Chicano Poet

Friday, July 31, 2009







The Story Of O

I met her on the Greek coastal town of Sappho,
where the Aegean and the Gulf of Mexico collide,
clash wave for wave. Never a winner. Her dark hair
and grape-like lips stirred something in me from
the start. We had drinks at a sidewalk café, where
Xerxes himself had tried to land. His famous whip
washed ashore a thousand years ago. For weeks
we’d only hold hands. Weeks later we finally
kissed. Eventually I’d shove my tongue down her
throat in search of her heart. It was evident we
were falling in love. The first time we went to
make amore, she begged (on her knees) for me
to turn off the lights. I explained to her that men
are mostly visual, that we need to see the naked
body of a woman to maintain the illusion, to stay
at the peak of excitement, to perform at our best.
After much trepidation, she relented. She shy,
almost embarrassed. It was then I discovered
the root of her anxieties, her fear of light. She
was blessed with clitorides, yes, yes, oh dear
Lord, not one but two. One in its normal place,
and the other one at the opposite end of her
marvelous lips. I can not imagine living without
her! I will not live without her!

Wednesday, July 29, 2009

Genesis Aniston

And after God had created Man, he took a rib
from Adam. Why God decided to name the first
man Adam is unknown. It’s not as if all the other
names were taken. Anyway, so God decided he
was going to create a companion for Adam. He
called it Woman. The first prototype did not turn out
well. She refused to satisfy all of Adam’s needs.
So God cast her out into the wilderness, but not
before he procured a rib from her (which, any
idiot should have surmised might lead to further
troubles down the evolutionary road). Woman
# 2 did indeed satisfy all of Adam’s needs. God
and Adam seemed quite pleased with the results.
God put the cherry on top by naming Woman
# 2: Ignacia. Thus creating the first Mexican
woman. Please recall that Woman # 1 (the gringa)
had been cast out into the suburbs.

One Thousand Free MP3s here.

Tuesday, July 28, 2009

Saint Diego

Whenever Diego got drunk and high he’d claim
he was going to dig up Charles Bukowski and
screw his corpse. He’d scream that Buk had raped
him when he was sixteen, and poetry prone. Most
of Diego’s friends knew that he was off his rocker.
His pregnant girlfriend sat with her legs wide open
in a short skirt no pregnant women should wear,
not even a supermodel. Rosa was here illegally
(aren’t they all), she had a two year old son by a
coyote. Her eyes were brown like most Mexican
eyes in this part of hell. Her mound was well-defined,
her lips bulbous. She did not seem to care if Diego
screwed Bukowski or not. But by now Diego had
moved on, his face buried in his hands as if they
were a fleshy mirror. Rosa smiled, imagining
the Sonoran Desert. Her two year old pushed
a toy car across a torn vinyl floor, his Spanish
like a cactus, could catch you unaware. Suddenly,
La Migra took them all and put them out of their
misery.

Monday, July 27, 2009

I Used To Be Marvin’s Brother-In-Law

Why did you find it so appealing spending twelve hours
a day in that bra, and in those matching panties hiding
that treasure? I loved you madly, I paid all the bills, that
time we almost got mugged in Brackenridge Park, didn’t
I kick those punks’ asses? I never forgot your birthdays
(granted, you were born on Christmas day), I never forgot
our wedding anniversary. Always got you flowers and
candy on Valentine’s Day, always gave the kids money
on Mother’s Day so they could get you something nice.
What happened? How did I lose you? My relatives
warned me not to marry outside of my race. Everyone
said, “ nothing good can come out of you marrying
that Martian girl!”

Saturday, July 25, 2009

Check out Purple Stained Skin.

Magical realism and the oedipal
from Eduardo C. Corral here.

Friday, July 24, 2009

Gurlfren

My next door neighbor shot her football player
boyfriend, twice in the head, twice in the torso.
No more first downs, no more quarterback sneaks,
no more Hail Marys, no more fleaflickers, no more
handoffs, no more Statue of Liberty plays, no more
miss direction plays. And, then, she turned the gun
on herself. The bullet (whose job it was) sped
around in her brain until it found a resting spot
in an area surrounded by warm, delectable gray
matter. Able to sense the last lingering thoughts
which flashed lovingly even though she had died
hours ago. Thoughts which only the bullet could
understand and embrace.

Thursday, July 23, 2009

Gone Por The Callejon

Teenage girl coming out of Tencha’s Bakery, her
nalgitas hanging out. A mangy dog runs up the street
with an abandoned, green empanada. A cop patrols
the dusty San Antonio streets with an erection. Lelo
pushes a grocery cart as if it was his RV. Two twelve
year old chicanitos buy heroin from Jose Cardenal,
their dealer, himself only sixteen. The Chicano artist
Cesar Augusto Martinez still paints vatos locos whose
type disappeared fifty years ago. It’s all good. A
viejita walks towards the tortillera, she’s too old to
make her own tortillas, chihuahua. Two teenage girls
with IPods full of Mexican hip hop mp3s show off
their brown faces. One of them is on her period. If
you stick your finger inside of her you can be her
blood brother. A poem takes shape on nearby
Zarzamora Street, its innards exposed to hot, ancient
asphalt, on its way here, as we sprechen sie deutsche.

Wednesday, July 22, 2009

Magnetic Boots

In Destination Moon the astronauts don their
magnetic boots once they reach earth orbit.
A poet does not have that luxury. A poet is not
bound to the ground. He is torn apart by
astral forces. He is a lunatic. The poet is affected
by the moon every day and night. He is ruled
by passing comets, asteroids, distant stars.
Words spill out of him, his scarecrow arms
are full of poems, desperate, inane poems.
A poet can not solve the problem by donning
his magnetic boots.

Tuesday, July 21, 2009

Levitation


Have been under the weather lately. A few weeks ago
I woke up with a strange sensation of lightheadedness.
When I tried to walk my feet fought the floor. I was
levitating against my will. My wife struggled to get me
into the van. I floated around the doctor’s office until
he could see me. Of course he ordered blood tests.
I have to be strapped to chairs, to beds, to the floor.
So far all the tests are negative. Levitation is not all it’s
cracked up to be. Writing this post from mid-air. Wish
you were here.

Monday, July 20, 2009

Friday, July 17, 2009

The Tour

What I learned on a tour of duty in Iraq
as a hobbit:

sky the same color as the ground
even in new clothes the natives look worn

girls are hidden underneath
Nebuchadnezzar by their male relatives

and lose their virginity
to silence

in the raw heat of the night
unprotected from darkness.

Thursday, July 16, 2009

Keats In L. A.

What would John Keats think of
bikini-clad girls

in between coughing fits
the smell of coppery rain

a prayer dropped on stone
bouncing to the next

think of Fanny as a door
into tomorrow

I tell him pack your suitcase John
head to California

crack that Grecian urn
against Byron’s head

he who’s already looked into the future
bereft of layer upon layer of female clothing.

Wednesday, July 15, 2009

Rock Steady

Off in the distance Oscar Huber white landowner
on his Ford tractor

mirages waving like silvery flags
I play in the creek

or in the bamboo thickets
which grow along the creek

I dig shallow caves on the dirt walls
nothing very specific comes to mind

of another day I played in floodwaters
except that each rock I threw into the cauldron

made a chocolately splash
vivid to this day

as if I had thrown each rock
into my mind.

Tuesday, July 14, 2009

Cause And Effect

That copper dome atop Our Lady of Guadalupana
in Taft, Texas

was put there by my Uncle Chuy (construction worker)
who divorced my Aunt Estolia in the 1950’s

and married a young girl
who ballooned up but was still sexy

she died years ago and my uncle
goes fishing every day

what else is there to do
when you live so close to the Gulf

the fish come up from Mexico
like drugs and mojados

I have not seen my uncle since abuela died
and the tribe was seemingly disbanded.

Friday, July 10, 2009

Reflection

When I was an uncaring, selfish teenager
I hated when someone died

because abuela would cover the mirrors
and tell us we could not watch tv for a week

out of respect for the dead
so you see I couldn’t look at my pretty face for days

I couldn’t watch American Bandstand
or 77 Sunset Strip for an eternity

when abuela died I did not cover the mirrors
I did not tell the kids they couldn’t watch tv

pain and sorrow and respect
can not be covered or turned off.

Thursday, July 09, 2009

Climbing The Lila

Climbing the lila where my father
parked the tractor when he came home for lunch

I inadvertently
shoved my head up into a yellowjacket nest

I ran to the well where mother
kept a large tub full of water

(luckily for me) and I jumped in
submerged myself

thankful yellowjackets can’t swim
or that would have been it for my little behind.

Wednesday, July 08, 2009

Queen Of The Hill

My mother hung laundry on the clothesline
which stretched from the house to the waterwell

the same waterwell my father
would lower me into a bucket

to replace bricks or pull weeds
from the sides

the sweet smell of water rising
and escaping into the mouths

of butterflies or bees
and the billygoat would charge at mother

as soon as she bent over
to pull wet clothes from the basket

mother smacked it across the face
and the goat coughed up its crown.

Tuesday, July 07, 2009

the king of pop's
putting Dante to music

Friday, July 03, 2009

The Flying Mexican Jesus

I was born in a manger off Huber Road
the blood of a child welcomed by burlap

the fields had been plowed under for winter
smell of bare dirt waiting for spring

next year’s rain just a cocoon
the creek clogged with stones

hoosegows of judgment day put off till mañana
winter wind narrated by an ass

they threw me off the manger’s balcony
I learned to fly with a thud.

Thursday, July 02, 2009

The Abortion

She threw out the baby
with the bath water

and now she wants it back:
the bath water.

Wednesday, July 01, 2009

Lengua

I had a friend pull the language knife
out of my back

only to have him confess
that he himself had put it there

to this day the stab wound keeps bleeding
not as bad now as before

but when it does stop oozing
my friend picks at the scab

and reaches for the language knife
just in case it’s needed once again.