dear america,

you are a fucked up crackwhore.
you are bleeding
your purse is open
and your dimes are spilling out onto this
cold street

you are drugged up and pissed off
so you take more drugs
to kill your anger and anything else that comes in your way

you are crazy for those dollars
that you would kill for or fuck for
or die because of

america, you are breathing
but barely.

hold on to life
dry your eyes
fix your stockings
and go back to work

go back and make a nickel
and get a dime bag-
owe the dealer
fuck the dealer

deal is done.

on a warm august

it was 119 degrees in phoenix when she left
monsoons filled that late august afternoon, in flashes
that seemed to start and finish, doubts that
rise and diminish

ema didn't mean to run
her heart was just too big to sit in a stagnant city
all alone with hearts and minds that couldn't challenge
that sweet ema's dreams

he spent his first forty days in bed
quiet and somber as fall came
and squandered his dreams of marriage in the spring

far away ema wandered seas, mountians, and straits
her heart grew faster in ways and shapes
she hadn't thought her creator had cast her

he started to wake up earlier in the morning
sleep less and tried being alive again
it was late november- calls and pictures
couldn't send her- all the love,
hard times- he felt

she left it all in the desert, he left it in a letter
and posted it for all her senders
and then hung his heart up to dry like clay

who left this all to poor ema brown
who just came to learn and sing
she came with a sticker-
'let love flicker'
and slowly you peeled it away

4/4/68

they shot me dead before i was done
they shot me cold, against my hearts hard will
i've said what needed to be said
for they can't kill spoken word with iron

this skin that i have never let stop me before, bleeds-
crimson life on pale white concrete

and i am my demise

strain to keep these lids slivered
maybe my dreams will slip through
so scared to be ripped from this dirt
i've sown with seeds, burnt before the harvest

all may not be lost, but i am

these dreams i've dreamt in color
end in red blood
in a black and white world

Nogales

fast food parking lot, a
border town, a satin lavender
angel sits in a welded metal
meadow and calls me back
a thousand lives, where violet
arms of warrior trees stood
tall and noxious fumes of
shiny boxes still alien to this
chalice of flowered lilac buds, left space
horn ends moment, I am this life and this
man is trying to sell me
zapatos on this street where I saw a child
pissing, just pissing on a street corner
while all these; Chiclets and tequilas and suns
and drums all are screaming my name at once
i answer to them all: let me drink from all of your
poisons and wear your sombreros and salsa through
these gringo-mall alleys
but let me sit near this purple poppy
and sit in my past for a bit
before you put a sol in this
palm and steal dollars from my
pockets, before you take
me to you house and sell me cocaine
and then ask me why I came?
i came to see this tree
or something of the sort to give
me some kind of familiar
sense that somehow, some way
too much beauty escaped from somewhere
and licked this tree to
angelic amethyst glory

while these border streets kindly whistle
for a change

Summer 23

driving. painting fresh powder highway
brushstrokes of tread
light-speed vortex of sky
flakes settle on windshield

laying. mid-day sun
hits face. rooster calls me
awake. warm sun on warm face.
warm face on warm you.

driving again. mad song,
anxious air. calm you.
lost in a box, on pavement
in the small of your neck

almost asleep. down feathers
on bare skin. night laughs
between loving lips-
locked. bodies.
hearts. in Slumber.

Summer 11

city lights gleam with the idyllic epitome of some american dream
follow your heart; follow some dream
it would seem
i would deem
the alluring gleam
the enthralling beam
as empty
absent of a filling

not even
a light cream

keep this quiet

america! america!
let me breathe one second , just enough to write a page
let me lament all your martyrs and saints, piss on their graves
let me kiss your toxic-plastic imitation of perfection
and watch my tongue succumb to violent fits of fear and rage

america! america! gobble up staged elections!
inhale them with a big mac and an apple pie
apple pie with chemically altered genes
that have also been taught not to see
even your apples believe your lies,
america