all the furniture of my memories:
I pause home again: you are not here.
I pick warm left over words from your letter,
like last crumbs scraped from the dinner table,
place them in a tattered cloth
and fold it in my coat pocket.
I turn and close the paper, shut the envelope,
and walk down a dark hallway,
past sleeping rooms and down endless stairs,
until my feet pause, and I stand staring at your address.
THE DISTANCE
WE’VE ARRIVED AT
I’ve lost touch
with the green woods
in the last . . . the last,
what do you call years so empty?
Only “them” and I a “thing” to you,
who’s lost touch,
and we both dream our own seasons,
our own fields beyond walls.
LIVING MY OTHER LIFE
for Norm Moser
Sleeping when I heard the mail arrive.
I hoped it would be you,
then from behind my eyelids
scolded myself not to hope.
It was you. You told about
the 57 chevy breaking down again,
about you working long hours,
and the cops arrested Alfonso again,
and laundry on the clothes line,
and my cheek feels the warm wind of the barrio,
your bronze legs curling out and down
from the hem of your dress
to the floorboard, we’re going to your tia’s house,
my body wants you . . .
and I put the letter down,
place the pillow over my head,
continue to dream of us.
Emerging from darkness, your face,
your lips stimulating my name,
and your body curved, bending its stem
in a sensuous offer of budding desires,
my flesh crowd like fire on,
my arms around you like flames,
swept and torn like a sail
washed upon brown sand shores. . . .
The letter and the envelope
chilled and stiff, but comfortable
to my hand, like a warm body
sliding between cool sheets
late at night. I shivery slightly,
thankful and tired; I unfold the page
and into my palm falls a green leaf,
a green leaf searching a palm,
a palm a secret meaningful touch,
I lift the leaf between my fingers,
touching it with a questioning silence,
accepting our meeting, and not wishing
for the park, the long walks with you,
your words flutter up to me,
and entangle themselves on briars
of my heart, grown wild with desire
behind these walls.
JUST BEFORE DAWN
Mumbling bootheels of guards
crush as if fresh snow down the tiers,
grinding silence crackles like icicles;
the blood dreams mercury heavy
as the flashlight swings into each cell
in thin white scissors counting heads,
while spiders, cockroaches and crickets
scurry across the path of wary guards
whose bootheels tip tap down dark tiers,
while sparrows stir in the black rafters
and cats slink into the cellblock from the cold,
morning breaks over old veterans of the wilderness,
hair white as morning frost,
their closed eyelids footprints
of a wounded animal in the snow;
And young prisoners hug their blankets
like frozen carcasses strewn across
timeless blizzard plains, and a few
gnaw their hearts off
caught in the steel jaws of prison.
DREAMING ABOUT FREEDOM
What I would be doing if I were out,
what kind of things would surround me, and
the people I would talk with, and touch.
It’s been a long time, a woman’s hair,
her breasts, the singing of her touch,
or crawling around the floor with children,
all take their place among the stars,
among Capricorn, the Twins and Venus.
I think I would probably go out at night,
and breathe the fresh air, listen to the tinkles
of town glitter in the night, I would probably pause
by lawns, knowing how they understand
me, with their aromas, and flush out my wild
beautiful thoughts and feelings, like wild birds
so easily scared away by the sound of closing cages.
*
QUETZAL FEATHERS
Lying down on a bed, dying,
with old fingers he places quetzal feathers
on his ancient gray head,
then entering flowing green forest of his thoughts,
he drums untamed air,
whips faster the feathers,
shreds silence with this long gliding flight,
descends into thick viney treetops,
and downward into wooded trails,
among other birds
where he met the sun’s eyes behind each leaf,
and offered to the sun his feathers,
then entered the heart of the sun,
like a bird in the sky
forever disappearing into the sun,
with a smile on his already pale lips.
SATURDAY
freckled leaves after the rain,
water pools sprinkled like paw prints
over the streets,
with bare feet
my heart dips
into the rainbow
by the red cloud.
as my dog
shakes water from his fur,
I shiver with wild joy!
THINGS UNEXPLAINED
for Norm Moser
Lowering her eyes
lowering her eyes again
again. . . . . . .
how can one explain the sensation of touching this?
by a word? Well . . .
until I do
it will fall away, ferment, the picker will miss this fruit
the earth will take this fruit
as breath from my soul
and eat it
it will bring beauty to her arms and legs
perfume for her winds
and someday when a small breeze is blowing
under my nostrils
I’ll catch a whiff of this beauty
that originated from me
and from behind the blindfold of life
I’ll peek
how she lowered her eyes
lowering her eyes again
I’ll write.
SILVER WATER TOWER
I remember when I was a child,
on weekends my father and I
drove down to visit my grandmother.
We took the old road, and my father
smelled like part of the land,
and as we came closer,
his face took on a wholesome expression,
and it seemed the history of the land
shone bright in his brown eyes.
I looked to his face, then out
the window,
and saw the first sign of my little town,
where my grandmother lived,
and the silver water tower stood
on tall lank steel legs;
ESTANCIA, boldly lettered black
across its silver tank top.
It was by the school where my uncle worked
as janitor,
and by tall green grass he watered,
and I played in when a young boy.
It was the sign that home was near,
where the link of my true blood was unbroken,
and thrived solidly in a little silver hair’d woman,
with ancient customs, y pura sangre nuestra;
a home my father became son, y Hombre,
and I a wonderful miracle,
un Nino, another generation, de mi raza!
It was here where I found myself,
with time to sit outside in the shade,
and talk of chili, cows, trees and horses,
time to walk through fields to a friend’s house,
time to understand the meaning
de la familia, de la raza, juntos,
luchando para abanzar, el foturo destino.
Like so many Chicanos, in need of work,
driven to the city from their way of life,
I rebelled, no con mi mente,
pero con mi Corazon,
and I came to prison.
I am not allowed to lay on the grass here;
it’s Saturday here, I lean against the fence,
my back to the prison water tower,
still, I feel joy, me siento a toda madre,
about coming home again.
WITH MY MASSIVE SOUL I OPEN
With my massive soul I open
my brother’s heart,
where fire rumbles,
rocks grind against each other,
and the moon rots in wounds
of black branches across his eyes.
In the fire base metals of my voice
unswirl molten,
on the dark as light,
whether sword or figurine of brotherhood,
the mold awaits in him.
The compliant pretty face, the soft padded shoulders,
of Integrity, in soft soled shoes of a sycophant,
in pantomimic cities, chemically lifted to climax,
with gold boned laughter in their hearts,
while despair flaps over the land of sybarites,
whose lives crumb for crumb, grain for grain,
root for root,
are in the service of banks.
America,
I look at you with distraught eyes, I,
stroked by storm’s smoking hand, I,
among untampered, temperamental young wild winds,
that give their soft hair and young bodies,
to trees and flowers driven mad,
placed in even lines,
I, like twenty mule teams
lugging boulders across earth, up mountains,
evaluate you,
I, a wind at your furrows,
I, rain at your furrows, destroy the symmetry,
and discern new cultivation,
feed seeds of what I see and feel,
with dreams, a new reality.
I want Justice afoot in each house,
whether parquet floor or mud floor.
I do not want its sweet face,
its drop of blood pinched from a pimple,
or a cherry in a gentleman’s evening drink its pride.
It roars at a culture’s silence
by dropping its judgment, a great avalanche of rocks
upon the guilty breast, and polished boots get dusty,
dark roads where robbers feast, close down.
But today Justice does not do this.
I want Justice to be a beast free of reins, unrepressed,
respected over the earth.
I want it here in America, while we sit before our fires,
to approach out of the shadows we fear.
I want its raw bellow
to awake our lethargic hearts like a sleepless whip!
But in dark valleys where cities thrive,
Justice leans against a lamp post,
lips painted pink, or in private clubs,
panting under red lights, she fingers g-strings,
while patrons count their money.
I know she does not need this,
and does not need million dollar lawyers,
she needs us,
and here in this cell, I take
her chilled calloused fingers in mine,
brush gray hair from her old faded eyes,
and with my shaggy spirit around her
for a warm blanket,
I watch her drink the bitter medicine of my struggle,
Medicine found in the heart,
in the common needs of common people,
medicine made with my hands and eyes,
medicine made from hunger and lies and violence,
medicine of the blood of each living person.
A HANDFUL OF EARTH,
THAT IS ALL I AM
You drive up to my shack. Unclip your briefcase,
on the hood of your new car
spread a few official papers, point with manicured fingers,
telling me what I must do.
I lift a handful of earth by your polished shoe,
and tell you, it carries the ways of my life.
My blood runs through this land,
like water thrashing out of mountain walls,
bursting, sending the eagle from its nest,
that glides over huddled seeds as do my hands.
I carry wisemen in me, I carry women and children in me.
beneath my serape I put my hands to warm them in the morning,
and build fires in the night,
that reflect swords and flowers in my eyes.
My heart is a root in wet earth.
You tell me you are not to blame for the way things are.
Invisible fingers wrench my life away, plunging deep,
carrying a handful of wet earth.
Mountains give me their patience and endurance
when my children look up to me.
They ask me, Oye Papa, how can a skinny man like that
take away our land?
The earth filled with my tears and blood!
But my wife knows
my arm is twisted behind my back,
tearing the joints, a boot crushing my spine,
my lips to the wet earth, whispering to her,
I shall speak no lies
and cry only truth to my tormentors.
I look into the man’s face for a long time
when he tells me there is no other way.
Then stare at his car as he leaves
and carry his image in my heart
that he is blind too,
and speak with him there long after he has left.
TAPESTRY OF DOWNTOWN
The grumbling charred factory.
Its stack a black bone flute,
mournful songs of smoke
wheezed by withered lungs
and fingers chapped as desert brush,
scrawl across the unscrubbed sky
dull gray notes of hope,
puffs of sand in our eyes.
On one of the old factory windowsills,
six birds have made their nest,
huddle their shale feathers
against the sharp cold of morning,
bundled up, dark barbs of coal.
Twitters crack like dry twigs,
kindling crackling in the icy dawn.
The first spark of sunlight
catches the windowsill,
their wings ignite, flurry,
brown flames tossing in the air. . . .
BLACK MARE
On the white rocky driveway
her steel shoes clokk clokk
softly against white painted rocks,
nostrils spew steam,
her chest fills with dawn,
her large head dips to nibble,
newly sprouted tufts of grass
between white rocks,
at a daisy she shakes her mane
Black Mare! Black Mare!
NEW DAY
In dark
Sharp enough to cut your throat,
A thin moon
Edges steadily on, a glass cutter,
Across night sky,
Brushing, blowing into piles of clouds,
Little slivers of stars
That settle in sleeping hearts;
Until, in the little break,
Twilight starts twitching with life,
So happy, it melts the moon,
In its warm dawn,
And aches our hearts that just awake
from starry dreams.
FROM
SET THIS BOOK
ON FIRE!
PART 1
IN ’78
It was prison, rioting
for our rights, burning mattresses, pounding
steel doors an inch thick,
slate, steel-painted-industrial-gray years,
fat-jowled, gut-butting, thug guards
who waddled on stumpy legs to our isolation cells
swinging batons, spraying mace, beating us
KGB fashion.
I’VE TAKEN RISKS
starting as a kid
when I stole choir uniforms
from an Episcopalian church
so I’d have something to keep me warm that winter.
I looked like a Biblical prophet
striding in six layers of robes through dark streets.
When you turned up the ace,
you kissed the card. And when the joker scoffed at you,
Singing at the Gates Page 6
