Cabeza de Vaca
In Galveston

Journeys on
To Mexico City

1537
Leaves for Spain

Unusual
May his tale remain

                         Unexplained

the white clouds cried
it rained sideways
silver-dollar sized
raindrops
in
the
ghost town
of Galveston
while
you hear
the rain
in Galveston

I'm big
I suppose that's why my women always seem
small
but this 6 foot goddess
who deals in real estate
and art
and flies from Texas
to see me
and I fly to Texas
to see her--
well, there's plenty of her to
grab hold of
and I grab hold of it
of her,
I yank her head back by the hair,
I'm real macho,
I **** on her upper lip
her ****
her soul
I mount her and tell her,
"I'm going to shoot white hot
juice into you. I didn't fly all the way to
Galveston to play
chess."

later we lay locked like human vines
my left arm under her pillow
my right arm over her side
I grip both of her hands,
and my chest
belly
*****
****
tangle into her
and through us
in the dark
pass rays
back and forth
back and forth
until I fall away
and we sleep.

she's wild
but kind
my 6 foot goddess
makes me laugh
the laughter of the mutilated
who still need
love,
and her blessed eyes
run deep into her head
like mountain springs
far in
and
cool and good.

she has saved me
from everything that is
not here.

lord
it
rained
for
forty days
and
forty nights
the
hunted rain
of
Galveston
rained down
upon
us
like
a
bucket of nails
and
pitchforks
all
through
the
wicked eyes of night

I see you in the dust particles
waltzing in late afternoon sunbeams
I see you in endless train tracks
curving out of sight and into
uncharted territory inside your chest.
I'm sorry I didn't know how to loosen
my dead bolt grip, you were your own world
and I selfishly believed
I could grasp your full potential in my tiny fingers.
I assumed you were linear,
two dimensional;
one chapter rather than
an entire library of life.
I know you wanted me to speak up,
unhinge my jaw and let
the unwritten poems of my mind
seep into your ears.
I didn't think telephone wires stretched
across so many miles just for dead air.
I didn't think you were
listening so hard with your eyes.
I've been shaking my head,
trying to find a solution
rattling around in some stray cranial nerves.
Maybe that's why they call it shock
when it's not electricity at all.
We went from caves and brutality
to covered patios and toxic taser tongues
ready to etch high voltage vocabulary
into my bones until that's all I have left.
You wanted a better fight
but you shorted my circuit.
I let go all at once and I couldn't turn away
when you stumbled and crashed into a new reality.
I still have trouble laughing
around the lump in my throat
when people joke about trees falling in forests
because the way you said my name
still has me by the throat and some days
I think your grip is what kept my feet on solid ground

gently
our
hearts grabbed
the
armadillo red sunset
witness
across
the
screensaver skyline
while
leaving Galveston

What am I and where have I been?
Time is looping once again
and folding back in on itself
it seems to be, or rather to me,
that the spiral theory is proving true again.

I don't know if I'm fully innocent,
or satan-sent or sinner's breath
or whatever the **** I am,
I guess I ain't frankly know ****.

Yet I'm dissecting sections of myself,
metaphorically in this particular case,
and trying to get to the bottom of this...
this medical-spiritual experience that has been
ripping itself forth through my reality
like a ******* hurricane through Galveston.

Perhaps with enough illumination
certain features of the creature called me
will come to light and brighten up my days.

Who's to say?
I'm certainly not.