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
12/29/2006
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
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
12/27/2006
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
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
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
12/26/2006
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
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
12/24/2006
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.
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.
12/20/2006
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.
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.
12/15/2006
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.
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.
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
12/14/2006
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)
12/12/2006
My contribution to Poem 8 of my RENGA group
The room smells of sex. Everywhere.
Under the sheets. Under the carpet.
Under the wallpaper. Under our tongues
(which burn like Pentecost) and around our bodies
(which form a tourniquet fit for a first aid book).
Now our stares do the same.
Under the sheets. Under the carpet.
Under the wallpaper. Under our tongues
(which burn like Pentecost) and around our bodies
(which form a tourniquet fit for a first aid book).
Now our stares do the same.
To Chris “Skeletones” Franklin
You who have died: does the last
breath peel away from the throat
in circles of orange skin,
or does it flow out easy
like a ring of smoke?
And what of the ills unresolved,
those mild interruptions of breath,
do they ease their grip in the end…
or do they tighten a Jesus
tourniquet inside the hollow chest?
I remember you said
the Beatles and Buddha rode
the same wind trotting
holographic horse
and that strings from
different instruments
arranged for the same song
never really work together
but rather compete for the
appeal of the listener’s ear.
I always thought you were
fucked up until I saw you
floating down a dark river
with your eyes to nowhere
and a smile on your face.
You sang “all you need is love”
slipping out of speech like
speaking half a mantra
in each world, and when the
song ended you never came back.
breath peel away from the throat
in circles of orange skin,
or does it flow out easy
like a ring of smoke?
And what of the ills unresolved,
those mild interruptions of breath,
do they ease their grip in the end…
or do they tighten a Jesus
tourniquet inside the hollow chest?
I remember you said
the Beatles and Buddha rode
the same wind trotting
holographic horse
and that strings from
different instruments
arranged for the same song
never really work together
but rather compete for the
appeal of the listener’s ear.
I always thought you were
fucked up until I saw you
floating down a dark river
with your eyes to nowhere
and a smile on your face.
You sang “all you need is love”
slipping out of speech like
speaking half a mantra
in each world, and when the
song ended you never came back.
12/06/2006
Ascending
Fragile wrists jeweled by stars
thin arms raised above the wind
hold the horned owl wings.
Both free and soothing gray,
like a drybrushed autumn
in a Helga painting.
Dance now. Dance while your
bones are hollow, dance and let
the red leaves scatter with your swirls.
And you, Ascending, show her
the face to become print
in the loose flap of a book.
Dawn. It rises like a mountain
and the star dance must end.
Desdend. Its slope is
treacherous and cold like
a poem not written, like a
book thrown in the river.
Give your anger to the sun.
It stole the gentle voice who
told how pigeons congregate
under ripples of the sea.
The voice that showed you
a small mirror in the shape of a book.
thin arms raised above the wind
hold the horned owl wings.
Both free and soothing gray,
like a drybrushed autumn
in a Helga painting.
Dance now. Dance while your
bones are hollow, dance and let
the red leaves scatter with your swirls.
And you, Ascending, show her
the face to become print
in the loose flap of a book.
Dawn. It rises like a mountain
and the star dance must end.
Desdend. Its slope is
treacherous and cold like
a poem not written, like a
book thrown in the river.
Give your anger to the sun.
It stole the gentle voice who
told how pigeons congregate
under ripples of the sea.
The voice that showed you
a small mirror in the shape of a book.
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