"adobe" poems
I sit along in the dark bamboo grove,
Playing the zither and whistling long.
In this deep wood no one would know -
Only the bright moon comes to shine.
5.6k
Maria Ressa, ano'ng problema?
Ba't hanggang ngayon, mukha pa ring lamanlupa?
Nagkakalat-lagim sa mga balita
Mayro'ng yayari sa'yo.
Ito'y kuwento ng....
....isang BULATE,
TUKMOL sa umaga,
TUOD sa gabi,
Pisngi man niya'y punuin ng kolorete
Mukhang BANGAW pa rin, walang silbi
Ibaon na ang IMPAKTA.
Maria Ressa, ano'ng problema?
Bakit mukha pa ring nayuping pugita
Mga galamay mo panggulo sa media
Mayro'ng yayari sa'yo.
Ito'y kuwento ng....
....mga payaso
fake news sa umaga,
fact-check sa gabi,
mukha nila ay sintigas ng adobe
bungo naman laman ay kamote
Ututin pa ang bunganga
Maria Ressa, ikaw ang problema
Hilig **** magkalat ng maling balita
at kapag sinita biglang magpapaawa
#DefendPressFreedom kuno?!
Ito'y kuwento ng....
....mga bulate
walang voter's I.D.
banyaga kasi
bida-bida, sumasama pa sa rally
wala namang bilang, hindi noypi
i-deport na sa kangkungan
Maria Ressa, walang problema
kahit maglaho pa tulad mo sa media
Marami pang ibang magbibigay ng balita
Walang manghihinayang sa'yo
Ito'y kuwento ng....
....mga bulate!
Jul 17, 2020
Jul 17, 2020 at 10:50 PM UTC
my belly grows the size of a bag of apricots
there is a will at the bottom of a lake that needs retrieving
the car sank but the body made it to the shore and changed her name by midnight
come springtime the ice melts and the water is back
crawling upon shy ankles
there are growing pains who find a home between nettles and
the hives of adobe wasps
i never could cohabitate with nature
when they ask at parties where i've been
things that are at rest stay at rest
Jul 19, 2018
Jul 19, 2018 at 6:20 PM UTC
A Tribute
A king takes supper on a creaking deathbed. Featureless, winged creatures zoom by the dark condensed windows. Micro parasites build adobe headquarters in his soft tissue. Reaching for a plate, he groans the terabyting howl that’s prescribed with chemotherapy. Qwerty and light from the drugs, he stares at the apple on his tray. Lost in its curves, he finds himself trapped in a safari of memories. A dream devolves upon his downtrodden mind….
The canopy is populated with twittering, angry birds. Pools of social blood attract flies to the googolplex degree. He stumbles through the dell, suspicious forest while a tremulous, fiery fox stalks behind his echoing footfalls. Pixar apes swing from trees chased by grisly, disney men with guns and trucks. A large eye tunes the darkness and blinks red upon an aging mountain lion in shadow’s brush.
The sony rays belight foliage in auspicious, plaid-orange hues. This amazon of experience plugs the wanderer into a hard drive of intelligence – a gateway to an encyclopedia of wikis and browsers, expanse enough for any backdrop rooftop audience to be faux-enthralled and eager. There are grumblings in the distance of another engine tromping the scope in search of something new and useless. A rumorous bat upsets the plagiarizing tide of the Atlantic Pea Sea. A snake slinks out of the blossoms clinging to the vines among a macintosh tree and bites the salty flier of the washboard night; cyber venom invades his veins.
The average, homeless, bounding, warrior awakens to find a cold supper on his lap and another syringe in his arm. His remaining gums support his teeth as they bite into the apple. He swallows, sighs, and rests his balding, crescent, once-handsome head on the white pillow. The green fruit tumbles gently out of bed and mutely rolls to the floor.
With that, Steve Jobs is dead.
Oct 22, 2012
Oct 22, 2012 at 12:03 AM UTC
I'm paying tribute to one of the finest Poets I know, Tony Hoagland. He recently passed away from Pancreatic Cancer at 64 years young. This is one my absolute favorites and I believe you'll love it also.
Romantic Moment
After the nature documentary we walk down,
into the plaza of art galleries and high end clothing stores
where the mock orange is fragrant in the summer night
and the smooth adobe walls glow fleshlike in the dark.
It is just our second date, and we sit down on a rock,
holding hands, not looking at each other,
and if I were a bull penguin right now I would lean over
and ***** softly into the mouth of my beloved
and if I were a peacock I’d flex my gluteal muscles to
***** and spread the quills of my cinemax tail.
If she were a female walkingstick bug she might
insert her hypodermic proboscis delicately into my neck
and inject me with a rich hormonal sedative
before attaching her egg sac to my thoracic undercarriage,
and if I were a young chimpanzee I would break off a nearby treelimb
and smash all the windows in the plaza jewelry stores.
And if she was a Brazilian leopardfrog she would wrap her impressive
tongue three times around my right thigh and
pummel me lightly against the surface of our pond
and I would know her feelings were sincere.
Instead we sit awhile in silence, until
she remarks that in the relative context of tortoises and iguanas,
human males seem to be actually rather expressive.
And I say that female crocodiles really don’t receive
enough credit for their gentleness.
Then she suggests that it is time for us to go
to get some ice cream cones and eat them.
Oct 24, 2018
Oct 24, 2018 at 3:14 PM UTC
Paradise
Men falling from the sky using parachutes of peacock plumage hues
The professionals plummeting in perfect spirals
The novices sheepishly prolonging their gentle, gliding drop
The salmon shade adobe dwellings with their thatched, lovely roofs
Shelter me in their auspices from an unforgiving star
Handmade tiles of authentic design line each steep stone step
A covert staircase leading nowhere, we lounge near the pool by day
There I observe a couple through a sour tequila haze
A scarlet clad native and her sometime American lover
Their hands never leave each other’s guilty bodies, sexually charged
His absence of wedding ring betrays his intended affair
In the distance crushing waves claim territory on the shoreline
I underestimate; in a death roll I lose all sense of direction
The blushing sky with rosy smile watches over its children
A lighthouse by its lonesome guards the cliffs from clumsy ship
Locals sell their wares by approaching fair-skinned tourists
Necklaces of beads require long hours of work
Their labor goes unappreciated, sells for meager dollar
Popcorn man blows his lonely, dissonant horn forever
Into the deaf night
Jan 8, 2011
Jan 8, 2011 at 6:17 AM UTC
Get me down to the local band stand
traditional and modern grand
Cornets, Euphoniums and tuba's in tune
I love the sight I'm so immune
from the pits of Yorkshire and round the globe
Scores resounding from Adobe
The Conductor's baton keeps the beat
and if its wrong they stamp there feet
from amateur to championship
all you have is brass to lip
contests regional every year
and music reading not play by ear!
Nov 21, 2014
Nov 21, 2014 at 7:44 PM UTC
Adobe skinned mimicry of light,
Piece of pebbly lunar surface fallen
To misty ******* reverse panoply,
Spiny spar of stellar tapestry
Nimbly navigating mortared limbs
In sultry sea-cellar ballet,
Rocky roofed conspirator of clams,
Swarthy pirate, silent smithy of shells.
Aug 13, 2010
Aug 13, 2010 at 10:12 AM UTC
A friend of mine asks,
“Why do you only ever write about romance lately?”
Well, the answer is quite simple, really. It is because I have tasted it.
I tasted it when my eyes first drank the light from his grace when he stood tall above me
His saturnine windows called out to me behind flesh curtains whenever he spoke, ever asking me to join him in his ecstasy
He, from a distance, darted towards me and pressed our sides together—letting myself melt in the velveteen touch of fabric skin
There was a shower of momentary light that night but only his radiance did I bask in.
I tasted it in the heart of the stone city where usurpers of old stood on polished stone
The Bulwark’s adobe reach embraced our reverie as memories from sleep stories become reality
He, in the confines of that venerable fortress, made me vulnerable for I was secure in his arms
His fingers are in between my own like woven mithril unbreakable lest he broke its bond himself
It is in this kingdom of carven stone and handmade walls that he sang of ardor with a dragon’s petrifying gaze.
I tasted it in yuletide storms where men and women waged war with happiness and grief
When the armies of pain and suffering fell at our clasped hands and cheeks red from amorous verve you said you were to journey home
But you did not let go of my grasp
With me you remained and in your arms I stayed
As the bitter winds of bigoted mouths blew, as the fire from damnation is declared by self-righteous souls, we stood fast in the storm.
I tasted it when he said our love he could no longer endure
There we sat, on a tarnished vehicle, as the last of our love gave into rust
What is frightening to me peeked from his saturnine eyes and he closed his curtains shut for the downpour of despondency was to come
We flooded our façades and the rivers quaked our emotional integrity
He held my hand for one final chance before we ripped our wrappings forever apart and he kissed me tender
Our lips made love—like the first they ever met in weathered heat—for the last time.
I tasted it when I told him “Just do so, when your appetite roars to love me again,” and until now I am waiting.
So, why do I ever only write about romance lately?
Well, the reason is quite complicated, really. But–but it is because I’ve tasted it.
Mar 2, 2017
Mar 2, 2017 at 2:00 PM UTC
This house in the hills
Mountains I should say
far from the cities
or from people who play
I enjoy the solitude
the pup who sleeps by me
the man who comes back home
to endearing company
This adobe house, built by human hands.
No machinery needed, helping tend the land.
The river flowing near, and the magpies who visit.
I do enjoy this home, and the people who are in it.
Still, this place lacks joy
from the kids whos laughter echos through the world
from the corners of my mind
an emptiness spreads, and i can not help but feel a lonliness instead.
I am too young for children
I have not learned to teach
I have not learned to reach what is needed to find peace
so what is it I lack?
What more could I seek?
Why should I feel a depression that runs this deep?
Does my past still hold strong
to the young one I once was?
What more do I need.. to finally feel strong?
Do I not understand, my desire to know more
before I bring little ones into this world?
who am I anyhow, to mother, to teach
To preach any message, to those who know peace.
To those who know joy, and more then I remember.
To the ones who are divine with enjoying simple pleasures.
How can I at twenty two, enjoy my life in simple pursuits?
Jan 13, 2014
Jan 13, 2014 at 12:26 PM UTC
I’m driving laps around
Urique’s unpaved streets
with Arnulfo, the world’s fastest
ultra-runner up front
Chugging tesguino disregarding
Young son, Mateas in the back
Handing us the 2 liter Coca-
Cola bottles, full of the mashy
corn brew.
The cholos are drinking
Tecate, mumbling under the palms
stalking the river, watching us
break down at ever lap.
Arnuflo heaves the truck
from behind, alone,
screaming and pushing.
I snap it into second gear
Mateas trembling,
and off we go. Arnulfo hopping in
smoking more cigarettes
passing the tesguino around shouting
Rapido! Poco a poco! Andale!
Rancherra bumps full blast, the
Eternal bumping,
beem, boom, up and down
Beem, boom, beem, boom
Tubas and brass echoing through all the adobe walls
meandering all the way
down the arroyo
to God know’s where.
The cholos challenge Arnulfo
to a race in their harsh stares
under flashy hats and shiny mustaches,
Ed Hardy models with sharp pointed
snake-skinned boots
Ayyeee, Arnulfo says, He won’t race
gainst Oscarine who they say
is the fastest young Chabochi
better than the elders
who used to chase down deer,
gently twisting their necks
after tracking them to
an ending exhaustion.
Arnulfo tells them I can win
as Oscarine snorts more from the bag
they pass around from his pocket
Off we go twenty yards
Around the farthest tree
And I win because of
Arnulfo's ancient
assurance
Nov 20, 2014
Nov 20, 2014 at 3:40 PM UTC
A rhythmic whipping of winds on the pine trees,
Mescaline mind, staring through tawny windows and thinking of America
That easy breezy, ****** wind again, blowing blow from laps of men
Tripping on paving slabs, adobe piles and rubble pouring through city streets
Thorny throned king calls out his wife's name
No response, no reprise, water fills the eyes of the owl as he watches
A lizard through the grass with no legs, and the oxford comma blues
A rider on horseback, gallop through the gully, hair screaming, maddening flights
Frightening nights in the Texas desert as consumptive creatures crawl on broken sand
Feel the eyes of the devil, searing the seer
and the car that once roamed gaily now fails daily
Left in bereavement on the side of a road
Crying into calloused hands, wailing for the whale's lost daughter
Sea-dive, see me dive, watch me drive, across country, to a home I will know
When I see it.
Sep 26, 2013
Sep 26, 2013 at 8:56 AM UTC
it’s like the fires that have ravaged this breathless land,
refusing to relent, and the parched clouds that fall
against the rolling adobe hills. it’s like the fire
of red and orange ombré spilling into the abiquiu,
a halo of lush greenery rushing toward the water.
like yesterday’s wind, my breathing is shallow and dry,
choking on the depth of your hazy breath that curls
from the corner of your lips. i drove on heat waves
for miles as i watched fires crawl into the mountains,
down into the skeletal rivers that are nothing but stony
memories. the earth is bony, long fingers of dead streams
crushed in the grasp of 115 degrees. this morning, i lay
gasping in your arms, remembering the temptation
of your breath as we sat in the moon’s silent ebb. the fires,
they will burn more until there is nothing left but the naked
and raw land, and then the rains will come again and wash
the ash and the mud away. but with you, i will never call
for a raindance, knowing the only way i will burn is when you
are filling me with fire.
Jul 5, 2013
Jul 5, 2013 at 5:10 PM UTC
across the river
the trickle of what was once Grande
I see them, huddled in their adobe squares
as the sizzling sun settles quiescently
leaving them in shielded shadow
then come the cook fires,
for the maize, the frijoles,
smoking the night sky
filling their bellies, filling my eyes
with visions of them, some silent
some filled with mirth, and song
all with hope or fear
as the moon paints their crusty hillsides silver
some will lie with one another--some will join in longing,
liquid union, planting sweet sighed seeds of hope
others, alone, will fall into dread dreams,
while winds weep and mix with coyote howls
a few will even hear the owls call their names
though the gift of eternal darkness may yet be
light years from their wretched huts
I may be there
to see the sun rise again
and repeat life's one act play,
anon and anon, or something may close
my own tired eyes, before the glory of their suffering
can be played again
Mar 29, 2015
Mar 29, 2015 at 9:20 AM UTC
wheat in color
a tan adobe
almost red
a genderless
bone
hollow and
ossified
I donate this
day to you
I enmesh
my soul
into the air
the harvest
all the while
standing
still
Jan 15, 2017
Jan 15, 2017 at 4:32 PM UTC
Father Mckenzie
Turk’s Head teased my shadow
free last evening along the arroyo
our separation minute yet
edging toward the clement lip
accruing like the thunder eggs
I keep in a jar by the door
God long since departed, drifted
away on the high desert wind
that drew us here long ago
rifled pages of the Book Of Common Prayer.
A sodden breeze from home last night
a tang of salt, a churchyard hush
low plaint of cello’s lurking around
these adobe walls for a way inside
my callow words returned to claim
their hollow sound and mouth
all that was left unsaid
an old man darning socks
in the night when nobody’s there
crossing the room to leave
the door ajar to old sermons
bible black sky pierced with diamonds.
Oct 11, 2016
Oct 11, 2016 at 8:43 AM UTC
They all hate me when I'm broke
They gon hate me when I'm rich
I be Holding to the rope
Feeling like POP I'm gonna rip
Just wanna make sense
Wanna make bands
Not make fans
Those aint friends
Just wanna make my millys
Not looking silly
Like '17 when I was popping killy
I was broke then, But I was happier
Knew me then, I was dappier
Feeling trapped at my abode
A man with a plan, but nowhere to go
Wanna edit the bad like using adobe
Mansion sit down, while wearing my robes
But I'm so alone,
I'm sipping patrone
Got 7k fans
But nowhere to blow
I'm making my moves
Just to make me happy
Under the success
My whole life is ******
I wish I was different
I wish I was listening
To all of the people
Who told me be different
My phone never dry
Got notifs all day
Signed 80 nice artists
They'll make it one day
What's wet last night
It's my pillow case
The tears got dried
Can't look at my face
Don't want more space
Cause I have the galaxy
Feel isolated
Want them to come back for me
Lost a fake friend last night
4 Years gone right
They DC no Superman
Thought we was tight.
Jul 9, 2020
Jul 9, 2020 at 3:35 PM UTC
The air is crisp.
Crisp, that is the word my dad used to describe Gwen's voice after the No Doubt concert. I was eight then.
Crisp, the word I thought of, when I was flicking that brown lighter I thought it would be funny to buy, sitting on the stoop. Striking the wheel, careful not to hit the little red button. The air swept against the sunglasses I paid too much for with the lenses that are mismatched and the sweater my mom bought me two christmases ago that originally I hated.
Falling leaves drift by those little windows to my soul but I am too distracted by the thought of him coming to pick me up to try to attach them back to the tree. Too bad too, because with every leaf detached, comes winter further on my face.
Thats when the crystals fall from my dreams, and cover the once adobe hills in spells of skyscrapers. Those are the guys who form tools out of my can of hairspray and chip at the ozone trying to scrape off the blue, and see what all that paint is covering. Icarus is horrified.
Oct 15, 2013
Oct 15, 2013 at 2:52 PM UTC
Never before have I faced such a formidable foe as Adobe Photoshop
I give in, it has bested me.
Oh **** it, I need to make this rhyme.
Holy komodo dragons, a bee...
Sep 2, 2014
Sep 2, 2014 at 10:31 PM UTC
A million bumping heads
Rendered in coherence
An enigma just beside me
As rises the height
With a soothing delight
Playing with resilience inside me
Goes she, leaving with a smile
Leaving me with a smile
Bending over a mile
I look forward to an exile
Into the lively adobe
To a turbulent surprise
Let me promise to be back soon
In your paradise in disguise
Oct 23, 2013
Oct 23, 2013 at 7:16 AM UTC
The college kids still pump out poems;
my heroes haven't published a book in years.
The academics are moving to visual arts
kerning letters on the page, adding artist statements.
Fuego en juventud. Sabiduría en viejo.
Passion fades with age, I suppose. A symptom of
the cult of happiness.
And I love to read poems
from twenty-somethings who just want to get ******
I picture my red pen exciting them as I destroy
their fine-tuned metaphors, all muddled with conflicting allusion,
as if juxtaposition alone adds meaning.
In school, it was all Cezanne and hydrogen jukebox birdsongs,
and equally interesting but useless adjective strings.
The academics are doing the same, but with form.
It bores us, don't they know?
Fuego en juventud. Sabiduría en viejo.
**** these kids for having such easy means to publication.
I read their journals, their magazines, their "editions"
online, vivid, vomiting color and opinion.
I long for publishing classified ads and
scribbled chalk portraits of the women I loved
and the twenty-somethings who just wanted to get ******
and reflections of how I never mastered either craft.
I long to rub the ink off newsprint in my fingers,
smudge the words on the page and ***** my hands,
watch the chalk run into the red brick
during ten-minute monsoons, smell the library's adobe,
light a cigarette and remember that the stacks are filled
with ages of greater work than these ******* kids...
and these ******* academics.
Greater than me.
Jul 14, 2015
Jul 14, 2015 at 5:04 AM UTC
I have an adobe where I run
whenever I want to be in solitude
I call it my one-word poem
Between a meadow and a lemon tree
along the edge of a grassland.
Where everything in the world
become quite and wither away.
You are the tranquil stillness
after the rumbling of a stormy storm
the forgiving words that fill my sky
and caresses a burned soul
You become a rain
in an endless conversation
Sometimes a road map
to the world unfolds
With a touch
When I leave
I leave
A slice of an umbrella
We hold nothing
But a deep kiss
In your unseen soul
Nov 3, 2018
Nov 3, 2018 at 1:34 AM UTC
codex painter
have your hands rusted
is this world not as vivid
as the one centuries ago
the one
that bore the same tint,
rich in intent to serve,
to devotedly work
head inclined
over the flaming light
and under the celestial stars
pictograms
are what I now reach for
from the vessels tucked behind my ears
from the smell of copper
and the tastes of adobe pots,
simmering with memories,
to the corneas anchoring my vision
because I must have a vision
the "it" becomes what we intend
and I intend "it"
give me your codices
unfold the fibers of the agave plant
and let me paint again
this world
larger
this lifetime kinder
for I have always been a scribe and
a painter
and my heart rejoices in service
to an existence expanding
to meet itself in the eyes of all
who I dare draw
May 21, 2019
May 21, 2019 at 12:11 AM UTC
This house, it does not speak of me
I am unknown to these adobe walls
these cool clay floors
I press my feet against
wanderlust, I dance
desert nights alone, roam
these sands to drink
and drink of moon
thirst for stars
to call me home
I travel endless nights
painted blue with black
wait until sunlight
warms my room
once more to bloom
in wild fields
with you
Dec 20, 2014
Dec 20, 2014 at 8:11 AM UTC
At the third world's first sun,
the Anasazi climbed
through a narrow Sipapu
and pressed footprints in the dust
of a new unspoiled universe.
In secluded canyon hollows
watered by softly chanting springs,
they piled rocks upon stones
shaping vast adobe cities
mortared with pastes of moistened clay.
At Mesa Verde - Chaco - de Chelly
fields of maize sway,
brushed by the canyon winds
while Pueblos danced in the plazas below
to the throbbing beats
of skin-stretched hollow log drums.
Today their children’s children
circle fire pits in sacred Kivas
raising chants and prayers
to their hallowed ancestors.
Wearied by famine and conquest,
Pueblo eyes scan the heavens
searching for a new Sipapu
to lead them to a better world still.
September 11, 2006
Jan 26, 2015
Jan 26, 2015 at 5:15 AM UTC