Henry Raccoon

Somewhere in the Black Hills of Papalote
there lived a young Chicano
named Henry Raccoon.

One day his ruca ran off
with some desgraciado,
this ain’t kosher, this ain’t cool, he cried.

Henry said I’m gonna get that vato
so he traveled to that brown town,
he checked into a room

above the cantina
only to find Janay Gideon’s Bible
surrounded by the sinning God.

Henry had his pistolas and was prepared
to shoot off the pendejo’s bolas
even if the puto had none.

He found the treacherous lovers
dancing a polka in the cantina.
The conjunto played accordions accordingly.

But, the rival was quicker than Henry to the draw
and we saw
what a bullet can do to you!

They carried Henry upstairs to his room,
everyone said it would be his tomb
but Henry recovered way too soon

which just goes to prove---
you can’t keep a Chicano down on the farm
even if he comes to harm.

Universal Soldier

after Donovan

He’s five-foot-two
and he’s six feet tall
and dead along the desert road,

he’s only twenty, thirty, forty,
he’s been a soldier fighting wars
for those who stay at home.

He’s a Moslem, Catholic, Coward,
he’s a Buddhist, Baptist, Brave,
he’s a Jew, he’s you, he’s screwed.

He thinks that somehow
he’ll put an end to war
but war puts an end to him.

He’s fighting for democracy,
he’s going to war for peace,
fooled by Pax Romana.

He’s a universal soldier
and his orders come from far away---
the far away corners in the mind.

His orders come from you, from you, from you,
you pull the trigger, you drop the bomb
but you couldn’t do it without me.

My City Was Gone

adaptation of the Chrissie Hynde and
The Pretenders’ song

Henry went back to New Orleans
but his city was gone,
there was no downtown,

Canal Street was a canal,
Bourbon Street was inundated
with a dirty bourbon brown.

All of Henry’s favorite places
and all of Henry’s favorite races were gone.
Astonishing what nature erases.

Henry was stunned and amazed,
his childhood memories
were floating blocks away,

you couldn’t tell the difference
between Pancho Villa and Pontchartrain.
The wind swirled in the trees

when Henry went back to New Orleans
and his city was gone.
The government’s bloody hands

were paved-over like the remains of Jimmy Hoffa
and the President stayed on vacation
while Henry’s city faced damnation.

Henry’s Phoned-In Elegy For Don Adams

KAOS is up to it again,
the Evil Empire, the blood-sucking vampire,
it just came over the wire.

Agent 99 had too much wine
in her mommy-long-legs,
all the way up her pegs,

swimming up to the eggs,
would you believe that?
But, just then Maxwell Smart

went splat as he jumped
from the building in spats
and his shoe-phone

went this way and that,
what did you call ‘em back then?
Smell phones, of course!

Henry’s Horsemanship

She’ll be coming round the mountain
when she comes,
she’ll be driving sick, white horses

when she comes.
She’ll be coming round the mountain
when she comes.

She’ll be driving sick, white horses
when she comes,
she’ll be coming round the mountain

when she comes.
She’ll be driving sick, white horses
when she comes.

She’ll be driving sick, white horses,
she’ll be driving sick, white horses,
she’ll be driving sick, white horses till they’re gone.

Henry’s Hip Hop Big Black Ass

watching too much BET

Whether it’s Forty-nine Cents,
Pee Weenie or Pooper Scooper,
black girls with the shaking asses,

you don’t need glasses,
they shake the molasses,
shake ‘em but don’t break ‘em,

the Christian man says
that’s why they rape ‘em,
hip hop, Bloods romp, Crips stomp.

Big black Cadillacs flash in the hood,
Lambo doughs flying like they should,
baby got back, bigger than Shack,

she gonna shake the San Andreas loose
if she keeps humping that caboose,
no more lynching, just da pimping.

Brothers full of bling bling
til they throw ‘em in Sing Sing
and the iron doughs go clink clink clink.

La Juana

Henry’s doctor prescribes
medical marijuana for him
because Henry attended school at La Juana.

La Juana is what Mexican kids
called Juan Seguin Elementary
back in the 50’s and early 60’s.

Miss McGabacha was Henry’s
first grade teechur.
Henry spoke to her in Spanish

and she spoke to him in Gringo.
It was quite a prison
for a six-year-old, all told.

Henry’s Nazim Hikmet’s Prison Song For Lil’ Kim

These men, Kim,
tearing freedom to shreds
in their dirty white hands,

where are they going, Kim,
these men who despise your darkness
and want to bury it in the depths

of a high-rise Philadelphia Dachau?
These men will never read
the Constitution,

these men abhor the Bill of Rights.
These men, Kim, these modern-day slave owners
want all of us in their chains,

with their brands on our rumps.
The barbed wire of the Crawford Ranch
electrified like prison fences.

Henry’s War And Peace, M. Bones Told You He Had A Toy

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Kierkegaard’s Venus de Milo In Henry’s Words

Das ist clever title, Fraulein Dee.
When he saw her feet, in between the toes
it was sweet, Lobster Lucy

never got in the cage
even though the perfect storm raged
inside your brassiere at least twice,

the nipples hard, the suburbs
of where Henry was really going.
The hair of a mouse on a kiss.

Sometimes life is cold, sometimes it’s hot
fondled by polyglot,
day-light on the silver glue you leave

to hold us together Henry celebrated,
rolled over and went to sleep
in the appearance of Greek.

I Thought I Heard Abelardo

I thought I heard Abelardo
shout twenty-five pieces
of his Chicano mind.

I thought I heard raulsalinas
rattle the bars and climb the walls
to freedom.

I thought I saw Ricardo Sanchez
on the streets of Amsterdam
wearing wooden cowboy boots.

I thought I saw Alurista
singing the songs of Floricanto
screaming don’t step on the Pisan Cantos.

I thought I saw the Crazy Gypsy
wearing the wings of the Aztec Angel
flying in the skies of Aztlan.

The Magical Mystery Tour Turns Up In Switzerland

Amazing news from the BBC,
Swiss police insist they’ve arrested
the late John Lennon for bank fraud

in Bern we learn
and they have the pictures to prove
that it’s the sixty-four-year-old-Beatle.

Will you still love me,
will you still need me
when I’m sixty-four?

Apparently, yes, because Yoko
flew in her private jet today that way.
Since I’m on the no-fly list

I can’t fly out right away
to see my hero so I have drive
to Monterey, maquiladora, Mexico

and catch a plane from there.
From the air the mountains
look like somebody’s blog.

How could this have happened?
John alive and in cognito
in a country far away and neutral.

I don’t know how he’s going to explain this
to Yoko and Sean. Now we just need
George to surface somewhere.

John Lennon Alive In Switzerland

Amazing news from the BBC.Swiss police claim to have John Lennon
in custody.The charge is bank fraud.Apparently Yoko took a private
jet from J.F.K. early this morning in route to Bern.Supposedly the
Swiss cops will release photos of him later today.They claim the fingerprints
match.I myself am in the process of getting airplane tickets now.
Will post the picture or pictures the Swiss release as soon as I can.

Hurricane

The wind was rain not wind
loud like the out of control rock and roll
of gulag locomotives

heading into the Siberian delirium
exterminating the whole lot
flooding the city with outcasts,

leaving the roofs aloof,
the city officials goofed.
Ah, a second Venice!

The disaster took place after the storm,
the Third World country was us
so we took the bus,

those of us who could,
the other ones would,
all of us should.

The wind was rain not wind
loud like the out of control rock and roll
of Katrina And The Waves.

Raquel Welch

Raquel Welch tried-out
for the part of Mary Ann
but lost out to Dawn Wells,

labia against labia
like warring factions
on college campuses of war-paint.

The Ohio National Guard
settled the dispute
by shooting them kaput.

From Maynard G. Krebs
to suffering from crabs,
the Ionian shores ionized

in the Nebraska snow
which Henry had to put up with,
the front of Candy Gamez on the ground.

The SS Minnow bobs up and down
in the storm
that takes the television set to pet.

Changing channels from the barrio
Henry sees the years fly apart
until Aztlan like California falls into the sea.

It Was Supposed To Be A Three Century Cruise

for becky flores

In our old Chicano shipwrecked days
the SS Minnow in the middle of the barrio
Corky, Porky and Abelardo

when the Gaudalupe gang went bang bang bang.
Henry and his brothers
didn’t give a dang.

Mary Ann must be Consuelo
what was Henry, sixteen?
The gravel streets

turned to asphalt once you entered
the white side of town.
Summer dust-clouds inside the hovel house.

Henry’s brother Billy was Mr. Magoo,
he still can’t see at night tonight.
And for those of you wondering,

you can’t always have Ginger
especially in adventures
of the cockroach people

except, of course, when Henry must infest
her beautiful nest.
The rest is best unsaid.

Henry’s Otra Elegy For The Little Buddy

Let me count the ways, let’s see who’s left,
the Professor, Mary Ann and Ginger.
Oh, yeah, and the natives who only visit ceremoniously.

Next to the wreck of the SS Minnow
Ginger’s dress is a mess
swirling in foam

and Mary Ann, brunette, fish-net,
butt wet from skinny-dipping
in the lagoon.

The Professor inventing devices
to hide his vices
like the modern day conveniences of geniuses.

Let me count the ways
the ghosts of Gilligan’s Island
haunt the island with indentation.

The volcano blows its top
in an episode where Wrong Way Ray
won’t mambo even three days’ worth

before he flies the wrong way, again, of course.
And now that Gilligan’s gone,
it’s no longer a situation comedy.

Henry’s Chicano Elegy For Gilligan

Nobody knew if he was screwing
Ginger or Mary Ann
but he was certainly

screwing up their chances to get rescued.
You’d think Gilligan was in charge
of the relief effort in New Orleans.

The Skipper slaps him with his Captain’s cap
but it has no visible effect on him.
Mary Ann’s butt hangs out of her shorts

and Gilligan stumbles on coconuts.
The Professor congers up
Neanderthal automobiles to rival the Flintstones.

In the end we all blunder, plunge asunder,
is that the lightning and thunder
that sank the Minnow

and fried Gilligan’s brains into refried beans
on this desert island?
Maybe he was screwing Mrs. Howell!

Henry’s Elegy For The Death Of The Blues

The winds are howling
and the rain is flying horizontal,
the lights go out

but I think we have survived.
Next day water is flooding
the neighborhood up to the rooftops.

We make it to the attic,
my son kicks as hard as he can
until he breaks through

and we climb onto the roof
though he has trouble dragging
my large sixty year-old body through the hole.

We’re wet, no drinking water, no food,
with just the clothes on our backs.
We see the helicopters flying overhead

but after two days nobody helps us.
We grab an empty canoe that’s floating by.
We hear from others

that we should head for the Superdome.
No food, no water there either.
Finally my heart gives out.

My son wraps me up in white trash bags
and I can’t see anymore
When The Saints Come Marching In.

Henry’s Elegy For William H. Rehnquist, Ha Ha

God sent down his right-hand man
to pick up the Supreme Court Chief Justice
William H. Rehnquist.

Apparently, according to God, there were too many
brown and black people
in heaven,

too many of the infirm,
too many mentally handicapped,
too many infants in heaven’s halls,

so God figured the best
cold-blooded man for the job
would indeed be William H. Rehnquist.

And, as soon as the Supreme Court Chief Justice
put one foot down in paradise
he quickly expelled everybody on God’s shit list.

After the Chief Justice was done
he proudly dusted off his hands.
Ironically, the place looked a lot like hell.

The Ghost Of Walter Lantz

Henry Ozymandias filled with warm desert sand
tried to walk out of the city
until the ghost of Walter Lantz, half afraid,

bobbed and bobbed its head
to duck the diving woodpecker attack
which had already worked John over.

The Magical Mystery Tour struck a barge
the storm had placed on top of the other Beatles,
they couldn’t wiggle out from underneath.

So, John was quite exposed
and Yoko’s oriental rapture
diminished in Dakotas.

And, while we continued to talk to you,
the ghost of Walter Lantz
looked like a transparent white shirt---

its unpleasant sound of Ravi Shankar music
crawled under the skin
of Norah Jones and her mother.

John, meanwhile, was bleeding from the head
in a song he lovingly composed for you
who ignore him now.

Woody Woodpecker Attacking John Lennon

Henry conversed with John Lennon through Mr. Bones,
the conversation taking place
inside of Michael Robartes

because there’s too much danger in a woman’s body.
The Spanish Mr. Bones spoke
reaches to here,

Henry indicated his own chin.
And John could dance and dance
and slide away from view.

His words were toast,
each adjective spinning like a top,
hounding each nail holding up Christ.

Henry surfaced from the bottom of the Red Sea
dressed like Sgt. Pepper.
Oh, my God, he’s black like a rapper

shouted an old white lady
as stones flew up her nightgown, but somehow
Henry’s perfection fended off the woodpeckers of New York.