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