Botched Nose Job: Poetry and Plastic

UFO

You, a shiny sparkling splendor of light,

decorative and dancing across aerodynamics,

would be a star if not for the law of stars

that says to burn is to burn in place,

gaseous and glowing. Your skin silver

polished smooth in reckless night sprints

shuffling celestial half-court drills

over Arizonian skies, Jersey, New Mexico:

suicide scrimmage, scurry and fly, an object

come to pass, a green blip—unidentified

and unknown. You are a gospel to gravity

in a vessel so casually called volition, and

choose to plummet blind, to burn and fall,

kicked from constellation, a jewel plucked

from Orion’s belt, a crackle of fire, a flicker

of fading ash, earth—shattering, satisfying

your dreams to shun and show the night

that being bright, white, and burning

is a matter of perception. Your veracity

shows streaking downward, delivered,

crashing into open desert, where men wait

with lab-coats and clip-boards to devour

the secret of flight. And you lay your body

before them, satisfied, that for a moment,

shooting, flamed with desire, being a star

did not matter anymore. Trailed by an exodus

of light, you absorbed so many wishes. 

Cumbias

Lurched above Avenida Velasco

eucalyptus leaves clack and clatter

. 

palsy torrents of tambourines dubbed

lightly against the plum desert night.

 .

A peepshow of branches grasp

the burlesque of stars, skin flashes

 .

a moonish cream and marble innards

of chlorophyll: aloe vera green,

 .

cardboard brown, varicose purple.

Questions carved like lovers names

 .

beneath the bark in razor blade—rusty

tetanus rambling strung in clef

 .

across the blurred measure of sky.

The tongue of lyric, sorrow of jazz,

 .

meticulous movement of matador.

Notes that crumple unpublished.

 .

The language of a thousand slit wrist

bleed onto the grass onto the soil.

 .

The self-inflicted song of mariachi

forbears the world in favor of music. 

Penis Envy

The day my penis quit

            he didn’t give his two weeks,

he wasn’t worried about the possibilities

of future references and resumes.

He just up and left

citing a bad office environment

and lack of action. He placed his cubical

in a cardboard box. I offered a raise 

but it was beyond that point

and not about the money.

Unlike the notorious 

tales of undersexed wives

testing the blade on finger-tips

to ensure emasculation,

the day my penis slid

            passed me and out the front door

he was calm. I ran to the window

bludgeoned with empathy:

            Isn’t that what we all want?

To live and leave on our own terms,

to spatter an indelible mark of our own?

            Perhaps not–

I, watching from the window, 

desperately fought the urge to follow.

Fucking With Nature

Due to recent fires scorching along the freeways and the rain

that pored over night mudslide warnings in effect the reporter

at the side of a hill reports as he pokes and prods yanking some

brush from the already traumatized soil this thing can go at any moment

he says and I think of liquefaction and how great that would actually be

and how the Geology professor from my community college course

would hold his gut laughing watching the news: don’t fuck with nature.

Thinking Of Her

Tarzan moves to the city studies law becomes a lawyer.

He cuts his hair too! gets a job at a high powered firm;

being King of the Jungle looks good on a resume.

He adapts no longer wears a ragged raw-hide thong,

no longer swings to destinations—there are no vines

in the city—he walks, rides the bus, takes a cab

like everyone else. Sometimes, Tarzan can be found

stooped on a barstool rehashing bare-fist brawls

with albino tigers, often ripping his suit off to show the scars.

It always ends badly stripped from the walls eighty-six’ed

from another watering hole. The walks home hit

the hardest—night canopies the city—there are no stars

in this reoccurring reality: he is alone. And with his eighty-

proof breath, his face caught in both palms, he whispers

her name, feels her warmth slip again through his fingers,

as they, only words, hit cold air and dissolve like butane. 

Oh! To Be Cool!

First proclaim it!

Yourself to be cool. And in fact

it exudes from your pores like leather aftershave.

Hum some Dylan

that remind of worn Levi Jeans,

warm rock and roll and the ‘no moss’ gathering stone.

Pretend you know

whatever it is that it means

to be an urban nomad, conductor of blues.

Now sweep through towns

disguised as trouble and tell them:

That Cool is the middle name you seldom go by. 

On What A New Day Brings

Before the promises of a new day are broken

and the city still lies in a chalk outline of itself,

go into the morning that thinks its night,

to your car parked on the street sweeping side

of the street and act like you are breaking in.

It’s OK, nobody will notice a thing, as you snake

two quarters from the mid-console cup holder,

saturated in Mr. Pibb; two quarters sunken

in a pit of syrup that stick to the tip of your index

and middle fingers like George Washington

sponsored sneakers; and you walk to the all-night

convenience store that is open all morning too,

place the coins on the eye lids of the sleeping clerk

so that in his dream he dreams fortuitously,

as you take the warm edition of the L.A. Times

and stow away back to home, the click of brass,

and the severance of the world behind you.  

Beacon of Light

To be alive is to revel in wake of destruction. The stuck sentry posted on the expanse of plaster and wall in English 404 like a red-eye Cyclops in repose, wears a name tag, “Hello my name is: FIRE,” and claims to be the distant cousin of a light house stationed in Point Robinson that over-looks the frigid waters of the Puget Sound, scaring ships from shore, but instead of shining welcome to the sea-legged and weary as a beacon of hope, FIRE, waits unenthusiastically to scream like a gander of bludgeoned geese to evacuate and abandon ship at the slightest hint of fog creeping down the decks or halls. This was not the life envisioned when signing the papers. This was not explicitly mentioned in the ink of contract. This does not constitute getting out and seeing the world. This was not how the recruiter said it would be.