She stands naked
her body in the light that come from the street
quivering
her lips wet with complication
trembling
her legs in the silence
shuddering
e y e s closed
Through
her heart blue rivers rushing
her heart
is in the shape of a city.
c h u r c h bells ring
and every
one she
has ever loved
r u s h e s in
.
.
Winged insects
Seminarians of flight
angelic instructions
Bees studying architecture
Poetry and Rhetoric
while crickets pour over
illuminated books debating
inconsistencies of the Word.
The ants are busy
learning industry and geology
while spiders contemplate spinning
and weaving techniques
their long prayer shawls of silk
dragging across my floor.
.
.
.
Copia Latin root of Copy abundant (Connotation: Wealth)
Sub [less than] Urban.
My parent choose Plan 3d (3 stands for 3 car garage. D. stands for deluxe floor plan)
Watched it grow. Skeletal pine. Stucco
Paradise of imitation Spain
Los Angeles River Cement Highway of Rain God
I ride my bike to the beach (10 miles)
past Plan 3a’s 2b’s 3c’s My head filled with brochures.
the waves, the flat sea, stretching to Urban Tokyo.
[Abundant], miles and miles of Sidewalk. After thought
of architect, Picture frame, Wide
as a hungry mouth. Surrendered to the Auto-less
We wander miles of sidewalk that connects nowhere
to nowhere. We spend hours in 3 (car garages)
Or 2 and smoke pot.
While our mothers sit on the edge of couches
In sunken living rooms
Smoking cigarette after cigarette. .
Fidelito was from Havana
a burley man with a bushy mustache.
Fidelito worked in Queens for a small time hood named Whitey
It wasn’t always that way
He once was a baseball state in Cuba
a Pitcher
Left Cuba on a raft to play American baseball
Triple A minors in South Dakota
South Dakotas didn’t like Cubans,
even Cubans who could play baseball
So he gave up baseball
moved in with his sister
who got him a job dealing cards in
illegal games in the back of
flower shops and mortuaries
Fidelito missed Havana
he would go to Cuban movies in Spanish Harlem
and weep for Cuba
Fidelito signed up for the bay of pigs
but decided to forgo the heroism a make love instead
Lupita was from Guantanamo
and she tasted like Cuba
He rushed her without
cover and took her without
revolutions her body surrendering
as Kennedy sneaked into the room apologizing
Fidielto slept dreaming of
Summer the crack of hot wood
sweet sugar cane sweat
and the roar of the workers
their faces smiling as he rounds third
and Fidel rolls over in his bed
and Cuba falls into the sea.
Adolph smiles and looks at the bratwurst
Benito sitting behind him
drinks the wine.
The summer is hot and Benito’s neck sweats.
Eva is hanging shirts on a clothesline
the summer has bloody hands.
Benito snores
Adolph reads his reports
drinks tea
signs orders
He picks up a red ball and throws it to his dog.
The German Shepherd digs her teeth in deep
The Rabbis have lost all their gold
and the trains leave on time.
Benito wakes for a moment
and winds his gold watch.
* Anthology Magazine
A tall thin man in a gray suit comes to my door
with accordion keys for teeth
He smells like a salesman
His lapel pin reads, “Milton Mann Accordion Studios.”
He pulls out a 120 base Contello Accordion
Silver with red keys
Stretching out the bellows
angels fly from between them.
His hair is a raging fire of notes
F sharps twirling up in smoke
“ Here Kid!” He hands me the Contello.
It covers my body like a partial eclipse
I pull out the bellows and squeeze
Notes fly from the reeds like startled birds
“You are a natural kid.”
We sign on the dotted line
He smiles
Shakes my hand
and walks away carefully as not to
trip over his tail.
A man walks out of his apartment and sits on the front door stoop
watching a star move across the sky
traveling East to
West and Sputnik blinks back like a one-eyed man
In Kansas
Silos pace back and forth nervously while a little boy
rides his bicycle over the family bomb shelter
in circles
Old Mayans
looking into the sky
read the old prophecies
Scratching their heads
While Atlas shrugs his shoulders
Swats at a fly
An old man sits
Dry as a moth motionless
except
for the small clean fast blinking of
his eyes
Sending Morse code dot dot dot dash dash dot
A record plays
it plays bird songs
Canaries, Lovebirds and Starlings.
“Grandpa, why do you have records of birds?”
“To get lonely birds to sing.”
Round and round the room
Bird song 33 Rpm’s on an
LP
LP= Long play 32 minutes repeat
Birds die while
Records go round and round and round
The old man sits motionless
except
for one clean perfect flash of yellow
in the white moth like flutter of his eyes.
