breadcrumbs

 ***

you once shared with me

your five year plan

and asked me to 

write one too

without realizing

my five year plan was

you, just

you.

***

Hennequen

 

Mexico

at the stake

Mexico

with flaming arrows

Mexico

the scimitar'd

Mexico

the crowny thorn'd

Mexico

strangled by its

own cord

Mexico

The Pope killed

our president

Mexico

that grim art

fabric, twine and

cardboard kaleidoscope

like the scrapbooks

my mom used to make,

and cochinita, to write

on Fernando Garcia Ponce

is to deal with un problema universal

and his personal desperation

precaucion: obra en proceso

rolling stones and Dylan
on the radio
searching the whole wide world
for the holy gringo
(at least that’s what i heard)

and the parque san juan

with the birds chirping

not such

an unusual thing, but it felt

noteworthy

what fantastic reliefs

what sculpted truths

what sacrificial lambs

what serpentine roots

in uxmal, beheadings, for some

great god

and hoops to pass the heads through

wait, no, there was rubber

for that

the heads rolled after

walled windows in the distance

that form staircases in my mind

climbing higher into ____

(i left this part blank

for some reason)

and a palm facing east

the highest form

of expression to the gods

water

refracts

but in blue

light

drips

down the wooden staircase

the best rip off

we ever had, 

as i floated

taking pictures 

without a GoPro

ferrying my cell phone

over the river Styx

like Charon

with a life jacket 

so that it wouldn’t 

get wet 

would i have gone after it

if it had sunk?

And Garcia Madero

who gets into the Impala

on New Year’s Day

knowing

he was never meant to stay

isn’t that a great moment

in the story, 

when everything 

is about to change?

Tu y yo, Merida

Dancing chairs and

Trucks full of hair (rope,

i am later told) upstairs, 

la revista militar

de avacion, aerofotogrametria

beneath the chandelier lights

"they were just towns, 

and now, they are

actually cities"

Jesus, the Meridian teen

who dreams of dinosaurs

in New York, and sells

hammocks from heaven

(cielo is the word,

if you really must know) 

and Yuri Knorosov

staring at me with

his cat, cryptic as the 

Mayan tablets he labored over

and found here, in Merida,

amid easter egg houses,

surely they knew their scribbles

would be immortalized, forever

in a jpeg taken on Jimmy's phone

which more conscientious beings

recovered

long after the world

exploded.

Google Play Store

 I am here

screaming for you to witness

my existence, like

an app that has been

recently downloaded

and whose notifications

have yet to be turned off

sin titulo

 

***

have you thought

about the ways

our faces have changed?

sin titulo

they're all we have

and yonis of strange

and Yucatanian ways

Ladies walking

armadillos through the sand

Gerda Gruber

on the nightstand

beating hearts on

arrow tips and

ceramics

we cannot touch

seashells, and

emoticons, hojas

we leave behind,

even the devil

reads

and when we lift serpents

Above our heads

it appears that we are

kissing

*** 

A Moon Over Mexico

 ***

the historians 

are careful to note

that when the Spaniards arrived

this was 

a declining civilization

the Mayans

and this temple 

in Tulum

with the statue tying

its umbilical cord

to the goddess of

fertility

where the door

gazed out to

the rising sun in the east, 

and i joked that

somebody now should create 

a temple to infertility, 

that these days, such a place

would drive pilgrims from

all the world around. 

and then in Mahahual

me writing

to remember what I

forgot

and my buddy

who rubs his temples

each morning

trying to restore the

mohawk that he lost.

white sand feeding

white necked palms

thatched roofs and

sudden storms

the peace before

and guero girls dancing

in the wake

a photographer waiting

at the break

chirping, as the birds did

laughing

at the ridiculousness

of it all

Their beauty and

the miracle of flaunting it

in impossible blue waters

so much fish

in the sea

when the camera 

was gone

one returned from the land

into fossilized waves

as it was always meant to be

and danced, her rainbow colors

fluttering

finally, free.

***

Communion

these days my heart 

is always on the verge

of breaking in two

like communion hosts

dipped in wine 

once made sacred

once made divine

whales in baltimore

 *** 

they say trains sound like tornadoes, 

but sometimes, in Baltimore,

when my eyes were closed 

to the neon purple lights outside

my shadeless windows

the trains sounded more like whales

singing their songs

out into the darkness, 

keeping me 

awake.

and somewhere in Mexico

there are people

wide-eyed with want

watching whales flip fins in

Puerto Vallarta

wishing to hear them sing

as i already did. 

*** 

editing

some times i wish i could be 

the paper beneath your pen

you can tell a lot about a person in

that space between a period 

and a sentence's end, 

and all the times you erased

the thoughts you thought alone

in order to communicate

i understand the urge

i really do

but for once, let me be

the blank page upon which you fill

your random musings

unfiltered and true and flawed

the dusty window pane forming

the glorious kaleidoscope

of sun on a Saturday morning

in winter, when things

are chilled but not yet cold.

jellyfish lake

give me that luminescent love

all squirming, mindless affection

like jellyfish in a lake

that cannot sting, it

is not in their nature,

floating beneath the surface

brighter than the sunset of

a thousand Chinese lanterns

every time i kick, they

are there, spinning out into

the water-logged void of centuries

trapped from the ocean

left only to themselves and

one ancient fish

until a stranger climbed a mountain 

and dipped his fins into

the water’s edge

i'm sorry for not texting you

 ***

you see, you met me

in a haze, i was 

airy and about to

evaporate with

the smallest heat

and so i clung to this belief

like a lassoed mast

if our words remained words

as in, pixels and letters, 

as in, unspoken

then that would mean

some thing.

and so i sat in your poetry

which you lent me, so generously

of orchards and gay lovers and dandelions

dangling from trellises of

sweetness, 

gratitude

is what he sang of, a Black man

in Indiana, so in love with soil and soot

it made me want to learn

how to pick up a shovel and

lay by it in a grove of weeds that aren't

weeds, when you call them

by name, next

to you.

feeling slow jazz over

that experimental stuff you

had records, mostly

your father's collection and I

thumbed through their titles thinking 

of hand me downs

the things, we, hand down

and the silliness, the way 

we always say 

daddy issues as if

the victim

were to blame.

and when it was my turn

i made Greek coffee

and you sipped it, and read

the grounds like letters

(like the Turks, you said

which i forgave)

the future splayed all

forms unknowable

and pure,

like the empty

subject line

which we filled

a dozen times and then

a hundred more, with the fruits

we grew in winters weeping

and summer daze, until

we had a garden of our own

to roll in, you picking

at each leaf to save the ants

and me missing

their forests for their seeds

between my teeth

and, for a while, i felt

the earth.

now, how i wish

to turn the years back

to when you gave me your number

and i, romantic and foolish,

never texted, preferring

our strange methods until

the day when i saw 

the news and needed

to call you and know

you were

fine.

and now i'm poring over 

all those signatures we wrote

changing each one

as if in on some joke, 

from "cheers"

and "peace & birds" 

to "pizza pies and

harmless lies" 

and all the other ways

we chose to say

goodbye.

***

alien fish

 ***

i twirled love idly

between my fingers

like the chop sticks i

never learned

how to properly use

when i 

was young

and languages 

were so easily mused

***

Colorado River

***

i'm just looking for love in all the wrong places

as in, i'm looking for love

in you

and all those silly little spaces

you used to fill

hunchback horses and camel packs

sipping water from the source

as i descend into the valley

east of eden

the garden becomes a plain

it's all hot sun from here, the guide said

if i were you I'd turn back

we pressed on laughing, 

knowing it's all just a little sun burn

and three miles of heat stroke

was worth the view

of the river snaking the grand canyon below

colorado, colorado

and there i go again

looking for love in all the wrong places

looking for love in you

***

Zion

***

dusty roads and stubbed toes

fingernails of soot and wine

and cliffs on the horizon

one cloud in the sky

this desert heart of mine

emerald pools and water falls

children playing in the dirt

and trees like pigments

blurring my eyes

this desert heart of mine

golden brush and golden hours

lighter fluid, sweaty fires

and tinder scattered

shattered twigs

this desert heart of mine

and the sun sets on Zion

the sun sets on Zion

oh, desert heart of mine

***

Father's Day

***

it doesn't make me better to suffer

it doesn't make me the better man

it doesn't make me better to suffer

it doesn't make me the better man

so i'll have you know

as i go

i tried to understand

so i'll have you know

as i go

i tried to understand

***