Write till your fucking fingers bleed,
blood soaking
gripping the tight lines
with no
remorse.
Look away from life past
just like those brave souls
aboard the Titanic;
fathers, husbands, caregivers—
they put their skulls
inside the icy jaws
of the lion
as it roared
then pryed them out
and stared back
warmly.
They sent off
future gem-studded
dynasties
under dazzling and indifferent stars
while the band
played
one last song.
 |
Hopefully, you forget me.
those greasy kitchen coffee mornings;
the insects humming in the sun;
the grapes of laughter
or the green hills
that made our skin cry.
I was viciously aware
that I was running out of you.
And off you ran—
skipping
into the marble bushes.
I forgive your thorned laughter
even though it almost killed me
when you left.
Hopefully, you forget me.
But I never do.
I'll see you in the vines
and I'll toss some fruit over the fence
just like every time when
I used to think of you.
A poem a day
keeps the demons at bay.
No—it doesn't actually.
But you can learn
to live;
above them.
Bukowski said, "Find what you love and let it kill you."
Sure.
For it is in
dying
that we are born
to Eternal Life.
A-fucking-men.
 |
| Snowbird, UT—top of the Tram. | Photo: Author |
Who am I to say that
one man's path
to God
is better or worse than another's?
I see Him all the time,
everywhere.
Like in Mendoza's eyes,
those sweet, pristine little
hazel droplets of honey;
perfect skin;
hair sleek
like the sun
and a confidence
so fine
but not mine
—God's.
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| The Tall City. | Photo: Flickr |
I'm from West Texas. From the Permian Basin—Midland, to be specific. The Tall City.
Midland is the kind of town where black dudes come up to you at the gas pump in the night with a serene smile, promoting their mixtapes and kush;
where billionaires' daughters drive to school in white Range Rovers to sit in class with young Mexican boys living in poverty, whose parents don't give them lunch money, but yet they still afford to buy a gram or two of weed at lunch and maintain a fresh tapered haircut indefinitely;
a Swisher-Sweet and a sweet tea at lunch always does just fine.
Midland is the kind of town where everyone has sold drugs at some point in their youth or another, even the white boys, if only just for fun;
county jail is a revolving door,
sobriety is best practiced in moderation,
and where, if you stay beyond graduation, you either start a family or an addiction
or you die,
usually a thousand times before you really do.
Just ask my buddy Chris.
He was dead long before he went out like Cobain.
He never did do anything small, though, did he?
That's what West Texas teaches you
to never not
go all the way with the damn thing.
parties, drugs, women, football, Jesus, enchiladas—
that's why if you stay, chances are you'll dig all the way to Hell.
Or you escape
and get far enough away that you eventually start to love again
where you're from.
