The Beartrap

With a beartrap around my ankle
I search the pathways
of your childhood soul
as sunlight sneaks above the barbershop

ripping a tree out of the ground
with my cheekbones
your breasts covered
in angel feathers
I rise with a whisper in my coat
and make love to you

my ankle burnt by the smallest coin
spins on the floor
and jimmies the awful sound

Irresponsible Love

you call to tell me you miss me so badly
ocean of spiny waves
sun of spleen fire
river sans box of water
you bend metal with your eyes
love is a sharp knowing pencil
a smokestack
an abandoned toy city
a luckless piece of wood-rot in a forest

I too have missed you bitterly
and have built a small white tube
out of night darkness
to drink of you in the tall bantam grass
which sways towards you naked
though you be far away

Across The Street

There across the street
you strum sinew of guitar
and break open a saddle
guts glory and ash
your name slips on the bed
and I rub its tongue

the ink hurries up your kiss
sullen lingerie of your hands on my lap

Across My Lonely Face

If love was hot clothes
in a marching laundromat
and I would not love you
the miracle that splashes on a field
of your abdomen
and across my lonely face

how sweet you were
leaving my hand in the river
the tissue of the sky so pink
and cracked in half

The River

you become the river which floods me
my land hanging on by a thread
my stars already fallen
and tarnished

your ripples made of glass
I see inside of you
in a love-book I've read
and handled in the dark before

when the floodwaters recede
everything falls back into place
humming and covered in river pebbles

A Hard Day's Night

The beetles have no hit songs
scurry on the stones of a brushy creek
along the low water crossing
in the park you love so much
with its foolish turtles
and minnows darting aimlessly
out of their spider heads

even here I love you so
and lust for your smile
and lust for the wonder of your eyes

my hard beetle heart black as night
without you

You can buy my ebook here:

http://www.amazon.com/Reyes-C-e1rdenas-Chicano-Poet-1970-2010-ebook/dp/B00GCWM6F2/ref=dp_kinw_strp_1

Poetry Tech Support

You have excited money in your purse
(trapped deer in a parallel universe)
and your kiss which crumbles like newspaper
when your mother
rolls over in bed
pretending to be an iceberg
to your daddy
the Titanic hurries
along its own ribs

and the wooden waves
crash into a forested shore
splintering against you

what stain
will not call a relative
to complain

Barney

He parades his animal love
this one-eyed dragon
who opens his fire-breathing snout
fresh out of flames
but still he loves her madly
and his purple skin crawls
and shakes when she is near

Until You Came Into My Life

Under your skirt my world
sweet salty sea
waves crash like dishes in the sink
steam rises from the factory of love
white soot
clings to the clouds in my head

Cold War

When silence breaks apart
I hear your smile
working its way through my body
like missiles during the cold war
when I hid under my desk in third grade
I have loved you since.