I walked again, all day and night, humming
prayers to Peyote People,
that they care for my many newer souls.
In towns and cities I passed
I smoked myself with sage and mesquite,
warding off city ways, its corrupt intents—
keep your incest, your greed,
your mistrust, your cynicism.
I do not come north to prey on your possessions,
piled so high now
they obscure and block the gates of salvation.
There is nothing but an open path to my gates,
clear passage,
where I consecrate my life to my creators
offering each of the cardinal directions each evening a spoonful
of ground maize,
four pieces of tortilla, four maize kernels, and four
uncooked pinto beans.
At dawn, holding my rosary and crucifix in my hand
I pray and continue my thousand mile walk north.
I would have loved to have met Mother Teresa
who did the same.
I moved through the outskirts of cities
where ugly sights of gangs and poverty
racism and privilege
cut off fresh roses from my heart’s garden
and I hang the shriveled bouquets
on doorknobs
as my symbol of lost innocence.
Each city is
an underworld of lewd caprice, a playground
to waste life in orgies and drugs, sex and money.
You drive past me, rummaging through trashcans
see a diseased old woman,
bent over stooped corpse on the highway shoulder,
you think
I might be good washing your clothes, perhaps
cleaning your house,
low pay and low maintenance, but my clothing
is too dirty, my speech unintelligible,
I frighten you,
I smell of juniper and cedar smoke,
and it’s true, perhaps
I am dead,
perhaps this is my death walk,
filled as my starving mind is
with goat, mutton and chicken, beans, quelites,
maize tortillas,
maybe I am dead
and this walk is my death walk
maybe, when you talk to me, question me, interrogate me,
all of you are communicating with dead
for it seems to me as I look out from my weary eyes
your lives are death rituals,
death ceremonies,
death celebrations,
death lovers,
offering your gold and power and killing machines
to death,
murdering Palestinian babies, Afghanistan mothers,
imprisoning young Iraq men and women for life,
distributing crack to kill young beautiful minds
maybe,
as I stand here behind the Hilton hotel
searching in the dumpster
I peer at you on the outside bar patio
by the pool,
maybe you are all dead,
is that insane of me to think this
considering the evidence?
Am I mad
when I see cemeteries filled with more young
than old people,
am I mad
when I see those who don’t work have the money
and those who work all day
die of starvation?
Am I mad when I see the rich lawyers
and politicians lie and cheat and swindle and extort
and never get punished
while a starving boy steals an apple
gets twenty years in prison?
Am I mad
that doctors won’t treat children because they have no
insurance
does this knowledge certify me as mad
if I see this with my own eyes
and label it and share this bad news with others?
Insane?
I would, if it helped bring back sanity,
douse myself with gas on the courthouse lawn
and set myself on fire—
but they don’t care if an old woman burns,
don’t care about so much anymore, they thrive
on bloody spectacle
on gory gruesome crime scenes,
on cruel and barbaric entertainment—
so, instead,
I walk, and walk and walk,
making my walk a prayer for all humanity,
for our salvation, our redemption,
because the Lord has suffered so much for me,
I too wish to give away what I have
and along the way
to honor the Lord’s suffering for me,
I gave my few clothes to the church,
took the wool and cloth and blankets I had
and gave them to my neighbors,
what few coins, three stones and bead necklaces I had,
the hoe, one plow disc,
a chisel, a mule yoke, a dull ax,
ears of white maize in a sack,
two wooden balls and sticks and hoops
for the footraces,
three used candles,
and gave them all away
before heading out to the desert alone
to make my thousand mile trip
on foot.
It felt so good to do that,
and while others called it mad,
labeled me insane for doing so,
it felt so good
I became so light, I floated up,
I became Rita Falling from the Sky.
SMOKING MIRRORS
A.
I come out of the south,
from the darkness
where death ferments in the dawn,
seeping from limbs, moistening
what is hard and cold and alone at night.
Out of the darkness
like a dream,
a storm beneath my flesh
two faces,
two bodies,
a hybrid flower
of honey and poison,
half moon half sun,
intoxicated on fragrance
stinking of sweat
smooth and rough
bearded and hairless
with penis and vagina
two mouths
constantly quarreling
two tongues
twenty fingers
and twenty toes
in constant conflict
two of us,
blurred at birth by some cruel god,
always alone,
out of the dark like an extinct
animal
my body a cave
I look out from
at night,
see my red eyes.
My sharp teeth, my red heart
bleeding,
I can easily kill as surrender to you,
kiss or bite,
smile or snarl,
because I am made of two
opposite and similar to myself
a field of yellow flowers
and cactus.
B.
In a strange way, I give and take life—
yes, what you would call this whore,
this fre
ak of nature,
this hideous beast
gives and takes life.
You’re so fickle, so easily manipulated; you are mere feather I saw
in my hands on hot days.
I am a snake, sloughing skins
friend of the dark,
slithering in low life streets
arching with fangs that fill you with sweet venom
as you gasp for breath
as you aching vow all your love for me
until you discover
I am you, and something in you dies, you turn
into a destroyer, maiming and murdering
my kind.
And I withdraw beneath your beatings
beneath your raging fist,
your macho revenge spills onto me
with your secrets and loves and whispered sins
I cradle in my bleeding mouth
I cherish in the embrace of my broken ribs.
C.
I destroy your ideas
your view of the world,
of the way things should be.
At night, in my world
blue becomes black
red becomes yellow
man is woman
light and dark blurs,
moon is the sun, night is the day
when I come out.
I let go of the rope
and you fall, fall into
the entrails of my life
and with gentle, caressing hands
I crush your view of the world.
D.
You do not understand
how much pain I am in—
memories of myself as a boy
confused by being born different
than other boys,
shame gutted me, created in me
a dark hole that each day I died in,
while other children’s lives were played in the parks,
I crouched behind a headstone
in the cemetery and wept my shame out—
while other boys watched TV on couches
I was drawn to dance on broken alley crates
where lecherous men and women seduced me.
I survived my two sexed divine disease,
deceiving friends and drug fiends,
lying in bed with an innocent lover
my sheets become my vile plumage
where I gorge on his love with vulture’d hunger,
ecstatic pilgrim whose shrine is the male body
male sighing after coming, male gripping my ass
male pounding from behind
male kisses, rough and horrible
filled with pain,
o the pain/pleasure
of men’s passion
as they pillage my heart
open me
adore me
honor me
and devour me
in their hatred and their love.
And then the dream is over,
and seeing my face stubble,
studying with contempt my manly features
in the mirror,
as if from my grave, I wake to the dawn
yearning for the night again
when I’ll sing sweetly to charm
men’s lewd attention,
lure the cobra from the basket
to my music.
Not the reflection in the mirror
will they see
nor me plucking my eyes out,
nor the wrinkles on my male face,
but opening my compact mascara case,
pulling out my eye liners, tweezers,
the mirror will begin to open
like a dark curtain
for the actress to appear
I transform into a young sensuous girl,
my lemony breasts evoke their dizzying delight,
yes,
obsessed with my flesh, my lust, my body
the curved wings of my thighs, my hips and legs,
float across their hearts like quetzal birds
filled with voodoo omens
of sexual fulfillment.
Thrones and furs are what I desire,
down filled beds and comforters,
popular, sought after, that even flamenco guitars
wail their lust and passion for me,
walking under peach tress,
through flower gardens,
I forget the back seat cars
as a sweaty whore,
turning tricks for American servicemen’s
twenty dollar bills.
I open my legs to the moon,
rings on each of my fingers,
call me your witch,
as I kiss you
strip my clothes off,
make this night for me, for you,
as if we were both falling
falling into a world
filled with happiness,
and not us, as we are,
looking for love,
for a man
to love me,
to love me,
to love me . . .
E.
Living in squalid quarters,
cracked stucco walls, decrepit ceiling peeling paint—
lurid colors of purple, blue, black,
gives their rooms an eerie menacing aspect
where our darkest secrets are unveiled, indulged in,
and then,
the change—
the long black hair is brushed out
they strip off grimy t-shirts
to reveal supple but firm breasts,
lipstick is applied to their curved lips,
and the blossoming begins,
rare flowers un-petal
their skin is shaved smooth and softer
than Asian silk
the area around their eyes blushed blue, outlined black
they become cats,
and sitting nude in a chair as they stretch their black stockings
up their legs,
urges assault the viewers’ loins
fantasies unravel like spools of red yarn
caught in claws of flame,
and quickly the mouth
that was some construction worker’s mouth
becomes Marilyn Monroe’s puckering tease,
the face takes on seductive shadows
that draw the light to their cheeks and nose
in a way a traveler glimpses distant bays
of glistening waters
pools of emerald waters
multicolored reefs
shimmer below;
they stare back at you,
the way a black jaguar might stare at you,
the moon throwing shadows of leaves and vines
on its face,
its lips blood red, open lazily, almost inhaling your soul,
its eyes black orbs of caves you enter
to discover the bones of ancestors,
the eyelids narrowed, luring you in to their
world of sex, laughter, death, temporal renewal
from your desperate life,
squeezing as they slowly blink
bitter remorse and betrayals
from your heart;
but the light that falls on their cheeks,
gives them a rising dawn of innocence
where all your life’s accusers
evaporate into mist,
> they become vulnerable
and draw you out from your blues
like Eric Clapton’s guitar
at dawn, wailing and ripping chords
in a New Orleans dew-dripping street
where you want to take this girl’s hand
and beat down doors that have signs Closed hanging on them,
singing the morning
so everybody wakes up to your nectarine perversions,
and it doesn’t matter, finally
that you get drunk or high
or that you’ve spent the rent money
and lied to your woman at home,
because the magic these transvestites sprinkle over you
blinds you for night,
you don’t have to think about having nothing to look
forward to,
not your menial labor,
not your boring life,
nor that you’re just another face in the streets
another silver toothed mouth,
and set of lips grimly pursed
enduring pain,
caught in an O of
horror,
about to speak but fearful,
about to cry out but you can’t,
because once these women
flutter their complacent, honeyed smile at you,
your private thoughts like flies get caught
in the sweetness
and behind your eyes,
everything you’ve learned from hard experience,
is left behind,
and close your eyes
and go baby, go with the current
of the river
never knowing where it originates or ends,
trusting her,
you shatter the bridges
of your life
and head out for open sea
into the hurricane of your lust.
F.
It’s sad to be this way
to know you’re a woman
yet awkwardly stride about town
in a man’s body,
it’s sad
to want to dance and your male body
gets in the way, spills over
with crude movements like a bucket of water
spilling over
yes, it’s sad,
you feel damned, cursed,
and there’s no escaping holding this man’s hand I am
like his mother and escorting him
to the market,
trailing behind me everywhere,
he watches me, he suspects me of abandoning him,
sometimes he’s cruel, and when I weep
he stands back and laughs at me,
yet I know,
I am nothing without him,
my benevolent tormentor,
the enemy that knows my every move,
and what plans I have to escape him
he knows even before I can think them.
I guess in my tears
Singing at the Gates Page 12
