I want to be
                 your happy poem
    to write myself
                             into your eyes
your lips, your shoulder blades
to fall into your soul
                         and leap from there
into that heart within your heart
not known to you just yet

I want to be
                    the verse that rings as true
        as the promise of your gaze
late in the day, an uncontemplated
word
a whispered phrase which keeps
and holds and stays with you
                throughout the day

I want to be the sound
                        and smell of fresh felled rain
to stir your thoughts as you awake
                        a storm
relentless, unafraid
                       to bring your laughter
and retreat into the wants
                                      within your veins

I grew up in a tough neighborhood,
Seen and experienced every kind of
Street hell you can think of.
Its no secret I was a drug addict,
I beat that.
Its no secret my mother was shot dead
In front of me.
I beat that.
All who know me,
Well, you all may not like me after
I told you I was dead.
I beat that.
So for those who are fighting,
Those who are bullying,
I send an open invitation to bully me.
To hate me, to write bad stuff
About The Dedpoet.
Leave all those other guys alone.
I can be your punching bag.
Because I can take it,
Because after all,
If we met in the streets I would
Hug you with a haiku,
I'd lay kisses on your cheek
With a thousand sonnets from
Neruda.
I'd read you Octavio Paz
Until you realized you are not a poet.
Poets do not bully,
They understand, they are philosophical
Word artists whom write the human
Condition and deal with the chaos
Of this world with peers.
So bully, so whomever you are,
Attack me, someone who knows
What you really are.
I can take it,
Just leave the real poets be,
This is an open invitation.
Let the fun begin, if you have the
Metaphorical ***** for it.

My name is stolen like a Spaniard
Inquisition,
My heritage barely a patch of fog,
What is the truth of myself unwritten?
   " Your name is....You shall be called"
My father once said,
But I sign this name at the end of no poem,
Are you sure this is my name?
Have you navigated the flows
Of lava in my bloodstreams,
My geographical mind that beckons
A deep bitter valley,
Dark beautiful mountains that have
Reclaimed by nature what my people
Claimed her?
Can you see my subterranean pyramids,
My great moist jungles,
Gutting out advanced mathematical models,
Bleeding precise positions of stars,
I can cry the Winter Solstice,
Oh my proud heart pounds
Through my chest with dreams of then,
When the Coyote was sacred and the
Nature of all things was balanced
Even in the darkest days.
Am I Gonzales from the old Spaniard name?
Does my brown skin and hairless
Arms not cry for the Aztec of my ancient
Fathers?
The root of my root,
The flesh of my flesh,
The veiny branches of a family tree
Where wild flowers grow in
The words of the Aztec bark,
Bleeding its sap through me,
Is this Spaniard to you?
(I know the difference)

Let me ask my blood:
Do you not see the fire in my eyes?
Don't you see the fire raining tears
Of embers onto paper,
Every word a burnt offering?
Maybe one does not know of my
Great grandfather in the valley
Of Mixcoatl, there he lived as the last
Nocturne, his great scar along his back,
The last of a warrior
Where he died among the stars of his fathers,
The scar from a knife, a knife that
Stole his true name!
Has Olin and Ehecatl taken it
With a breath of wind?
I will take the Sun Stone with you Octavio!
Take me home.....

And I can see it!
The noble people forgotten
As time forgets all,
My voice of the Warrior grateful
And speaking like a shiny tip of
Spear piercing the night wolf!
I am no longer a riddle in the water,
But a pure flow of immenseness,
A profound respected beast,
I feel the purity of ancient things,
I dissolve into memory's ink,
My combatant blood boils,
The land flames of my fire,
The people of the Sun!
My ancestral blood with calloused feet,
My ancient jungles,
Tamers of beasts,
Oh the Aztec Dream,
Yes, I am what my blood says I am,
What's in a name?
The identity misidentified.

I read in a poem,
Sky black,
             Scorched Earth.
But the night is a jigsaw:
I sit on my porch and constellate
The fires, the fathers of worlds
While I think of the words
To perceive what I will never touch.

My spirit ascending
To touch a thousand
Light years of light,
They have never heard a word,
So I write the fire,
Like a son to father,
The poem becomes a legacy
Of flames thirsting for words,
I drink in the light
And give to them words,
They will never know why,
The poem will reach them
As an ember of misunderstanding.

The immortal word
Is a light reflected .
I will write to the stars,
And when the poem reaches,
I will have gone from this place,
I write because I am a man,
Mortal and dying,
My words will remain.

The stars constellate men.

gentle water ripples
snow of falling flower petals
soft the landing of your lips
we merge like clouds in dream
become one, learn to breathe in sync

Blackbird
shadow death
witness
the spiraling
madness

glide
silent over
once vital beehive
shorn gray
paper thin

sip
raw honey
hardening
in the merciless
heat

nourish
the suffering
concentration-camp thin
jutting bone
slack skin

reflect
the boundless light
of a shield
wrought from
love

honor
these golden
futile gestures
they are not
infinitesimal grains

Blackbird
with beaded sight
testify
*do not avert
your eyes