A TOWER


He said
My name is Torres
And he was adamant
On giving me
A ticket

His partner was the good cop
When he couldn’t convince
His coworker to forget
The whole incident
He walked away

I followed Torres
As he spoke codes
Into his radio

I immediately thought
About chess
And how a tower
Can be overcome
By a pawn

If it is
In the right place

A horse is handy too
Because they can jump
Through traffic

Bishops speak
With poetry

Then he said
It’s okay
You can go
I am not going
To give you
An infraction

The truck that hit me
Got burned
It broke my turn signal
But his engine overheated
While on the line

He made it into
The yellow poles
American turf
But his ride
Was burning

He was behind me
A cool CBP agent
Clad in blue
Gave him instructions
On what to do
To temporarily
Fix the situation

I watched them
On my rearview mirror
Sticking their heads
Under the hood
Steam all over them

DAVID BOWIE'S WORDS

Planet Earth

Is blue

And there's nothing

I can do

I AM AN ALIEN


Okay okay
I am an alien
And my space ship
Is blue

I can cross borders
By land
By sea
And air

Ozone layer borders
Acoustic borders

I am an alien
But I understand
Fire
Wind
Water

Yes I am an alien
And you didn’t have
To remind me
Using the green
Salad box

I known this
For a long time

But I thank you
For making me smile
On that awkward day

THE ELECTRICIAN


I saw him working
On the neighbor’s
Electric meter

I remember when
We used to go
To school together

He liked punk rock
And he wore a
Denim jacket
With a message:

La sociedad
No tiene cura

I liked that
And I liked him
He always seemed
A nice person

Now he’s repairing
The electric box
Owned by the
Bizarre doctor
The wrong kind
Of healer
Friend of the
Impound yards
The kind of MD
That makes car’s disappear

I asked him if the lady doctor
Goes to his church and
He said no
She works at the
Oasis Hospital
The place I hold responsible
For the contamination
After the motorcycle accident

He mentioned she has a lot
Of Jewish things inside her house
That would explained
The old guy
Who looks like
Bob Dylan
Who wears a hat
And likes to
Spin a key ring
With his thumbs

He looks to old
To be dancing in that fashion
After a certain age
Even a hat
Is not enough protection
For the sun

I asked my childhood acquaintance
If he understands solar panels
He replied that if
They came with an instruction manual
He might be able to figure them out

He looked nervous
It’s okay
We all need
To start somewhere

THE HOLIDAYS


There’s a cool wind
Coming from the north
You feel it when your
Are walking

When you walk south
It’s not on your face
But the sun is
Right on your eyes

North wind
On your shoulders
Heat in your eyes

I like Christmas Eve
In Mexico
I like Christmas
In Mexico

Feliz Navidad…

You can walk on
The beach
In shorts
Without feeling cold

NUNCA TE OLVIDAREMOS

TÚ ERAS MEJOR QUE

SANTA CLOUS

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

THERAPY


I want to start 07
With a right kick
Very good said the doctor
And signed the forms

I took the slip
And drove south
Towards the
Organic Marketplace

I found a manager
Sitting at a desk
Stoically contemplating
A store sale add

I said to him
This slip is for you
And handed him the
Piece of paper
He said
Thank you sir

I asked how was
The Christmas party
And he answered: good

You knew about it right?
No
Yes you did
No I didn’t
I was told you knew about it
That’s not correct

Hopefully Mr. Cohn
Can make it up
To me

He changed subjects

I wonder why they
Are not letting you
Come back to the store?

Right now I am on
Physical Therapy
Concentrating on
Endurance & Strength

I carried on:

I am not using a cane anymore
I feel more confident now
You are looking at a
New and improved 1
When I come back
It will be
(Like the popular figure of speech)
With a vengeance

An Incubus Leaving Two Sleeping Women
Henry Fuseli

THE BEAUTIFUL
TURQUOISE EYES
PETITE ITALIAN GIRL


I worked on a trampoline
The objective was to regain
Strength and endurance
In my joint
The radio was close
To my work station
Music dancing out
From the speakers

I like this song…
Do you like incubus?

I just had to ask her:
Do you know what
An incubus is?

No

Do you want to know?

Yes

An incubus is a spirit that
Comes to women an night
And has intercourse with them

God!

I know somebody that used
To be visited by 1 of those
It’s very interesting because
It never bothered her boyfriend
But it was different on their
Weeding night

What happened?

Her husband took off running
He never returned
Very unfortunate
Very horrible

She said she would
Look it up
Then she grabbed
A dictionary

I had to tell her
To be ware of
Paper dictionaries
Because by the time
They publish them
They are usually obsolete
To get the latest updates
Is best to go online

DELICADOS


I stopped at the store
The other OXXO
The one that
Usually has change

I asked for a pack
Of cigarettes
The usual

Delicados con filtro

I paid a dollar
In quarters and
Twenty something cents

In pennies

She said they don’t
Accept that many pennies
She added that
Customers don’t want them
Banks don’t want them
The only banks
That take them are on
The other side of the border

She gave me
The cigarettes
And retuned the 1 cent coins
She kept he quarters

That’s okay
I like Lincoln

NARCO—TUNNEL


The Mexican government
Seized the house
With the tunnel
The one used for
Underground traffic

It ran below the
Tijuana border
Into a “duty free” store
In California

Not inside the store per se
But its parking lot

The tunnel is now closed
Now the house
Is an artist’s refuge

Someone thought
It would be a good place
(The balcony)
To read poetry

A few feet away
On the California parking spaces
The American poets
Read back to us
Using megaphones

The guy with the
CNN microphone
In his hand
Seemed uneasy
Perhaps it was
The burning sage
Or he was
Scared of heights

The wind was cold
And there was
An ugly dog
That I liked

FRENCH


To learn
Or not learn

The teacher
Is lovely
She poured wine
In my glass
And told me
I will
Like the
French desserts

Showed me
The couch
I could use
To watch
French cinema

Is there a
French alliance?
A French connection?
A French allowance?

HEAT


The radiologist said
She is not afraid of radiation
Because it’s everywhere

Then I will
Not be afraid
Of my black box
That tiny
Plastic brick

That burning
Supply of power

Because it keeps me
Warm in
The hard winter
It makes
The nights friendly

Who would think
That something that
Causes global warming
Is a great substitute
For love

RADIO STATION


When the interview
Was about to begin
We saw through the
Studio window
An Eagle eating a Mouse
On top of an electric poll

We were so high
We could see
Tijuana & San Diego
Anointed with smog

When they asked me
What is poetry
I pointed to
The bird’s beak
Shards of
Bleeding flesh
Hanging from it

STRETCHES


The therapist stretched my leg
Not in the usual way
This time it didn’t hurt

I thought about
The old slogan
“No pain no gain”

So I told him
Hey man
As your were bending
My knee
You didn’t twist
My foot towards
The left
It didn’t hurt
Like it usually doeswhen you do
Those maneuvers

He proceeded to explain
How wrong it is to
Do it like that
How you can do damage
To the meniscus

It’s nice to know
He was trying to rip
My meniscus apart
A lesson in stretching

FRIDAY NIGHT


Literary awards
Granted by the State
I liked the wine
The potatoes and caviar
Where worth the taste
The governor seems
To be a smiley guy

I still remember
Martin’s words
You should enter the contest
I am sure you would win
I thought about it
And found myself translating
Like a crazy my
English poems into Spanish

It was madness
So I stopped
The conversion project
Such operations
Should not be done in haste

So I concentrated on the event
On the faces of the winners
As their names were pronounced
On the PA
On how the blue governor
Smiled on them

A high point
A winner with a mini—skirt
She walked up
On the podium
Blue glances at her face
But her underwear
Was black

Then time came to go
Read at the tavern
So we drove in a convoy
It was a starless night

When I was at the door
Chatting with a
California photographer
A government sedan
Double parked next to us
2 fellows came out
The driver looked scared
And the passenger
Dressed in black
His face like that of a car
Wanted to be friendly
He said hello and smiled
Pat me on my arm
And walked in

And it turns out
It was his day view
He read a couple of poems
Not bad for a bureaucrat
He read love poems
And I wonder if those poems
Were really his
Or was he just following
The script

VISUAL THERAPY


You look
So good
In black

You are
Thin & tall
A celestial diplomat

You have
Long dark hair

It falls down
Like Amazonian waters

You are an
Oceanic beauty

TIJUANA EXERCISES


Getting back in shape
Recuperation of
Survival limbs

Cross—training dream
My sights fixed
On the market

The RX
Is for
Staying power
I think that’s

Write—on!

The celebrated author
Said endurance is
Better than talent

Building resistance
Like a happy dam
Glorious reservoir

4 POETS ON THE SIDEWALK


The crowd was watching
The soccer game on the tube
They were pondering not
On literature
And that was fine because
The were happy
They hold their beers
On their tables and had
Their glances trained on
The televisions that
Hang from the corners
Of the tavern

The team with the
The right colors won
By this time I was on
A different place
A restaurant not a cantina
And the poet had coffee
And I had a corona

Then it was time to
Go back to the tavern
To begin the reading
I was eager to listen to
This coffee poet read his poems

There are different types of poets
There’s coffee poets
Beer poets
Wine poets
And liquor poets
There’s also dope poets
But nowadays dope poets
Are no good
Maybe because today’s dope is bad

Whatever the case may be
I remembered how this coffee lyricist
Had a particular message for the Vatican
When he read at festival of literature
Something that stimulated my attention
So I wanted to hear more of his work

He paid the waitress and when
We were about to leave
I stopped to say hello to
A lady with a hole in her eye

She said the medicine she took
Was so strong that it burned her eye
I told her I would pray for her

By this time the Vatican versifier
Was reading some material
At the magazine rack
We stepped out the door
To an avenue of revolution

And we saw the other 2 poets
Walking our way
The queen of hearts
And the psychologist

We walked
The 4 of us
As one
She said
Who would think
That 4 poets would march
On this walkway