The Soil
I bit into a candy bar when my mind asked my ears:
What am I doing here, in this park at night? Have you heard anything?

Nothing in reply, which if I was smart I should have known:
Because, ears can only hear, they can't speak

I licked the chocolate along my lips and drew it onto my saliva tongue:
And asked the night above: Are you like these mortal ears: you can hear but you can't speak?

Have you no able tongue? Have you no insightful eyes to guide us?


The sign said:

NO LITTERING

$50 FINE

We must keep our parks clean, my mind said to my hand.
I collected the candy wrapper and discarded things that did not belong to me and put them in the litter basket.

No one would have seen me if I had left the wrapper on the grass.
But it wouldn't have been right.
Whether behind the night sky there are eyes and ears, and tongues that will not speak.
Whether  there is a fine to be issued.
No matter, it wouldn't have been right to litter this soil.

Did I hear myself or someone else speak?
That is what I must learn.

Jester
When I stand up to twilight
When the last of the light surrenders to darkness
I feel I should of lived in another life

Like a futile old man, who can't turn back the clock
I am hopelessly worn out from love

Oh, should have I given myself to what's above?
A blood red moon likes to taunt this dying man
Star's like white, guiding lights burn out in the night

All my life I could hardly see
My eyes are fine
But, all my life I could hardly see

My heart is wounded,
From the things I've done
From the life I should of lived

Turn back the clock, old man!
I hear the laughter in the joking wind

Oh, blood red moon, I've been a dying man
White light guiding me to its laughter

When the twilight surrenders to darkness
I hide from the sky above

But in my dreams, I see a jester's grin
In return, I laugh too, that's how I sleep at night

Fighter Once?
I walked down the marble stairwell of an old building and saw an old man mop a lonely hallway with twisted misshaped hands. It was late at night and it was just me and him. I was in my summer business suit and he was a night cleaner in dirty overalls. He worked his sinewy arms in a grimaced rhythm.

"I had my knuckles busted in both hands," he said to me as he held still his mop. I stopped and listened.

"My nose has been broke. My eye socket, too. I had a cracked cheek bone twice, and I dislocated my shoulder. I had ointment burn my eyes, and razor blades hid in gloves cut my skin so bad I thought I'd bleed to death."

"You were a fighter once?" I asked.

"Yeah, mostly just a nobody. I fought that time in Mexico where I got cut with the razor blades. Now I get the headaches bad. Sometimes, everything seems in slow motion, and I see sparks in my brain. I should a been a better fighter. I should a been a better fighter. You don't make no living washing floors."

I looked at him for a second, and said Good Night. That's it, Good Night.

When I got home, I noticed some dirty water from the mop stained the cuff of my pants. But I didn't care so much. I made a good salary, I could buy a new suit.

Lucky me. I didn't see everything in slow motion. I didn't see no sparks and my face had never been cut. But there have been days lately where life feels like a grimaced rhythm. Like somehow I busted up my knuckles, and hurt myself bad.

Good Night, I said to myself. Good Night is all I could say.

Glory
Soldiers walk as shallow graves
In a civilian dream I cannot be seen
But I see them as I move opposite their army tide
They retreat past me--
along me,
through me
Unaware of where I am
Their bandages-- shredded and bloodied--flail like tattered flags
The burst of cannons--the billows of smoke
I see death's wait in sunken eyes
Broken arms, broken knees--one wounded man holding up another
In deformed march they walk the bridge
The swelling river of blood beneath their dying feet
I float above
My dream wings lift me\\\
Across the bridge I see---the wounded march of men is eternal
The shallow graves of their youths,
pierced by arrows,
severed;
torn by mortar and guns
The glory is that crossing to salvation
Where once again they are young and not aged by war
Where life revives them
Where they rise up, the bloody bridge behind
I awake and gasp
War and the other side, all in a dream. All in a dream.
I hear the news, a bridge of fallen soldiers.
I awake and gasp once more...the glory and salvation, the glory and salvation!

Broken Waves
...one day looks just like another--
In a hall of mirrors I escape through the space of glass;
The magic Nature of time conjures me...
tricks me, fools me, disappears me...

To the Clouds! Let me disrobe you
Let me undress the tall trees and the leaves of grass

Na, Na...na...na...na...
Naked to your heart
Nature, I listen
I dance to the rhythm of the night
Feel the pulse of shining stars
I am at one with the roar of our rivers,
the turns of our shallow creeks
the stillness of our moonlit waters

I run with the wildness of our wolves
I uphold my arms along the wings of our great eagles
I make peace with our deltas, and travel in togetherness with this newness

I dream of our nature---
In sadness the day awakens me...one just like another
But in the hall of visions I see the great eagles swoop
I am led by the pulsing stars, and know the rhythm of the night
In spirit I run to the wildness of wolves

Oh nature, in sleep I wanted to undress you, but you repaired me with the song of  breaking waves...never do they come ashore the same...
Yes, you have awakened me with our wonder and our new visions...

Samba Pa Ti
I stood at a Gambler's Fire.
I watched its orange flames
I watched its floating ashes under the cold desert sky.
I heard the crackling of its burning heat.

Beads of sweat fell along the Gambler's smoky skin.
He grasped his lost returns:
The old photos of a woman he once loved.
Like rolling dice he offered them to the burning flames.

"Yesterday, I searched the internet for a woman I knew. She wanted my love. But I bet on the wealth of aloneness. I wagered on the perfect whir of neon lights.  Twenty years ago I saw her last. Twenty years ago I held her at a concert in Mexico. That night I escaped along a mission wall. Now after all this time I won the elusiveness of a Senorita, but the story said she died. Cancer took her this week. I did not know."

The Gambler held onto the desert stars...then wandered into the space of the Sonoran night. He wagered on midnight snakes; the rattlers of death. I could have called his name. Stopped him. But I too had turned the pictures of old lovers into flames. Watched the allure of their mortal ashes burn. Now I would draw from the poison of those snakes. Twenty years ago I said good-bye. Samba Pa Ti.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ACdwCIld3kE

Alhambra
I walk the length of a Spanish Square and see visions of Renata
I am scared
I don't understand
You died when we were young

I saw the last light of your eyes
Touched the thinness of your lips
Saw you draw a last breath
Felt our dying hearts
Your mother wept in my arms

I remember we'd walk through wild woods
Run through tall leaves of grass
Leave our clothes under an evening sky
Swim and laugh in a cool stream

Then your heart grew weak
Your lungs filled with fluid
You died without the beauty of a long life

Under the hot Spanish sky a black bird circles with giant wings
I hear it laugh
I decide to have some fun
Will you dance with me, Renata?
Ghost lover, I'll hold your young hand

"Agua, Agua,"An old innkeeper cries.
"Come, come," he says. As he directs his wave towards me.

I drink water from his glass bottle.

"Senior, the Spanish sun is hot at mid-day. It fools your head. Time to take a siesta."

He shows me to my room. The door faces the square. I sit on an old wooden chair and take off my dusty desert boots. Then I place my clothes on the edge of my bed. Under a cool shower my head begins to clear. The water on my skin evaporates quickly as I dry myself with a large towel.

I stand naked under a ceiling fan and feel as cool as a mountain stream.

Tomorrow I will take a train to Granada, where gypsies still live in caves. The Moors built a castle there. They say when you see the Alhambra, you never forget its stature. Its tall Arabesque doorways.  Its beautiful water fountains.

I lay in bed and hope sleep comes soon. But outside my window there is the shadow of a giant bird. I hear its awakened humor against the mildness of my  heart.

Does it also know madness under a Spanish sun? Does it not take shelter in tall leaves of grass--or find peace in wild woods? Or await love in an evening sky? Or does it mock me with its crying laughter?