"patrones" poems
Tengo miedo a las alturas, a la noche oscura y al abandono.
Tengo 21 años y todavía creo en monstruos debajo de mi cama, quiero y no puedo cambiar patrones de mi vida que me hacen daño.
Me desvelo, no me hidrato, como mucho y fumo cada tanto, lloro porque si y por si acaso.
Te busco en rostros extraños y solitarios, en la escencia de los cactus, en aquella canción que una vez bailamos.
Todo parece congelado desde la soledad de mi cuarto.
Aug 19, 2018
Aug 19, 2018 at 5:02 PM UTC
One night after work
A bunch of the guys in the call center
Invited me out for drinks/ice cream/book group
Or something
And though I was sure it was a set up
To get back at me
For having squishy shoes and a dry wit
I went along
First we went to a tiger-kitten fight
I advised betting on the tiger
But they bet on the hundred kittens
ranged against the representative of Siberia
But the kittens lazed where they were
And the tiger fell asleep
No fight
We all got our money back
I said I bet we can win at something
And so we went to a horse race
Lined up was a cayuse, an appaloosa, a Claybank Dun, a Tennessee walking horse, even a Przewalski's horse (aka a Dzungarian)
But the equine competitors just stood in their places
And we were told:
"The race isn't to see which one is fastest. It's to see which one is most long-lived."
A crowd stood around
Waiting to see which one would drop first
But we got tired
And went to a football game
Between the El Paso Patrones
And the Gun Barrel City Daggers
Somehow the ball got lost somewhere
Disappeared into the ground
At least some went digging for it
Or floated up in the sky
Some went jumping for it
But a man who wore a size 15 volunteered his left shoe as replacement
And the game resumed
The El Paso Patrones winning by one-fourth of a point
I then bid my workmates good-bye
Surprised I hadn't been set up for some sort of humiliation
And went sauntering somewhere
Until I found size 15 footprints of a man hopping on one foot in the mud
I idly followed them until I came to
the ravine that separates
misers who hoard silver
from seekers who sift through Coke bottles
And figured that if he could jump across
Hopping on one shod foot
I could do the same
Hoping with two
Mar 19, 2015
Mar 19, 2015 at 10:13 PM UTC
There was one window
On about the seventh floor
Of the abandoned paperboard factory
Every window had been broken so far
Danny broke three
Clay two
Me one
Eric eight
But for that one window
On the seventh floor
Glaring at us
Daring us
Eric pitched a no-hitter
Against the Sievewright Sifters
Danny caught a foul at a Patrones game
Clay won a huge Bugs Bunny at the fair
(I was cut from the school's team but kept that to myself)
Still that window
Hovered
Unbroken
Spotless perhaps
Giving views
Of a muddy river
And sagging city
(Or would have
If anyone still worked there)
Then one day
We were walking
Just four kids
Walking
Where a crowd of a thousand
Would once mob
Each day at eight
Then at three
Then at eleven
But now never again
And that window was broken
Left with an open jagged entryway
About a foot in diameter
Just a little bit of each corner remaining
The northeast in dangling pieces
And I saw what did it
But didn't say
A dead pigeon lay near the empty Dumpster
I let them marvel
At whatever transient hobo hitchhiker
Might have come by
With a throwing arm
Like Nolan Ryan's
May 5, 2016
May 5, 2016 at 7:40 PM UTC