A Red Giant Rises High above Aztlan
for a Painter in Missouri

to offer you the Oaxacan songbird of my heart,
for it croons, guey, and soon, I, too, will procure that tune,
splice open this cage of avid ribs and swoon,
while love looms monstrously, like an odd red star—
so lustrous, guey, so lustrous.
And for us, that magnificent bird will ascend, then, this
bony ladder, perched atop
my pecho, he will soothe you, babe—Verás. Verás.
Your hands, mi cielo!
That marvelous jaguar of your eye! Malleability!
What tributaries and tribulations, guey!
The Gulf of mis ojitos, the bravest rio de los tuyos—
They’ve enjoined, so I’ve crafted this tribute of maize
and maldiciones; I bludgeon aloneness for you,
Hunt butterflies, gather bullets;
Cushion of my panza and my penance—
Will you allow me? I could cradle you, cariño.
Could cradle you, serio.

am3rican classixxx--4

d3dicat3d 2 all th3 tamal3 slang3rz of th3 world, from granny's hot tamal3z vans posting up on 40 str33t corn3rz in corpitos 2 th3 youngst3rz across all of aztlan, coll3cting th3ir barrio cr3dz, bundl3s of st3aming ojas tuck3d in folds of shiny aluminum und3r th3ir soon-to-b3 v3t3rana/o arms; i salut3 you. n3ta.

Untitled Temptation Poem for a Homeboy Epiphany Regarding Rain on a Soggy-Ass Sunday Nite


Susto: out of the flat, flat plains, a trickle of it:
sssssssssssssssssshhhhhhk—
A burst. Belligerence, boasts. A voz.
Blusters, bombards. Voz.
Electronic, prickly voz. Primordial voz.
Lofty as the tallest bellies of table-clouds
and spring bulls,
that buoyancy, which brings me to this:
Tlaloc—
Mogul of mud and mestizos,
Plateaus and pilgrimages,
Putos and piety: a jaino in January, a jaino
En Marzo. Traiciones, monarcas;
Relampagos y cabarones—
Ssshhk. Sssshhk.
This susto is what a vato like me is all about.

n3ta: 1 played handball at 3scobar Parqu3 this morning aft3r i thr3w down a rowdy m3nudo & put down a rosar1o for an old3r hom3boy whos3 b33n n33din som3 chorizo & pray3rs r3al bad.

Pearls Are Like Scapulars


Lavish a throat. Leer. Punctuate each breath.
A bead. A bed. Twitters, twilight—
On good days, watch me
Bombard wishes with wily babas—
Asi. Asi.
See, I inflict said incandescent cut atop the lip;
Split at the vortex of knuckle;
And knowing
That all things pop apart, all things
Splintery bone; carcass of a telephone
Call where
I, like blackberry paste and birdish haste,
can hear a veterano’s soul crack
thwack—

<13;12;04>

thwack—
Beneath the fluorescence, jangle, jangle
of a thousand shanks:
oh, Mysteries, oh, Faith—and Years of keys
And keys and keys
and keys that don’t wield but the bonds of
Involuntarily quoting arthropods and guerreros—
Ey, you ever watch 2 vatos hold it down?
Naw. Not in years, he said.

Weight of carne, weight of flanks.
You remind me of this one vato I used to know.

Torso of a Widowed Cholo Grappling Nostalgia and Virtue



Dominoes and rose petals galore!
The persistence of a blade.
A table astray, dishes mesmerize
An eyelid,
A mechanical spirit, audible, audible,
Another gaze—

Reminiscing peppermint saliva;

Astute, and all these capsules,
All these culprits;
Oh, Ms. Tilman,
Oh, static and sanctum!
All these yelps.
The Clout of gauze and mazes,
Hardly, hardly what I’m accustomed to:
A monster, a virtue, a smoking mirror.
I’ve blessed the Dead amid this fuselage.

Smirk, Sly Arroyo (And Eels, Too, Kneel)

I carry the village in tattoos across my arms.

--Luis J. Rodriguez

On this sleeve,

On this, the eve of 11—

On the battalion of scalps and scapegoats, I

Devour a namesake, hoard scraps, these

Iron-clad heirlooms;

Eulogy, eulogy,

Chucks, estirantes, mi tapa that once

once

Was ours—

A whisper zigzagged the moon, disguises the skies,

And I’m marooned, doomed, I

Loom, a cirrus pantheon,

I bloom;

Smirk, sly arroyo, so coarse so coaxed:

That Tuesday Circus

Encircles my girth, all my worth

Propounds what one envelope divulges that day

Si fue tu, guey. All of it there—

Jetsam, scrape, los payasitos

lithe as eels.

Servitude Poem for a Mid-December Sunday Morning

Wrist, knuckle, plethoric gasps!
I hear them, these bloated grackles, these traffic roars,
And then, it’s a
palm, scalp, straps, abundance—
57 deft twigs sprout off an oak bone
that is a hull, bullish, awful and dear
to the cobalt sky, sky, wrinkled sky
that parts like soprano throat and dog eyes
and odd elegies of
incapable limbs that squabble, huddle,

heave
as only the bereaved and left behind may.

Suspension Poem under the Willful Command of a 52-Year Old Mexican Daddy



Armor of ink, cataclysmic!
Abrupt yank that’s a tug then a plea.
Absurd! I’ve shackled a countenance
To cheekbones and tripe. Phalanges
Tickle the underbelly of the heart like a hog
With no conscience. The thrill of a bigote!
Up here, the whole road afloat, awhirl—
I’m doting.

Portrait of a Young Donkey Lady Grooming


1,000 strokes and the mane goes magnificent!
Though not quite silk, not quite the velvet
Of a San Anto midnite—
Yolanda Del Rio, the tender perils of memory.
No shatterings, no taunts—
The allure of glass!
Once, once on that truck…
jammed in a box of jaunty jewels and lament.
Tentatively, zarzamoras dab the track of a
Jugular. The dulcet caress grasps air,
Whisking the tristesa away.
Leaves whorl, and the joy as ephemeral
As larvae and memory
and the tendrils of a once upon a burra’s sigh…