this is america

being lost,
this is what we know best
to expect something and receive
something
totally different

a loss
I used to joke about god
and our foolish attempts to make plans

what does this reflect?
hardship
totalitarianism, maybe?
nationalism,
reginonalism,
a wine glass voice????

why should we sustain the crucificion metaphor?
what does this say about your morality?

sweat, sperm, saliva
I loved a world from each one
it was an empty mirror

the realness,
the cpacity to affect me
far removed from dancing feet
you want to hear more of the fool
and how he became a prince

how magic hung upon his breast


that was for a different time
the fool now sits on his front porch
selling crack cocaine
to white collar workers

everything a swindle
I can see the loss in his eyes
no one believes in him any more

angel eyes
naked and drugged
bleeding on the floor
looking stupid

skull warriors
popping pills
wall street terorists
hanging tombs

this is America

when love comes

abandoned devils
they, serve no self
no climb
the bowl that once contained rice,
is empty

to wrestle with the notion
that life could be overcome
not abandoned
in a roadside ditch
lolita

the means to a drug
mortal body
and divine universe

there is no self
only the primordial

my obsession
it keeps me
sorting the potatoes

high on mescaline
wandering to the nonesense
the musing of crickets
and bullfrogs

to fall into that well
instictively drawn

infantcy
the cry and moan
to pinch and tickle

they called her fancy
the best minds
no longer pulling the wagon

when love comes
there are no bargains
no repeal

she moves bleak

....

Carnival

the lies in your bedroom, spanish harlem
to communicte with the unknown
the unseen
unspeakable

tread upon
each soul's

hallucinating hallways
in the midnight

speak, oh jezabel of your bustle
summoned the dead
leaving us uneasy
moving between worths

I saw you somewhere outside
it was lunchtime
a mutual surrender
to speak the truth of the future
of all futures

pecker check
with pliers
cherished scraps in their drawers
that you can't decipher

a snowy landscape
unfiltered by the mind
just stark and bare
new minds

we will soon have to corrupt them
make them usless for their mothers
wearing out their shirts
in a room

the clock ticks
hands and knees
to race out the door
with tears stinging their eyes

saying their prayers
a little town main street
it once was a forest
a home for squirrels

popular tongue
stainless steel
errands under blue skies
fish jumping waters
bumble bee wings

run Esmeralda
seek that which you cannot find
with your wild hair
and bony legs
all mare
and no nightmare

to the crimes
rust polished off all my instruments
the love letters
and fat cigars

You soldier yourself into  corner, wanting to count the ways and means. Welcome home was all that you could hear against the applause It is all about what has been here before. There was no seam to be taken in.  I will remember how it is that your heart beats. This stream of being moves on past us. It curls right up next to the stranger. I will be there in the last.

We ran through grassy fields. We ran through grave yards. I had a hunger in my guts that was a hundred years old. We ate devils for breakfast, lunch, and supper. We smelled of smoke and cold beer. We ate the Christians and counted ourselves among the good people. She wanted to come in through the walls, but the Beatles wouldn't let her. She was too old to be my grandmother and to young to be a fortress. I didn't want her to miss out on her good fortune. We dreamed the dreams of others and lived other people's lives. We marched down the street like a parade to a dead man's dirge. You shed tears of blood and wiped away the good fortune. It was the days of our youth and the thousand years in the fires of hell. She wanted a free ride on the merry go round, to ride with the lightning. she made only one little sound. She was the clever one, the only one who could solve the puzzle. We were so high that only the clouds cold touch us. The devil was looking for us around the corner. His hooves would scrape on the wood floor. How hidden we were among the reeds of the Nile, like two little babes in baskets. It was all such a tragedy back then. The golden fingers and the red eyes of the beast. We did not run, we stood our ground and howled at the moon.

What are you waiting for? I have seen you on this street corner for several hours, looking up and down the street? Who or what do you expect? Are you waiting for the Mongols to come racing down the street? Why are you engaging in magical thinking? Feeling the certainty of the void, you scratch the two sticks together and hope to create a fire. A million years ago when the world was young we were presentable then. We thought ourselves kings and victors conquering anything and everything that came before us. Funny how our victories do not seem so sweet and significant now. This is getting alarming. One of the thieves were saved. It was a winning percentage. You circle the campfire throwing bullets into the fire. You cackle like a jackal. Come down off of your cross-damned. Our version is the only version we know. We have been taught it for years and years. They would expect us to pass it on to others. Is this the season of weeping? Let us set fire to this bush. Yesterday we were here next to the tree, speaking to the stone. Looking for the barbarians. I am sure that they will invade the village very soon. We should be prepared. The thief comes in the middle of the night to steal away the souls of the sleeping. Give me your hand, embrace me. I remain in the dark. Would the tree be strong enough to hold our necks? What is this that we are asking for? We wait for the second coming, the angels flying in the skies. Today we are barking dogs, growling at our shadows. We shout at each other making ourselves more bigger, more threatening. The second is never as sweet as the first.

A man enters the barn. Thirteen pieces of silver, a tattered dream, a broken heart, a box full of old bones from another life.  He is about to go to work praying for all the lost souls-trying to define his existence, providing a stimulus and reaction to the real, what he thinks is real omnipotent omnipresent a sense that he cannot escape from. He would say that none of us can escape. Trying to be faithful, he dresses up the dead, trying to make them presentable, declaring hatred the highest form of the hypocritical feeling-the pain within the body of god. Show god your love.


Ernesto hears all the voices of god, those voices that try to do the most, trying to dominate, trying to spread the disease as far  as he can, a religion, a testimony, he hides behind his hat, the patterns of color in his mind, he covers them in a garage sale letters. All over their faces, so many faces, the words do not come together, peeling away the scraps, the yes man haircut waiting on the call from the zombies to sell them shoes.

Ernesto tries not to swivel nor sway, he can only stand, to stand as a man like he was once taught. He sees those eyes watching from the slopes, there is crack in this man's soul, a pale light shines out from it, a rose colored thing that almost seems lifeless, like a just dead or dying thing, a half-life thing, that future oblivion that everyone knows is just around the corner. 

The echoes of desire that once called out to Ernesto. He fumbles with them in his feeble hands those instruments that once could do so many things, all about sound and image, the primordial connection to the past, the ghosts that whispers in our ears as we create. Scanning the fields for lifeforms, a long dead shiver,  he recognizes its sound maybe before he even hears it, a premonition, an inkling, a second sight into that world that he eventually will travel to, single and alone, a pawn removed from the board.