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Myria Mandell Nov 2012
This is for the residents who remember
And for the transplants who
Have yet to be informed
But have got an inkling

Burque has gone from
Bustling to busted
And back again

Growing up in the 80’s
I learned about the
Varying degrees of “sick”
As my dad pointed out
The pekid pachucos perusing
Pharmacy isles
Attempting to purchase
Cough syrup with codeine

In the evenings
Driving home down Central
I would ceremoniously
Count hookers

My parents would
Precariously pack heat
In the trunk of our car
Or even in my mom’s special ***** pack
With the hidden compartment
For her .38 snub nose
Because you never know
Who will be in your home
When you arrive

That’s a given
When flop houses are
Interwoven with prime real estate
And barrio boundaries
Border the bourgeois’ bungalows
And Huning’s Castles

And residents rarely recognize
Or realize
That aside from the locals
The European Jews
Was the only group gutsy enough
To settle here
And create commerce
Despite risks of being raided
By Apaches

And they reaped the benefits
Off Roma and Marquette
Because the rewards
Turned out to be greater than
The risks

And up North
Where Sephardic turned Crypto
Conversions to Catholicism
Kept the Messiah’s spirit alive
But in basements
They still did Chi fives!

I was saddened in middle school
When I realized
That many of our parents
Were too ashamed of our roots
To teach us Spanish
And our
Schools ****** so severely
That most of us
Didn’t learn English either

But hey –
All you need to
Communicate while cruising
Are cat calls
And the thumping boom
Of the bass in the tubes
And the hydraulic drop
When they hit
The hot spots
From Tingley, Kit Carson and
Central to Copper
Each kid dreams that
His ride
Will be the show stopper

I could rant and rave
And rattle off for days
But bottom line –
We have the most
Curious state
With mysterious qualities
And in-depth histories
But most of us are
More concerned with
Bud Light
And Biscochitos
Con Manteca
Because it just tastes great!
7/13/2009
Siempre estás a mi lado y yo te lo agradezco.
Cuando la cólera me muerde, o cuando estoy triste
-untado con el bálsamo para la tristeza como para morirme-
apareces distante, intocable, junto a mí.
Me miras como a un niño y se me olvida todo
y ya sólo te quiero alegre, dolorosamente.
He pensado en la duración de Dios,
en la manteca y el azufre de la locura,
en todo lo que he podido mirar en mis breves días.
Tú eres como la leche del mundo.
Te conozco, estás siempre a mi lado más que yo mismo.
¿Qué puedo darte sino el cielo?
Recuerdo que los poetas han llamado a la luna con mil nombres
-medalla, ojos de Dios, globo de plata,
moneda de miel, mujer, gota de aire-
pero la luna está en el cielo y sólo es luna,
inagotable, milagrosa como tú.
Yo quiero llorar a veces furiosamente
porque no sé qué, por algo,
porque no es posible poseerte, poseer nada,
dejar de estar solo.
Con la alegría que da hacer un poema,
o con la ternura que en las manos de los abuelos tiembla,
te aproximas a mí y me construyes
en la balanza de tus ojos,
en la fórmula mágica de tus manos.
Un médico me ha dicho que tengo el corazón de gota
-alargado como una gota- y yo lo creo
porque me siento como una gruta
en que perpetuamente cae, se regenera y cae
perpetuamente.

Bendita entre todas las mujeres
tú, que no estorbas,
tú que estás a la mano como el bastón del ciego,
como el carro del paralítico.
Virgen aún para el que te posee,
desconocida siempre para el que te sabe,
¿qué puedo darte sino el infierno?
Desde el oleaje de tu pecho
En que naufraga lentamente mi rostro,
te miro a ti, hacia abajo, hasta la ***** de tus pies
en que principia el mundo.
Piel de mujer te has puesto,
Suavidad de mujer y húmedos órganos
en que penetro dulcemente, estatua derretida,
manos derrumbadas con que te toca la fiebre que soy
y el caos que soy te preserva.
Mi muerte flota sobre ambos
y tú me extraes de ella como el agua de un pozo,
agua para la sed de Dios que soy entonces,
agua para el incendio de Dios que alimento.

Cuando la hora vacía sobreviene
sabes pasar tus dedos como un ungüento,
posarlos en los ojos emplumados,
reír con la yema de tus dedos.
¿Qué puedo darte yo sino la tierra?
Sembrado en el estiércol de los días
miro crecer mi amor, como los árboles
a que nadie ha trepado y cuya sombra
seca la hierba, y da fiebre al hombre.

Imperfecta, mortal, hija de hombres,
verdadera,
te ursupo, ya lo sé diariamente,
y tu piedad me usa a todas horas
y me quieres a mí, y yo soy entonces,
como un hijo nuestro largamente deseado.

Quisiera hablar de ti a todas horas
en un congreso de sordos,
enseñar tu retrato a todos los ciegos que encuentre.
Quiero darte a nadie
para que vuelvas a mí sin haberte ido.

En los parques, en que hay pájaros y un sol en hojas por el suelo,
donde se quiere dulcemente a las solteronas que miran a los niños,
te deseo, te sueño.
¡Qué nostalgia de ti cuando no estás ausente!
(Te invito a comer uvas esta tarde
o a tomar café, si llueve,
y a estar juntos siempre, siempre, hasta la noche).
Viene la crisis
ojo
guardabajo
un pan te costará como tres panes
tres panes costarán como tres hijos
y que barbaridad
todos iremos
a las nubes en busca de un profeta
que nos hable de paz
como quien lava.

Viene la crisis
ojo
quizá te esté subiendo
por la manga
quizá la tengas
ahora
enroscada sin más en el pescuezo
o esté votando con tu credencial
o comprando tu fe con tu dinero.

Oh cuánto cuánto
costará el escrúpulo
y la vergüenza buena
la importada
la que no encoge a la primera lluvia
la vergüenza de nylon
cienporciento.

Oh cuánto cuánto
costará el amor
en la noche sin dólares ni luna
con los perros afónicos
y el sueño
firmando los conformes con rocío.

Oh cuánto cuánto
costará la muerte
ahora que no hay divisas
ni perdón
y no hay repuestos para la conciencia
ni ganas de morir
ni afán
ni nada.

Viene la crisis
ojo
guardabajo
no habrá vino ni azúcar ni zapatos
ni quinielas ni sol ni Dios ni abrigo
ni diputados ni estupefacientes
ni manteca ni frutas ni rameras.

Viene la crisis
Ojo.
Guardarriba.
As I walked out in the streets of Manteca,
as I walked out in Manteca one day,
I spied a young cowboy asleep on the sidewalk,
when prodded from slumber these words he did say:

"You are wearing a Stetson, spurs, chaps, and a six-gun:
I assume then you must be a cowboy like me;
come sit down beside me and hear my sad story,
then try to guess which shell is hiding the pea.

'Twas once in the saddle I used to ride gaily,
albeit I had not a horse to my name,
but down in the basement my dad had a saw-horse,
so I rode a steed that could never go lame.

O bury me holding a King and five Aces
with a pint of good whiskey to keep my corpse warm,
and a pair of my custom made dice in my watch fob,
for I'm a young cowboy and I've bought the farm."




-------------------------------------------------
Cop­­yr­­­ight 2025 by Jon Corelis

joncorelis.com
somehow boredom matters and allowed itself
my mind:
restless laziness i am finding
is the required injection
the panacea of measuring the right amounts
because living alone is stressful
and i'm back living under one roof with parents
and i'm dosing self-dosing
i smoked some marijuana and tobacco
in that European hurtful
and drank a little *****
and i'm alone and no wife
nagging me
and daughter nagging me and her
and i smoked and drank a little
because i want to imitate the headache:
and listen to music
and write and if i can't speak to anyone
because the gnocchi came out ****
blame the potatoes
or rather i didn't add enough flour...
what's Spanish for milk and flour?
leche y harina...
         pan y manteca: that's F:
not an S...
which brings me unto the Hellenic Z...
and what will i do
read a book
yeah but reading can translate into a very
anti-religious feeling of organising parts of life
that are questions and the paths
of question-worthiness
most notable in the context of Da-Sein
that would be the You
of the Self the self-questioning
a Moral Gesticulation to Ghost...
i'm back to watching *******
and a limp ****
because the mind is switched on
in the bellybutton the the world that is London:
you need a different life-speed
to question that distance and pockets of time
we are:
   the term escapes me:
but it is hidden in Da-Sein...
              if there is a Da-Sein...
there must be a -Zeit...
                          space is counterintuitive
to the mind... given the confines
of the immediacy of body
and nothing
but also the idea of pets and organisms
and if man is an animal
then as an ecosystem
of bacteria viruses
foreign bodies
and even parasites
from there
working toward dogs and cats
and horses
and beyond that the immediate family
****** and return to *****
a ***** Among the Ecosystem of
the body... and body thus as translating
into the Res Extensa:
that is truly objective:
i know i am subjected to the body
but the body is also subject of me
and as pronoun with only nouns and
no verbs attached to it:\
grammatically speaking
i am by now a liquirice fluorescent octopus...
called Nagging Frankie...
not Franklyn my other Long Lyn... of abstract...

ah yes: for the Da-Sein there must be a different
"there" to being... i need to find another preposition
within the confines of Zeit...

the remains of this poem
are subject to payment...
  the remains of this poem are subject to payment:

ACHTUNG! ACHTUNG!
ZAHLENWAND  ZAHLENWAND
paywall paywall...
          i have poems within poems
i'm setting up a paywall:
for anyone who wants to read the rest
of this poem: subscribe to my:
and QR code and business account...
write it off the taxes
as Expenses
printing books or going to read
at places... a retirement fund project...
now i come to think of it...
    
  which might explain why i have yet to make
any money from my "hobby"...
but without a wife to snuggle
or listen to
just going before sleep
it's so boring falling asleep alone
it might be scary for a woman
or lonely:
but for men it is boring...

                           any donations upon requests
in private, this is the unfinished piece...
quesues

— The End —