You
fill my veins
with yellow lights
& it beats the glow
of Christmas and New Year's Eve

All i know
is that it feels like
a home
that i've never had

Ruddy's was the place to be on Wednesday nights, cheap drinks, free hotdogs and the graceful presence of Times Square hookers late at night, what a wonderful scene, marines hookers and the best jazz juke box inn manhattan, rowdy and something almost always happened, better than life. I was a young man in a strange country, had my fists tested in FLA and Brooklyn for stupid prejudices on my behalf and others, words hurt only those who do not know their meaning and root. There was a black man sitting next to me, quiet and still, a true barfly, he turned and said;
- you are not from round here-
-  no - I said -I am from Mexico -
- you don't look Mexican, but let's go with it, I don't look African American either-
- r you from the south?-
-Georgia, as they call it -
-well, I've worked in FLA and met some rednecks, Cubans, blacks, but almost no Chinese-
-you mean yellow-
-or *******-
- or ****, you know men, I prefer racism down south, over there the distinction is cut loose clear, we don't like each other, but here, men I tell you, you wannanother beer?-
-sure men-
-Girls just wanna ******* cause I'm black, you know, to be cool and ****-
-yeah, Jewish girls wanna **** white Gentiles, different reasons same goal-
-I hear you, here it's all about being fashionable, but deep in the pit it's all fake as a 10 dollar coin-
  We kept at it until Beth started a fight with another ******, they were calling each other **** I've never heard.

the stars are yellow
the moon is yellow
the sun is yellow

my sheets are yellow
in it is my fellow
his eyes are mellow

he takes my hand
and I take his
and together
              we create lovely yellow

Some people are blank canvases,
waiting for someone to create them,
waiting for someone to make them into something beautiful,
because they cannot find beauty in themselves.
They are the quiet ones;
the ones in the background allowing people to write all over them.
They get used and abused
and don't know how to say no.

Some people are graffiti walls.
They are the loud ones;
the ones under the spotlight waiting for people to see what they offer.
They can use and abuse,
and don't know when to stop.

But someone people are colored walls.
They show there true colors.
They can be bold red;
they can be haunted grey;
they can be lucky green;
they can be depressed blue;
sunshine yellow;
jolly orange;
mellow purple;
whimsical neon;
or pure white.
They are seen as 'lucky' because they seem to know exactly who they are.
But they are the unlucky ones.
They have no chances to become anything else.
They are who they are and have to live with that forever.

I am colored wall dreaming of becoming a blank canvas.

Yellow is the look on your face when I tell you I love you, and the color of the sunshine that lives in your soul. It's the favorite color of the young boy who lives across the street from me who brings me a dandelion every time I leave for work. Yellow is the color that smiles back at you on a bad day and that laughs with you on a good one. Yellow is the sun, fierce and bright, like you.

froths in lichen:
gushing on its bark,
it looks like pollen
was smeared on in
yellow gouache,
ulcers spread to lick
on to each branch.

I let it take over
in the way you
spread your arms
over bed and torso,
in the way your kiss
through the mornings
paint my cheeks red.

Yellow

YELLOW

Y E L L O W!


yellow

yellow yellow yellow

yellow yellow


                                                        ­         Y E L L O W!
                                                            ­                                                   yellow
YELL!         OW!
                                                  Yellow

The day the angels came for you,
I was wearing a lipstick that stained my mouth
the color of raspberries.
When I came into the room,
we both ignored the fact that the monitor showed
that your heartrate jumped when you saw me,
and that my body instantly began to tingle.

I brought yellow roses
because I thought red would have been inappropriate,
and you giggled and made them into a flower-crown for me.
You remembered that yellow stood for friendship and admiration,
and I only nodded in response.

The get well soon cards were stapled to the walls of your room,
but only the outside of them showed,
and we were surrounded by teddy bears and balloons that
did not show the tastes of a twenty year old boy.
The nurse came in and when she saw the holes in the walls,
you shrugged and said that we ran out of tape.
She left in a hurry.

You said that you were excited to leave your body and go to heaven,
because you wondered if the "land of milk and honey"
was really all it is cracked up to be.
I sighed, and slowly asked the clouds
to keep you with me for another day.

You told me you were tired,
but you asked me if I would stay while you took a quick "siesta",
I said I would and when you drifted off,
I fought off my better judgment
and left a mark of raspberries on your forehead,
so when I sneaked out you would wake up
and look in the mirror and see that I told you goodbye.

My lips were still stained the color of berries
when I left red roses on your gravestone two weeks later,
and I wondered if you knew that all this time
I thought you would outlive me.