Stuffed faces with eyes bigger
Than their guilt forget to thank the diseases the pilgrims brought.
Rape and pillage have no place in poems,
Ghostly men have ghastly children.
We all eat eat eat.
Feed feed feed.
Grace your tables and face your partners,
Drink drinkdrink
I used to wonder why we had to tell everyone what
we were thankful for. We already know:
Uncle Paul thanks business
Uncle Saul thanks his mistress
And Uncle Sammy thanks me.
Does dry turkey mean bad intentions?
I act like it's Pesach and keep the door open
and wine in his glass. Was he there
when the women were piled upon
like loose footballs?
Saturday, May 15, 2010
San Jo
Orange stucco boasts of Mariscos,
interrupted
by purple tinted windows, hiding
inside cigarette smoking gangsters.
Coy fish engraved forearms throw
cards and half-scream curses
release pent up tobacco smoke.
I drink coffee with Saigon survivors
staring through lingeried and high heeled
waitresses, endlessly scratching scratchers.
I smell pho and ignore msg
and chew raw meat.
The 20,000 square-foot Sikh temple on the hill
was protested by the white neighborhood
at the bottom of the hill. They built it,
and it crowns the rise,
giving an Indian splendor
to my part of town priming
white washed fences
for new paints
the television simulates
a Crypt Nobel Prize Winner,
Norteños play rock, paper, scissors
with Sureños
and my friend mixes
records, matching beats
for gunshots, wails
for riffs.
When the train wrecks the gunshots
don't line up and the crowd
slumps, and the dj
runs.
Today djs don't try much,
spinning compact discs,
kicking back with their hands behind their heads
and taking naps between mp3's.
The Israeli's wanted photographs
of the synagogue that was
made into a gymnasium,
the locker rooms still cursed
with Hebrew letters. I told them
in America buildings change
all the time, but for money and
not by Cossacks.
I look through
the purple tinted windows at parking lots
filled with wanderers, and I wonder
if Saigon is anything like San Jose.
interrupted
by purple tinted windows, hiding
inside cigarette smoking gangsters.
Coy fish engraved forearms throw
cards and half-scream curses
release pent up tobacco smoke.
I drink coffee with Saigon survivors
staring through lingeried and high heeled
waitresses, endlessly scratching scratchers.
I smell pho and ignore msg
and chew raw meat.
The 20,000 square-foot Sikh temple on the hill
was protested by the white neighborhood
at the bottom of the hill. They built it,
and it crowns the rise,
giving an Indian splendor
to my part of town priming
white washed fences
for new paints
the television simulates
a Crypt Nobel Prize Winner,
Norteños play rock, paper, scissors
with Sureños
and my friend mixes
records, matching beats
for gunshots, wails
for riffs.
When the train wrecks the gunshots
don't line up and the crowd
slumps, and the dj
runs.
Today djs don't try much,
spinning compact discs,
kicking back with their hands behind their heads
and taking naps between mp3's.
The Israeli's wanted photographs
of the synagogue that was
made into a gymnasium,
the locker rooms still cursed
with Hebrew letters. I told them
in America buildings change
all the time, but for money and
not by Cossacks.
I look through
the purple tinted windows at parking lots
filled with wanderers, and I wonder
if Saigon is anything like San Jose.
Fronting Guests
Behind the gleaning bar
I make my final
lean. To them I look,
I make matter what they say drink
and think. Between their eyes is a smoke
signal rising like gravity failing plumed dust.
Hungry bodies release true
curmudgeons within. How can
we stay united when stitched so thin under
the weight of pouring, generic assholeness?
Your assholeness is one indigenous
to our front. One that is fetid, loosely
stemming from the anal undergrowth
of unhappy people. Unhappy yourself
elsewhere,
somewhere else where you can
sing like hoarse frogs to
suits without ties
and bright artwork
and for fifty minutes
and for fortunes an hour
for paid nodding and hmming.
Do you see this? This plate is unacceptable. This is not
what I wanted
what I wanted
what I wanted
what I wanted?
What you want
is not found here.
I make my final
lean. To them I look,
I make matter what they say drink
and think. Between their eyes is a smoke
signal rising like gravity failing plumed dust.
Hungry bodies release true
curmudgeons within. How can
we stay united when stitched so thin under
the weight of pouring, generic assholeness?
Your assholeness is one indigenous
to our front. One that is fetid, loosely
stemming from the anal undergrowth
of unhappy people. Unhappy yourself
elsewhere,
somewhere else where you can
sing like hoarse frogs to
suits without ties
and bright artwork
and for fifty minutes
and for fortunes an hour
for paid nodding and hmming.
Do you see this? This plate is unacceptable. This is not
what I wanted
what I wanted
what I wanted
what I wanted?
What you want
is not found here.
Even If
The lease says
not to punch holes in the wall,
asbestos could kill us.
We decided to drill the
ketubah in even if
it would kill us.
Holey walls can’t stand drill
seargeants’ barks.
But somehow elsewhere
potato bugs roll up only
to be stepped on.
not to punch holes in the wall,
asbestos could kill us.
We decided to drill the
ketubah in even if
it would kill us.
Holey walls can’t stand drill
seargeants’ barks.
But somehow elsewhere
potato bugs roll up only
to be stepped on.
I Want, We Have
How do I fit into this money country?
My mother used to starch my Dickies so they would
stand up on their own.
My father compares the creases in Palestinian and Israeli newspapers
to find some truth,
My wife wants to teach the homeless
how to farm.
I want to go to the South and paint the Klan’s sheets black.
Can you imagine the black sheets burning
crosses, babbling their way across the bible belt?
Plato did not count on polarized Ray Bans and sunblock, and there was no
Magicians Code of Secrecy in Nazi Germany.
We used to squat, throwing cards in a pile, speculating drug sales and skipping school like stones in man-made ponds.
Across town ten minutes east, 31-flavored neighborhoods look into
monochrome country clubs
that hide the sun in their privatized antres.
Sisyphus waves we bulldoze caves closed, scraping away at country clubs baroque gates.
My mother used to starch my Dickies so they would
stand up on their own.
My father compares the creases in Palestinian and Israeli newspapers
to find some truth,
My wife wants to teach the homeless
how to farm.
I want to go to the South and paint the Klan’s sheets black.
Can you imagine the black sheets burning
crosses, babbling their way across the bible belt?
Plato did not count on polarized Ray Bans and sunblock, and there was no
Magicians Code of Secrecy in Nazi Germany.
We used to squat, throwing cards in a pile, speculating drug sales and skipping school like stones in man-made ponds.
Across town ten minutes east, 31-flavored neighborhoods look into
monochrome country clubs
that hide the sun in their privatized antres.
Sisyphus waves we bulldoze caves closed, scraping away at country clubs baroque gates.
Jim Jimi and Janice
You all had your bloodweddings and
did not invite me jim's cars crawl past
stuffed with eyes but do not hear tears
drop on the dashboard did your fingers
weave quick minarets as they smuggled
syringes slowly down telegraph
i slept all night in your soul kitchen
and learned to forget
did not invite me jim's cars crawl past
stuffed with eyes but do not hear tears
drop on the dashboard did your fingers
weave quick minarets as they smuggled
syringes slowly down telegraph
i slept all night in your soul kitchen
and learned to forget
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