"taqueria" poems
Standing just a foot away
In leather boots and sequined jeans
Five foot nine, lean and mean
at the Taqueria, El Si Hay
Pink cellphone and cheap sunglasses
Waiting in the order line
A pug-nosed man in chinos passes
and paces round to pass the time.
When it's cold I miss the birds
It's always nice to find
the easy flow of Spanish words
and English mixed in kind
Feb 16, 2013
Feb 16, 2013 at 4:45 PM UTC
In this life, I have seen the valley of broken dreams filled with the souls of taqueria entrepreneurs. I have seen gleaming grills, Hispanic frills, greasy thrills. I have seen spirit thrive in the eyes of men armed with bank loans and family recipes. I have eaten their food, delicious beyond necessity. I have experienced the magic of taquerias and restaurants.
And I have seen that magic die.
I've observed the life unfold, unfurl with a magic to behold. I have seen that magic served in a half-empty restaurant that Frontera has outsold. I have had the magic gone, replaced by payday lenders and takeout from Taiwan. I have seen empty storefronts and the straggling last days of taqueria entrepreneurs. And I grieve every time at the lost loans and lost hopes left behind. But tonight, there will be no grieving. Instead,
Let us eat magic in their memory, enjoy the grease that will surely send us to infirmaries. Let us celebrate the time they had, the tortas, tamales, and leftovers taken home in a bag. Let us celebrate the doomed Mexican restaurants.
Dec 4, 2015
Dec 4, 2015 at 11:20 PM UTC
Pits and pockmarks
flit and dart
across an infinite ceiling.
Random synchronicity
plays patter song
stupor and languidity
The orchestra conducting
purple and yellow
to a sparkling, a
crushing crescendo
falls like a wave on tastebuds, tempting.
She lingers like
fog on a pane of glass
A sharp signature
impaled on a pile
of dreaming dust.
Like a rushed column
updraft through a house
of leaves blank and staring.
A mark from the
back of your palms up.
Your fingers stuck signing
a language sang by the blind.
How did she stay so long
A force hidden in neuron canyons.
A Gypsy camp lodged
between cortexes
spinning silk into a
muffled gasp, a conspiratory shuffle.
She lingers like spines of glass
in nailbeds, planted sweetly,
with the best of care.
Laughter in an asylum
electroshock dreams soaked in sweat.
Grabbed my brain like a chemical symphony.
Painted pictures of pivotal seconds,
wrapped up and romanticized.
Dreamt about.
Your lilting language planted
little honeypots deep in my palms.
Sparked fire from entropy
lighting a city in my chest.
But now these buildings tower
like Goliath in David’s dreams.
I need to escape
I need to slide out of
this sleep you’ve monopolized.
******* dreams
like smokering fingerprints
left on the cleft of my conscience.
The old taqueria on Victory.
The Bourgeois Pig.
The bitter spice of winter
painted over the cracks
crumbling the walls.
These waking hallucinations
haunt my habits.
Still frequent the holeinthewall
dives in my heart.
Nov 14, 2011
Nov 14, 2011 at 8:33 AM UTC
Flavorful combo
Word sauce and meaty nuance
Poem burrito
Apr 22, 2015
Apr 22, 2015 at 8:28 PM UTC