Poetry
two
All my real live love interests are dead
They are artists & Latino & dead
Not an epigram
Oh, That Brazilian Guy
for Hélio Oiticica
Did I ever see Hélio—walking some part
East Village, curly headed and densely
Packed with art and drugs and death’s
Constant shadow. Was he on the corner of
Avenue B and 10th Street drinking beer
And ogling the pretty Puerto Rican girls
Was he ogling me?
Or was he living in an abandoned warehouse
Holding on to his pencil, pen, brush on paper, cardboard,
Found trash or garment district fabric off loaded by a gang
Out of the projects whisking splatter of heroin (lost income)
Dropped dangling from a cup of bitch’s brew
Oh, how to speculate this mad Hendrix loving
Artist’s movements in El Barrio, Loisida or was he
Uptown, Spanish Harlem or on the West Side, Greenwich
Village, hanging with the drag queens early a.m. everybody
Tired from the bars, the piers, the crumbling edifices
Circa late 60s, early 70s Nueva York, Nueva York
He was on a wild ride the weed his stash the dazzled dreams
of men who had
Survived torture military repression a bad economy
Yet learned to take acid trips one day at a time.
Oh, the love affairs we have with the myth
Of, the what ifs and that drug paraphernalia
Oh, night seeker, ill named, moon winds
Your direction home?
Thus created this mixed up third whirl, loud music, your lips
Dry from screaming in January wind—something mighty Hendrix
Sun lack
On a back meant for napping mid-day, heat exhausted.
Thus, the making of a hammock a thing of beauty,
Back lit by the gallerist
while duct tape coiled the rafters of some street legal post
Fly fishing flies
Pretended bait. Tight pants dropped here and there.
As thriving masquerade--of the handsome Brazilian
Who could have been the best badnews boyfriend ever.
On the death of Claribel Alegria 1924-2018
On earth, she marked her days with rage & love
& fought the generals and their army of thieves
& torturers. Her pen was mighty, so also their
Arms. Death is the shadow twin, the one remaining
In the foothills, by the backdoor, in a convent, off
A mountainside.
And yet, a mother’s breast awaits her infant’s mouth.
A rooster crows and children gather what food there is
While bells ring across the foothills when the soldiers
Leave. A music of hope even as another child is buried
And a land mine erupts a few kilometers from hospital.
We live in a time of suffering in places of beauty
Where the water and air meet in mountains dark-soiled
Food grows so effortlessly and so does greed.
We live in a time of suffering in places of beauty
Where yesterday’s rebel is today’s president
And greed cowers the hurt children who hunger
Not only for their mother’s milk but a safe place
Where peace storms the land with smiles
and the tender removal of all aspects of war
A phantasm of peace. A peace unlike the other
Ones—negotiated and then neglected, thus
Military rifles, handguns, machetes, bowie knives, unexploded landmines
All made so that peace will end and terror return
What you hear is the sea—the heavy waves come in
Go out. Stars pattern—Orion’s belt or is that his heel?
And then another woman of letters departs, will she
Step on Orion’s heel?
Would she say excuse me, I did not see your heel.
Would she try to hide her error as her celestial
Garments drag across the night sky. What if Orion
Could speak, and if he did, would he say, all the
Poets love my heel or my belt, you’re not the first
To seek an anchor here.
