Untitled, Old-Ass Poem for JS that I Forgot I’d Composed until the Hour I Reminisce after One of Our Saturday Night Fights



And the chupetones!
Placid now that you’re gone:
Explosive beneath the tongue.
Y cuando regresaras, when the Midwest
relinquishes you to me, then,
fade, fade--this grip of tristesa
of not having you, of knowing you;

The house has taken you away.
I am crimson and Orchids!
Because of you, I swell.
Vessels, guey, venas, and this tussle of sabanas:
Blossoms. Tu bigote. Tu vergota.

And the throat it’s own violet, it’s own
Verge of salt milk, and the whole rotunda of
All the horizons and the silent spin of the earth
And the Spook Lights,
Imperceptible, except to us; that
Ripple in your breathing that only I detect

At 5 am, while 37 whirs like vacuums and
Mechanical virtues. Voracity has never perplexed me
Like this. Vexing me when I want and want
After not having wanted shit for years.

I peer into your Seminole life.
Target the perrito’s eyes, his limp leg and compulsive
Kiss, the three dogs in bed with me--
They look for you in the window.
Fair Avenue, the xolos, my ribs await you.
You’ve put it in me. Blamelessly.
Si, guey. Si.

Dominoes


Into dots and spinners—disavowals, tallies.
Out of furrows and double sixes: fanaticisms and freak shows.
I’ll mangle bones and twist trombones because this
longitude sits at the end of the farthest pier where I
Deposit our box of bones and the toll this year
Has taken on me, and, and, and… For so long you
were mine—inconsequentially, posthumously mine.

Perspiration. Big Sleepy watches over me now. My company,
My guard, my connect. Malt 40s uncouthly sketch globes,
perfect orbs out of the fret inflicted by the one bald bulb
perched like a broke-down star atop the summits of our scalps.
Brenton Wood, Sunny, Mary Wells, Otis Redding, others…

And the homeboys’ tongues roll:
risitas, miradas, these estirantes clutching clavicle and ribs.
I remove my tapa out of courtesy. Place it top-down out
Of herencia and honoring of the ones that came before you.
I have not been by the pad on Lorena Street in months.

I cannot say what’s happened to our shit, though it feels as if
All of it is in me, now, rolling as if cerros were sequestered
Syllables unleashed, and these blue dominoes in rows before my
Fingertips are a queue of soldiers unquestioningly, stalwartly,
awaiting decree.

Answers. Prior to all this, I was chromosomes and mere soliloquies.
Afterward, I’ve put this pack of bones at the bottom of the sea and
what giving is left but to give and give and give the rest.
At this odd hour, the ferris wheel goes luminously, and
I’m armed with little more than my bus ticket and this
bag of kites and paños, which surely will devolve;

His paños involve hours and clever assemblages of watchtowers and
webbing and clowns. Does this bone in the lung ever dissolve?
Does this queue of soldados get resolved?

In the Front Room of Our Canton, 2008

Pompadour



i. Impeccability
Beneath the girth of Texas skyscrapers:
Gleam and circumstance never
Cease to amaze. The Esquire, 2004:
Turiqueando. The exiting that follows,
Caló falls from the Chuco’s mouth
attached in saliva and descuentos to
Toothpicks and unremitting frajos
revealing 1933 ain’t too far away
from Commerce Street and archetypal
Aztlan handshakes, homes;

ii. Extolment.
Pompadour, whose svelte firmesa forms
When clenched teeth like fingers and
Pomada have chiseled—‘ta de aquellas;
Tangibility. Adulate. I walk indebted to
Estéicis and drapes, estirantes, esquina,
vaselina, rolas, tapa and chain.
I am missing my own feather.
The Lion’s Den is a million miles away.

iii. Ya estuvo.
From my abuelito’s cantón, the
2 x 4s and shotguns surmise
A similar tacuche tie and chocolate traje once
dangled from a fucked-up chandelier
we needed to cut down as if it were
rancid fruit or flotsam;

iv. Watcha!
Faultless, stiff fact of cotton. Whetted,
the white ridge of one undershirt, now,
me pica; In this parietal lobe, this camiseta
clings to our skins and harrows ancestry
and the technologies of spray starch and planchas and
what I devote my Southside mornings to;

In the Form of Dead Leaves and Torcidos



I called for backup, and what came caused dissonance instead, and the kind I was unable to scrape away with heirloom fileros or assuage in stages.

And December arrived unapologetically.

And offerings like tortillas and sacrificios render shit useless when days accumulate into solitude, which rises, de una manera, where satellites or the moon should stand.

Withstand. Aguantate.

Immediately, the unwelcomed aniversario. A veterano’s passing, and again, I am unarmed. Down-ass memorias. A down-ass vato.

Immediately, the deconstruction of altares and egos, and the things I lost to la pinta never, never remit. Marigold petals shred themselves and rot.

I ran. Season of placazos. Epic shit. Clowns and alebrijes. Watch towers and praying hands. Heavy shit. The untold fortunes of taggers and contraband Sharpies.

To Lorena Street. Phone calls and other viajes. An escapulario clings to my rotund shoulder. Atop my wrist, I situate three crosses: Forgiveness and Brenton Wood.

I like the way he loves me.

Paños, kites, cruzitos. El Monte and santitos. Sureños and 63 rosario beads. His Ben Davis.

On the Search for Good Chile and a Bag of Ice



Listen to what we consume at the 7 am hour—
If not fried pig mixed with egg, then cleverly pickled
Slivers of cactus paddle aside the innards of cows stewed
Amid the reddest of the red liquids. I am steady now
In how I squeeze a .$79 feast into my esophagus
Into fuel for a day’s toil. Steady yet rambunctious in
Squirting seeds from plastic containers of the greenest
Serranos, and it’s this acquired joy:
the nicest chile punching the throat followed by
gulps upon gulps of Big Red, and is it too late to
wake this eyelid, too late once the seeds have
lost their own vesicles and the chicharron has found
its way off my plate? I am worthy. A bag of it
melts in the bed of my truck, too earnest to flee.
The asphalt on Fredricksburg wrinkles (unwilling, unworthy glow),
beneath the weight of a squinty sun and tire treads that
push and propel ice toward upper deck freeways,
high rises and casitas in other sides of the wide lens
this place is known to harbor amongst its Westside
cache of nopalitos, menudo and Big Red.

Backroom 1, Planchadito (2008)

At the Half-Stove While You Slept, I Prepared a Meal for


Soledad and Tonatiuh and the handball in tow,
And the Redwood, recessed,
Silent at this milky hour where clouds
Confound skylines and schemata;
Rigor, rituals—awake, and the soy fussing
Over a meandering flame,
And I’ve stitched sink water into rustlings, into
Reckonings and eyes and

Jawlines affect temperamental dreamscapes
of island Life, where after fucking, we
lay exposed and new to one another along
crooked, oyster-cased shores
and nascent sands suggesting—accuracy,
irritabilities;

and rousing the fat root I venture, then, at
this sweltering hour of no sun and sparse
words to lure us tepidly into Patchworks and
piss and tufts of chest
hair and the moisture of
Your underarm and that majestic odor between
my thighs when you take me in your mouth
and the scars and The thought that I once
was your beautiful Mescan man—possibilities,
accuracies.

Schematics from a Homeboy Discovery of What It Means to Be Down for a Lorena Street Vato Made Only of HEB Creases and Folds


I want to see drops, though I know how
They menace.

It happens. Like 500 stars happened
to the effervescent hummingbird
That happened to Baby Huitzilopochtli, then, who happened
To the flower-warrior cycle I knew so many wombs ago
as Jefita, and that fateful feather, sly as foxes and absent
fatherhood, duplicating cells beneath the waistband
that happened to the whole belly and body of our moon:
Coyolxauhqui, up in my sky now—slivers
And quartered and, in the heaven of my tripas,
so full.

So, I’ve happened, now. Happened in drops and
Penner tapas, to this pecho of the San Anto
Express News--all classifieds and obituaries for nipples
And a valley of black-grey piel. Can’t put these lips to
your pecho no more. Can’t say why.

Can’t read the narratives or retrospectives foretold
In ballpoint paños and Pelicano cartas and beautiful kites anymore.
Sabrás. Man of creases and thumping. Oh, thumping, guey.
All saliva and synchronicities,
homeboy hecho de mi piel. All mis pesadillas.
Josefa Salinas, Angelita de la Noche.
All my pensamientos.

I’ve opened a month of Spurs statistics and
happened upon your origami-jaguar
cora that’s all HEB sales flyers folded up exquisitely,
tautly, tautly. You’ve chorizotes in tus ojitos. A paquete of
weenes slapped upon the throat. Roma tomatoes and
Hill Country Fair twelve-packs for hands. A brisket and
bucket of yellow potato salad buy-one-get-one-free
combo for a kneecap. I see them.

And all I want is to see drops. Though I know
I’ve happened to you like the palo
Happens to the tripas of a Ninja Turtle piñata;
That shit that happens to us—time and longing and disease.
Aging and swallowing. All folds and cicatrizes.
Simon.

And My Hoja Santa Cannot Eradicate this Bout


of lament:
Silly, so silly to think it possible for
photosynthesis and autotrophy to salve that
shit, though she promised me
genuinely to accomplish this;

In her robust leaves, at three a.m.,
I find something, nonetheless.

Not tenderness. Not sulking.
In her stalks that pose and pirouette--
The limbs of tall birds like herons
like amber cranes lit by stale street bulbs,
Though so far from foam and coast and
storms churning follies
In the rambunctious Gulf, and
nonsense and tragedies and
thousands of seedlings riding salty troughs,
And grains of castles
like neurons and nonchalance
slipping through toes—

Fondle carbon. Manipulate nitrogen.

Hoja santa, grow for me.
Give me momentum. Give me millimeters
And moths and velocity. Give me that much.

The Story of a Kite

Regals, Acequias, and Bomb-ass Cuttys, Homes



i.
In this sprawling asphalt, Southside arithmetic and
Homeboy wonderland; Look at me—
Doting, groping esperanzas like corn truffles;
Aqui, we all are fledgling visionaries,
Fledgling camaradas, homes.

Thunderbird dreams. Dexterous fingers trace starched-up
Ben Davis seams. Heavy strawberry sweets, a throatful of blunts.
My lofty rosario heaving hope inside this Impala.
1965. Hardtop. Primer grey and believing
In these hard times, homes. Signs, thighs.
Down-ass pelons fondling
Watch tower tattuajes alongside
Charming payasitos placaos on silver-candied hoods
Of majestic Regals and true blue Cuttys; Trust.
This is my Aztlan.


ii.
Where resurrected xolos groom
Legendary Mohawks, and metalflake and Daytons
Hungrily gather, esperandolo.
Watchalo!
Scalps and pompadours! Tallboys and firme creases.
De aquellas.

Big-ass mesquites and retamas burst sinewy fronds
And yellow miracles that mimic faith; Blindly.
For all our vatos, For the marvels of this baby
waterfall that trickles and tries, billows of humo
emerge from mouths like spirits and suspiros and shit.


iii.
Black Magic llantas shiny as the womb of the
Five hundred star brothers and sisters—Military Drive,
Mi cielo, mi tierra. Watchalo!
Lonely Boy. Laughing Boy. Sad Boy. Y el Sleeper.
This vela in the shell of the sun swells and dwells and
Swallows these acequias. Industry in the city.

Ditches. Manmade rios. Shut down baños and
Choques of unrequited deseos and unreturned llamadas to
Isolated-ass vatos sitting, waiting,
Watchando, while the whole world passes on second-hand sofas
at Fair Avenue and I-37;
Heaven has gone the color of summer calabazas and fading hickeys.

Above us, el cemetario of clouds:
departed homeboys that never made it this far.
Honor. Corajes and cariños. Homenajes.
Schedule me a bout of Southside rolas.
Schedule me a car wash at the corner of Roosevelt and Military—
Sunny Ozuna, Laura Canales, Los Manhattans.


iv.
In the acequia, afloat are pachuco effigies and
Fluidos; Loves lost and knuckles knot, tripas
And tracheas on the brink of kingdom come, guey.
Veteranos loving veteranos, the magic of backseat velour
On piel! This is our San Anto, guey.
The symmetry of chorizo!

Pachuco Dreamer Falls Hard after a Classic Rosedale Low-Low Show & a Firme Cruise Thrown in Big Sleepy’s 85 Regal That’s as Sleek as the Aztec Moon


1
A la verga. That’s how it began.
A pinto. A pachuco. A presencia.
Commerce Street in his eyes.
Stacys and pomade giving a vato the magic
We all know as the shine. Like that, guey.
Two vatos--placas and ganas. Asina.
Estirantes pulled down to the waist and cuero pushed
As far back as the moist hollow of the throat
Allows. A love
In the back of ranflas and saloncitos.
A love to float cuentos to lonely homeboys.
Te lo juro.

Rimes y piedad.

Cargandomelo. Pensando del.
Love happening in the soft soul of my mouth
like a word about to come out.
Purisima. Sleeper. Those kinds of words, homes.


11
Baños y parquecitos.
Inside of himself--shit, the whole jale goin so fuckin good,
so hard. Tan firmote. Sleepy could see it—
One long, slow-ass cruise. His tongue
In that pelon’s throat, and the Regal as silver as all of desire.

Sabrás. The shit was inexplicable. De primeras.
And just when it got good,
Just when todo el borlote se calmo.
The guato goes down, el baile se acabó,
and all that’s left is the loneliness of the Westside
Moon and us. A little Temptations. Los Delfonics, guey.
Manhattans on El Monte Street and West Avenue and
Ribs that crack open like seeds and sombras and ojitos
And truths—

De verotas.

This is the sky of the most beautiful nite in the history
Of the world. A thousand cuetes and the freeways avail.
The end on their piel like worms and guantes.
He remembers. Always and forever.
Final haul to those pearly gates
Of incarceration, imminent separation.

Big Sleepy con Young Sleeper.

The nite la jura might bust down a door,
Blow open a wall and come for us, cuz
What we were doin was all wrong,
All wrong. On the outside looking in.
He could see it.

If this world were mine, homes.
Put me in jail.
Un minuto más.
I found love on a two-way street, homes.
Love will cause an inferno.


111
Today, the vato wields paños like pulque, and love sworn
Tlaquaches hum Sad Boy melodies about this one Flores Street
Dreamer who dreamed shit like no other Southside vato he’d
Ever known had dreamed before. A torcido’s love--
Barrio love at the Pearly Gates of San Anto County. Torn bedsheets
and tiny kites and visiting hours that
Never end. Simón. The view from below the
Watchtower. A la verga.


C/S