Henry’s Dueling Banjos Elegy For Dennis Weaver

Don’t know what happened,
did I do something to this guy?
This gasoline tanker that

stalks me on these desert
and mountain roads?
When I’m washing up at a gas station

the tractor is parked outside
by the gas pumps,
so I rush to my car

and get out of there
but he’s on my tail again,
my car overheating as we go up

the grade and he falls behind a little.
My car barely makes it
over the mountains,

he’s caught up with me again my god!
After what feels like years
of fear and sweat

we end up in an abandoned gravel pit.
I park my car on the edge of a cliff,
he aims his tanker directly at it,

he plunges over the cliff,
there’s a terrible crash at the bottom.
I jump for joy so high I hit my head on heaven.

Henry's One Bullet Elegy For Deputy Barney Fife

He was a bug-eyed deputy
who always dreamed of moving
to the big city of Mount Pilot,

he thought about it alot,
he always spoke in a sqeaky voice,
carried a single bullet in his shirt pocket,

he was the laughingstock of Mayberry,
was once placed under citizen's arrest
by the pre-Marine Gomer Pyle(or was it Gubber?)

he was you,he was us,he was me,
bumbling,fumbling,numbling,
his gun shook in his hands

and his knees knocked.
You guys that are picturing him
as Mr.Furley in a 70's leisure suit,screw you!

Henry’s Rich Black History Month

I saw Kobe driving a 1998 Ford Escort,
I saw Michael Jordan driving
a 1998 Ford Escort.

I saw Shaq driving a 1998 Ford Escort,
I saw Magic Johnson driving
a 1998 Ford Escort.

I saw Kobe and his wife driving a 1998 Ford Escort,
I saw Michael Jordan and his wife driving
in a 1998 Ford Escort.

I saw Kobe and Michael Jordan
and Shaq and Magic Johnson
driving together in a 1998 Ford Escort

and I don’t know how they did it
but they had their wives with them
in that 1998 Ford Escort.

Henry’s Homage To Margarita Cota-Cardenas

“me dejaste como una osa sin oso”
Gloria Trevi

She blinded with Chicano science
tore up a picture of the pope
tore up a picture of la virgen de guadalupe

ate Frida Kahlo’s heart
punched fat-assed Diego in the belly
told Gloria Andaluza her underarms were smelly

sitting on a bench on the campus
of our lady of the lake
she grabbed the shake and bake

she was my twisted sister in the movement
she was my twisted fantasy at the moment
she put on my clothes in the morning

she made her way to the desert
she was using shampoo that went boohoo
she arrived with a vengeance

she blinded me with Chicano science
she blinded me with the kitchen appliance
that’s lying on the sea floor.

With the pen name Frank O'Hara he became famous
as a memeber of the so-called New York School
of Poetry,but few know that his real name was
Francisco O. Herrera one of the first major
Chicano poets albeit incognito and vendido.

Henry's Dune Buggy Elegy For Francisco O. Herrera

Dante's Inferno was just a barbecue pit
smoke up the yingyang
komodo dragon grease going bang bang bang

but not as bad as Petrarch's bark
his sonnets wearing Easter bonnets
to Frank O'Hara's Central Park

Frank pinned to the front bumper
of some dune buggy
the driver's shoulders shruggy

and vamoosed about his way
unconcerned he's killed a poet
like they kill 'em in Russia,South America and China.

image thxs to chris murray at texfiles

Bird’s Eye View


Special from the Corpus Christi Caller-Times
A first person (read:quail) account of the Cheney Shooting


It was about five in the afternoon like in that famous Lorca poem
and I had already had my supper of dried seeds and a little worm
when I saw a bunch of old white men coming my way, they appeared
to be drunk on their ass, one of them was a bald son-of-bitch who kept
bragging to the others about how he was President of some country
or other. As they got closer I thought to myself these bastards are
liable to start shooting any minute and I don’t want to be around when
that happens. Too late. Just as I took to the sky that bald-headed bastard
starting shooting all over the place, some of my feathers fell off my ass
and some beebees bounced off my head, but one of the old men got it
right in the face and chest, I’m not surprised since he was standing
only about ten feet away. None of those motherfuckers seemed to give a damn
about me, they just rushed over to the old fella who was down and appeared
to be dead. They made a big deal about it, they took him away in an
ambulance, and then the guy that shot him kept on hunting until the
sun went down. The whole field smelled of alcohol. Anyway, my backside
is still a little sore, but my headache is gone, thank God-the-feathered-one.

I Still Think Of You

I still think of you dear rosa
just as if you were
that rosebush

on the corner of my garage
the one I had to cut back a little
to keep it from scratching

the right side fender
of my brand new dodge ram
pick up truck.

I still think of you dear rosa
as if it was still
nineteen seventy

when my head was full of hair not bald
and your ass was still oh so small
but that’s not all,

I still think of you dear rosa
so I step outside to look at the rosebush
but it’s nighttime and I can’t see the thorns.

The Great White Hunter

Elmer Fudd disguised as Vice-President Cheney
went ahuntin’ for wabbits
pretty damn near Papalote

when he suddenly thought
he spotted Bugs
he shot all his wad

but it wasn’t Bugs
it was one of his buds
he had filled with buckshot.

He withheld it from the press
and the public
for as long as he could

embarrassed as he was
but nonetheless he’s planning
another hunting trip real soon

this time he’ll be hunting ducks
in Crawford, Texas.
We’ll see if the President ducks.

Fleurs du mal, baaaby

the flowers have somehow
learned when it is time
to leave

they have been paying attention
to the neighborhood
the chicano gangs

whose faces move like snails
unable to find
a bridge to drink

a long river to smell
a bottle with which
to torture paradise.

the naked girl
her eyes poked out
rattles her heart into a square

that forces its way
among other square things
bloody words gagged in half a word.

when it is time to leave
no dirt is chewed
in her underwear.

Henry’s Elegy For Los Pechos De Joseph Brodsky

If being so long you could not fold it
like the chinese wall
or the iron curtain,

I met akhmatova in the many molecules,
the sun looked like a jewish jewel,
her eyes were two norwegian pools,

I thought it had to be
a Beatles song coming out of
Mayakovsky’s mouth,

or might it have been a siberian creature,
a kgb lover
stuck to the side of a matchstick?

No poet can keep out the barbarians
and so like Brodsky
they come to America because America’s gullible.

Lullaby Once Owned By Mr. Bones

Corners need love stories too
and carpets, stones out on the road,
the new dvd player,

old dead walt whitman,
one of jason’s argonauts,
a rivet unused

on the empire state building
the one dropped
by rene ontiveros

love stories need love stories too
in sanskrit in spanish
or in a language unheard of in two thousand years.

Took a

Took a cab to your heart,
they weren’t there
my brothers were you

my others certainly would not go
that’s what happens when you part
france is a lower case upper case

america’s bloody hands
insist on caressing foreign children
bloody handprints all over

fingerprints point to the white house
our love suffers because of it
how can you hover

over the garden?
if I look up I see god’s noble plan
I wonder where you’re going to land.

Henry’s Dream Song Stolen From Sponge Bob

You know what goes good with everything?
Ripped pants
and this song I’m singing,

song of myself, the tell-tale heart,
the bridge, the waste land,
the broad shoulders of Chicago.

You know what goes good with everything?
The curls of pretty girls
and this song I strum on the guitar,

the road not traveled,
the union dead, the howl,
the uncapitalized poetry of edward estlin,

the dream songs,
the human poems of cesar vallejo
and the useless poetry of pendejos.

Ruptured Duck

Mitchells flying in
the black and white sky,
leather jackets sampling wooden buildings,

glenn miller records
playing in the enlisted men’s barracks,
razzmatazz jazz.

The smell inside the plane
of fuel, smoke, lubricating gun oil,
cold drafts of wind on metal seats,

the black and white dreams of back home,
a dangerous mission looms ahead
entwined in my girl’s long skirt.

Flying over Germany,
we drop the bombs
and when they explode

they look like red roses
by being careful with the thorns
sandwiched in the bombing-run.

He Came Back From Iraq

He came back from Iraq,
no arms, no legs.
He was not a soldier anymore,

only a torso and a head.
After all the blood he bled
he was welcomed home by tarmac.

His heart beat like a hammer
when the bomb went off.
He woke up in the hospital

with a bandage on his head, no arms, no legs.
Funny how the generals never lose any limbs
and the Commander-in-Chief never loses any sleep.

Henry’s Elegy For Mr. Potato Head

I cut off my ear for you my love
and painted this still-life of roses
with my warm blood.

The leaves are red, too,
much as I would like to be
I am not a Martian.

Yet, on a starry night if you look
in the right direction
you can see Marvin green,

but if you look at my ear
it is not a pretty sight,
it’s like a sunflower attacked by bees.

My brother Theo Bones comes by
and says what the hell
were you thinking Henry?

My head is throbbing,
my heart sobbing,
I think I’ll keep my other ear.

Where Is George Waldo Bush?

“Where am I Bush?”asks Ayn al-Zawarhiri
in his latest MTV video.

The Bush Adminstration
spies on Americans
trying to track down Osama

and al-Zawarhiri
but Americans don’t seem
to know their whereabouts.

But, we know where
Pvt. Robbie Mariano is,
the guitar-playing soldier died in Najaf,

we know Marine Sgt. Adam Leigh Cann
died outside a recruitment center
in Ar Ramadi,

we know Army Cpl. Tony Lutz
was killed
by a sniper's bullet,

we know Army Ranger Dillon Jutra
died in combat operations
in Anbar Province.

We know where the American dead are.
But, where is George Waldo Bush?
Hiding behind Lady Liberty’s tush,

hiding in the crack of the Liberty Bell,
hiding in a toilet at the Alamo,
hiding in the sewage treatment plant at Crawford.