My little bee
Dances on the ledge
Of the madman’s cantina.
Death below
Conducts an orchestra of
Boys with guns.
Tobacco leaves
Sweeten between her thighs.
If the soldiers come,
Let’s hide in the sea.
We’ll ripple the moon
When we make love.
Let’s forget
Our mothers’ homes.
America, they say,
Taxes the bones
Of dead men,
But there is plenty.
There are fat men
Who can feed us.
Dance for them,
My bee, and I will
Be a chemist. I will
Poison them
Before they kiss you.
And we will live
In their homes.
We will raise their
Children to be
Prophets and martyrs.
They will hate us for it.
Soy Clyde,
Y tú eres Bonnie.
When they hang us
I’ll laugh at God
Until the snap of noose
Startles hornets
From my head.

He stood six-foot-two
With a bicep named Sovereignty.
His black-inked chest
Read: Villainous.
Brown skin—his eye
Is an egg in a nest.
It’ll hatch a rattler.
According to Dale
His tongue once licked
The devil’s mouth.
Quick Merlin scratched
Some scruff with his left.
You are all witnesses—
Those were Jake’s last words
When Merlin spoke
Thunder with his right.
He had spoken for God.
At the wake reverend read
From the book of Psalms.
No one gathered
The dry petals because
No one came again.

The universe felt like a bird’s song
As if the dark space between cold lights
Were a mockingbird’s little rhythm.

One morning the butcher awoke to discover he was a horse’s skin.
He was not the horse.
He was the hide of one with eyes—skin with slits that opened to see.

When he cries, the saltwater trickles down leg.
Soon the farmer will peel him from the body.
He’ll be lidless, able to see fixed particles of light like God.

She told me, understand the universe like it’s a loaf,
One that’s nearly baked and ready to serve.

Soon the maker will eat every morsel.
Keep that in mind while you make love to a dead girl.

Go West

a creed

The artist at midnight plots the revolution at dawn.
Acres of streetlights glint in the mountain nook
Of a place I glimpsed in a drowsy vision;
This town is full of restless creators, ready
To forge a pantheon dedicated to our father’s dream,
That vague ideal of prosperity and health, now defunct.
We are walking to the edge of this continent,
Far from the meek who failed to inherit their own land.
We are passing barren plains and junkyards,
All abundant along the well-worn roads that connect us.
Our legs may languish, but our eyes hunger too much.
Too much to wait. Too much to rest.
I have been a dreamer too long.
Now awake, I may never sleep again.

We are not a labor force, we are creators.
We do not manufacture, we craft.
This is our blueprint to change everything.

Written for 40 Love Apparel. Photo by Eric Carroll. 

Birth is the freedom to run naked
From that old watcher, ye of little self-esteem,
Who asks for a kiss on his ring at my death.

I shall call myself a spark from that first man’s flint
Because it is mighty,
Because each bit of me can burn down a redwood—

And this should be each of us, but I’m surrounded by the meek
Who have forgotten their legs, now useless limbs that root. 
Oh but they say how they will be a gleaming chorus

While I am floating through the dark ether.
True, but I’ll remember I was a spark, even if for a moment—
I was a glorious little spark that tried to be immortal.

When the sun rests on the jags of western hills,
Her lips bid farewell to sweet smoke. 

Her synapses babble, ripples nibbling the dusk light.
Her laugh—the joy—is a crisp bite into melon flesh—

Bright juice, summer tones that saturate my mind. 
Then too quickly: stale breath and diluted lantern light—whispers—

A girl who speaks of lavender fields back home.
A girl with an odd nose, but vibrant eyes.

And each of us forgetting the day—

The old man in the hat made the illusion
Look effortless as he held a single feather.
Much the same, she left her house forever.
All this came to Phil as he sat in the
Courtroom, hearing a lawyer read his vows. 

A blind pianist plays Chopin’s Scherzo No. 2.
The music haunts our guests as each note lurks.

Who decided on serving them seafood risotto, dear?
I didn’t approve of this. I didn’t say this was okay! 

Her eyelids open to show me empty sockets.
She tugs knotted handkerchiefs from them. Laughs. Isn’t this a gas?

No one thinks any of this is funny—
Not since a guest choked on a beet and died on our rug.

Our maid hums as she tidies up the inconvenience.
It drives my wife mad—who approved her song? Make her stop.

Our maid doesn’t speak English.
Not understanding, she opens her mouth to sing a widower’s song.

Make her stop! Make her stop!
And my wife cries for the first time in years as she bangs the table.

Next month, we’ll bring our first child into this home.
I ask the guests to toast to the beauty of that.

They can’t grab their coats quick enough.
Now alone, I tell my wife that I’ll be reading in my study.