Bewitched
anyway, after floating
and being turned twice
in the pure egg pool
touched by cream
my father's fingers
would forklift a slice
into the round black pan
into that familiar Crisco sizzle
where three ultimately faced each other
waiting for their turn
when their surface sounded
brown and crispy
then the flip
and you knew it was good
if you saw dark freckles
dominate the eggs
this was the single sliced version
my father's Saturday morning best
but after church on Sunday
I discovered the double density
delight of thick restaurant
slices decorated with powdered sugar
that happily swam in syrup
as my fork sopped up
a dripping mouthful of ultra bread
bread perfection
bread you can no longer call
bread anymore
French Toast
though I've never been to France
I guess they must love to fry
French Toast, French Fries, French Dressing, French Kiss
Oh... I always get carried away
when I relive my favorite childhood
the one I order on any slow morning
with a cherished day off
whenever I have a need
for a mental vacation
I travel... to the House of Pancakes
and lay on my tongue a syrupy crust
20 > GIFTS FOR MY WIFE
The Target bicycle
because her exercycle
had no fresh air
The used papasan
because she misses
her late mother's womb
The internet-ordered computer for her store
because I thought she'd like
to be drawn in like me (slow process)
The Daewoo down payment
because she'd be
taking the bus otherwise
The fair-haired tan daughter
because everyone deserves
a second chance in life (thank you son)
The queen-size bunk bed
(for our daughter) because they often
confide in each other
Half the cost of designer glasses
because in her profession
beauty sells cosmetics
The portable cassette recorder
because we both love
to hear instruments and voices
The Tresor perfume
because every day I inhale
the small of her neck
25% of my poems
because I want us to remember
mi amor es mi vida
21 > GLOBE
I don't see an orange in the sky
Yet I can feel it on my skin
I sense small creatures walk on me
It really doesn't tickle, I'm used to it
I enjoy the warmth of many colors on my surface
The brown and green that grow
The very special red, white, yellow, and purple
Why, there are these two-legged ones
Who have added to what I naturally create
Or should I say restructure my bounty
Into large grey and black and white rectangles
That litter the land so much they call them cities
Some believe I'm entitled to occasionally shake
Myself in anger, but I just laugh
As the overgrown ants scurry to reassemble
Their built-up "control" over a whole planet
We'll see who is around a million years from now
What the heck, make it a billion
Been there, done that -- Guess they'll have to
Learn the hard way how to survive, as I have
22 > GOD
IS
AN
ANT
they
are
just
about
every-
where
making
observ-
ations
moving
beloved
pieces
for
some
reason
God
has
not
made
people
aware
of
this
only
the
poet
in
each
person
can
perceive
salvation
is
a
small
awareness
the
messages
are
alive
they
are
little
bitty
tests
do
you
kill
or
do
you
let
live
do
you
enjoy
or
destroy
judgement
made
in
an
instant
don't
press
your
finger
on
God
!
23 > GODZILLA!
Stomp! Stomp! Stomp!
Ah, some trees...
Stomp! Stomp! Stomp!
Some animals...
Stomp! Stomp! Stomp!
Some campers...
Stomp! Stomp! Stomp!
Somebody's mama...
Stomp! Stomp! Stomp!
What else can I find here?
Hmmm, here's a tree as tall as me
I think I'll wrestle it
Uh, to the ground...
There, that feels good
I feel my nuclear strength
Flex the people to fear me
I'm the monster of all monsters
Nothing can stop me!
Except bad ratings on midnight TV
Damn!
Or lackluster video sales
God,
What would the world be like Without me?
Please, small child
Buy the doll
Buy the doll
Buy the doll
I'm so ugly, I'm cute
Forget Barney
Hug me, I feel so small
I just need to be loved
Thank You Thank You
I feel better
Stomp! Stomp! Stomp!
24 > GREEN
leaves
on a tree
plaid pants
on someone from the early 70s
blackboards?
that's the problem
is anything green
actually called green
yes, great greens
for golfin' rich people
and the backs of dollar bills
that fly out my hands so easily
maybe that's why I don't love green
even though my eyes are hazel
and my girlfriend loves them
that's been very good green for me
guess it's not so bad after all
I think I'll take her for a walk
in a forest, so she can watch my eyes fall
again and again
25 > HARDBALL
The light pole in front of my house
was a touchdown
and the black cadillac
owned by that nasty old lady
(who kept our tennis ball home runs)
the other goal... of course
the yards were the stands
Depending on how many of us
were home on Sunday it was
2x2 3on3 4against4 or 5vs5
we'd try to balance teams
by age and ability
or just this week's best friends
we'd say "We're the Rams"
"We're the Vikings" huddle
whisper plays with our fingers
on the asphalt
Then 3 47 3 47
hut hut hut
run straight past
the driveway
imagine I'm Roman Gabriel
catching sight of
Jack Snow
slashing up the street
to the light pole
in Converse All-Stars
(the only basketball shoes!)
I never slanted right
off the curb
hit my head on a brick wall
turned my blond hair red
like Tim did
we laughed then cried
as we walked him
to his corner home
Just bad luck I guess
he'd grow up
to be a teenager
walking drunk on PCH
one late Saturday night
Ten years ago
I heard
he markets
chicken for
Orange County
I'm still the kid
with glasses
now deflecting bills
trying to hold on
to fun
26 > HEALTH CLINIC
Look! Little boy scampering down this hallway in a red and white striped T-shirt.
He thump-runs and he trips (big thump) in front of a row of expectant women
(Did he hit his head?)
Slowly, bent elbows straighten, blue jean covered knees rise, and he looks up.
The line of instinct-triggered pupils looks at him. He runs back to the start of the hall to scamper some more.
Three runs he makes, he's mastered it, he scampers away to the next hall.
27 > "HIKED" UP A SOFT HILL
stopped to pant by a water tank
sat down on a rock to write
found a pencil sitting beside me
I know I'm not the first to sit
here to feel the texture of hills
with eyes cold to the wind
I look for contrast and discover more
than a weather beaten wooden cylinder
placed on a hill so water can run down
like someone before me I chose the rock
mottled with dried mosses
chronicling years of visitations
and set my body upon it, listened
to cows lowing and birds calling here
here here, yes, a naturally inspiring place
formed in thousands of years
a scene for art: soft hills holding
evidence of great love for those who take time
28 > I AM 40
I am Tweety
I am Robin
I am Bart
I am Tigger
I am Truman
I am Hamlet
I am Ariel
I am Superman
I am Mulan
I am Xena
I am Winnie
I am Scooby Doo
I am Elvis
I am Luke Skywalker
I am Godzilla
I am David Duchovney
I am Zorro
I am a Gargoyle
But no more than
Two hours at a time usually
Thanks to the twentieth century
29 > I AM NOT JOSEPH DUCREUX
(inspired by a painting in a reproduction
of a French room at the Getty Museum)
I could have lived here?
In this European study
Sitting back on a stuffed
Gilded chair, full of seven
Course meal served by six
And I could have looked
In the silver mirror and seen
My white collar framed by
Red coat, extend my arms
And yawn with digestion
My face effortlessly
Flushing, becoming aware
Of the need for a chamber
Pot--I would be afraid
Someone would see me
Or would I have a servant
That I would think of
Lower than human--ordered
To wipe my posterity for
Me--by birthright alone?
30 > I AM 2002
I am glasses
and beard
but no hat
because that would be
a disguise
I am Tommy's burgers
meat cheese and chili
slapped quickly together
at an outdoor stand
around 1 A.M.
I am The Charlatans
with one foot in the '60's
and one in the '90's
dancing to a keyboard
groove and love attitude
I am basketball
but not as much
as I used to be
don't bounce the
ball much anymore
I am gray Saturn
low to the ground
indistinguishable
from most cars
flying under the radar
I am the computer
surfing the internet
for poetry music
sports news
and friends
I am wife
daughter and son
hoping we're all OK
as we adventure
through the hours
I am either home
or at a poetry reading
otherwise I'm just
eating or working
until the above
31 > IF YOU WANT A PB & J
Drive a car into Sonoma
Hike through a vineyard
Stomp on a lot of grapes
Take a plane to Georgia
Walk onto a farm
Grab a bushelful of peanuts
Hop on a boat embarking for the Sandwich Islands
Skip over mud, find a clay village oven
Wait there three hours for flour to rise
Or if you want easier magic
Run inside a supermarket
Pick up prepackaged peanut butter, jelly, and bread
Hand the cashier some green "lettuce"
And...
Presto!
32 > I'LL ONLY BE A MINUTE
So stay in your car seat
Don't try to wriggle free
I'll forget to leave a window slightly open
In my rush to pick up some groceries
Too bad there are no overgrown trees in this lot
That store muzak distracts me to remember
I need another six pack of juice for my girl
Because you're hungry and want to feel loved
I'll suddenly recall in the air-conditioned market I left you
To swelter defenseless in the locked vehicle
It was for your momentary safety
I think I'll choke tears now
Because somehow you died after twenty minutes
Only three years old in my shiny new SUV
I said I'd only be a minute
Why did God have to abduct your life from me?
33 > IN THE CHOCOLATE NIGHT
para mi amor
When the baby's asleep
My baby asks me to go
To the market
To get a sweet snack
Chocolate, of course
Preferably, please
So I reach for my Ralph's
Private Selection coupon box
Fly -- er -- walk very fast
To her little white M & M
Shaped Geo Metro
To drive, arrive, scan aisle 7:
Candy and soda heaven!
Think I'll buy a Milky Way
Bag of dark miniatures
Or a 6 pack
Of Butterfingers
Then I remember
The half-price cart
Almost homeless day-old chocolate
Chip cookies, brownies
And bakery flavor experiments
(Ever try diet macaroons?)
If I don't have any Georges
I just go to the checkstand
Where the single bars are
Available to everyone
Who can offer two bits
Maybe a milk chocolate Dove
Bar, to melt in my lover's mouth
Or a Hershey's -- their really like 12
Little bars you can break off three
To one -- that's fun
I drive home fast -- uh -- safely as I can
To the bedroom where I reward my love
With brown tokens of mine
I rescue her wanting desire
With 3 Musketeers,
Provide Almond Joys,
Mounds of satisfaction....
34 > IN THE SEA OF DOLPHINS, I AM A MANTA RAY
Dive into the sun to find opened eyes
An empty sky, full of ghosts
Smile because trees become bare
Carcasses on snowy streets
A monkey dreamt the cosmos, found a house
To sit in, gaze at an apple, stare at a fist
Pray in the wilderness, he said
We might as well be ants
But the scientific mind was high on civilization
They celebrated our rocks and roles
Envisioned the perfect you
Driving a lonely night freeway
Galloping to repopulate the stars
And play the game of movement through air
Read a poem on the shore, the sad cliffs watching
Us, eventually eaten by the shark mountain
As the lords in welkin have already seen
Ancient temple women in flames
Our babies litter the world like clouds
Say, hi god, teach me something
35 > JOE SPHINCTER
Hey bud
I wanna tell you something
Hey, don't walk away
I've got something to say
So what if we're not
from the same neighborhood
I see you every day
when I stop at this 7-11
And I wonder if you've
noticed me, driving through
in my Nissan P/U
Yes, I keep my rims so shiny
you can see yourself
as I drive by, that's because
I want you to notice
I ain't no Weber
I know what it's like here
I stop, look around
People always in their own business
Standing at the bus stop
Leaning against the store
or inside playing the games
I buy my breakfast burrito
and O.J.
I see you and I walk
to my wheels and speed away
through the intersection
But today I had to stop
before I go into my work life
I had to stop because I wonder
What the hell are you thinking
when you see me stopping
I had to stop because I wonder
what the hell is your life
like tangent to mine
I'm just bugged
going to work
not talking to anybody
except cents to the clerk
It's like I'm driving thru water
so slow I can't hear
nobody saying anything
I can't take it anymore
Punch me or something
Make me feel I belong
In my world In your world
In our busy too busy world
Why are we so wrapped up
in our own lives
Why are we here
Just to pass each other
Every day make us feel
We're in a social ball
Orbiting a vacuum
that doesn't care if I die
or you
Oh sure, people will go
to our funeral
Especially if I pull out a gun
and shoot your indifferent ass
Some guy with neat hair
on the news
will comment
we existed
for 2 minutes
lesson
to us
all
Hey, don't walk away
I don't have a gun
I just watch too much TV
How about you
You got a wife and a kid
and a job and
time to yourself
in this world
Do you worry sometimes
why are we here
if we just end up
replicating
until the great forces
eliminate
all signs
that we are here
Someday the sign
will read
we were here
But they'll be
nobody to read it
So, what do we do
now, we're standing
here in front of
a 7-11 with cars
in the street and work
to do...are we really
keeping the world
running... ever
heard of
J. Alfred Prufrock
REPLY: What are you,
a poet or something?
36 > KITTY HAWK, CALIFORNIA
Specific Location:
Alhambra
Garfield Elementary School
asphalt playground
Starting Date & Time:
Monday, April 26, 1999, 6pm
Pilot:
Kyla Campbell
Readiness:
age 6, enthusiastic
DAY 1
Drove my nine-year-old red Nissan pickup to school
prospective pilot in shotgun seat
with pink bicycle featuring Barbie tassles in bed
Walked bike to playground
pilot on seat
ready
Assisted pilot with takeoff
by holding on to back of seat
guiding with my left hand lightly on handlebar left
Flight!
Pilot gyrating wobbly half-circle and
as advised
stopping by
planting
landing gear
(both Barbie sneakered feet)
Large ice cream smile
No falls, easy 45 minutes until sunset
DAY 2
Returned pilot and bike to playground
Today working on unassisted takeoffs
Right foot favored
for initial thrust
Pilot immediately swerved left
and recovered
Flight maintained in left-turning circles
Returned to home base one hour later
DAY 3
Tried sidewalk approach
Pilot extremely unsure of traveling
on narrow path in straight line
glancing fences
Aided steering with my ginger left hand
and stabilizing seat
with gentle right
On playground pilot successfully
followed instructions
to create figure 8's
Initiated sidewalk return
last 500 feet solo
Instructor needs bicycle
37 > LITTLE GREEN ALIENS!
You feel us
Grow inside your nose
You don’t want us there
We know that
We wait
Scratch at your linings
Until you can’t take it anymore
Your eyes bleed water
Cry out for tissue
We prepare
Hold on tight
Ready for release
Into your world
We see the two round
Circles of light darken
We know it’s time to go
Fly!
We jet on human power
Into the hopefully soft
Kleenex blanket
Well now
This is boring
We’ve been thrown
In a wastebasket
We should have stayed
In our system
38 > LOVE LIKE A MOVIE
When I finally got her
to play TWISTER with me
I told her it was time
for our INDEPENDENCE DAY
Forget those BAD BOYS
who used to use you
and fall in love with this
NUTTY PROFESSOR of poetic lust
Join me on a METRO
dressed like a LITTLE MERMAID
I'll be your ROMEO, AND JULIET
I'll bark like 101 DALMATIONS
just to show you, you make me
HIGH SCHOOL HIGH
39 > MAKES MY PETALS CURL
The sun
touches
the top
of me
It tickles
me awake
delights
my opening smile
I embrace
the sky
let my perfume be
carried in the early winds
I am alive again
after sleeping
cosmic eye closed
stored energy
I love this world
I love my time to stay
I have only distant memories
of being
plucked
by little girls
time and again
between centuries
40 > MAKING SENSE
On my dresser lie a hundred
scattered like dropped Certs.
I scoop them up
when I have a hole in my shoe.
Plunk 'em down into a plastic moon.
They sound like plumber's washers,
look like Reese's Pieces.
I walk to Ralph's fingering
one of these tiny copper plates
contemplating frozen pizza
or cookies. I dump
the noisy monetary marbles
in the checker's ready "O" forming hands
and she looks at me
as if I were giving her my nostrils.
I happily roll out the door
a modern alchemist -- having converted
little metal buttons
to donut holes.
41 > MAMI'S SCIENCE EXPERIMENTS
My parents' refrigerator
is big and white.
They got it
for $25
when another family
in the same building
couldn't pay the new rent.
I can easily pull the electric taped
plastic woodgrain handle,
but can't quite reach into the freezer yet.
My Dad puts my spelling tests up there
with a Lakers sign
and a Pizza Hut number.
There's also a little magnetic pad
--it has a lot of sheets--
but only the first one's been used.
It says Te Amo Mi Amor
- Tu Guero.
On the refrigerator door I used to arrange
colorful plastic letters to make MOM
with an upside down W
and KYLA and SUN.
Now I move little black poetic words
on white squares together
to create funny sentences.
Why do I open the door?
For milk for my cereal,
or Pepsi or Sierra Mist
to accompany my favorite
microwave macaroni and cheese.
I have to ask one of my parents
if it's in the back of the freezer.
Usually though we go out
to Pollo Loco in Cudahy
if I'm at my Mami's work
or Alhambra Burger King
if Dad's still on his diet.
He loves the 99 cent
baked potato and side salad.
If I don't finish,
my kid's meals are rewrapped
and stuck in the refrigerator
for a few weeks.
Not much more to say
except I'm glad I have a lunch card
to hang around my neck
most days,
that Target has French Toast
on Saturday for just $1.79,
and the occasional birthday comes
with Ralphs' refrigerated cake.
42 > MAN MADE WORLD
beasts speed past
sign trees
green flower
turns amber
then red
forced breeze inside
rectangular caves spaced
along the solid river
giant fireflies illuminate
ink black sky
43 > McLIFE
When I finished
with work
and drove home
I got my
McCollect call
telling me to
McDrive to
McDonald's
to McEat with
my McWife
and McChild
I McAte the
McMeal
and McDrink
but McMost of
McAll
I McEnjoyed
the McBreath
of our McKisses
44 > McPLAY
I take my kid
to the McDonald's
playland
I get to sit
on sticky
white plastic
I get to rest
my arms on sticky
white plastic
I get to watch
kids find
new uses for plastic
Those famous
plastic McBalls
in Olympic colors
get tossed science-lesson-
style toward passing
sun-glinting cars
And that tubular
yellow plastic slide, so great
for kid punches in private
Then it's 3:30pm
and the teens come
in overgrown creative bodies
climb on top of the cage
to tear off pink plastic protective
foam -- makes cool arm shields
And good ol' larger-than-life
painted plastic Mayor McCheese
gets his head turned around
to Main St. to plead to
speeding drivers, look
what they're doing to me
While I suck
a clear plastic straw, watching
cancer drain into my system
45 > MEMORIAL DAY
My people
are the people of
the T-shirts.
We walk
to liquor stores
for ice cream sandwiches.
We try to ignore
the poverty inherited
by being born lower class.
Drive on
without insurance
looking for cheap thrills.
Until the day
we get caught
in old underwear.
The newspaper
finally giving
space.
46 > MEMORY
Into my life a bird of remembrance has flown
And I recall glass breaking on that day
I had to wash dishes alone for the first time
I actually enjoyed soaking my hands in the soapy lake
Of soggy scraps and lemon yellow bubbles
But I guess I did too good a job of venting
My emotions madly massaged every plate
And one cup couldn't take it slicing my thumb
In the hot cleansing water I didn't feel
Any physical pain I just pressed to stop
The strange bright red liquid from streaming
Over the seemingly ready for frying freshly cut digit
Now I have an eagle shaped scar that reminds me
Whenever I go swimming or take a shower
I have been on my own and I'm still here
I have persevered and found a new hand to hold
47 > MI AMOR
I love
your beauty
your sweetness
your philosophy
I love
that you drive
a little white Metro
cute as a purse
I love
the fact you leave
a bathroom towel hanging
anyway but flat
so when I get home
from work I feel
I have to pull it out
I love
the way you hug
our daughter
and me too
only it's more sexy
pressing your curves
close to my body
I love
that you eat
healthy and exercise
to look good I think
I'd still love you fat but
I love
to watch you
read then write
your thoughts
in Spanish (they're very hard
to read) and you complain
your English is not good
but I love
your accent
your mispronunciation
it's so sensual
I love
how you love
animals
children
your relatives
my mom
and most of all
I love
how you turn
when I turn
so we stay
hugging in bed
like teddy bears
all night
48 > MORE THAN ONE POEM IN MY LIFE
I don't wanna look like my father.
I don't wanna turn in to my father.
I don't want to have a double chin
and Grecian Formula hair.
On the other hand,
he was loved. A Pisces
liked by his co-workers.
A ruddy complexion
that never wavered from male.
From his 10am Old Spice
shadow,
right down to his white
Fruit Of The Looms.
I didn't want to be like my father.
I didn't want to be
a detective for the sheriffs.
I didn't have to worry.
He was 6' - 2" and I knew
I'd never reach him.
His wedding band, size 12.
Mine, 6 ½.
I've got girl's hands!
Clean, uncalloused
(except the middle finger)
feminine hands.
"An artist's hands."
No yellowed nails
from cigar smoking
or asbestos pipe-fitting
in the Navy.
I missed required registration
by two months.
Yeah!
Now I'm 40,
no pouch over my penis.
Fighting off fat,
I avoid his beloved steaks
washed down with
saccharine iced tea.
It's easy, financially.
I chose to be a poet.
Or did I?
Was I destined
because of my
small hands,
my father's looming discipline?
I became a day-to-day reader
--the times I was sent to my room.
My father thanked his secretaries
for correcting his letters.
He left his living room chair
some nights
to earn his other "diploma" in life:
the second car for my mother.
The employee-discount toys
came from those midnights
as a Mattel watchman.
Before he died at 58 of cancer,
he showed me the one poem
he says he ever wrote.
His life, of course, for me
was another.
49 > MY BUTTERFLY
I pray creation flies around my head
I wish wings to hover ear near
I beg a flutter stuck inside my drum
I urge my ear to be an ex-caterpillar
I want to dance around a mind...
50 > MY GREATEST (BASKETBALL) MOMENT
It's 1988
During the height
Of Laker Showtime
I look like Kurt
Rambis in my daily
Glasses disguise
It's my fourth summer
Of Occidental College
Upward Bound
Time for the annual
Staff/Student Game
In the girl's gym
It's the second half
We're winning again
As usual I believe
I am the white Magic
Tossing long sharp passes
To racing colleagues
It's one pass
I heave from my waist
From the back court
The ball soars
High and right
Into the basket
It's like I meant
To do it, everyone
Shocked and says
What a shot! Did you
Mean to do that?
Oh yeah....
51 > MY POEMS FOR SALE
...and pottery from Sandia, Pueblo, Acoma tribes
The new McDouble is 89 cents in Albuquerque
Several Native Americans walk outside
wearing cowboy hats, denim jackets and jeans
stumble on the sidewalk, hands out
to tourists in cars from other states
drive in, drive on,
drive away
Aladdin & The King Of Thieves hamburger
happy meal $1.99 (toy "Made In China" included)
Most license plates in New Mexico read
this is The Land Of Enchantment...
Don't forget to bargain for a silver
and turquoise necklace before you leave...
52 > MY SPACE
As a kid I wanted to travel
an astronaut in outer space
When I became a teenager
I painted my bedroom cobalt
hung dark blue curtains
turned out the light
put on Pink Floyd's Echoes
Dark Side Of The Moon
Wish You Were Here
I enjoyed being by myself
in my own mind in my room
listening to black vinyl universes
spinning on my Radio Shack turntable
at night Close To The Edge, Fragile
hearing the calls of my unknowable
older brothers, Yes
enter The Gates Of Delirium
I'd turn one metallic cone
on, part of the space age pole lamp
in one corner of my "Close Don's door,
we've got company!" refuge
sit on puffy blue bedspread
alone at a concert
in Madison Square Garden
feeling Led Zeppelin's
Dazed And Confused live
blow out my first Juliette speakers
and I had to drive my dad's white Skylark
to University Stereo's going-out-of-business sale
for new bigger black boxes
After my weekly trek for a Licorice Pizza
Hot 100 List, or Clan Records $3.99 special
I traipsed to Poo Bah's where
I would trade five taped platters
for the latest Bad Company
Run With The Pack to play afternoons
after boys' catholic high school
I traveled solo and loved
Somewhere I've Never Traveled
Somewhere I've Always Dreamed Of
smiling, blissful, before girls and drugs
53 > NAILED
I was in junior high
sitting in the first row by the wall
third seat, behind me, in the fourth
Maria Cardenas, a girl with a lot of
black hair and long nails
(now you may not believe this but)
I was a nerdy teacher's pet type
and behind me, Maria,
the most made-up girl in class
she loved to get my attention
she'd scratch the back of my neck
with her long press-on nails
to well up my reaction
I always acted like it bothered me
when in reality I felt
a feeling I'd never felt before
I liked it... ...it felt good
I didn't know what to do
and so it became
my mission in life
to recreate that moment
again and again
and I have
I married Laura
54 > NEED COMFORT? TRY...
to walk in a supermarket
pushing a shopping cart
with store muzak wafting
fluorescent lights buzzing above
could be any major city
in the good ol' familiar US
see those bright friendly
boxes of Tide and All
pyramid families of fruits
rows of Campbell's and Cheetos
the ½ price bakery cart
the Cosmopolitan magazine woman
greeting me at the checkstand
then I'm stepping out
into the pole lamp
lit American Night
Volkswagen Vanagons
Honda Civics
Jeep Cherokees in the parking lot
turn my ignition key to return
to the California stucco apartment
I live in, whistling mindlessly
an America tune from my car radio
after I pull out
another car pulls in
55 > NEXT TO A FRESHLY PAINTED SCHOOL BUILDING
There's that air conditioner again
Roaring gently through
A warming morning
It feels good to feel
Sunlight on my arms
My black t-shirt
Like an oven mitt
The jagged stone steps
Of the Japanese Garden
Hold sharp shadows
The difference between
Light and dark
Can be measured in degrees
The classroom nearby
Has student sounds in it
It looks like a shadowy chamber
For learning what books carry
Me, I'm standing
Amidst the sculptured trees
Student writers
And water-free pond
And notice we're all aging
Under the perfect sol
Great god who treats
All the same
That's fair I guess
For rotting tree fruit
Old Twix wrappers
And we
56 > N.W.A. (Now, With Attitude)
I saw a beautiful girl
but her smile was Dr. Evil
When I went out with her
she made me feel like Mini-Me
So I dressed up
like Aaron Carter
She said I was just
a wanna-be Backstreet Boy
That made me
more mad than Eminem
When I busted
a Ricky Martin move
She laughed, "You're a loser
in this Sex War!"
I told her, "Oh yeah!
Well, here's a Real Slim Shady kiss!"
57 > OBSERVATION
As I drive home from the high school relieved to leave
behind those squirrelly in the present, I see you
walking away from your junior high down familiar
sidewalk lines. Across a freeway overpass you stop
midway to gaze at my world, lanes squeezing out of
sight. I feel comfort knowing your world is separate
from mine. I've been in yours; it was once mine, a
dollarland of convenience store colas and candy, friends
walking with you on some days. Without effort, I will
unknowingly welcome you into the adult sphere--once
you are shelled inside a ½ ton of steel and rubber
and plastic--you'll be just like me.
58 > OBSERVE
1
Jonathan, just about six, learns the planets
of the solar system are silently dwarfed by the sun;
on Jupiter, there is no breathable atmosphere;
one can calculate the galaxies of the nearby universe,
and the moot significance of their relative sizes
...there are millions of years in the sky....
2
Cut through the periscope to the Griffith Planetarium,
below to the woolen russet hillside, its artery
loosely tubed with matchbox cars,
and looking back from inside his father's Rabbit
to the toylike observatory, dirty candy sky above
the glazey freeway, daylght savings sun in afternoon;
he memorizes all of it, effortlessly. We drive
down Vermont to Beverly for his favorite chiliburger.
59 > OF KNOWLEDGE
It looks like a fist,
red hot and ready.
It smells like water
from a petrified spring.
It feels like the skin
of an intimate ankle.
It sounds like an empty room.
Fall, it could be a knock.
It tastes like leaving,
sweet sand on my tongue.
A waterfall of teeth marks
unearth the road to the core.
60 > ON
sock on the carpet
shoe on the carpet
book on the carpet
speaker on the carpet
stereo rack on the carpet
bookcase on the carpet
bed on the carpet
chair on the carpet
standing on the carpet
carpet on the concrete floor
concrete floor on the soft brown earth
soft brown earth on the crust
crust on the mantle
mantle on the core
core on the center of the plane
the plane on the course
the course on the orbit
the orbit on the milky way
the milky way galaxy
in a universe of universes
the universes of God
61 > ONE POEM
Don't put all your eggs in one basket
Don't put all your pennies in one piggy
Don't put all your dogs in one room
Don't put all your friends in one house
Don't put all your muffins in one oven
Don't put all your fears in one head
Don't put all your pens on one paper
Don't put all your clothes on in one day
Don't put all your cells in one body
Don't put all your love in one moment
Don't put all your history in one newspaper
Don't put all your flags near one building
Don't put all your engineers on one mission
Don't put all your cars on one freeway
Don't put all your edifices on one earth
Don't put all your rockets in one orbit
Don't point all your missiles at one target
Don't put all your gods in one existence
Don't put all your life on one planet
Don't put all your thoughts in one poem
62 > ORPHANS OF ADDICTION
(two researched poems, from L.A. Times)
ASHLEY (10)
I clasp my hands
to speak for my lips.
I close my eyes
so God can see.
I lie down on filthy
carpet. I don't pray
for a bike or a Barbie.
I pray for a new father.
He's passed out--again--
Miller High Life for breakfast.
I'm in the same dress
I wore last week.
Haven't bathed in two.
Four months, no school.
At least I eat once a day--
rice!
The kitchen is for cooking
heroin with his friends.
Mom has been gone for years.
She went with a speed man.
I ran away from home
four years ago--after
the demons made my
Dad punch me in the face.
I came back the same night.
Long Beach. No place to go.
Ten now. I pray
because I believe
only God can deliver.
TAMIKA (3)
I have lived
in a crack den
a hotel
a garage
my mother's
ex-boyfriend's house
My mother and I
walk down streets
She sees a friend
We go to her shack
Her friend picks rocks
out of her belly button
puts a glass tube
to her lips
White pebble
smoke in the air
I blink, fall face down
asleep in a wicker chair
I dream
my mother holds me
not the needle that grooves
her shaky arms
I wake up having been
placed on a mattress
that smells like pee
and boyfriends
My mother's leg
crosses over mine
to protect me from
her new boyfriend
This is the moment
I know she loves me
63 > OTHER SOULS
The girl lay head slumped
On the long wooden school table
Tired of words as sun
Shines through windows
And wedged with her
In between two tables
A little blue gum wrapper
Without a brain of its own
Now I'm not drawing
Any comparison between two objects
But sometimes I feel like a girl
Who wishes she was a gum wrapper
Maybe then I could be
Left alone with my thoughts
Unpolluted by someone else's
Phrases filling my ears
Yet, there are times I really listen
I take mental notes with my eyes
Record them in a handy chamber
Deep inside my skull
Later on I release my ideas
One by one on pieces of paper
Called poems, which I learned to do
From watching other souls
64 > OUR WORLD
I feel like a girl who doused her best friend with gasoline
I was an overfed (twenty) three-year-old, now a ward of my state
In my mind a bus overturns on a two lane highway to kill 41
That's right, I could never be a policeman, like my father
Murdered over a forty-year period, marital asbestos pipefitting
Because I am a russian leader to you, humiliator of a lonely militia
All my adult life I selfishly tried to make women give me a boost in the poll
Attempted to achieve multiple perfect relationship liftoffs
Broke the male culture of silence, fed them poems
And accidentally rediscovered lost Mayan cities
I lament your treatment by the War on Females department
If I declare an end to past scourges, maybe I could change the dictionary
I know we've had thousands of unhappy meals
I forced you to sell your passionate life to an indifferent gas company
I thought I was doing well just attending a Home Business Expo
Any good news? I've willed over to you the real estate of your memories
I guarantee our past unspoken pact of wordlessness will not be exhumed
That ozone layer relationship will forever be a black hole in my soul
65 > OWED TO ALUMINUM
A coke can in my left hand
My left hand which is not my writing hand
My writing hand is now creating a poem
A poem that will hopefully explain how I feel
How do I feel? Pretty good, I'm ready to go
to the bathroom when I get home
Yes, and when I get home I will walk in the door
The door that my baby daughter loves to see me walk through
My baby daughter, happy, and walking towards me
I'm tired but delighted at the same time
Because this is our time to be together
just the two of us to play
We love to play "I'm gonna get you.
I'm... gonna... get... you!" and Kyla laughs
I love her laugh, it is the purest sound
A sound from heaven, born to Earth
Here on Earth I play with my daughter Kyla in the afternoon
A hot smoggy L.A. afternoon where I have to
leave the sliding glass door open
The open door invites her to try the screen
The screen makes a little nose dirty
Such a cute dirty nose I then have to wash
I wash it and I'm her parent again, not just a playmate
So I let her have a sip from my coke can
and I become her buddy again, thank you
66 > PASSAGE
It picked me up, took me from my wood shack,
and put this slick crimson goo in my stomach.
Then it stuck a cold curved stick inside me
scooped out the jiggly stuff, scraping my sides.
It couldn't get it all out, there were still red flecks.
It whisked me away to a giant pool, bathed me
in the luxuriously bubbly water...it felt good
to feel its caressing, cleansing appendages.
It placed me back in my home, I wondered
when I would feel once more my usefulness, and
will I forget everything again before that time?
67 > PASSAGEWAYS
I breathe every day
Los Angeles -- so call me
a two packer
carpet, cars, trucks,
buses -- I try not
to inhale
when I stop at the gas
station -- put the
nozzle in
I turn my face
away -- think around
sports scores
but it's just about
unavoidable -- cigarettes loiter
outside
I only escape this
normality -- in unusual
wild air
a field off of a lonely
highway -- that's where I find
surprised lungs
68 > PASSENGER OR DRIVER
In an elementary year
I threw up in the back seat
of a speeding Rambler
As a teenager I experienced
the joy of being caught
in a Skylark by my parents
entering their driveway
On the adult highway
I've seen overturned
pickup trucks like mine
in flames
Only I
wasn't
in 'em!
So I still
hold a steering wheel
to try to speed
around the unforeseen!
69 > PEACHY
looks
like a sunburst
poster from the 60s
a spray-painted planet
suspended by
a great hand
or the back of
a psychedelic
beetle
smells
like a girl
with perfume on
fat as a balloon
but imagine a butt
with freckles
feels like smooth wood
a wooden globe
with a big pimple on one end
cold as a doctor's
examining table
to my skin
sounds like a quiet room
when dropped
becomes rubber ball
tastes much better than the Earth
as a juicy river falls
down my tongue
70 > PERSEUS IN THE
MODERN WORLD
If I had "Winged sandals"
I'd never be late for work
If I had a "Magic wallet
(which always became
the right size for whatever
was to be carried in it)"
I'd run the lottery
And "Most important of all"
if I had "A cap which made
the wearer invisible"
I'd finally get to see
Jennifer Lopez naked
But I'm just a modern man
with a red pickup truck
to make me feel macho
With a Mastercard
so there will always be
a Christmas
And "Most important of all"
a telephone that has
a ringer switch...
if I don't feel like hearing
someone wants to talk to me
71 > PINK IS POPULAR
Still on girls
From pink scrunchies
Atop pony tails
To pink tennis shoes
With lavender laces
And of course in between
Striped tank top
Alternating every shade
Of pink possible
The finishing touch
Her pink pen sports
A bobbing pink butterfly
Which waves at this
Colorful world
As her face turns
Pink when I read this
72 > POEM
I’m not standing
on a rocky ocean shore
I haven’t seen
bright orange leaves in the East
I can’t even remember
the last time I stepped in a mission
But I dream
of running between rows of vegetables
To a house
with a black and white cat asleep on a rug
Where at night
I can hear the plunk of sea otters
And in the morning
a dog’s breath makes a cloud over snow
But I don’t live
near any boat docks
I may never gaze
at small houses from my window
Still deep within me
there is a newborn flower called poem
And I’ll show it to you
in a fluorescent-lit room
73 > POETIC SOL
sitting on steps
of the public library
the white stone steps
warmed by the sun
street traversed
by squealing car sounds
palm trees lined up
heads to the breeze
blue sky background
high above, one blinding
eye shouting
action!
74 > POETRY
Milk from a cow
and I feel
satisfied.
I go to bed at night
and dream
a liquid sleep.
I wake up and shower,
milk pours over me
from my cow.
I'm ready to go outside--
can't forget the cow--
good thing I've got a pickup.
I arrive at work smiling,
introducing students to the pleasures
of drinking milk.
Someday I hope she'll be famous,
so I can milk it
for the rest of my life.
75 > POETRY SPACE
I'm riding in the back
of the poetry bus
rows of fluorescents
race still above
we're surrounded
by shelves of words
inside this wide-aisle
tucked into Borders rear
we listen for images
married to feeling
sit back on black
plastic bookstore chairs
lean forward to hear
poets without microphones
it's OK, we each get
our turn to direct
some minds
for minutes, and let go
when time is gone
we believe
we will have another
chance to express
what stops our breaths
hard enough to be
scrawled on dead tree
in the hope
these locutions will
become immortal
or at least valuable
to the point of compelling
a stranger to hand over
one of their Lincolns
76 > POETS
I am up
on stage
I need to
perform
a poem
I have to
express
feelings
with word
pictures
I sweat
inside my mind
look out
my eyes
at dimly lit
audience
when the poem's over
I sit down
on a stackable
chair
and watch
another body emote
77 > POET TEE
A little white dust mote
On my black t-shirt
A little white dust mote
I'll forget exists
On my black t-shirt
With an orange Upward Bound logo
On my black t-shirt
I'll throw it in the laundry tonight
With an orange Upward Bound logo
That represents 17 years of teacher
With an orange Upward Bound logo
From over ten years ago forgotten students
That represents 17 years of teacher
I can't remember everyone
That represents 17 years of teacher
I can't walk anywhere w/o someone saying Hello Poet
I can't remember everyone
So I fake that I do remember
I can't remember everyone
But this poem helps me deal with it
78 > PROGRESSIVE ROCK
The first swooned for "Poetry Man"
in the Ahmanson balcony.
The second wore a yellow sundress
when she introduced me to her boyfriend;
the Moody Blues got me through that.
The third squeezed me in an elevator, in a parking garage;
Frank Sinatra in her apartment.
The fourth loved to snap fingers to "Brickhouse"
in black underwear in my '63 Buick.
The fifth spiked volleyballs and let me put
George Harrison on her record player.
I met the sixth in a Music Plus;
she had Las Vegas legs
and a 6' 5" co-habitant.
The seventh drove with a calculatedly careless
blue blouse button and Julio Iglesias in the car.
The eighth's nipples imitated
Carly Simon's "You're So Vain" cover.
The ninth was blessed with adorable chocolate lips
along with the desire
to be a gospel-singing missionary.
The tenth liked to mix beer and wine,
put on the radio, and close her eyes to neck.
The eleventh sported a Raspberry Beret,
took it off; I spilled my Hot Chocolate.
The twelfth dyed her hair red
to match her freckles; I swear
Jon Anderson's new song was "It's on Fire".
The thirteenth danced disco, cut old boyfriends
out of photos, and was really "not like other girls."
The fourteenth said I reminded her
of her great love, the piano player.
Finally, a new moon beauty asked me
the words for "From the Beginning."
79 > QUEEN MARY
pouring rain on the freeway
"The Queen Mary won't get washed away by El Nino, will it?"
well, it might rock a little
I carry my Jasmine-rain-coated daughter
into the faux English village
leave her and my wife at the boarding stairs
to stand in the downpour
hold a Barbie umbrella in line
I buy the cheapest tickets
we enter the third-class compartment
there's a Scottish Festival inside
celtic music and tartan tables
pewter trinkets and men in plaid skirts, oh my!
can't afford the Titanic Expedition downstairs
don't even want to pay $5 for a sausage sandwich
so we walk up a narrow metal stairway
to the sumptuous wooden-decked Promenade
an iron gate bars the way "For Hotel Guests Only"
we slump out to the Sun Deck
near the lifeboats a pizza room
-- just $2.60 a slice
crust smells like fishy air
we sprinkle red pepper and parmesan,
and know the Titanic still harbors
80 > REINCARNATION
My lapel has one distinguished feature
That lived not there before,
So insignificant, no one notices
The amputation and the dying spores.
Alive before I was attached,
Now it's dying again to leave,
So insignificant no one notices
'Cause I walk around like it's part of me.
Taking credit for knowing beauty
When I chance to see it spending,
The significance no one notices:
It was I who killed twice by bending.
81 > RELATIVITY FOR BREAKFAST
This bowl of cereal reminds me
of a high school microscopic view.
This slice of toast, a skin cell.
The blue bowl and plate just bones.
What's that orange doing here? No cancer!
The dining table is arched on its back.
This apartment is a head.
This world a fertilized egg.
So, what's in your fingers?
My body is a universe.
My brain is a sun.
My eyes are twin earths (mostly water
and just as smooth too!)
My nails are dining room tables for my skin
which holds the rest of the truth
from me...some impenetrable sky.
82 > REMEMBERING THE WORLD
the carpet was the sea
vast as the room
edge to edge the Earth
the boats were made of Legos
propelled by hands
driving in circles
docking by the bed
a giant waterfall of ribbed poplin
atop the soft mesa
plastic brick houses
with Hot Wheels parked
by the shiny green curb
over at the end of the sleeping hill
the TV drive-in
showing Bewitched
or The Beverly Hillbillies
in the living room
parents sat in reclining chairs
watching The Rifleman
across the rug
outside
the homes in the city
of Monterey Park
one of many
that dot the land
surrounded by ocean
on a globe
a marble in space
and the kid
still
lives
in me
83 > REVOLTING!
What's the matter America?
This chocolate chip cookie tastes like cement mix.
35 cents each in thousands of vending machines. Rip-off!
I feel like throwing a brick in your system,
You put oil in mine.
What makes me feel the gas in my stomach is a profit idea?
That's it!
I've got it! It's spead to the people, hasn't it?
All the employees eat all those chips and cookies
And oil slick sodas and little tiny monsters of
Calcium carbonate are preventing our brains from
Concentration and spoilage. Now it's too late! Invasion!
Backfire!
The russians are coming and we'll win!
Just give them jobs in offices!
Pay them in quarters. We won't even have to mention
The machines. They're human and hungry.
We'll sweep the streets in our blue collars
Until we see the day the cooperative hospitals fill,
Then Revolution! Kill the real enemy!
Throw the bricks and cement UP THE MACHINES!
Out with profit, machines, and regulatory agencies!
Out with communism...and democracy
(they're both the same under the wrapper!)
God, make us simple again, and give us another
Cracker.
84 > RIOT POEM
I was just a guy sitting on a sofa
looking forward to the Lakers game.
The newsmen broke open my eyes
with live tape of angry dancing
around a long-haired man on asphalt,
a blood-red river flowed from his forehead
where an extinguisher had brought Freudian justice.
Que horror! A revolutionary festival spread
throughout the city, spiriting bodies freed
years of previously interior swimming hate music.
Emptied stores became fiery stages for performances,
wild fists punched for reversing backward movement.
Some hands froze into rifle positions,
the sky darkened with unveiled emotions.
I watched it fester and fill the air I was breathing
miles away, I gazed at the electronic tube
flipping my brain horizontal into a hell of caring
and not showing. Afterward, the smallest market hop
became a turn-off of car-people averting eyes,
staying inside themselves. Two months later
I looked out again for Los Angeles and found it
in a nervous woman planted at a bus stop eating a sandwich,
a teenager leaning smileless against a painted-over school wall,
a tired couple looking out of two separate windows to a burned-out 7-11,
a dark Z speeding away into the covering night,
and a sitting seething smoldering poet finally
releasing a poem, pale fingers forcing words onto paper.
85 > SCIENCE OR ENGLISH
1
Tables look
like flattened pine Jupiters.
Students take off their backs,
hook them onto chairs.
Pupils rotate in skulls
as other appendages flail distraction.
Teacher floats over,
glares in Peter And The Wolf movements.
The bell sprays into the air,
makes bodies rise gleefully
out the flapping doorway
into the scholastic bloodstream.
2
All lives are atoms
in the mind of God.
86 > SIGNS
(two found poems)
1: TU MUSICA!
(South on Soto between 10 Fwy and 6th St)
Nuestras estrellas!
Nos hacen unica!
Taqueria
Tenemos tanto que contar!
Lavanderia
Se renta
Para lo mejor en seguro de vida
Seguros De Auto
Partido de la revolucion
Democratica
Del Sur De California
Abierto 24 horas
Seguro de
Salud
patra toda
su familia
2: OPPOSITE DIRECTION
(North on Soto between 6th St and 10 Fwy)
Pregnant?
Gotta go outside to
Smoke?
Are you waiting
for your kids
to talk to you
about pot?
Payback
Join our team
L.A. County Sheriffs
Now hiring
87 > SIX POSSIBLE AND ONE TRUE
SORUS
A mythical flying beast
with leathery purple wings
from the planet Sofar.
SORUS
A luminescent plant
found only in Brazilian
jungles during full moons.
SORUS
The Roman prophet who correctly
predicted the fall of the empire
shortly before he died of severe syphilis
contracted from a Trojan.
SORUS
The emotional state of regret
after being dumped by several lovers
in succession; also when someone mentions
that one of them is his/her current or
former lover.
SORUS
A failed imitation of Twister
that attempted to incorporate
wooden paddles.
SORUS
The infection that has affected
the entire Earth for 4.5 billion years.
SORUS
A cluster of reproductive bodies; sporanga.
88 > SIXTH ANNIVERSARY
because of
April 29th
Los Angeles
a palm
tree is a
torch
a baton
is an
arm
a fire
extinguisher is
a hammer
long hair is
a river
of blood
shaved hair
is naked
feeling
a shoplifter
is a freedom
fighter
arms are for
carrying
TVs
store security
cameras are
the best TV
a camera
better than
human eyes
helicopters
are the best
portable VCRs
liquor store
roofs are places
of honor
rap songs
are the people's
network
a jury
just
opinion
a gun
is still
a penis
smoke
releases
anger
police
cars are
targets
the Police
Chief is a
retired citizen
skin color
is now a job
requirement
my wife's
relatives moved
to Orange County
think
of Mexico
again
Normandie
is still
a nightmare
the writing on
the walls better
be read
poems
are
AK-47s
89 > SPINNING GLOBE
Sun paints black sky red
Bells ring morning
Gravestones litter green fields
Worms eat dead rodents into soil
Mechanized arms perform metal ballet
Cars centipede the day
Ties infest sidewalks
Smoke blows across clouds
Islands of detergent spot ocean
Rose petal floats to ground
Policeman barks "Keep it movin'"
Fireball falls through
abandoned car window
brushes blue sky pink
leaves purple
Neons firefly the night
Monkey uncovers skull
90 > STORY OF SAN DIEGO
My wife, mi suegra and I sit
On the deck of an afternoon tour
Of the landmark harbor where white
Men first missioned indigenous lives
On this western half of the continent
Once unlabeled the four directions
We are shown the famous vessels
That fired on twentieth century possible invaders
A proud face beams about
The sparkling pacific water
You cannot even tell fathoms below lie
Detritus of five billion planetary revolutions
As distant skyline holds memories
Of wilderness in pastel-colored rooms
My family steps off the boat
To breathe the rest of our days limited
With small events chambered in temporary brains
That wait to join historical others in layered meaning
91 > SUPERNATURAL!
She told me,
give me
(Da Le) Yaleo
The Love Of My Life
wanted the music
of Santana
She said
Put Your Lights On
I'll give you a show
You need to learn the
Africa Samba
by touch
Her body
curves so
Smooth
Do You Like The Way
I dance
I do
Inside I thanked her mother
for giving birth
Maria Maria
Then I cursed
Pinche Migra
limiting our travels
I know she has a
Corazon Espinado,
missing her homeland
Wishing It Was
a place we could visit
without fear
El Farol
light our way
to the future
A
Primavera
in La Colonia
I hear
The Calling
through mi amor
92 > SURRENDER
It was on the Fourth, when my brothers were celebrating the Revolution, that I saw the end. From the sidewalk, our families on lawn chairs in a row watched fountains and flowers explode in the night. Little Shaun held a sparkler for the first time. My son, Jonathan, hands over his ears, just gaped. And I, sitting back, toes in the dirt, my love's arms around my waist, thought I saw the red glow begin. I closed my eyes and imagined never opening them again.
93 > THE ARTIST
draws in my notebook
hers has been full for 20 minutes
she draws the same things
the same scene over and over
Mom, Dad, Kyla, all with smiling faces
standing next to a house
(we live in an apartment)
the sun is in the upper left hand sky
radiating hairy looking lines above our heads
clouds float like barbeque smoke
over the windows I taught her to cross
with the sign of God -- four panes
eyes to the empty residence
we're always outside -- like real life
off to school, swim, McDonald's,
the beauty demonstration, the rare family
poetry reading; and when it's dark, home
for a video, a bedtime book; when it's
not too late -- when I'm not mad
that Kyla didn't put away her toys,
clothes, hangers again -- I try to teach her
without ever hitting or yelling
because I did that once
she took the smile off my face
on the next day's drawing
I never want to cry like that again
94 > THE COUCH OF NOTRE DAME
(Alhambra, California)
Esmeralda sits back
in a Barbie pink Porsche
gazing dreamily.
Phoebus lies down on the sofa
face looking into a white plastic purse
large enough to hold both of them.
Quasimodo is not really being crushed
by the long black shoebox on top of his torso,
he just looks that way,
staring up at the stucco ceiling,
not moving.
And Achilles the horse is on its side
on the vast carpet, unable to stand without help
from a three-year-old girl with sandy curls;
the napping master of all she lays
on cushions in her merchant kingdom.
95 > THE DESIGNER
made vertical fingers stand
and sway through
invisible hands
breathing motors roar and cry
for order
small red lights, yellow lights, purple lights,
white lights, orange lights illuminate
the great plan... you get the idea
built-up monuments leisurely
take in hours, days, years
quivering at times over the thrill of being
in the sight of the liquid street
beating crafts glide across
the vast green carpet
the vast brown walkway
the vast blue thought
96 > THE EARTH
Here, a black box in the ground, freshly laden flower plot.
A group of dark-suited mourners walk measuredly away;
Slowly, not thinking, they repeat what they have been taught:
To serve the unseen master of more than a day.
Eternity: inconceivable; for the lowered corpse that lies
Is the sole evidence available. Death was solo flashes
Sown again; the white light before the failing eyes
Known, as always, to the mute and peaceful ashes.
Still, the big question remains: remains remain the plea
Unsolvable. The closest we come to knowledge is in dreams,
Where subconscious connection to crying family
Members floats in the airy night space of high word means.
Now, the only certainty is uncertainty; but hope lives
In the reincarnation of the past the present gives.
97 > THE FIRST GIFT
It is brown
It is brown
It is brown
It is brown in all regard
The quintessence that is regarded
By everyone from my world
Each of us has one
Each of us is one
Because it is brown
For us, it is brown
It is the only brown object on our planet
That is why my four eyes looked so startled
When we opened the hatch...
So much of your planet is brown...
You must be a great people
You must truly know the significance of life
As you spend hours touching
Your brown objects... tell us all you know!
For us, we use our three fingers
To stroke, encompass as much as we can
This good feeling, this divine knowledge
To feel brown is
To feel the warmth of our living
To feel the solidity of our evolution
To touch our creator
So, this is
Our first gift
98 > THE FREE WAY
we were in the '63 brown Buick
I bought from my uncle for 350 dollars
blazing down the 210 Freeway to Ontario
for Cal Jam 2, the rock'n'roll concert
where we teens would light up
freedom from our parents
in a crowd of 300,000 at the speedway
we walked through the tunnel
to the infield where sleeping bags dotted the grass
(we made tracks on the grass in just an hour
it was 4am, I had been doing '78
trying to drive the year)
everyone was sleeping below the stars
waiting to be awakened by hundred thousand watt speakers
and reborn into rocking festival lyrics
to hear our cultural leaders--Aerosmith, Santana, Foreigner, Mahogany Rush
and when it was over, after our fists pumped into the air
thick with smoke and spilled beer and trampled dust
we shuffled out, media fed cattle, mooing with happy tiredness
for the 2am drive home, I drove in the dark highway space
weaving with ears buzzing, we had to stop
to piss on the walls of a closed gas station
spraying yellow sparks of independence in the night
the liberation of being on our own--with friends
hours of deep high to always remember
99 > THE GREAT DIVIDE
COMES TOGETHER
I lie next to a woman
born 2,000 miles south of L.A.
We talk about what we have
in common from our childhoods --
watching The Flintstones --
only in her casa -- Los Picapiedra
Listening to the radio
as teenagers we both loved
"From The Beginning" -- but
Laura didn't know the title
until she heard it from me
When we visit her relatives
in Los Angeles -- I'm a foreigner
in the city of my birth
feeling conspicuous about my poor
pro-nun-ci-a-cion
I punch KLVE
in her Metro -- I imagine
watching my wife
cumbia in high heels
When I choose to wrap
my eggs in
a tortilla con salsa -- I know
I'm really eating mi amor
Desnuda piel against naked flesh
brazo over arm
pierna on leg
we naturalmente create a nueva race
100 > THE GREY TOOTH
I am told
my half-brother helped me
acquire a grey tooth at 3
and I feel
a small bubbling
in my veins
I try to remember
something bad, like the time Charlie
poured cherry kool-aid over me
evil neighbor runt next door
I grew horns for the first time
I remember, I remember
trembling years later as a teacher
over a teenager's no's
feeling the volcano within
searching my mind
to make myself
look out a window
get distracted by a passing airplane...
every few weeks there comes a moment
I'm fighting myself
if I'm lucky, if there is justice
after life I want to see
the film that starts with 10/31/59
like Albert Brooks
before my memory
so I can finally know exactly why
I erupt inside --
I've been blessed
I've been kissed
to have to find poetry in my life
I yearn to learn my own story
I... feel... it....
101 > THE HOUSE NEXT DOOR
I found out who the devil was
when the boy poured cherry kool-aid over me
I was pure evil as I clutched his shirt
collar and raised him up
I carried his mischievous form until
we reached his mother's front door
she answered my knock and I took him
and shook him in front of her
she screamed/shrieked LET HIM GO!
I remembered what my mother said
and with her hatred in my eyes I told the witch
she'd have to wash my clothes and
I laughed merrily/madly home to continue
to live in my own hell of 13 years
102 > THE IMAGE IS
Don't got a 6 pack
Don't got a sports car
Don't got a big wallet
But I have a poetry loving brain
And that's gotten me love
That'll last a lifetime
What else do I need
I get around in an old pickup truck
I'm making payments
On those damn credit cards
And I look in smoky windows
Of SUV's to see if I can tolerate
My own looks, and I do
Because glasses and a beard
Appeal to the woman I love
Everyone else says
You look like that guy in the movie
The one we laughed at
That's OK, at least you're looking
And I'm checking you out
Comparing you to the magazines
You're real, they're not
as far as I'm concerned
I'll meet you if you want to meet me
And that's all that matters
On this planet of mine
Smaller than a city
Six feet high
And someday...
Six feet under
103 > THE KID
As a bald baby I was moved
near a reservoir to a tract house
with a garage door branded Z Z
My Grecian Formula haired father turned on
the TV and the Trix rabbit jumped
onto a box on our formica dining table
I admired Dad's mahogany console stereo
oozing music for modern lovers
Tijuana Brass Whipped Cream
And Other Delights
a vinyl sheriff's star
stuck on the front door pane
Shouted re-elect Peter Pitchess
as my auburn-coiffed mom opened
her favorite tome
Jane Dixon's astrology pulled
from the woodgrain-
laminated-particleboard bookcase
I grew in evolving Polaroid pictures
smiling beside a "tree"
assembled for Christmas
Hugging my Strange Change
plastic creature maker
never thinking for a moment
I'd turn into a poet
104 > "THE NEWS"
(an eight-stanza found poem with one added original stanza)
A man and a woman
in a suspected stolen pickup
led police on a high-speed chase.
A refining company
will pay $450,000 to settle
charges stemming from
a fatal explosion and fire.
Thieves took $200,000 in two
jewelry store robberies today.
Two elementary school students
and two men were hurt when
a van rear-ended a school bus.
A woman pleaded guilty
of embezzling more than $1 million cash
from Goodwill Industries.
An Oildale couple reached
a plea agreement with prosecutors
on charges of molesting
the woman's daughter.
An American Indian group has asked
Tulare Union High School to quit
using Redskins as its mascot.
A 37 year-old homeless woman,
who was sleeping in a trash bin
to get out of the weather, was
injured after she was dumped
into a garbage truck.
An Alhambra poet signed a contract today
to perform poetry
in a high school classroom.
105 > THE PINK PEARL
Our rose space bus
flies on finger power
smoothly down to land
on cool flat surfaces
braking easily with friction
You don't think about us
flaking off
you just brush off
look at the name we lovingly gave
our collective:
Pink Pearl from Sanford
You even customized us
punching three holes in the top
killing at least a dozen crumbly citizens
now the rest of us can see the sky
those bars of light that give sense
of direction to the landing field
on which we scrape our vehicle
again and again, a rough journey
for each of us, we must admit
we live our lives to eliminate mistakes
in our rapidly entroping universe
P.S. Have you seen our other
newer craft, the White Out?
106 > THE PRINCE OF TIDES
It was over.
I was experiencing
the kiss of my life.
Then the touch
of an insensitive shoe
that wanted to leave.
So we let them by,
and started laughing
with tears in our eyes.
Arm in arm,
mouth to mouth,
we tried walking
without looking.
The usher smiled
and said,
"enjoy the movie?"
Still feeling two emotions
in the same body,
I drove up the necklace
that is San Gabriel Blvd. at night;
confessed in the parking lot,
continuing intensity
a little longer:
my father died slowly.
He showed me how
to be a man.
I told her that was why
Nick Nolte played football, then
I grunted to make laughs.
She suggested we take home
the Jack-In-The-Box
to watch Moonstruck.
We didn't want to kiss again
until the credits.
107 > THE QUOG
Look at the mweep.
See the flebs twindle
all glosp long.
When a special whenk
soarbs, I make a spido.
I always end up zamut.
That's what I crote
for being so butteen.
Maybe if I just paskel,
everything would ghin.
But that is not my tepra.
I must forever lueb
until I find my only sloog.
Someday there'll be niiz
zumping on my rodatogis.
108 > THE RABE OF NANKING
(a researched poem)
John Rabe
picked up his pen
like a Japanese soldier
points his rifle
His diary
details his witness
of several weeks
of murder
of rape
of pillage
It was
December 1937
He followed
his conscience
yet remained
in the doomed city
Was it professional
Was it noble
Was it personal
Anyone who has ever held
a trembling Chinese child
cannot run
Once a blast
shakes a bomb shelter
fear needs
a few cheerful words
When a soldier is about to rape,
his chubby arms
shoved away
Accuracy is essential
when a young child is
split through the head
with a sword
300,000 people
murdered in Nanking
At times
you could hear
nothing
but rape
Golf clubs,
bamboo poles
rammed up
female genitals
And the men
bound
killed
dumped in a fire
kicked into a river
some
buried alive
Or just urination
on a family's
common bowl of gruel
Because of Rabe
Truth will out
Japan can no longer
deny
their Chinese
atrocity
Because of Rabe,
sixteen years after
his death in 1950
his daughter finds his book,
tells the world
to get the truth
out
In the light
of celluloid soon
Xie Jin will produce
the end
POSTSCRIPT
Rabe died poor
and in obscurity
He bartered
his treasured
Chinese art
for food
The statue of Knanyinn*
for a handful of potatoes
*the Buddist Goddess of Mercy
109 > THE RECTANGULAR SKY
walking out the front door I look up
at the sky framed by our college letter
"O" shaped building and feel like I live
in a manmade museum for appreciation of
nature I have developed a reverence for
the view above each day a different
painting by Force the best days when
puffy mashed potato cotton ball clouds
float in a flat blue sea of air and the
most awakening nights the moon is
brilliantly suspended with little venus
playmate teasing the corners of the sky
disappearing to remind me whimsy dwells
in afternoons where an occasional plane
putters from one side of the frame to
the other a helicopter whirls birds
silently flap and I walk below with
my daughter my wife my moon my venus
on the earth below the sight of this
a guy looking at relative positions as
we breathe out apartment double doors
I wonder why cars fly so fast down
the street and ask are they as lucky as
me to stop notice we construct imitate
the constant constellation over all
110 > THE SLICE
there we were
at a McDonald's
outside
sitting around
a sidewalk stone table
after closing
eating a take-out pizza
and she looked at me
and I gazed
dreamily at her
unable to eat
because of love
and she asked me
if you love me
throw that slice
over your shoulder
and I smiled at her
and casually tossed it
and she laughed
her beautiful laugh
and about three weeks later
she said
don't move
and meant it
and excused herself
to the restroom
when we were
in a pancake house
probably to gag
over me
and my complete
submissiveness
it was never
the same
after that
slice
111 > THE SMALL MODEL
Kyla -- you don't pick up your room
unless I command you
are you lazy, or are you just trying
to be like Mami
do you always have to not flush the toilet
until I stretch my arm and point
in the direction of porcelain --
you say you don't like the noise
I believe you, except I also believe
you're imitating your mother again
not closing the door
I hear the two of you singing
"Chiquita Arana" and "Di Por Que"
I see you take one of her
lipsticks from the bathroom counter
and you put it in your little plastic purse
this week--a Megara w/long purple strap
you walk in your bedroom and come out
looking like a cute payasita
I know sometimes your toes appear
like you stepped in nail polish
and mi amor laughs and smiles for her
little Laurita -- I have learned
to endure and enjoy
the bath towels left choking on the floor
the underwear sleeping on the sofa
the two half-dressed beauties leaning
into two mirrors in two bathrooms
-- while I watch my two reasons
to live with love
112 > THE SUFFIS
it's got an angry mouth
because God has been cruel
it looks at the world
through square eyes
so it has trouble seeing
in corners
it hates being around people
who at first laugh and don't know
which part to make fun of
first, the flowery hair,
the big nose, the small feet
it's a smorgasbord of hurt feelings
it walks clumsily
hunting for the only food
it can eat: onions
(that explains the bad breath
and the round belly)
it asks itself
what good is living
and then it remembers
the soft touch of its mother's
claw on its furry cheek
113 > THE SUN FRIES MY EYES
while gravity causes
shoes to be sleeping dogs
their cousins, the pants, those great tents
cover hairy earth
shirt might as well be
tarp that insulates fleshy sky
and hair the pool
that sometimes mists the room
deep inside the breathing machine
invisible words shout
hunger every two hours
excrete every day
and eventually i'm dying
whenever the body feels
like rejoining the flat circle
full of hours tromped
114 > THE VISION OF ST. BRUNO
(drawn from the painting by Pier Francisco Mola)
Attempting to attain union with God,
Bruno reclines under a tree
in a valley free from buildings.
He has brought his skull, his Bible,
his cross, to look up at welkin.
He extends his hand to the sky,
and winces, marvels at the illumination
of the clouds that will be here
long after he no longer passes breaths.
He is painfully aware the wind streams
over his skin, wavering in its devotion
to The Everlasting; as designed, he believes.
115 > THE WORLD IS
(1) A JUNGLE
mountains like
backs of
green leopards
little rectangle
houses are
colorful bugs
on land skin
a pride of
white fluffy
lions races
through ocean sky
but they
don't leave
brown dust in
exhausted air
it's rolling
gnats that
dully exhale
(2) A CHURCH
from tiny ribbon
highway on flat horizon
downtown manuments
hundreds of times
smaller than
daily massive
white cloud
beings created to
occasionally grace
ants with tears
in return micro
creatures compost
poems in praise
of manifestations
of god force
116 > THINGS MY FATHER TAUGHT ME
The NBA playoffs
don't mean shit
when you're vomiting
up your own shit.
A final score
of 117-107
doesn't compare
to weight loss
from 235
to 85
pounds.
When you're lying
in bed with cancer
you no longer possess
the ability to hit
creatively your children.
But you still
have the power
to refuse the purchase
of adjoining graves.
On his last bed,
he was a weak spider,
once a man,
with hours inhaled
of freeways,
cigars, asbestos,
saccharine,
mixed drinks
of 58 years.
And so,
because of him,
I continue
to work
on being
different.
117 > THIS IS MY BODY
I'm stuck with it
I mean really stuck
So I fool myself
Into believing I am
What people say
I am Steven Spielberg
I am Eric Clapton
I look in the mirror
And I believe them
I was Weird Al Yankovic
I was Kurt Rambis
People are forgetting
I look like the boy
In Cher's "Mask"
I am Jesus Christ
Even now I am
James Cameron
I'm told I should be on TV
I must be that big
Strangers ask me
If I am a doctor
If I am a jazz musician
If I am a writer
I must be...
A poet
I push myself
I catch ideas
I put a pen in my hand
I walk into coffeehouses
(and I don't drink coffee)
And libraries
And I declare
I am a poet!
This is my poem!
This is my body!
I am all you expect
And the rest
I'll reveal poem by poem
Day by day
Breath by breath
I can't help it!
118 > TRES VIDAS
(A researched poem from a beautiful lecture
by Martha Sanchez Spadaro)
It was East L.A.
It was familia.
Unlocked doors, next door neighbor
visiting for a cup of sugar.
A little girl skated up and down Third Street;
across dirt fields,
small holes in the marble-shooting dust;
a penny, pick it up.
At home, dinner on the table.
Martha grew
into La Quincenera dresses,
into the local world of courtesy,
walking past Tia to the First Street Store
for an egg salad sandwich and nickel cherry Coke;
walking past churches,
past Grandma's house
to take the bus downtown with friends.
Downtown, dating in Sunday finest:
party shoes, gloves and hats
strolling into the beautiful Mayan,
the architecturally elegant State,
for a 75 cent feature.
Later, caravans of cars, dance halls,
late night Menudo; a dozen dates
home by 11.
Then parents insisted college.
Martha Sanchez met young men
from other communities.
Independence came naturally,
partying and studying hard,
she read books to travel
in the mind.
A young Italian man added Spadaro,
Crenshaw Blvd., two freer children,
and a return to familia.
Returning to East L.A.,
17 years now, home is the feeling,
home is East L.A.
Home is la familia.
119 > UPON SEEING E.T. AGAIN
(for Jonathan)
to ride a bicycle
believe there are creatures
from other planets
wear a costume for Halloween
walk for candy
eat Reese's pieces
watch a plant grow
talk to animals
make a most-excellent promise
drink beer
for the first time
kiss a girl
teach someone words
phone home
cry over the death of a loved one
wish someday
to ascend to the stars
through you
and a video
I do all this
again
120 > VENTURA HIGHWAY
Dude walks Los Feliz Blvd into Glendale
Neon signs making cool the darkness
In his unsurprising dark blue windbreaker
He sits alone in Del Taco
After buying a $1.49 special burrito
With a dollar bill, one quarter, two dimes
And a smile (did I fail to mention one bandaged finger)
He looks around for anyone looking
Then pulls out of his nylon gym bag
A bottle of beer, taking a few hearty swigs
To wash down that cheap El Scorchio sauce
He twists back the twist-off
Disgusted, slides around out of his seat
And staggers across the corporate honeycomb carpet
While a song by America plays
121 > VIETNAM
numbers on the TV screen
wounded in the hundreds
sometimes thousand and
dead always double digit
newsman in a simple suit
with ted koppel hair
small square picture
in the background
of green uniforms
with one hand
clutching chest blood
like ketchup in the movies
and I was young
maybe 8 or 9
when I first noticed
people protesting at
the federal building
finally making the connection
the suited man giving the news
the soldiers dying on their backs
and me in the living room
with my parents at night
looking at magazines the fan on
saying nothing
122 > WANNA GO WITH ME?
For three decades now
I have journeyed to Beverly
turn on Rampart
to return to the monument
put together in seconds
again and again
for all who pay for it
The layers slapped on
as mouths water hot fried meat
cheese caressing every crevice
fat chunky tomato
then, the reason for being
the tastiest gloop
you'll ever taste
Tommy's chili
What do they put in that chili
that makes it more delicious
than anywhere else?
Why is the fact that I eat it
outside a 50 year-old shack
in the warm 1 A.M. L.A. night
make it even better?
An experience
that can be
reproduced
And I have brought many
to live with me
in this moment
we can share
for just $1.50
anytime we feel like it
The parking lot horn honks
add to the atmosphere
The light breeze in the dark
touches my cheeks
as I feel in my stomach
warm humanity
Wanna go with me?
123 > WHAT I AM
I am poem
read with feminine
hands on white paper
from wooden lectern/altar
in bookstore words
tout taut angles amidst
installed flora fauna
I am French Toast
with whipped butter
and aluminum cup syrup
on white restaurant china
glass of squeezed
orange juice aside
above laminated maple
I am Yes music
playing portable
CD player the jewel case
lying atop with Roger Dean
art on booklet
Spanish Wes Montgomery
guitar meshing bass drums
baroque keyboards
and angel voice
I am NBA basketball
imagined on asphalt
in jeans and T-shirts
an elementary school
grassfree playground
until dark comes
I am driver
of red pickup
deftly avoid crowds
of freeway chained cars
into offramps
occasionally street potholed
what a rush
I am student
at East L.A. school
classroom carpetless
thirty year old
books littered graffiti
brown skin on
rarely carved desks
I am wife
daughter daily
Te Amo phone calls
second grade homework
gymnastics painting tennis
swap meet weekends bicycle
to the cosmetic exchange mall
I am clouds sky
sun blind
look over
earthly toys
wonder whether
to give all
shake or storm
to stir poetry
124 > WHITTIER BLVD. 8/29/70
Thousands
march in the street
Fists pump
signs into the air
Batons club back
protesting arms
Hands hurl bottles
and stones at official prejudice
Tear gas canisters
explode in bar windows
We can see it
all on TV
My father says
he has to go there
We cry we love him
as he opens the door
Because he wears the brown
Sheriff's jump suit
We wonder if we will
ever hold him alive again
But his name is not Ruben Salazar
so he lives to see an undeclared war end
125 > YELLOW
my favorite
color
yellow
as a child
I loved
the sun
I'd color it
anything
but
yellow
just to be
different
where would I be
without yellow
my teeth would be
cleaner
my urine would be
unhealthy
my life would be
a lot less sunny
for I love
yellow in everything else
except my heart
my girlfriend laughs
when she sees me
turn green
