Bank of America
So I enter Bank of America as if entering hell.
I mean, one cannot just suddenly enter a slimy cave
at 5:45 p.m. on a Friday, after a day’s worth of poems.
It’s not right. It’s a shock.
Lightheadedness, nausea--
and when my legs all but give out
I request a cup of chamomile tea
The fat teller stares; the guard feels his gun.
Patrons rock their bodies, recount their cash.
Don’t get me wrong:
in the summer of 1989, at age six,
we left grandma's third world mansion
to parade around Mickey Mouse's castle
But now-- vertigo or closing walls--
a huge carnivorous flower
sucking-out oxygen from within the air
praying, drooling on the scattered bodies
"Date it, swipe it, sign it!"
whispers the lizard-tongued teller
An old
Mexican worker
collapses on the floor.
I look around--
one, two, three
clean-shaven men
moving to and fro
displaying straight posture
hair gel, ultra-polished shoes.
I haven’t taken a shower in days
but feel clean.
So I clutch
my old rosary
hop over
the fuming craters
and fling myself out
the nearest window.
A Sick Dog
Scores of children dying of hunger while we gorge on junk food. The wars,
Aids, rape, abuse; decent people suffering like hell before dying. I know, I
know. But last night at 3:00 am I came across a bony dog on Occidental
Blvd. on the opposite sidewalk : black eyes, tongue out and yellow fur
falling. Stumbling too, but from starvation. Anyway. For a minute there
all the pain in the world had befallen upon that sick beast. No other pain
seemed real.
The Burning Whore
True, nothing messes up you up more
than The Burning Whore unexpectedly
knocking on your door at midnight.
I’ve been through it.
It turns out I’m shaving, reading
cooking or taking care of a lady friend
when, badaah! The Burning Whore
materializes on a fat pink horse
that shits all over my Welcome Home rug.
I drop it all. And can’t hide it.
What The Burning Whore wants, I do
—wherever.
Folks on the street flee, appalled.
Don’t talk to me about etiquette, aesthetics
or the Dark Night of the Soul—I crawl along, seeking
the voltages and shrieks her supernatural pussy confers.
Last Sunday, in mass
The Burning Whore winked at me. Jesus! I ran
to fondle her in the back, Holy Communion forgot.
The Burning Whore summons, I go.
But you cannot trust The Burning Whore.
She howls and then hides
amidst the people, hordes of insanitary creatures.
Last winter, dripping with lust
it occurred to me to hunt her down.
I walked out of my house
thinking of salt water and Moby Dick
harpoon and Roman Candle in hand
hour upon hour invoking, chanting
scrutinizing outskirts and ghettos
the sooth-filled alleys where she blooms.
But the cold night caught me
and I passed out in a factory.
At 6 am
the cleaning lady yelled and the cops showed up.
“What cha doing naked under the machinery?”
“Assessing Mallarmé,” I said, blushing.
His Honor was not satisfied. I argued narcolepsy.
Had to set me right: “Sleepwalking, son, sleepwalking.”
At the Salvation Army
they gave me sweatpants and a ripped sweater.
I walked home in the snow
turned the door knob with frozen fingers.
The Burning Whore was spread out on my couch
glaring—oozing her candy-putrid sidewalk oil.
I jumped on her.
I hate my little whore: she’s depraved, evil, wonderful!
The Viking
If he were a man
he’d be a Viking
with his thick paws
and orange fur.
I like Rusty
because he let’s you
play with his ears, his back
the soft spot under his jaw
for hours…days on end
and you think him
such a sweet beast
so soothing and warm
as you watch TV
and just then—son of a bitch!
Two little rips, oozing.
You wash the blood off your hand
hoping not to get rabies
and promise yourself never to pet
the little asshole again.
But by then
he’s on your lap again, purring away.
Virtue
drunk lover:
drink and drive
--kill yourself
in the act
and your mother
from sorrow.
Bukowski
Old drunk
my man
punch me
in the face
rape all
sanitize
the smog
that enters
my lungs
Let’s have a beer
let’s have a moment of silence
Your rage
your moments
of utter disgust
I crave
I walk with you
old drunk, my man
quietly stepping on dirty leaves
making our way through the trash
kicking beer cans and plastic bags aside
I am calm and untouched
and crave the rage I can’t set afire
Take me
old drunk, my man
to the motel room east of La Brea
to the whore with sour sweat in her cleavage
I put my ear down to the poem
enter your binges and moral weight
hear your body surging awhile, then the sidewalk plunge
Flares draft huge shapes across the Los Angeles sky:
must be your beauty making its way to stars.
“Aquel Bato”
before jail he was as stiff as a soldier ready for war
and now
he
reminds
me
of those
old/sick
street
dogs
whose
death-
craving
outweighs
their
hunger
Pussy or a Burger
“Hey man, it’s raining, but can’t stay at home. Be a man, have a beer, catch a cold!”
“Hey bro, what’s the difference between a whore and a bitch?”
The whore sleeps with everyone; the bitch sleeps with everyone but you!”
“Hey dude, take a Bud Light, we look out for you bro, take a piss, relax."
"That chick’s looking at you. Man, you can’t handle your own good looks.”
“Hey man, that was an Asian. That’s like fucking a virgin every time.”
“Hey dude, either pussy tonight or a burger after the bar.”
“Hey bro, it’s all good, a bitch is a bitch is a bitch.”
A Featherweight Against Mike Tyson
I wake up on time
but sleep a bit more
I wake up again
perk up, scared
no time to shower
I brush my teeth
splash water on my face
put on pants, a sweater
deodorant on the armpits
I grab the borrowed laptop
Havana’s Dirty Trilogy
put them in a bag
kiss C. Marie.
butter and dreams
I walk up the long stairs
as if emerging
from an infernal cave
(it’s not so bad)
The car is cold
I hit the heater, start the engine
pass by Chango, hipster café
I might just be a hipster
an equatorial hipster
with an expired passport
and a suppressed need to fly
I sluggishly enter
the bursting freeway
One by one the cars go
as if dancing
this is downtown:
just here, as if never built:
an illusion of arrows
and massive erections
Kurt Cobain screams
and I make up some lyrics
Ass face, review mirror, la, la yeah!
I exit the freeway
drowsy, half-awake
counting the minutes
the mirrors everywhere
I will be
at least 10 minutes late
and hate being late:
nevertheless always
since the beginning
—in the first grade
and now
But I have a rationale:
Arriving 10 minutes late
means insulting yourself and the boss
means admitting you can’t calculate
Arriving 30 minutes late
means entering at your own pace
not running, sweating or half-crazy
means arriving in a golden carriage
staring down the slave master
Suddenly, I turn at a Burger King, hard
two blocks away from Dorsey High School
where I work.
I park and walk in
Madonna blasts in the speakers
very few people eat inside
I order a coffee, 2 creams, 2 sugars
a breakfast sandwich and 3 ketchups
I sit slowly, facing the West
Crenshaw and Jefferson
whales, manta rays, octopuses
the sea-horse-filled sea
—Japan, Korea, the immeasurable China
The heartless sunlight pushes on
while I chew and jot down
this little chronicle, fast
but stopping on the diction
the order of things; that is
killing time while it burns
Here in the US, in LA:
always against the ropes
always a featherweight
against Mike Tyson
I look at the clock
the blacks and the Central Americans
there is time; we eat, face down, waiting
A group of old wrinkled men
play Domino in a corner, smiling
and you know they no longer work
Here now comes
a huge, dark, bony ostrich
dragging his body and rags
leaping forward
in sudden paranoid spasms
He asks for water, gulps it
smiles and walks away, fast
jumping a little, as if dancing
I see him
becoming smaller
disappearing on the street
I take my last byte
throw away the thrash
get in the car, turn off the music
How stupid and juvenile the music now seems
I look at my face in the mirror: arrogant, tough.
and head over my job to do a little work.
666
God came down to earth but he wouldn’t take me with him because my name was 666. Not even the Pope would take me. My friends and family were being taken to the sky, but not me. My name was 666. “I might not have believed in God but I always loved Jesus and I followed what he said and never ever compared him to jackasses like Gandhi or John Lennon (well, maybe Kurt, but that’s only because of the beauty). I always thought Jesus was the most beautiful man ever." But God and the Pope still wouldn’t take me. My name was 666 but I wanted go. I so wanted to go.
I am an Illegal Alien
I
shouldn’t be walking on this pavement
shouldn’t be talking to you people
shouldn’t be eating this food
shouldn’t be speaking this language
I am, knowingly and shamelessly, stealing an education
My every action is a crime
I do no appear, I am not recorded, in the databases
I am merely glanced at, estimated
No social security or driver’s license
I shouldn’t be breathing this air
This air belongs to the American people
I shouldn’t be
Here
Period
Here
I shouldn’t
Be
Period
Yet, hear my words,
This language is my tool
My Stolen machinegun
My knife and my shield
I am a Mexican I am a Chinaman
I am all the black gay atheists
I do not obey your constitution
Do not carry your enlightened traditions
I am water that melts
In your hot, hectic crowds
I am so close to you
But you’ll never see me
You’ll smell my odor
But you’ll never see me
Starring right at you
Right in front of you
I laugh and I melt away
Because, for now,
My duty is to evaporate
I am an illegal alien
This is
Your world
This is
Your Nation-State
I am water
I evaporate
Don’t loose your umbrella
Because one of these days
It will pour down--hard.
Diveblooming, MacArthur Park
Wet summer, 4:45 pm:
red man spread-out on asphalt bench.
Numbed by liquor, lulled by slumber
nailed to the earth by the sexual grope of the sun.
A kind of dive or tightening.
Mexican immigrants playing soccer
with the shrunken head of a cop.
Girls and boys dissolve, cling and echo
roaming about, as they do, in the dust
dragging their sweat along their feet.
A kind of surge or crumbling.
The drunk emerges, yawns, and blinks:
a mole in the kingdom of the sun.
Dripping sky, birds in pentagons, endlessness.
Takes a gulp and begins again
diveblooming into something unaware.
Reasonable Conjectures
Beloved Lafayette Park:
two thousand birds
fly
hanging
a single wing soaked in alcohol.
Mexican immigrants play soccer with the shrunken head of a cop.
“To protect and to serve.”
The immigrants walk around the park
in a drunken/exhausted state; collective perfume overdose
eau de cologne rose from within the grass at night.
The sun is the ultimate king like the Incas stated.
He loves masturbation and will explode.
We must offer sacrifices to the King.
A Good Laugh
Diana held my hand
and in a cool gust of honesty said:
“Everything around you seems to be crumbling down, man.
I’m not talking abstractions here: your stereo doesn’t work
your crappy car overheats every 5 minutes
and your clock is perpetually 2 minutes behind.
Never met anyone like you, man.
It’s almost as if... there’s something innate to you
that breaks things down, fucks shit up”
I looked up at her blankly. She bit her lip.
“Well, at least as a person you’re okay
I mean you’re not sick and you’re not
as messed up as most people in Los Angeles.
Imagine if on top of all your shit breaking down on you
you were also ill within or something!” she said
prompting me to laugh.
I laughed, hard.
Wormholes
this deep hiss wraps a net
around the neck of the world
but bluish piss on my face
does not put
anything
at my fingertips
because of wormholes and nets
this poetry (if it is indeed here)
might appear in Tokyo
or New Delhi now
so what?
instead
of bringing things
onto the world
this apparatus
submerges the world
into itself
sucking-away
physical geometry
from objects
bites are not the world
they are bullshit
not even bullshit
but a sooth-encoded
esophagus
that gags you
from within
without
letting you taste
the very shit
that’s making you ill.
Dawn
At night
the lights of the city
rest upon your skin
flowing in streams of dry water
you seem afar and soft
like rain
the sound of water against stone
all calmness
until
dawn
you
float
for so long, over clouds, so long
the smell of peach
your voice
Zen
I would like to record my every thought
Every particle in the universe is sacred
—or else everything is bullshit
I want to sit in the middle of my monkey-mind
as if sitting under a sky a with an end, a hole
spend my life
watching clouds
plunge into blackness
and if I’m man enough:
fling my body too, smiling.
Zen
I’m searching for a gem in the mud of lexicon
not an ordinary one; it must catch fire—
don’t know what it means
but I’ll recognize it upon view.
I’ve looked in dictionaries
and elegant medical guides
written by doctors (ha!)
One gray night
I sat under a tree
hoping it would fall over me
like an apple or enlightement.
I felt it close to my head
—swimming in it—
it was an unrecognizable form
still, I tried to grasp it
looked under heavy memories
forbidden images and desires
For a second there I grabbed it by its feet
but it soon drowned in the water within my being.
Mirasol
These thirsty little corpses try to ogle the sun
and sniff your granite monuments as if forests lay there
Poor little beasts congregate around you
burning their dead souls in your ancient glory
lowering their eyes at your blaze yet seek your veins
But tell me, pale, queer, queen of the desert migrants
who has constructed you a pyramid?
These tattooed little rascals
are nothing but dead roaches in your silver blood puddles
Not I
the daring young man
on the flying trapeze:
I jump high and hold my yellow hat
scared-eyed but as teenage as ever
walking on flaming thorns but as gay as ever
waiting to bathe in your saliva and feed-off your germs
plunge into your eyelashes and drink from your acids
chic, as I die and retort heaving down your moist chasms
killing time in the meantime; crashing supernovas on my chest
Waking up
Asleep—
raw heart
in warm water
white, radiant fish
dreams
sporadic voices
remembered sensations
everything distorted by a uniform light
infinite metaphors
of an absolute geometry
sparse soul
limpid nerves
a crack:
the world erupts
in the mind
an avalanche of iron
a flood of needles
open/virgin eyes
blades of light, waves
of dirty silence
swollen senses
o u t s m a s h e s i n
flat unconscious
anvil over an egg shell
Subconscious Bio
1) Sick son a bitch with a lovely personality 2) King in the country of the
blind 3) I'll startle you (let me let you down) 4) Now that I think about it
there was a rotating bar in the middle of grandma's pool. 5) Jarchas
Mozárabes and good wine will inevitably end up in revolutionary talk or
3-hour sex with an older woman. 6) When we grew up Diego and I
realized not everyone had a chauffeur. 7) Look at my new shirt! It was fun
stealing for fun. 8) When shit happens South Americans flee to the north,
but we can't handle the winter. 9) Sex at the East LA cemetery: I'll always
love your dark eyes Cherry Coke. 10) She showed me Morrissey and now
I'm an Angelino. 11) Lets kill our fathers and marry our mothers; then we
can read Borges/play chess. 12) We always went to church because
grandma owned it and the priest came to us. 13) The vulgarity behind
manhood surpasses the obscene. Vote. 14) Melanie died at 16 and now
they've killed Lorca. Better study fashion design. 15) Chloe Marie said, "I
like you. You smell like Tobacco and Dolce & Gabbana." I said: "You're so
new, let’s run away together and the poems shall come." 16) Intellectually
agnostic, culturally catholic and aesthetically satanic—all as it should. 17)
When the earthquake stroke dad grabbed the stereo and mom went for
the jewels. Oh shit where's baby? Still inside. 18) Still alive and so far this
is the oldest I've been.
The Drunk Driver Lovers
“Sew your fortunes on a string
and hold them up to the light
blue smoke will take a very violent flight
and you will be changed.” Cat Power.
I. Moonshiner
I don’t want you. But I miss you.
And I want to
go on
breathing
like I used to
leaping
from my bed
to the mud
scrutinizing
ineffectual
intellectual
matters
just want to
go on
pretentiously
seeking
video game
enlightenment.
I swear I try
to broaden
my perspective
put on
my vision
back
but
somehow
become
nauseous
upon those
hot women
I’d never
turn down
before
because
gradually
everything
has become
stale
pilled-up
rotten.
Your scent
delves in my
torso
disorderly
prying it
open
like a stretched-legged
yellow-eyed frog.
Last night
walked into
a random bar
with Luis and Susana
“Rockabilly Night”
seventeen cigarettes
as they danced
and made out
in the corners
like we used to
roaming in
your Explorer
randomly
steaming up
windows
outside bars
and churches
and those dark
and not so dark
alleys
around St. Agnes’s
maternity hospital
killing time
as I gathered
strength to escape
to Berkeley
—but see, poor
South Americans
always
escape
northwards
and
always
neglect
the fact
that they
can’t
handle
the
winter.
Returned
broken and broke
our silent agreement
to love each other
on the run, I know
but wouldn’t have thought
you’d stand by your word
on my mother’s bed
answer your phone
go before coming.
How could you’ve stood by your word?
How fucking dishonest of you.
So here I am
in the patio
with Luis and Susana
and forty seven Elvises
each with a fat chick
on a pretty pink dress
and fake pearl earrings
here I am
standing
(do you know what I’m saying?)
drunk amid Three Flowers and ashes
blowing smoke at the moon
a path so bright it overshadows the self.
Do you ever doubt of your existence?
Do you ever doubt of my existence?
Doubting is imagining is perceiving
so you don’t.
Moon mirror moon, shines and drowns in liquor and clouds;
inside the band was playing a song, “Jump from the Rainbow”
(Won’t call you drunk no more).
II. 3 a.m.
Sobering in the car. Morrisseying
howling, kneeling, moon-drooling
Lord: make me Raskolnikov
endorphined, flowered, cool
but kill me brutally and smiling
safeguarding this cinematic purity.
III. Downward
At seventeen, in my dream,
I finally decide to become a man.
Pink neon lights hold up the chapel in a toxic haze.
This monk has no face, wet forehead, kissed palms.
Got no pupils, been baptized.
The crowd chants my new name and I come out, gleaming.
Ready to fuck as many chicks as my dick allows; I shower,
wake up Sunday noon. Bubblegum melts on the sidewalk.
This junkyard is an ancient coliseum.
People in Jacuzzis, one huge meatball spaghetti plate
and rose petals on the floor.
Boy toy to aristocratic blond and gaunt African princess.
We laugh at our jokes, smoke and get drunk;
lured behind huge pile of trashed Explorers.
Our poor dead souls.
Pretty sadistic gadgets on shinny glass table.
No pillows on the heart-shaped bed.
Can’t see my face, there’s coke on the mirror.
They make out with each other (and me too).
Roundabout, blooming tits up in the air.
Suddenly one of them
(don’t know which)
pulls my zipper down
takes my penis out
and puts it in her mouth
while the other one
goes for my balls.
What? I’m no child.
The twisted iron is patterned!
The two walk away, giggling and drenched.
I walk home, turn on the television and cry.
Wake up at 6:00 p.m. on Sunday
put on leather pants and pink eye shadow.
This time will go straight for the fuck.
The Queen floats in the harbor.
Icarus drowns in the sea.
Here comes
voluptuous
dark haired
green eyed
circus artist
mythological
sea creatures
tattooed
all over
her body.
Grabs me by the shirt and ties my ass to a mast.
Body contortions and flaming knifes.
This is the verge: we’re under the zenith.
Pierced tits on my face:
“Just stick it in, man.”
I jump overboard, swim home
turn on the television and cry.
Next Sunday I wake up at midnight.
The East LA cemetery glows in moonlight.
Fond of updates on ripe epitaphs.
It was she! That translator
ate my heart out when I was a virgin.
She goes on in broken Spanish about Isla Negra
and the grotesque longevity of Pedro, her dog;
then prompts me to expound on the magnificent three:
Neruda, Borges, and Lorca.
How about Paul Rodriguez?
We’re on Cesar E. Chavez.
She turns off the lamp
and subtly unties her black dress:
“Don’t want to be too forward...”
Nervously, I reach into my pocket
find a poem from when I was poet
and softly ask her if she wants to hear it again.
“Never again Fitzpatricio—your belly
is now bulgier than your dad’s.”
I walk home crushed, almost relieved,
and turn on the television to a Chuck Norris marathon.
Macaroni and Cheese with lemon Gatorade.
Frigid mother the scared child is gay.
Stand up, close my eyes
walk across the toxic haze
pink neon lights and face
the faceless monk
Son of a bitch! Cancel my membership!
Not one fuck at the edge of suicide!
Run across up to the edge.
Run across pass the edge.
It’s cold out here in Quito’s colonial streets.
Rain smells like stone cathedrals.
Drunk lover, your face in my spine.
Dawn breaks at Pico Union.
You open the door, I’m soaked.
Just the forehead, drunk lover.
A mere kiss on the forehead.
From the outside,
in his old Chevy truck
tequila and lime in hand
through the prism of rain:
your father watches us.
From the inside
on her knees
pretending to pray
for your brother’s corpse:
your mother watches us.
You blush; I just cry.
Prism
Oh, if I could only hold your heart up to the light
and behold its geometry, limpid as in my prism
blooming unwrapped and not fading
within your dark chest…
But don’t you worry about it
I’m the one hugging the broken crystals.
