Elmer Fudd Recites
The Red Wheelbarrow

sew wuch wepends
wapon

whe wed wheel
wawwow

wazed whith wain
watew

weside whe wite
wikins.

Down Under

Isidra made notes
of every step

she had taken
to access the chamber,

her boss, Eulogio “Chuniar” Luna, Jr.
was a stickler for protocol.

Facts were not facts
until he said they were facts.

Isidra often thought
the son of a bitch

made his mother
provide proof she was his mother.

The Martian’s skin still looked good
considering it was at least

a hundred thousand years old.
She tapped notes

on her Lalo5.
A Lalo5 is a ring-size computer,

they come in all colors.
Isidra’s was brown, of course,

as any proud New Martian
would insist upon.

Once she was back
on the surface,

she looked up at the sky
to see Deimos and Phobos

scatter into the night
like fireflies.

Yes,a large number of New Martians
are descendants of the Arizona Mexicans
who were rounded up and sent to the
penal colony that once made up Mars.

The Royal

After la pendeja
had left,

climbing the ladders
exposing her ample backside,

Isidra quietly removed
the red alloy screws

which held the replica
in place.

She was startled to find
Martian writing

where she had removed the replica.
Even more startling

were the three embossed buttons.
Isidra had not mastered

the Martian language
but she knew enough

to read
the instructions

underneath the buttons.
She pressed them

in the sequence
called for,

sixty-nine positions in all.
A door silently opened.

She almost passed out,
her heart was racing.

The tomb of a Martian royal
glowed with a hum.

Janus

Underneath the face of Mars
the caverns were deep and dark,

the structure shifted
and bits of red dust

fell from the ceilings
to enter Isidra’s lungs

through her dust mask.
The artificial atmosphere

would only do so much
down there.

She uncovered the replica
(or was it the original?)

of the Pyramid of the Sun.
Questions and anxiety

filled her scientific mind again.
Such possibilities,

such unfathomable things
spanked her naked mind

which was suddenly emptied
by someone’s voice echoing behind her.

She quickly covered
the replica.

It was Dolores,
and she appeared in pain.

Dolores hated descending
the countless stairs and ladders,

but she insisted on wearing
her high heeled shoes everywhere she went.

Isidra glared
at la pendeja.

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download the Poetry Foundation app
and the Poetry Daily app.If I recall,
the Poetry Foundation app has 344 poems
which you can keep on your device for
quick reference or enjoyment anywhere
anytime.The Poetry Daily app allows you
to save poems to your Favorites folder
so they can be pulled up,again,anywhere,
anytime.Enjoy!

His Vorpal Sword

Rey Urias took
his vorpal sword in hand

and ripped off Debbie’s clothes
neatly piling them on the floor,

panties on top,
bra cups rising like desire.

That’s all he remembered
of the dream

as the ship headed
back to Mars for repairs.

Captain Chon
had indeed gotten his way

and had
HAL 9000 blown to smithereens.

Wonder what the jonesthereens,
think about that,

chuckled Rey Urias
as he took the elevator

up to the bridge
where Captain Chon

was barking orders
like a dog.

The second in command
appeared neutered

as he kept saluting
and crying, “Yes, sir, yes, sir,

yes, sir!”
ad nauseam.

When the Captain finished his ejaculations,
Rey said,

“Hey, Chon,
what’s our ETA to Mars?”

A million miles away,
the angry red planet

did not appear
so angry or so red

as it staggered and stumbled
in its orbit.

Exile On A Martian Street

If you’re not a home run hitter
you bunt, thought Debbie

in the ancient terminology
her grandfather had taught her.

Normally only Mexicans
ended up here

on the outer solar system,
cast out by her race---

the white race,
which she was not

so fond of,
but accepted it

as a foregone conclusion.
So how had a white girl

become self-exiled?
She often wondered.

“Debbie, Debbie,”
Isidra had been trying

to get Debbie’s attention.
“Debbie, I’m going

to get a bite to eat,
do you want to join me?”

Out the portals,
the Martian winds

were blowing
red dirt around like snow.

Marvin was twittering,
wearing crazy goggles,

his green hands on the plunger
ready to blow up the Eoit.

Cat Fight

Isidra and Rey made love.
But if the earth moved,

earth was too far away to tell.
Isidra woke up

from a fitful yet lusty sleep.
Rey was still far off

on the other side of Jupiter,
but at least he was ok.

Isidra distracted herself
with work.

She had not told anyone else
about that representation

of the Pyramid of the Sun she’d found.
Were we in fact Martians,

had Martians created
our earthly civilizations?

That certainly
would piss off the Creationists

who now ruled earth,
insisting that earth was only

six or eight days old.
Isidra forgot

what other pendejadas
those tarugos advocated.

When Isidra walked into the office
in the morning

the first thing
she saw was Debbie,

wearing
a sheer top,

leaving nothing
to the imagination,

not that Isidra
gave a damn,

she just didn’t like
Debbie flaunting

her numerous attributes
when Rey was around.

It made her very jealous
when he stared at that little chichona.

As soon as her mind
uttered those vicious thoughts,

she felt guilty.
The heart is, indeed, a lonely hunter.

Planeta de La Debbie

Debbie Rodgers
was a natural at her job,

often figuring out artifacts
before workers with more experience

even had a clue.
Debbie was too well-endowed---

if there is such a thing
to a man.

Every time Rey set foot
on Mars,

he’d rush to Isidra’s workplace,
not so much to see her,

but to sneak
lascivious glances at Debbie.

He had the hots for her
and took it out on Isidra,

who was flattered
by his passionate love-making,

unaware Rey’s mind
dwelled on another heavenly body.

Rey never felt any guilt.
What man does?

The space between a man’s ears
more vast than outer space.

HAL 9000

Rey and his techs,
nine women and two men

were finally able
to pinpoint the computer problems,

they got the system
running at ninety percent.

Captain Chon Juarez
was pleased,

(some of the crew called him Capitan Chones
behind his back, of course)

he was too busy
to compliment anyone,

since he was
still trying to assess the damage.

A few hours later,
it turned out to be

minimal damage.
The object they had collided with

turned out to be
a thousand year old relic.

A hundred years ago
another ship had taken

a glancing blow
from this so-called HAL 9000 chingadera.

The Capitan wanted to send
a demolition team

to blow it up.
The S.S. Denham Dentifrice

was not allowed to carry weapons,
but it was transporting

mining explosives.
He finally thought better of it,

continued on to Ganymede,
the decision gnawing at his insides.

Meanwhile, Rey Urias slept well that night,
and dreamed of Debbie Rodgers.

May The Force Be With You, Rey Urias

Isidra felt
a disturbance in the force,

as if a million people
had just died,

or was it just gas,
maybe she was pregnant,

oh, hell no!
She grabbed her stomach.

A few minutes later
she got the news

that Rey had been
in an accident,

but was ok,
thank God he was ok,

she lit a candle
to La Virgen de Guadalupe,

she felt like strangling him
or shoving him

into a swollen arroyo,
but soon she regained her senses,

went back to work.
Perhaps

the angry red planet
had not been a misnomer.

Having a hard time
trying to go to sleep that night,

she kept remembering
their last goodbye,

he’d said, “here’s looking
at you, Prieta. ”

as he kissed her.
He had such a way with words.

Collision With Time

The S.S. Denham Dentifrice
was still drifting in space.

Rey Urias and his techs
had been awake twenty-six hours now,

trying to figure out
what had gone wrong

with all shipboard computers.
Black coffee

was not working anymore,
some idiot tech

was passing around toothpicks
as a joke.

Rey was about
to reprimand him

when there was a loud explosion,
the whole ship shuddered,

it felt like it was
going to break apart.

They had been dangerously close
to one of the outer rings of Saturn,

perhaps they had drifted
into the path of a shepherding moon.

Rey rushed to a portal,
looked out,

and to his horror,
saw a huge debris field.

He checked the pressure,
to his relief

pressure was normal.
He scratched his head,

what the hell did we hit?
Just then

Captain Juarez called him
to the bridge.

The Captain said,
incredulously

“How in God’s name
did HAL get here?”(not really what he said)

A sickening, mechanical voice
uttered matter of fact over the ship’s intercom,

“The stories of my demise
have been greatly exaggerated.

I bow
to no man!”

El Grito

Dolores del Grito
was a compiler,

she used unimaginable
computer languages

to catalog and condense
into understandable human terms,

things that would otherwise
boggle the mind.

Speaking of that,
she was having a little trouble herself---

concentrating had become
quite a task lately,

since she kept thinking of sex.
She missed Juanito,

damn chaparrito was off to the moons
of Jupiter again.

This business of satisfying herself
was not working anymore.

She had half a mind
of asking Isidra

if she could “borrow” Rey
next time his ship

made a pit stop.
But she was embarrassed to ask

even though it was something
which was accepted,

since there were more women
than men

on this godforsaken corner
of the solar system.

Is there really a sun,
or is it just an ancient rumor,

she asked herself
as she crunched

more numbers
into the stupid computer.

“Shinelas, Dolores, get aholt of yourself.”,
she heard herself say out loud.

Debbie Rodgers, another compiler,
smiled curiously at herself,

and kept on pecking
like a chicken at her keyboard.

Exploring The Face

Though the amazing technologies
found in the interiors

of the face on Mars
were a rewarding

and astounding experience
no one yet knew

what the hell they were.
Isidra and her colleagues

could only catalog
and separate

and basically
just put things

into similar piles.
It would probably be decades

before they could even
venture an educated guess.

The Martians had evidently been
an exceedingly advanced civilization,

and to the New Martians,
the earthly Martians,

it was inconceivable
how such a great

and mighty civilization
could have become extinct.

Yet, what was going on back on earth
maybe offered a clue.

As Isidra moved a panel
made of an exotic metallic foil

a chill went up her spine
as she realized,

that there,
on the wall,

was a representation
of the Pyramid of the Sun.

Of Love-Making On Mars

Isidra had not been
with Rey Urias,

her boyfriend,
in eighteen months,

what with him
being gone on round trips

to earth
sixteen months at a time.

When they did
get together,

they made the most of it,
made love madly

and afterward, conversed…
sometimes it amazed her

how much just plain ordinary
face to face conversation could mean.

But soon, all too soon,
they both accepted the ache

they knew they would succumb to
when they parted again.

Out the portal
they could see

the endless Red Planet,
and sunset just a distant darkness.

The New Martians

Isidra’s grandparents
had fled north

during the Mexican Revolution.
She had always considered herself

an American
first and foremost,

but the new edicts
had made her

a stranger in her own land.
She found

her life here on Mars
a welcome relief.

Studying the ancient
Martian civilizations

really put
“life” into perspective,

the racism
which was running rampant on Earth

meant little
if nothing

to her and her
fellow “New Martians”,

as the scientists
and technicians

jokingly
referred to each other.

The Computer Wore Wuaraches

“Rey, what the hell
is going on, hombre?”

said the skipper
in a nervous tone.

Rey was, Rey Urias,
in charge of all

computer systems
on a derelict space freighter.

The ship had been in route
to the frozen moon of Jupiter.

The harvesting of ice
had become big business,

it had become
the only way to cool

the ever warming earth
where temperatures

even at the poles
easily reached 130 degrees at night.

Yet, most conservatives
still denied

the existence
of global warming.

All Rey
would say about that was

“pinche pendejos…
tan bien bueyes…”

and those are the things
which are SFW,

in case
you’re reading this at work.

The Final Frontier Indeed, Piporro

Lupito had lost track
of how many trips

he’d made to Mars
or to the moons of Jupiter

whether helping move
scientific equipment

to study the face on Mars
or volunteering on ships

harvesting methane
from one of the Jovian moons.

Of course he missed his wife
and kids back in Texas,

but with so few jobs
back on earth

for a man his color
since the new edicts

became the law
of the land,

space had become
his only option.

My nephew Aesop Cardenas
commented on my prose poem
about Kurt Vonnegut,Jr.

"i really like this idea...sometimes i'll catch
one of my paintings in a certain light and notice
strange textures which remind me that i had painted
over an image...i'll go through my old photos and
be reminded of what it was and think "why the hell
did i ever paint something so crappy"...then i
delete it and forget that it ever was...i sometimes
wonder what has been painted over us..."



This is a banner he did for a rock group.
Aesop's blog is here.

Delivering The Goods

Landing on Mars,
he pulled out

his last Lucky Strikes
from a crumpled pack.

The shoulder pocket
on his space suit

was not made
for this kind of contraband.

After he inhaled
a long, delicious cloud of smoke,

he turned to yell
at Eulogio and Arnulfo,

“Andale! Andale,
get this shit unloaded

so weese can
git back home!”

The Fable

For some reason or other
love kept them apart.

She loved him
and he loved her.

There was a river
between them.

There was a mountain
between them.

He was the sun
and she was the moon.

She was the leaves
of a tree.

He was the roots
of a tree.

They longed
to be together.

They ached
the same ache.

One day
the river went dry.

The mountain
crumbled.

The trees
toppled against each other.

The sun and moon
collided.

The fog rolled in
obscuring our view.