very little for her to do. for him the
day without blessing came speaking in
fluent curses on Walton Avenue and a
sickness ended his tender life. he was
with us for two decades aching for other
things, rejecting the idea that hope was
an empty house, in love with candle holders
in the local Catholic church, the comforting
presence of sisters and priests, and the solemn
ceremonies of Mass—it was swept away on a
South Bronx night. the mother still lives in the
same old tenement, more wrinkled and bent after
so many years, slowly she still kneels in front of
the icon of the Holy Lady where a candle still
burns to brighten up her small room. she gives
thanks to spite her weary days on earth, while
old impatient tears slide down her face singing
on the way to the linoleum covered floor: your
boy with the elegant brown eyes paces inside
the heavenly gate reciting Spanglish prayers for
you.
Waiting
whenever his lips move in
public, despair comes to carry
on work unfinished that makes
us tremble, again. our eyes have
never been more troubled by the
mogul who is now an unrepentant
president dressed with boastful visions
that fill us all with shame. with a vain
imagination, he sentences the earth
to death, her humble guests with
wretchedness, and keeps a pocket
full of scorn for those who disagree.
in the name of two silver coins, his face
is turned aside from those who scream
outside his door, while he sits in an oval
office thinking of new ways to exhale
sickness from his puffy cheeks unto the
shuddering crowds. not a single rule of good
is written on the heart of this cad in the White
House who acts like a little king. wait, when
the hour of the country is gone citizens will
have a clear vision rolling to their feet of the
country’s huge mistake.
The Autocrat
we are dropping bombs in this
world as if innocent lives lost
mattered not at all for the alleged
superior and decent life defended.
the last condemning explosion has
not deformed popular understanding
enough to make most citizens heave
a huge pile of indecorous words at the
man who denies scripting this horror
show. as we sleep, the birds singing
on the low branches of trees, the rivers
left unprotected to service greed, the
petals in the forest paler from decisions
made up the hill, the land listed for
consumption until it becomes a graveyard
for our thinning skin—water, rocks, sun,
moon, sky, seasons and years of work
offered up to God who made bread of
these are hurled into the abyss beneath
our eyelids by presidential leadership
clueless about crawling into it. under
this shared weight, the face of the deep
makes regular discreet appearances begging
us to conspire not to let a shameless fool
condemn this precious earth and make
living things bleed until they become
dust for us to mourn!
Tops
Joselito, the world’s greatest top
spinner living on the block drew circles
for the game even asleep. he knew how
to perfectly wrap an old piece of string
kept around his neck to a beaten
up black toy that fell into his hands
for fifteen cents and with a rapid-fire
accuracy could throw that thing to split
open any other top in a black tar ring.
Joselito has grown old on the block, every
now and then under a late-night street light,
you can still find him throwing tops, then
bending over with a hand on his knee for
balance to pick the old-fashioned thing up.
on those nights, he throws smiles too at kids
spying him from apartment windows questioning
why
