Keepsake

I keep a small pebble
in a shoe box labeled “last kiss”.
The box sits on a shelf in my closet
among scrapbooks and dust.

There is one less rock traveling
the sky. I saw it blister the riverbed,
a scarlet trail hissing behind it
before being extinguished

by the water’s numbing lips, which
through slow years of contact
polish the scarabs and birds of
hieroglyphics into unsaid words.

The last time we met
you blew a kiss into your hand
and threw it out of the car window
towards where I stood.

It went in my mouth and
rolled down my throat like moonshine.
A small seed of your ghost blistering
somewhere inside me, a scarlet trail

of incense hymns to Lazarus.
Here it is after years of coughing
in a shoe box labeled “last kiss”.
The whole universe is in there.

DQ 03/23/07

Multimedia in Canvas

I work on small sections at a time.
Crayons scribbles in a corner.
Round face stick figures smiling,
some of which have faded.
I weaved shoe laces and sewed
buttons on it, some which tore,
or fell where the canvas weakened.
Small little lies repaired, pasting colored
patches from other paintings on the rip.
I also pasted post-it notes in random
places. Some with names written
in pencil, some in ink.
Post-it notes fall. They stick to my shoe.
I drag them when I walk by, loose
them in the piss of public restrooms,
loose them in dog shit while I walk the dog.
In the center, oils, Alizarin crimsons,
Indian reds are tediously mixed. They
join with no line of demarcation.
They streak like blood spill, the
color of her lips.

One day I’ll complete the piece.
I’ll see it from behind held up to the light,
and forget where to find the artist’s signature.

DQ 3/3/7

The Beautiful

Woman standing by the podium
shirt rolled under your breasts
exposed belly stretched
an inch from birth.

You strike the lump
in the uterus with
fists and rage until you
become a living body bag.

You squat over the recycling bin
and drop another child.
God shed His grace on thee
and crown thy good with brotherhood

from sea to shining sea.
There he is returning home in uniform
with your flag over his casket
resting in the ancient silence of the womb.

DQ 03/01/07

Music

My body moves aquatic.
My body shaped liked Satan’s tail.
My body crosses Beale Street.
My body outside its flesh walls.

Patrick Henry said it
Give me liberty or give me death.
Strike your palm and thumb
on the Conga’s leather.

My body is a whore’s legs.
My body’s current ionizes air.
My body is not ashamed.
My body can fly.

A bird transposed
his wings on my back.
My body is a weightless note
chasing the sun’s arc.

DQ 02/27/07

Woman offering Coffee

The moon’s layers peeled
one by one reveal the small
sugar cube at the eternal place.
Arrows of fire skin point
where thighs come together,
where flesh changes tone
in color, gravity and scent.
Scent that undulates the air,
weaves itself a half spoken
smoky sentence, and places
a drunken fabric over eyes
no passing sun or reason
could ever penetrate.
The caramel pull stretches me.
No one returns from where
the sea falls to the abyss.
A red light inside warns:
Primal mode only. But no
one watches the control desk.
Just a cup of coffee she said…
and here she is rooted in my
tongue. Nothing will ever
move us again, not even
the smell of fresh coffee.

DQ 02/26/07

Tattoo

“You shall not make any cuts in your body
for the dead nor make any tattoo marks on
yourselves: I am the Lord.” Leviticus 19:28

I have a tattoo of a woman’s name.
It makes a written halo over her head.
Her head rests on her hands.
Her hands make a cradle, palms down.
Her hair runs past her elbows.
Her elbows rest on her knees.
Her knees partially cover her breasts.
Her ankles are crossed
not covering much, and her
feet disappear under a pillow
she is using to keep them warm.
It’s a very nice tattoo.

Now listen Peter…
spare me the canon bullshit.
Your written regulations
only mention the body.

DQ 2/23/07

Window by the Writing Desk

Through this window
poems gently drifted,
lovestaining paper
with the fresh morning
toffee color of your eyes,
and perfectly describing
pyramids of lovemaking
and the aftermath grave
silences we made embalmed
in the scent of our opposite skins.
Years later you are still
my sweetest dream
and I watch , by this window,
the rain distort the world
as it writes lines across the glass.
I force words on paper
and watch them fade within
scattered dark blotches.
Paper stains the same
with tears and rain.

DQ 02/22/07

Stone Maker

Acrobats practicing balance
turn to obelisks at the threshold
of your gaze. Stonehenge.

Insects crawling by
the riverbed solidify as
as you kneel to drink. Pebbles.

Music notes fall from air,
petrify and shatter
as you walk by. Dust.

Here in my mirror, you tame
the indigo mane of snake hair
with both hands. Stone maker.

I would believe the myth
if it wasn’t for the fact
that you are bouncing

on the liquid that use
to be my hips as I
melt beneath you.

Missing stars of the Confederate flag

High on the top shelf of my closet
along with scrapbooks and yearbooks
is my father’s helmet. Six stars remain
on the confederate flag sticker weathered
by rain. I remember staring at all the stars
for days on our way to Naples beach.

I was eleven years old and Nixon was
president. I sat on a small cushion bolted
to the back fender of his Harley Davidson.
We rode within the rumble of mufflers,
long beards and flashes of chrome.
His friends called me “Clickie”.

They knew my father as “Click”.
That was the sound his camera made
when he snapped pictures of motorcycles,
bonfires, drunken men and naked women.
They called me that on the day they
knocked at our door with the helmet.

Part of the sticker was missing.
They never mentioned his real name,
they said his pictures were legends.
I held the scratched up helmet by the strap
as my father did, and locked the door.
That was the last click they heard.

DQ 01/21/07

An Index of Hours

The graceful hours. Ether.
Slow motion acrobats
tongues tethered
above each other.
Small predators.
Slender mountain mints
in ghost white linen.

The adoration hours. Smolder
Scarlet striped tigers
gorging in yin-yang.
Repeat my name. Fever
Repeat my name. Fervor
Spotted jewelweeds
in fire brick red.

The petrified hours. Terrain
Stonehenge embrace.
Lovers chiseled in marble
one sleepless
unmovable kiss.
Evening primroses
in goldenrod khaki.

The moving hours. Maritime
Nirvana cocktail
inside you
the tide beats the seawall
bedposts speaking lace.
Venus looking glasses
in aquamarine turquoise.

DQ 01/06/07

Why we Fall

1.
Five stories he fell, fighting
gravity like a bird statue chiseled
from granite, slapping the air below
the scaffold while urging wings to
come alive until the last second
when the asphalt nest became stained.

2.
He never wanted his feet
to touch the tangle of aquatic ivy,
or find out what type of fish
seabirds dive for. His face was
a desperate shade of blue,
when he drifted on the beach.

3.
The flame, domesticated candle
scented in the flavor of vanilla
sandalwood, first devoured the curtains,
then the entire building while she slept.
She wanted to be buried beneath flowers,
not cremated in room four of the hourly motel.

4.
There is no free will when falling in love.
I could not fly out of it if I had wings.
I could not save myself from drowning in it.
And when my heart reddens with passion,
I could not deny its walls from melting in the fire.
Maybe every time we love, we die a little.

DQ 1/2/7

Nothing Changes

A comma, a period, inflections.
Rules, laws, religions.
I before e, except after c.
Capital punishment.
In God We Trust.
Every word a traveling vagabond,
every bell a prompt for dogs.
Repeat after me: I love you.
I love you too. Recite it like
the pledge of allegiance,
do you meant it?
Look in the mirror
and say either one
like you believe yourself.
Its December in Miami
and its eighty degrees.
I’ll be lying on the grass
looking at the moon
pretending I’m snow.

DQ 12/29/30

La Mata de Mango

Where any mango tree
divides the sky, the air
beneath it becomes solid.
It starts with green
hats, palm leaves
weaved like dreams.
It then turns into men whose
voices rise over the rumble
of small ivory squares
shuffling over a table.
Houses and streets pop
around the table with
the wet hollow sound of
champagne corks and

I am five, holding
my grandfather’s hand
in Guanabacoa, standing
by the mango tree
where the old men
play dominoes and tell
stories in the front yard
of a house in the street
where the French pirate
Jacques de Sores killed a
man when he ransacked
the town in 1555.

He asks me “quieres uno”
and I answer “no, mañana”.

DQ 12/29/06

Letter to the Marquis in Prison

Tell me of the canine women
dancing on your prison wall,
silhouettes cast by fire
of your private chamber,
the room built for promiscuous
virgins with rain soaked
between their legs, diamond
speckled drops like the uncertain
dust of every road and easy
to part at the stride of a hip.
Part like Moses did.
Part like private.
Curse my eyes with flashing
indigo scenes of flesh
from a moaning Venus
or a weeping Juliette
loosing their attire one by one.
Moaning longer than wind
with small intervals of silence
fermented between the boiling air.
Like all mortals,
I have small bits of fascination
wedged between my chains.

DQ 12/27/06

Shaving on December 27th at 10 am

We join eyes in the cold
of silver once again,
in the iridescence of
recycled sunshine where he
shaves every morning.

And there is brother Winter
so numb he can’t feel the razor
cut deep into his neck, seeking
in the frozen quiet of himself,
the warm blooded poet that lights

his fireplace and drinks his wine.
It’s amusing watching him from here,
inside the sacred silence of his
mirror, where he keeps the
medicine pills and the razor blades.

DQ 12/27/06

Perfection

Slowly tumbling in the
black liquid ether of sleep,
you have been polished
into a precious little gem.

Every jagged edge
that ever cut me
has been quietly rounded
by the nightly motion of my dreams.

D.Q. 12/26/06

Wolves

My words glide to the ground.
Brown petals from my mouth
obey the season for falling,
follow the unseen path of dried leaves
the circular flight of sick birds
spiraling withered, detached and
falling like the heart of this city
full of vagrants and newspapers
full of whores and immigrants,
this city that has never worn
a pure virgin mantle of snow.

On warm days like this,
I pretend to run and hunt
with artic wolves. Stalking
caribou and singing wolf songs
that rise to the moon
in plumes of silver howls, halos
that united above us as a single
colored rainbow across the indigo
breath of the sky. I can never
distinguish yellow eyes or stars.

I thought only my words
glided to the ground, sick birds
that hate human touch or pity,
until I looked down and saw yours
aged, scattered, smiling and withered.

Speech to no one while I shower.

My fellow bathers: we have all heard about Shirley McLaine, past lives and many masters. I am here today, in the shower with you, to ask you to consider a different point of view. We think of time as an arrow. We think of time as a consecutive line from the big bang to this very second where I start to wash my left arm. Open your minds as you hear my voice, and shower along as you listen. Time was made for you and me so we could function within our boundaries. So we could bathe every part of the body at the proper time, in the proper sequence. We are creatures that must follow a path. We cannot comprehend following parallel paths when it comes to dealing with hours or centuries. Things must happen for us in sequence. We are born, we live, we die. We cannot comprehend being born, living and dying at the same time. We follow a line much like the sequence we use to bathe. I wash my left arm, then my right arm, then my chest shoulders and back, then my dick balls and ass, my legs, and my hair. I cannot bathe everything at once, because I can’t function in a parallel path. I am limited to linear behavior like all humans.
Things would be different if I were a god, either a biblical god, or a god from one of the worlds great mythologies. Perhaps even a god the world has not met yet.
If I were a god, what you call the past, the present, and the future would all be available to me as a single choice all the time.
We speak of past lives, never realizing that, for linear creatures like us, the past is not an available choice. The past is dead time. Some may think that past lives are a memory, but memory is limited to the gray mass that came with the frail vessel we inhabit.
My fellow bathers: I have often told you that the soul is part of the greater god that has no time boundary. No boundary, just like the air you breathe linearly is part of the greater universal void. Just like the drop of water that just rolled down the tip of my dick, will someday be part of a block of ice in somebody’s martini. No boundary.
My fellow bathers: We think of past lives never really thinking that the soul is part of that parallel greater being, and that the greater being is inside us, listening to that thought. Maybe even thinking of how fun it would be to put you in that life you are thinking is behind you the next time you come around. So I ask you to consider this: the next time you think of a past life… think that the past life you are thinking of may actually be your next life. Wish for one you would be happy with. Perhaps think that this same life you are now living was your past life, or that perhaps you were god in your past life.
Consider the later choice tomorrow, and let me know yesterday if you understood.

On the Beach at Midnight

Breath out.
All that was Diego is breathed out,
as if he were beheaded
and his blood was spilled on
the universe and merged with its flow.

I enter the horizon nameless
like an eagle released to the sky.


Breath in.
Over the skyline, stars
propel towards him and
enter his mouth in cascades of
white liquid fire.
He inhales me back, joined
with the sound of god’s whisper.

DQ 12/15/06

Somewhere in the World this Second. (augmented with sound and thoughts)

A mother pawns her wedding ring.

(places it on the counter, clink)

She thinks of church candles.

(a pious woman lit one this morning and nodded hello)

She thinks of John Kennedy ’s son.

(images and sounds of the

Thinks of his solemn salute at the funeral march.

TV broadcast swell her head)

The man behind the counter hands her

(I can only give you

enough money for a coffin that size.

five hundred for this)

A child sits wordless in a clay hut.

(laughter outside)

She bleeds her first period on the dirt floor.

(mooooo)

Her parents are happy about it.

(outside the hut people speak

She will be traded as a wife

in a dialect I can't understand)

for the amount of three cows.

(mooooo, mooooo)

She will only be worth less from now on.

A old man sees an old woman in a hospital

(loudspeaker: Nurse Thompson report to the nurses station)

He recognizes her eyes, because eyes

(beep, beep, beep. Rinnnnnng)

never change. Never. They were lovers once.

(loudspeaker: Nurse Thompson, Nurse Thompson)

She does not recognize him.

(beep, beep, beep)

She does not even see him.

(Hello...ahh…are you…)

Just like the first time they met.

(loudspaker: Nurse Thompson, Nurse Thompson, report to....)

A green woman breaks into a house

(Glass breaks)

she finds the poet sitting by his desk,

(Hmmm...shit)

She sits comfortably inside his head.

(bzzzz. brain cells move to make room. bzzz.)

She polishes the substance he thinks of.

(...a woman pawns her wedding ring)

She shines his musty thoughts with her breath

(...she thinks of church candles)

until only the fingerprint of his voice remains.

(...she thinks of John Kennedy’s son)