Green Fatigues Midnight Shift

Night shadows walk in green fatigues
stressed out on plasma,
delivered in helicopters
by trauma boys
working midnight shifts
inside non-anesthetic hell holes.

Mud thick as soup, up to our boots
in trench foot. Flesh rots daily
and maggots feast
on gorged brain stems.

Scenes are horrific, this war
is horrendous.
There is no turning back.
Russian roulette is a coward man's
plight under two moons of adversity
that mocks us daily.

Mosquitoes net their buzz
around our necks thick as molasses.
Heat wraps a devilish sarcasm
into our letters back home.

Johnson sends out daily rhetoric
on deafened ears to green boys
loading ammo, fighting
off the Vietcong.

Some hobble off to memories
where feet were still intact,
now a distant foe.
Dog day Sun forgot the diamonds
this side of Mother Earth's tit.

Tapestry of Women

Tapestry cloth woven
by tribunals
guided by a great spirit
threaded toward faded sky.

Drinking from the cup
of solidarity,
sisterhood elders
shared sweetgrass
healing their birthing rituals
from ancient days.

Skylarks sang manifests
on chords of joy.
Dressed in ceremonial regalia
attended they were handmaidens
at the happiness freedom dance.

Eagles paid homage
as their opulent feathers spread
to gather mothers and daughters
from around earth's skirt
one-by-one.

Mixed ancestry in muted colors,
in various shades of tribes
that were blended
into cornmeal offering
preparations for the feast
of afflicted supplication.

Blue anguished ones
stood behind a valley of shadows.
Hidden in rows of cotton
distilled by a perilous
abyss.

Heirloom quilt was sewn
for woman's bravery.
Painstakingly hemmed
by the blood of oppressed
sisters from every nation.

Hush Sweet Anne

Walking toward the stars
lighting a frail-boned path,
the art spills agony stones
lined collectively for freedom
as a nation remembers.

A high price paid for prejudicial
hatred torn into the yellow sand.
Mourning tears and fears
of Jewish children echoing
across the shore
waving innocent flags
of their unconditional acceptance.

Hitler and the Gestapo crows
with swastikas engraved
in historical sorrow, uplifts
a collective pain from the marks
of a generation tattooed
like the numbers they were assigned.

Wind blows an uncommon
sound, piercing bites
of terror ridden humanity.
Huddled in mass unmarked
graves stockpiled
onto the next
era to grieve.

Wailing sounds upon the wall of agony,
it blows against my face.
Wiping countless moisture
from my eyes shed
in pensive reflection
as the photos
retell their plight.

All I can do is listen to skeletons
that walked, talked and breathed
infusions of their past
that held out in determination
against Adolf, Goebbel and Dachau.

Rattling in the concentration breeze
it freeze frames Auschwitz's painful tale
into the museum exhibit,
where life blood
of the next generations
remember, learn and overcome.

Notes from the Asphalt Jungle

Part I

Beggars underneath barren landscape,
in poverty fatigues.
Bloodshot eyes stare up at us
in crazed delusions.

Two black asphalt jungles,
where passersby throw bottles
into hypocritical hands.

Underneath life's junkie bridge,
humanity constantly invades
to seek a pauper's compassion.

Part II

Tarmac hooker junctions line
strewn alleyways
quick peek reality
edged brutality needles.

Two fields divide double jeopardy cans
kicked upward toward a stucco sky,
disguised inner city quest
to overcome their excessive greed.

Bullets ring out as children play drive-by
hopscotch near Mary Jane's shanty.
Crackheads exposed
aren't always
split into dirty concrete.

When I Wore Graciela's Iguana Hat

My aunts stand in the backyard
each holding a chicken upside down.
Twist that pollo neckbone Tia,
all of you go:
P-o-p!

Let me wear a dia de muertos
headdress for nuestra senora.
Las iguanas growing out beyond
the lizard woman attire of my head,

were captured along
"sin fronteras culture"
"without borders"
for Janet's picture
in her "I Dream
of Jeannie" pantaloons.

Salsa y magnifico rhythms, symbols
and imagination influence
Mexico's daughters as they hold
their Aztec skirts outstretched for Carlos
in neolithic style.

Black and white snapshots swiftly gel
the cohesive movement and tonal beauty
mixed in textured detail with image spirits.
It's border beckons
as my shutterbox closes
in a freeze-framed
pause.

Two Fish and a Holler

North winds stirred crisis
on dusty liberal party roads
caught between the net
as two fish swimming
against swift currents downstream.

Buffalo spirits blanketed
a national debt,
cloaked in barbed wire
surrounded by slavery of resolution.

Red dust settled in oil fields,
near patches of sweetgrass
and elderwood.
Stones pieced together
in intricate beadwork
for a rain dance gathering
near anguished skies.

Lovejoy danced in pow-wow
peace talks, but words
fell in forked tongued paths,
predetermined by crooked White
man's fear of a Wolf Spirit.

Dark Clouds at St. Ignatius Loyola

Rain fists beat the ground like a prize fighter
with onslaught toward wind, earth and nature.
Eyelids of the clouds circles black
anguish underneath the sky when it thunders.
Darting from side to side, corpulent,
bruises are revealed until a balm recalls
the gusts homeward.

Lemongrass grieves underneath massive
layers of dirt. St. Daphne knew about
a saltload of tears contained in vials,
spilled into rivers. Bell tolls acrimonious lies,
clothed in traditional resurrection style,
alarming the saints in the nearby cemetery.

A luna face sends out blue rays
wrapped in black shawls. She is not sweet
like Mary; moon woman alarms the insane
rocking to and fro in their mind cells.
Cold sets upon the pews, gothic-lined.
Confirmations sprinkled in forgotten
reminders of pale ash.

Knuckled white ghosts genuflect,
marking themselves by rote, making the sign.
Empty lips swing bronze sifters
uttered at the holy hour of madness
by lip-syncing idiots dressed
in chameleon robes.

Masked promises hover in the clouds in shades
of Dorian Gray, set to a dark tempo.
Monks chant in brown sacks in the distance.
Just a mirage in the archaic courtyard.
Sister Agnes inside the lawns of
St. Ignatius Loyola, prays through
the iron window for daffodil sunshine.

Inside the head of an Asphodel

Bandaid Berkeley ideals walk the mink city
tightrope. I wish for Fairbanks looks,
hung like Gary Cooper
and charger baby boy stud blue eyes.
Zoe, would be my sweet rosey love vixen
with two pin-up sparklers and gigantic
42D Torpedo Bombers to turn on.

Underneath her eyes are a sadness
swiped in Kohl. She walks Fifth Avenue
like a skeleton with her seams lined.
She wears bright tomato colored heels
and lipstick dressed for sex.
A sunflower sutra with 69 patterns
draws me into her sausalito chick salad sin.

Cowardly, I cultivate asphodel playing
with word pottery,
not able to say anything like Jack.
I whistle dixie and utter in assonance,
"Baby, you look hot!"
Shambala and the Glass Chicken
band play as I lamely try to
tune the soprano saxophone.

Diverse Works Funky Diner

Local diner captures mood
with a splash of ambiance
wiped with a caustic cloth.
An antiseptic air
where no one cooks
lemon meringue conversation
anymore. Pity really.

Heinz 57 discussions
engulf each chrome stool. I want to spit
out stale Machiavellian grits.
Floss the inside of my
head where a mascon booze
guzzling guy eats sloppy burritos,
he turns my guts in and back out.

Rum doesn't look good
in the morning. This coffee sucks,
it has no sugar. Saccharine
packet wallpaper and a pancake flippant
waitress, minus the a la mode.
I think her cook called in sick.

Jack's Poet Potluck Special

Santa Monica's trash talk slicks
and visionary headless mavens peer
through a mirrored glass
where fallen angels and wicked
leprechauns kick box lithead ghosts
nightly at the comedy jam.

The water is purely polychromatic.
"Are you being served?"
the polygon waitress
asks to the one-eyed woman
and headless man who sip
atomic cocktails underneath
a sanguine moon at the sidebar.
Hippy chicks chat
about whiners and loud mouth liars
as they await the midnight bus.

Punk funk boys and a brassy dragon
tired whore on Main were left
to thumb rides on a super highway
headed for purgatory on the way
to their museless perdition.
They traded their souls
a long time ago at the plastic surgeon's
barrio where sailors used to hangout.

 

Candied Youth

Bright eyed sassy Susan Mercedes
appeals to this Malibu
soul man
Baby curves wind around
sultry sides of your smiles
curved against toes of open freedom

drive us fast
until we explode
inside a dare devil pavement!

Eye candy sugar mama
on summer Florida days
sizzle tin to skin

Let me kiss you
sweet boy
turn hot rod roads

into metal sizzle.
Melt us into leather
charms of your laugh,
I dare you

just one
for youth!

Sweet air kiss deliverance!
Let me truffle you in leather traffic
jacketed denim stop lights

Blind out honk noise
from those who
have forgotten how
to caress open roads
of cross country youth

Mock freedom baby doll
paint me wonderful youth blue
shades of your sexy body
You are my V-6 3.8-liter
full of sweet youth candy