I have a new girlfriend.
(Shhhh...don't tell my wife! :)

God Pretending To Be Me

I’m a man, in the rain.
Threatening buildings crack
as a sixteen year old girl

is caressed by a butch chick.
The smokestacks of the city
envy a high yellow.

My life has become Alfalfa’s life.
My altered ego escorts Darla
to the school cafeteria.

I’m a man, in the rain.
Wet newspaper shelters the homeless
and gangs of boys gurgle down the subway.

A prostitute comes up to me,
quotes the price of fellatio
convinced that I’m a cherub.

Stay At Home Vacation

We go on vacation, you in one room,
me in another, the bathroom
bathed in sunlight which has traveled

through darkness, evading stones and ice---
and that’s just in our clothes.
The televisions are always on,

the computers are always on.
Seven seas slush in the walls,
fish appear confused,

stingrays, whales and sharks
don’t respect shalom or shazzam.
Our lawn supports the land reforms

proposed by Zapata and zapato.
The barbecue grill has stopped smoking
as had your thighs so long ago.

Penny Lane

A penny for your thoughts, you look
so pensive, babe.
I come home early from the nightshift.

No, I tell you, I wasn’t expecting Sancho,
we had our company picnic
and I got off early,

don’t you remember, I told you the other day.
And, no, she doesn’t remember,
and I don’t know if I really told her

because we don’t listen to each other anymore,
we don’t hear each other anymore,
that’s the way it is after twenty

something years, has it been that long?
I go to my computer, she continues
watching Law And Order.

The furniture stops paying attention,
the rat terrier scratches at the sliding glass door
for love--- join the club, mutt!

The roof tells the moon and stars,
“They’re at it again!” but the moon and stars
are no longer starry-eyed.

Haulin’ Ass Through Present Day Crystal City

Friends are always amazed at how
we have stayed together for so long,
you the patriot, me, always flying

the freak flag high as hell.
Maybe it’s true that opposites attract.
The days lay fallow, the moon had

but one purpose: to cast its shadow on empty space.
A meteor or asteroid may have strayed there
by scientific calculations

which would not be possible if man was not here.
You don’t get upset by police brutality,
I call getting a speeding ticket racism,

and call for the recall
of the local gringo city councilmen
even though they’re all Mexican now.

Outer Mongolia, Texas

Willy’s wife ran off with a Mongoloid.
Cute little butt she had,
hot firm melons to boot!

Whatever happened to them, I ask you?
They were unlike us
yet just the same.

I pull the skin back
at the corners of my eyes
to make you laugh,

but you get mad instead.
We saw her once
at Busey’s Flea Market in San Antonio, remember?

Sure, sure, I tell you,
of course, I’m prejudiced,
what do you take me for?

I’m just like everyman who’s ever walked the earth,
sometimes a little bit better,
sometimes a little bit worse.

I go back to my computer,
you vacuum the living room carpet.
The Mongolian dust shouts: Hey, I have feelings, too!

click for Yellow Fellows

Mount Palomar

I look at you through the telescope
on the top of Mount Palomar,
pigeons fly the path

my eyes have created.
A beeline, one no human highway could follow.
That’s the weakness of man,

and I have just accidentally pointed it out.
I didn’t mean to.
It would not happen with the naked eye.

You are wearing a blue blouse,
and your favorite jeans,
they are my favorite, too.

Ants crawl at your feet
but you are not concerned
as you turn soil with your spade,

preparing it for seeds you will plant
which should flower in the spring
and be more human than us.


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Huh?

Random House

You say there is no regret,
you shift your weight from foot to foot
when we fight.

I put the embers to my lips,
they sit there burning.
You refuse to do the same.

That’s the difference between you and me.
Take the time we argued
over this or that movie,

Splash, Star Wars, Hitch.
You were standing in your panties,
I was butt naked.

Our country was waging another war,
you said those poor soldiers.
I only thought of sex with your sister.

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Santorini

Hit or miss, win or lose,
I dig the moon out of my skin,
but keep on climbing.

Blue sky has been taken over by white sky.
I stare at your legs
from the rocks of Santorini,

the ancient wheels turning in my gut
flattening everything in sight
for pleasure.

You, love, could not climb every hill,
rolled back down,
dusted yourself off,

and finally decided to give up.
It could have gone either way,
but your cute smile disappeared with the Minoans.

Abuse Of R’s

It’s my life. Part lion, part junked car.
You think you kiss me,
but it’s my trunk, my hood you kiss.

You think you make love to me,
but you’re making love
to my claws, my mane, my hunger.

God bless the savannas
and the junkyard
for without them we’d be stuck

with cities and villages
that could never stop growing.
Their flesh rampant,

their buildings and huts
troublesome to our sleep.
It’s my life, the roar and rust of it.

The Break Up

“Heart on my sleeve…
way up cos
I’m wearing a T-shirt.
Sleeves rolled up.”

How many times have I seen you
cross my mind, sometimes standing tall,
sometimes crouching behind gray matter?

The silhouettes of my building
rocking in the shadows,
cranes & wrecking balls tease each other.

Birds run out of flying, flat out of flying.
They blink, their bellies
spending a fortnight in my sawdust.

I don’t begrudge them.
It would be so easy to seek you out,
caress you against your will,

but I stay away from
whatever walls you hammer between us.
Too many bent nails, too much sheetrock to replace.

Nationwide

“I’m bad, I’m nationwide.”

What can I steal from myself
that I haven’t stolen from you?
My heart on the end of a matchstick

out the window of a car.
I don’t want to appear polite
to the sticky ice cream of your love

which has stabbed itself
on the corner of this New York City street.
After the towers crumbled

all they could find of you was lost.
Same here, Texas far removed
from the seashells that rattle

in my brain and in my stomach.
Eyelashes sting the tongue,
and sell revenge from coast to coast.

Evolution Of Fourth Street

Never could get it right.
The edges of it, always present,
like a wall keeping out

emotions of the stellar.
Unknown Mexicans made off with the sidewalks,
you could follow the black soil

throughout the barrio.
You stood on top of the 1951 Ford
scouting in anger and then love.

Never could get it right until now---
this surprises both of us.
The new owners tore down grandma’s house.

It is a blessing we can not forgive,
accept or deny.
Obviously, even God has descended from the apes.

Impresario

Flashback: Had a dream you were a blade of grass,
so I got out the riding mower
and took care of that. Now the story.

I know Walt Whitman will not
think kindly of me,
neither will the Society For The

Prevention Of Cruelty To Grass.
Had a dream you were a blade of grass,
sharp as daggers, a danger to dicks & children.

I called the stinking cops.
They showed up with sirens blaring,
jumped out of their cars

guns drawn, starting shooting
at everything that moved.
They shot the black neighbor’s dog,

they shot the black neighbor’s wife.
They missed you,
you’re hard to hit

even by trained marksmen.
I took matters into my own hands,
got the mower & took care of you myself.

You are lying dead on the front yard,
your green thighs will soon turn brown
like a Chicana’s thighs.

Soldier Of Love

What’s worse, having to buy your Kotex
or having to put up with your bitchiness?
The orange sun licks its own doors,

dozens of dangling legs.
The kind you see in London
lob the grenades of grime.

Peeled paint can not hold on
to your name anymore.
Bricks linger in a meadow,

their rectangular ages
scorch my pockets,
stone upon stone,

grinding dust exposed to the tenderness
that recoils from tenderness.
Not much you can do about love.

New Carpet Jitters

for Toni, Welcome Back, Kotter-Style

You spurned my affections once,
now years later you come back into my life,
a carpeted sandy beach, hair-trigger,

waves as high as nature can jump.
The handcuffs of your titties
bounce up and down on my wrists.

What am I to do?
This silver dust
surrounds the songs,

and trees form their own government
around your panties.
Oh, the elastic, moan & groan,

oh, the elastic!
Why am I so weak?
The seagulls perform geometry on me

with the lines lost on you,
but, sure, I’ll take you back.
For being a man, I’m such a bitch.

Elegy Entangled With The Wild West

She went to Target to buy cleaning supplies,
but bought death instead.
She inadvertently bought the dirty little coward

who shot Mr. Howard,
she bought the little bastard & lost the receipt.
She couldn’t trade one death for another.

She had just graduated from high school,
she had her whole life before her,
love, loneliness, pain, disease, babies,

but the dirty little coward
who shot Mr. Howard
was stalking her, followed her to the car,

abducted her from the Target parking lot.
The red bullseye sign didn’t even blink,
the security camera told the story, but not why.

That’s Artemio

That’s Artemio leaning against
the back bumper of a 1954 Chevy
holding his toy Indy racecar.

He was six in that black & white photo,
wearing only shorts, no shirt, barefoot,
he would not wear shoes

until he started first grade
at the ripe old age of ten,
Why do you think he’s illiterate?

Uses too many commas,
doesn’t know when to use
that and which.

That’s Artemio before he realized
he would grow up to be Chicano,
before he realized he’d become a poet.

The ’54 Chevy is parked in front
of his maternal grandmother’s house on Hidalgo St.,
the crooked little house still stands there today,

straighter than the slouching,
hunchbacked, and deteriorating Artemio.
But, who would believe Chevy was vulnerable?

Artemio’s Attire

The katun of cool came and went,
Artemio none the worst for wear,
square and squarer still,

long hippie hair or leisure suit,
Army pants, patch-work quilt jeans,
Artemio all the same.

Always casting an eye
on the human pre-condition,
almost as if he wasn’t human himself,

his pelt hung on him by evolution,
the kind of evolution
man will never understand,

but, Artemio thinks he’s caught a glimpse,
in the dense jungle, in the bare desert,
in the crowded cities, in abandoned towns.

Yes, the streets of town empty,
except for the asphalt,
and a horned-toad that scampers across it,

looks at Artemio in the eye
at high noon
like a desperate Gary Cooper.