Happy Halloween

Dubya Wears His Cowardly Lion Mask

Dubya
has big ears
but they

don’t help him
hear the truth
because the truth

is not
something
he cares about.

And the
sad thing
about all this

is that
American sons
daughters

are dying
as we speak,
dying for this

cowardly lion
that follows
the yellow brick road

that follows
the yellow streak
up his back.

Bloopers From Last Week

These are
the bloopers
from

last week’s
series
of poems.

What?
You didn’t
think

I made
mistakes
when

I’m writing
these
major poems.

Well, my mama
was
a glass-blower

so you should
be able
to see right through me.

Yes, I’ve seen
the error
of my ways

and I’ve
done
nothing about it.

So
there
you go!

And , of course,
I didn’t
include the blooper

where Dubya’s underwear
is pulled
down to his knees

after it
gets stuck
on the title

of the poem
"Moses On
The Hill"

Dubya yells, "Hey, Moses
watch where you
put that staff,

they’ll never legalize
same-sex marriage
in Texas!"

Burning Down The House

After the fires
go out,
after

they’ve consumed
the capital,
there’s nothing left,

but an ashen desert.
It looks
like the

bombed out cities
of Iraq.
You see,

democracy
makes everybody
equal.

Dubya steps up
to a melted
microphone

and proclaims
that
we are

much safer now
than we were
before

we took out
Saddam
Hussein.

Dubya’s face
is as black
as his suit,

his burnt smile
falls from
his face

and you see
the
closing credits.

Screenplay
by
Reyes Cardenas.

Directed
by
Reyes Cardenas.

Dubya
played
by Reyes Cardenas.

The flying saucer
was played
by Los Pachucos.*

The soldiers
who were melted away
by Gort

were played
by the soldiers
we’ve lost in Iraq.

*Los Pachucos are Los Pachucos And La
Flying Saucer published in Caracol from my
novella from the 1970’s. A female flying saucer
lands on the westside of San Antonio,her huge
breasts are exposed and the saucer is discovered
by pachucos and their rucas, and so on.

Dubya Flees D. C. After The Terrorist Attack

You’d think
that the
Radar Men

from Mars
had aimed
their ray guns

at Washington
D.
C.

The fires blaze
and the smoke rises
and the Dubya flees.

All you
can see
is his bushy tail.

Tour Of A Burning Washington D. C.

The smoke
is shaped
like the Constitution.

None
of our rights
are left.

And Dubya says
none of your lefts
are right.

Meanwhile, Laura sits
atop the
Washington Monument

with
a smile
on her face.

Washington
is
burning

and the
Congressmen
and Senators

flee like
wet
rats.

(My apologies
to you real rats
for comparing

you
to
politicians.)

Lincoln is
sitting
in a chair-----

he must
have won
at musical chairs.

The smoke
washes itself
in the Potomac,

but you
can still tell
it’s been in a fire.

The Day Washington D. C. Stood Perfectly Still

Unfortunately,
no Republicans
were

actually harmed
in the
making

of this
epic chicano
major motion

picture
in which
at least

half of
Washington D. C.
was burned

to the ground.
The terrorists
disguised themselves

as Gort.
"Klaatu
Barada Nikto."

Translation:
"Gort, let’s get
the hell outta here

before they find
our weapons
of mass destruction!"

Moses On The Hill

I’m watching this
live
on a cable news channel.

Terrorists are
attacking the White House
with shoulder-launched missiles.

The Rose Garden
has caught fire,
the Oval Office

has lost its shape.
Ashes fill
the sky like confetti.

Freedom
has been attacked
again.

And where is Dubya
while all of this
is happening?

Well, I see a bearded man
in a flowing robe,
holding a staff,

and he’s pointing
to a
burning bush.

Dubya Paints Guernica

This is Dubya’s
Guernica.
The airplanes

dropping their bombs
on the innocent.
The body parts

flying in
the four directions.
Men, women, children.

The child
has no head.
The woman

has no breasts or chin.
This man has
no limbs whatsoever.

But at least
someday
this

desert country
of theirs
will be a democracy.

On Hiring A New Maid

Our maid quit
after almost
six years,

so we’re
in the process
of hiring

a new one.
We’re
interviewing now.

We had
been through
about ten applicants

when this guy
shows up.
His name was Bill.

No problem,
we
thought,

we’re open
to hiring
a male maid.

His credentials
were really
good on paper.

That is,
until he
opened

his mouth
and said,
"I don’t do Windows!"

American Legacy

These Hummers
are great
back home,

but here
in Iraq
the RPGS

tear them apart
and anything
that’s inside of them.

We are not
here
to liberate,

we are
not here
to reconstruct,

we are here
to kill
and be killed.

When we leave
this
country,

these people
will have
to write down

what happened here
on
stone tablets

just like
their ancestors
the Summerians.

And when we get back home
the record will show
that we are the Hummerians.

Burning A DVD Of I, Chicano

I’m burning
dvds
and the

smoke alarm
goes off.
Before

I can throw it out,
the darn
fire department

is banging
on my
door

with axes.
The door bell
rings

like tree rings,
and the
age of man

is told
by how
we branched off

from the
nape
of the ape.

Homo erectus
and the
women expect us.

Thank Frost, the dvd has
gigs to go
before I sleep,

the dvd has
gigs to go
before I sleep.

Bill O’Reilly Phones It In

I go to
the smokinggun.
com

to read
the accusations
against Bill O’Reilly.

Didn’t
I just
warn you

in my poem
"Observations of
a God-Fearing Atheist’

about
these
goody-two-shoes!

Oh, these
Republican
conservatives

become
so liberal when it comes
to sexual harassment.

O’Reilly liberates
the
vibrator

from the Constitution.
He takes
the Bill of Rights

into
his
De Sade hands

while he preaches
right-wing propaganda
on the FoXXX News Channel.

The Return Of The 50ft Woman Poet

Sometimes a poem
will not sound the way
you want it to sound.

In that case
this is what
I recommend you do.

Add some muscle
to it,
add some sugar to it.

Throw in a rock here,
maybe one
with a fossil in it.

Gather some firewood,
build a big fire.
Ignore the burn ban.

Fish a woman
from the bay,
unrecognizable.

A poem
doesn’t have
to beautify the landscape.

A poem
can be
an eyesore.

The poem should be
be sounding
a little better now.

Now add a
basketball player
accused of rape.

Add a former
football player
accused of murder.

Now a cop
planting evidence,
their mo of course!

Add some senseless war,
plenty of civilian dead,
and young soldiers dead.

The poem is beginning
to sound real,
to resemble that remark.

Sometimes a poem
will dominate the seascape.
Sometimes it will creep off

into the sunset
like a cowboy
or a kung fu preacher.

Sometimes the skin
will peel back from the words,
its nakedness will stun you.

The figure before you unveiled
pins you to the wall of the poem.
It is then you realize this is Sylvia Plath.

The Return of the 50ft Woman Poet
takes you by surprise
even though you, yourself, created it her!

Observations Of A God-Fearing Atheist

The very
same people
who cry

the loudest,
who want to put
up

the Ten Commandments
in public
places

and
government
buildings

are the
very same
hypocrites

who break
every damn
commandment.

No doubt
they’ll fry
in their cherished hell.

Lake Jessica

It’s been raining steadily all day
and out beyond the backyard
Lake Jessica is full to the brim.

Dogs walk underneath
the surface of the lake,
they use their ears as snorkels.

I shoot baskets with Ruben
when he was ten
now the years are shaped like something

that has never been seen before.
The front door opens
and my wife walks in to finish cleaning.

Yes, Sunday is cleaning day
and we go to church later
and try to clean it too with no results.

Mud gets dragged in from the rain.
The shoemarks we leave on the floor
resemble Christ.

He’s swimming in Lake Jessica
chasing the dogs to the
far end.

When they come out of the water,
all of them , even the dogs
walk away on two feet.

I go to the edge of the lake
and roll it up for the night.
Better back it up by burning it to cd.

Confessions Of A Confessional Poet

You know,
I go
to church

every Sunday.
I try
to treat

other people
the way
I like

to be treated.
I try
to spend

time
with
my family.

I try
to tell
my wife

I love her
but probably
not as

often
as
I should.

I even let
the dog out
every morning.

And, yes, perhaps
I spend
too much

time with
my craft
and sullen art,

and, yes, perhaps
occasionally
I do covet my neighbor’s wife.

My neighbor
is
Ted Hughes.

Frankenstein Dubya

I see the bolts
in Dubya’s neck
and think

to myself
this idiot
is the

son of
Frankenstein
or at

least the
invention of a modern day
Mary Shelley.

Just then
Dubya
stretches his

arms
straight out
in front of him.

He wanders
around the village
until he

finds a
little girl
who offers him

a rolled up
copy of
the Constitution.

He promptly
drowns
her in the Potomac

and then claims
that children
are our greatest asset.

Dubya Versus Dracula

Dracula only
comes out
at night,

but
unfortunately
Dubya

comes out
twenty four hours
a day.

His cozy
little coffin
is in

the White House
but his domain
is

the entire
United States.
He sucks

the blood
out of the whole
country.

Flashing
a crucifix
in his face

only
encourages
him.

Dubya’s First Day At Driving School

Dubya gets
behind
the wheel

and runs
over his
instructor.

Kills
him
dead.

He runs
over
school children.

Kills
them
dead.

Runs
over
old people.

Kills
them
dead.

Runs
over
the poor.

Kills
them
dead.

Runs
over
a cop.

Kills
her
dead.

But, Dubya, swerves
to miss
rich people,

because money talks
and bullshit
gets run over.

Coward Of The Country

Dubya was
a coward
and

he wanted
to prove
to his daddy

that he
really
was a man now.

So he
murdered
in Afghanistan,

and he
murdered
in Iraqistan.

And he
has
his heart set

on
mass killings
in Iranistan,

mass killings
in
North Koreastan.

He’s a
homicide
bomber

but he always
puts
the bombs

on young
American men
and women

while he himself
hides
behind the American flag

just
like he did
during Vietnam.

My Fellow Texans

Dubya puts
his boots
on backwards,

he’s not
the brightest
cowpie

in the pasture.
He puts on
his shiny badge

and tarnishes
America.
He digs

his spurs
into men,
women and children

and this
makes our
nation safer.

Yep, he puts
on his
ten-gallon hat,

but he’ll
never amount
to a pimple

on
Lyndon Johnson’s
dead ass!

Growing Up Chicano with Emily Dickinson Talent

Because I would not bow down for them
they kindly beat me up
and sent me off to jail,

the paddy wagon
held but just myself
and every Chicano in Aztlan.

We passed the schools
where whites could learn,
we passed the fields where only Chicanos worked.

We passed the Aztec sun
and tried to make our way up
as they kindly beat us down,

but somehow we surmised
the white man was a horse’s rear
towards immorality,

and we continue
to fight the good fight
that you shouldn’t have to fight in America.