El Corno Emplumado

Your body floats
and falls thru my mind

like dripping cotton candy
your discarded clothes

blame me
I toss down my wings

my neighbor (the monster)
drags his bad leg

in his backyard garden
spying on us

your hourglass shape
bruises my minutes and my hours

what good is life
without its feathered horns

Despues

Cowering under a school desk
waiting for the white flash of light

the burning churning winds
Miss Rodriguez said would come

telling us first graders you will not
hear the explosion and she assured us

that we would be ok despues
we didn’t know who or what this cuba was

nor did we care all we kept asking was
can we still go and play outside during recess

Miss Rodriguez assured again us yes yes of course
she was an optimist and after the bomb went off

after the blinding light and the fireball
we did indeed go outside to play in the school yard

our burnt skin and burnt hair falling off
as we flew higher and higher on the swings

Barrio Boy

I wake from a nightmare,
my lips are angel leaves

fallen from the ugly tree
which always smiles at barrio boys.

Its pockets inside out,
sporting a rotted sweater,

its radio station
playing Fifties music.

Have I been
bad?

The closet spits out
tremendous thoughts,

and will not let
my clothes back in.

My heart
curled up like a mangy dog,

chest wrinkling
its accordion.

Stunt Man

As a poet
I am required

to perform my own stunts,
it would be unethical

to hire a stunt double.
This juggling of words

is way too dangerous
to let someone else

stand in.
Words sharp as knives

must be tossed carefully,
and not caught

by the handle---
that would not be poetry.

Black SUV

My poems arrive
in a black SUV.

I can’t see anything
through the tinted windows.

I won’t know
what they look like,

I won’t know
what they sound like

until the doors open
and they step out

like somebody famous
or notorious.

 The Raquel Welch Poster

Sometimes I’d like to get away
through Raquel Welch’s hole

through time       the coastline
in Mexico meticulous and mucho

the ageless beauty of a woman
always coming in like surf

the roundness          a metaphor
for anytime from prehistoric

to now to never to               forever
sometimes I’d like to crawl away

through Raquel Welch’s poster
on the wall          win or not

because there never is or will be
a win or not

a million years with you   oh cavegirl
will not be          e   n   o  u   g    h 

The Worm by ROBERTO BOLAÑO

Let us give thanks for our poverty, said the guy dressed in rags.
I saw him with my own eyes: drifting through a town of flat houses,
built of brick and mortar, between the United States and Mexico.
Let us give thanks for our violence, he said, even if it's futile
like a ghost, even if it leads to nothing,
just as these roads lead nowhere.
I saw him with my own eyes: gesturing over a rosy background
that resisted the black, ah, sunset on the border,
glimpsed and lost forever.
Sunsets that enveloped Lisa's father
at the beginning of the fifties.
Sunsets that gave witness to Mario Santiago,
up and down, frozen stiff, in the backseat
of a contrabandist's car. Sunsets
of infinite white and infinite black.


Read the rest here.

On the Toad by J.D Nelson

Saint Diablo

Saint Diablo did his best
to lead her astray.

He promised her
the sweetest of things.

Endless paradises
of pretty dresses,

gorgeous adornments for the hair,
earrings, and diamond rings.

His angel wing caresses always
touch down before his hairy feet.

Tarzan’s Red White And Blue Adventure

In the Mexican jungle
Tarzan leads the narco traficantes

while bare-assed Cheta aims a machine gun
at Jane’s monkey shine

only to be scolded and kicked
by Tarzan

as he swings from
vine to vine

into the drug happy
USA

where hypocrisy reigns
much more

than the mythical
love of freedom

Not Your Lover

I am not your lover,
the thick ice bars my way.

The ice-snakes
carry away their drums.

Inside the frozen trees
there is silence.

A dream I had of you
struggles in the sky,

and the cold wind
lies riddled with holes.

El Barrio Zero

La Virgen de San Juan
had lost her head.

The Coke machine
crushed the gringo Sheriff.

His deputies would not
turn in their badges.

The barrio hovered
like a soiled pigeon.

The defeated eyes
of poor children

burst like burnt beans.
The pot discarded.

Not even Jesucristo
unzipped his pants to pee.

The barrio
did not deserve to live.

Stick Figure Episodes

She draws stick figures
of a mountain,

every butterfly belongs
to a part of speech.

The eyes of a fly
also a stick figure.

Trees tower
above the towers.

She lies naked
like an axe.

The blade of her lips
in my gut.

She is innocent
like tomorrow.

Time bombs tick
in her email.

Her stick figures
admire each other.

A stick sword
cuts a stick spider in stick half.

She giggles
thinking she’s invented funny.

And in my horrible heart
she has.

The Best Thing About The Feathered Serpent

You’ve never seen the feathered serpent
attack your city,

knock down your pyramid,
deface your church,

you’ve never heard him
shout profane,

sound insane,
leave claw marks

all over your belongings,
you’ve never had to pick up

slimy feathers,
you’ve never had to explain him

to your children,
have you?

Mi Espada

You at the end of my sword
as it was meant to be,

raw daylight
can be so powerful

like an awakening tool.
Night with its atoning sheath

and innate brickness
has sealed us in.

Blood of the thighs
and sweet alarming,

blood of the swan neck,
tune to the lion.

I pull out the sword,
let the words strike back,

both of us wounded
as thrust.

Threw My Love

I threw my love
out the sixth story window.

Rest assured
the sound made a flowery splat.

The moon inflamed
like a wild poet prick.

It’s better than taking
a hatchet to the distant stars.

The car she landed on
sped away wearing her short skirt.

The busty weather girl said mistakenly
bricks will rain down on ladybugs.

Swat team members
arrived by rusty sunken submarine.

The perfect crime
always next to a pond.