If I were to write a poem about you,
my haunted Spanish artista,
I wonder what it would look like.

Can words on a paper
simple lines and colorless letters
sum up what I feel when
I see you fears?

The war. A war I cannot imagine,
young and innocent as I am.

Would the words be jarring,
a handful of stinging bullets,
LOUD and TOXIC,
bombs and sirens and screams?

Would they be sloooow and sluuured,
blood seeping into the streets,
or the last rattling breath
of a dying man?

Or would they be quiet?
The quiet would be worst, I think
an aftershock of loss and pain,
salty tears whispering down
the cheeks of mothers holding still children,
prayers murmured into the night.

Mi Dios
Ayudame
*Por favor

Smooth and swift
these words fill
the page,
black curves,
glistening
smudged by my hands

Or halting and stiff,
the graphite pencil,
wooden switches and swishes
and my terrible punctuation

Half-formed figures
and plots riddled
with holes,
my broken babies

I write these lines for you
small and quiet,
uneven spaces
and bad grammar,
because speaking is so loud
and my voice is hoarse
and my tongue trips
and stumbles,
and I cannot find the words
to say
to you.

Her skin reeked of chlorine
and yours of cigarettes

She lay in the car, unconscious and unknowing
and you panted and petted and groped
and, sweating, you stole her sanity

I was suckling the barrel
of my grandpa's favorite gun,
when Gloria strolled in,
head held high,
like a 12-story *****.

"What the **** are you doing?"

"Nothin', sweets, I was just wondering about the taste."

Gloria mixed herself a Mt. Vesuvius,
unplugged the telephone,
turned on the tv,
dug her nails into my weary couch,
over and over.

I didn't ask how her day went,
she didn't call me babycakes,
we didn't touch,
I just watched as she changed channels,
sunk further into oblivion,
I traced my kneecap with
grandpa's gun,
it was something to do, I suppose.

"You know you got to get out," she finally said.

I looked like a suicidal *******, baptized in cobwebs,
and every word I threw at every guest teemed parasitic.
I hadn't left the apartment for awhile,
it seemed like every time I did, I would collide with
some enemy, and my bloodlust was subsiding.
I didn't like it to be so awfully one-sided.
"Hey, look at me," she demanded.

Maybe the neurons are crippled,
can't cross the synapse,
or perhaps it's this culture that
listens only to the false priest in its head,
but when no one else around you is living,
it makes the whole gig seem a bit pointless.
"Gloria, sometimes it's better just to die."

A blue cave sits patiently in
His eye, sits welcoming
Herbal songs and idly
Exhaling a rasp or two on
The willow, reeds that stretch
For miles. Nightingales
Sip at their little, pink drinks
And summon their obscure
Relatives who are themselves
Entirely unaware of
What the hell is going on.

The silver general admires
His golden chess strategies,
Neatly printed out on tacky
Paper. Tomorrow the invasion.
Tomorrow those
Friends of his will stare
Like a murdered upcard.

She receives the afternoon
With a  pocket thesaurus embrace,
Whispers an indigo X
Into his reddened ears.
Intelligence penetrates uncertainty
Uncertainty staggers back home.

Tastes iron.
Smells iron.
Feels iron.
Feels it deep.
Feels it deeper,
As it eats him inside out.

I’ve heard there used to be
A blue cave in those eyes.
But they must have
Burned out the sky
With all those fires,
Let alone a little iris.
Discards piled up over the
Half-remembered and half-hated
Songs. Not to mention all
The birds that used to sing them.
We never have birds anymore.

There may only be fifteen
Minutes before the fires catch
Up, but all his words
Would still burn through.
Who can say what lies beyond
The close of eyes save a
Broken string and a splintered
Reed? Rules that defy ink,
Defy Hoyle and his ilk.
Line up the minutes,
The fewer minutes yet,
With a slide rule.

We only feel how sharp it really is
When we meet ours, as he’s met his.