another day with
only four hours
of sleep
i’m sure the wax
from that candle
will burn me one
of these days
but until then
enjoy the pain
trace your scars
with the blood
of a virgin or
two
laugh in the face
of danger
and remember
there is no better
taste than a well
earned death
The poet wrote a poem
About a black-eyed dog
A pink moon on its way
A fruit tree flourishing on the ground
And a road that’ll see him through.
Not many understood.
He sung songs about
The things behind the sun
Local clowns, tramps
Oceans finding their shores
And a troubled cure for a troubled soul.
Not many understood.
Now we all do.
He was a drama major
took voice lessons
studied the art of gesticulation
and facial movement
(he can say volumes
with just an eyebrow.)
He combs his hair
dresses tastefully
doesn’t want anything to distract the audience
from his art
wants to connect with the largest number of people
like a real estate agent
or a car salesman.
He’s got a nice smile
a complexion a 24-year-old girl
would kill for, damn
does he sleep in a vat
of Vaseline?
And he stands erect and confident, the microphone
is his best friend.
He doesn’t read his stuff, this mo-fo
has memorized it!
He’s practiced
he’s trained
he’s not messing around.
He PROJECTS
and scans the audience
back and forth
to and fro
totally natural
no one feels left out.
What a performer!
He gets them hootin’ and hollerin’!
The applause, oh lordy
deafening
2, 3 minutes long, people
are on their feet,
creaming themselves,
their heads are spinning,
they’re speaking in tongues,
they’re crawling around
on all fours,
jumping up, saluting, drooling,
reaching out, arms waving,
smacking themselves in the face, crossing
their chests,
shitting their drawers.
Sing it brother!
Preach it man!
He supports arts and teachers, he’s very
supportive, he’s passionate.
In fact he IS a teacher.
He loves his job.
He’s like a supercool teacher
on a PBS special
who treats all the students fairly
even the poor and the ugly
and the stupid ones.
He is severe when needed
and compassionate when needed.
He’s a good guy, he’ll loan you
a dollar
or a pen.
He corrects his friends’ grammar
at barbecues
he knows how irritating that is
but he still does it.
It’s cute, he can
laugh at himself, he’s a regular
fella.
People adore him, he is simply
adored.
I watch his Youtube videos
and am in awe.
My mouth drops open
and I laugh
and nod my head at the perfection
of the openings
and closings.
The middles are good too, it’s all
soundly cadenced
and crafted, like a symphony.
The occasional cuss word, you know,
for effect.
Polished, sober, sane, what the hell
planet is this guy from?
How to Win Friends and Influence People
is sticking out of his back pocket.
Firm ass.
He’s a kick at cocktail parties.
His wife is pretty
but not too pretty
and his kids are cute
but not too cute.
The man is talented, no getting
around it.
Probably jogs.
Perfect teeth, I’ll bet
he flosses.
Does he have a shed
out behind his suburban house
lined with newspapers
where he cuts up stray dogs
wearing nothing but a
pair of flip-flops?
The sonorous, handsome
bastard,
we’ll see how big he is
when I post my one-star review.
The streets are vacant; only the dead walk this eternal night. Packs of hounds are hunting and educating themselves from horribly written books and scattered coupons that blow through the alleyways.
Corpses are piling up in community parks and the rats have come together, massing and breeding at unbelievable rates, forming unions and delegating sections of the city. The black rain never seems to run dry.
Why has the daylight left us? Is this some sort of divine insurrection?
Long ago, traveling in Mexico after the tourist season, the ocean started to throw up all of its natural and man-made garbage onto the beach, the quantity of shit covered everything like a blanket, and the stench was fucking unbearable. I asked a friend “what in all fuck was happening?” He simply replied, “the ocean is cleaning itself.” Apparently it happened every year around the same time.
I wonder, in these troubled times, if the earth isn’t cleaning itself of us. We’ve had a good run at it, but we upset the balance, and for all intents and purposes we’ve ripped the living shit out of it.
We seem to forget that we’re only guests, and under the ravens’ watch.
We’re here awhile and then
we’re somewhere else
we’re confused and sad
we fuck around
we’re often ugly
occasionally (arguably)
beautiful
mostly something between
the most important thing
is that there’s not much
time left
so best not to get too
worked up about it
the sun and the moon
will do their thing
the poems will come
or they won’t
it doesn’t matter much
either way
lean back, open a
bottle of something
listen to the music
of the rain
breathe it in
and out
remember and forget
remember
and forget
When I was sixteen,
I stopped by my girl’s house
one Saturday afternoon
and her entire extended family
was in the backyard
grilling, throwing horseshoes
and just hanging out.
Everyone seemed to be
having a good time,
so after saying hi
and visiting for a bit
we slipped away
to her bedroom to fuck.
Back then, anytime I came
over we were in her room
and we were fucking.
We tore off our clothes
and went after it.
After a while
she got on top
and started riding me
moaning,
with her family
and loved ones
right outside
her bedroom window
on the back porch.
I guess it must’ve been
a combination of
fear and excitement
because when it was my turn
to go, she jumped off
and I shot my load
all the way up the wall
nearly to the ceiling.
We just lay there stunned
laughing hysterically,
me still twitching from one
of the best orgasms
of my life.
anguish and disorder
keep the fingers typing,
and a little wine
is always
good for the neck pain
that comes with it
when the muse
keeps you
strapped to your chair
feeding you cigarettes
until either
she goes away
or you drop unconscious.
personally,
I’m a few loose vertebrae away
from my first collection
although I am yet to write
a poem
about my scoliosis—
but there’s plenty of wine
for that and my flat feet.
It feels stale—
wanting some dramatic destiny
to be drugged into my dreams
but being only
perverted
into a poet
and wanting and feeling nothing more,
and so that poetry is spat prepubescently
into a dented trumpet I play,
sheepishly swaying an imitation of a dance
on marbled romances, absurdities;
On a quest to deify myself, honestly,
and finally be shown to the world
as a donkey.
This line of work will make your mother faint.
This will make dad drink again,
advise knocking it off while he nods off.
This is a sick fetish for the
self-proclaimed mystics,
a poor excuse for laziness, really,
a lie for some disgruntled manager.
I’d’ve gotten my head straight, I swear,
but I knew I’d use too much force
and twist it ‘till it breaks in its place,
would’ve popped my head out of
those rippling pages,
but I knew it was too late,
Too late to stay safely crouched into
computer friendships and households,
or soaked in a sexy self pity,
too late to be lazy without the constant
drag of a dream, too late to stay
behind, rolling my eyes
at the dreamy poet who dies with
each word I sacrifice.
So goes the work and it’s slot eats your coins,
and so goes another hungover morning
as I slowly bend and deeply,
in my own dreamt destiny decline,
to write out some beauty which I know
will rot in the hideous sundown
of a horrible caffeine comedown.
But, by god, in the face of all that,
I will be the most insane mistake to ever
sneeze upon a sunny face;
the worst retired beauty,
fat and sick like hospital flesh smells;
a terrible screech cracking golden bells;
a hellish, disruptive, degenerate smear-
Yeah, that’s it alright,
drink up over there, friend,
sure, I like your lips stained red, humor me now,
and pass that red kiss onto a furrowed head—
another bum poet is burning his words,
letting each dog-ear come to life with flame,
hoping to bake loaves of bread to break,
and feed to crows for misery’s sake.
i thought i wrote to tell you
everything is fine
but the bottle slipped
pages got wet
here, you want honesty
smell my honesty
burning in the field
under this junkyard sky
bobby lint and the 12 year shadow
my phone is disconnected
but I’m not
i got 32 flavors of razor blades
and base hits, one shoe wonder
up and down the highway in the freezing rain
i thought i told you i wasn’t shit
how come you never believed me
how come you fight the dark
i got laid out every damn place
i ever laid my sorry head
here to Tuuscaloosa
prison yards and my mama’s back porch
day i died in her heart
i went dark
i went dark
i thought i wrote to tell you i wasn’t dead yet
but who can be sure anymore
feels like dead is everything i do
you know what i mean?
aw shit, you don’t know what i mean
give it time, you will.
In Hermosillo, I get Natalia out of bed and up on her feet with her crutches, and we drive over to Alameda’s house. We try to talk everybody into going to the beach at Kino Bay. It’s an hour drive. But Alameda doesn’t want to go, Adriana doesn’t want to go, nobody wants to go. Well little Leo wants to go. Ok now Alameda wants to go, just let her paint her nails first and call her boyfriend. Can you pick up Pablo? Sure I can pick up Pablo. If Alameda wants to go, then Adriana wants to go too. Now Suegro wants to go. He hasn’t been to the beach in 30 years.
An hour later we are on the road with a minivan full. Blue skies, music on the radio, chorro of Spanish chatter.
Halfway to Kino Bay we stop at a small store in a pueblo called “The 12.” Everyone’s thirsty. Everyone gets out and I stand in the sun and smoke a cigarette. This is a dusty town of rocks and poverty. A tiny Indian walks barefoot through the shattered glass and stands squinting at me with delirious drunken eyes. I give him a dollar. He never stops staring at me as he takes it and I turn away like from some boogie man in a dream.
When everybody gets back with their Gatorades and lime-chile peanuts, the car won’t start. It just turns over and turns over.
“Start, start, start!”
“It’s the battery!”
“It ain’t the fucking battery!”
I pop the hood and 3 Mexican guys appear out of nowhere. They dive in, arguing and checking things. The consensus is it’s the fuel pump. The fuel pump’s gone fucked itself. Well what now? It’s Sunday, no mechanic is open here. Somebody phones Arturo my brother-in-law and Arturo calls Cacharpas, the mechanic in the family. They say they’ll get the part and come on out from Hermosillo.
And we wait.
The girls fan themselves and text on their phones, but they don’t complain. Me and Suegro stand in the shade of the little store. At least 4 young Mexican kids have washed the car windows with their squirt bottles.
There’s a taco stand across the road with green plastic chairs. We trudge over. The taco lady doesn’t want to stand up but finally she does. She ladles out a plate of greasy pork covered in flies, corn tortillas, bottled orange sodas. I ask her for a fork and she looks at me and walks away. We scoop the meat up with our hands, choke down the tacos. Everything smells like urine. A drunk sprawls on the sidewalk, arms outstretched, more sun-burnt than Jesus ever was. People step over him like a rotten banana peel. A truck crashes into a utility pole 20-feet away. We jump and watch the smoke billow from beneath the hood. Two drunk men fall out of the truck cussing at each other.
Suegro says, “This is a town without law.”
In an hour Arturo and Cacharpas arrive. They’ve brought Cacharpas’s wife, Alma, and their 2 boys, Santiago and Chato. They’ve also brought a cooler full of beer. We push the car over to a shady spot on the edge of a vacant lot. Cacharpas checks under the car and shit god dammit they’ve brought the wrong kind of water pump.
“I told you,” Arturo says.
“You didn’t tell me nothing!” Cacharpas says.
They have to go back to Hermosillo and pray the auto store is still open.
Another 2 hour wait.
Alma and the kids stay. We drink beers and play Frisbee in the rocks and broken glass of the vacant lot. I’ve brought the Frisbee. They call it a “platillo volador” which is another name for a UFO. Alma has brought folding chairs and burritos. Natalia sits with Suegro and Alma, rubbing her knees, wondering if they will ever work right again. She smiles and waves.
A little kid comes up to us. He’s selling fried grasshoppers. I buy a bag, eat a couple. Not bad. Better with salsa, Natalia tells me.
Arturo and Cacharpas get back with the new fuel pump. They’re drunk now and still arguing about who’s fault this whole thing is.
“All I’m saying is we should have gone to Neto’s. Neto’s is cheaper,” Artura says.
“Fuck Neto! Shut the fuck up!”
“Calm down, both of you,” Alma says. “You sound like an old married couple.”
Cacharpas shakes his wrench at Alma and grins. He slides under the car on a piece of cardboard and sets to work bumping his head and beating on something.
‘The god damned gas tank has to come off,” Cacharpas says from below.
“I told you,” Arturo says, and winks at me.
The light leaves us. Arturo pulls his car up close and turns on the brights. Nobody watches the sunset, all eyes are trained on the mechanic working his magic. The gas tank comes down and he gets it out from underneath.
“Damn, it’s heavy, got to get that gas out of there. Give me the hose.”
Cacharpas sucks on the hose to get the gas flowing into a bucket.
“You gonna kiss Alma now?” Arturo says.
“Look at this gringo gas, it’s so clean! It looks like lemonade!”
They put the gas into Arturo’s car, he’s almost empty.
“Now the radio’s gonna play gringo music!”
Cacharpas wrestles with the new fuel pump. He’s got to get it on tight. He bitches and moans and laughs, makes jokes I don’t understand.
“Where’s the last screw?”
Everybody walks around kicking the dirt looking for the lost screw in the dark. Natalia finds it! Arturo gets in behind the wheel, crosses himself and tries to start it.
“Start, start, start!”
It starts! Everyone cheers! Cacharpas the hero!
I give Cacharpas some money and buy more beer and gas. Everybody climbs into the cars. I’m tired and drunk.
“Follow me, Mateo,” Arturo says.
He heads for Kino Bay. I let the tide take me, my eyes bleary in the oncoming headlights.
45 minutes later we roll into the fishing village of Kino Bay. Everything is quiet and dark. The restaurant where we had planned to eat crab tostadas is closed. One small store is still open. Alma and Natalia buy bologna and bread and crackers and cream cheese, which they simply call “Philadelphia.”
We walk down to the beach. The sand is warm when we take off our shoes. The heavy humid breeze brings the slush of the surf. Stars like white beans scattered with a broom.
The kids jump in the water like goofy mer-brats. They splash and shriek with their t-shirts on. I toss the Frisbee to them. It glows in the dark.
The women make bologna and grasshopper sandwiches and pass them around.
“Kino Bay has changed since I was a boy,” Suegro says. “Everything’s changed.”
“Was it more beautiful then?” Natalia says.
“Yes.”
“What was it like back then, Suegro?” I say.
“It was empty. There wasn’t nothing. I saw a UFO right here on this spot.”
“How old were you, Apa?” Natalia says.
“Seven or eight,” he says. “Like those kids there. I was with my brother Isidro. Isidro was a year younger. It came from way out in the ocean. It was shaped like a disc and it was very bright. It moved toward us and it hovered in the air over our heads. It was completely silent and made no wind. It was too bright to look straight into. We had to shield our eyes. The lights were blue and white. Then it flew up into the sky, and got smaller and smaller.”
Suegro’s brother Isidro died last week. I never met him. Nobody talks about him. There was no funeral or service. Somebody called Suegro and told him that his brother had died. That’s all we know.
“Then it disappeared,” Suegro says, “over there.”
He points to the southwest.
We turn our heads and look to where he points. Suegro wipes his eyes with his red handkerchief.
“Don’t cry, Apa,” Natalia says, putting her arm around his shoulders.
“No, Mija,” he says.
We are quiet and sit like that for a while, staring at the night sky, wondering what’s out there, listening to the children scream and splash in the water, making our secret wishes, until it is time to go home.
Horror Sleaze Trash 