my first friend

in elementary school, my first teacher's name was ms. Jimenez.

I remember waiting in line as a child, being counted and numbered before going into class.

inside the classroom we learned how to write our names, numbers, and cursive.

during lunch time we would go out and learn songs.

I only had one friend at the time, her name was Diana.

later I learned when she was 16, her mother started seeing another man and

her father couldn't handle it so he bought a gun, killed the mother and the lover

then turned the gun and did it to himself.

I carried a purple lunch pail to school, it had a picture of chameleon on the front.

I don't remember the food I was eating,

but I remembered the first time I saw a kid eating a sandwich.

It was plain white bread without any crust, 

it had a slice of yellow cheese and a thin layer of ham and was cut

into even triangles.

later on I would come to know Diana's parents after school

and was once invited to her birthday party.

I arrived at her house too early before her father was home.

when he finally arrived he was upset that I was there early.

I waited in the living room while he grabbed her hand,

took her into the bedroom and started hitting her with his belt.

I could hear her crying and the noise was drowning out.

their were aluminum cans on the dining table, on top of the tv,

and on the coffee table. everything smelled sour.

I left that house.

I saw her again at school, but she never talked to me again.

I never talked to her again either.

12

12 people are dead.

abraham lincoln was only trying to watch a play,
but the dark knight came and took his life.

the bee hive of america is humming for answers,
but they will find none.
the news networks will dissect the killers past
and the killer will be then a monster.
the monster will be caged and
put to death.

america will continue.

indifference of tragedy,
desensitized.

nothing is absolute,
everything must be questioned to be fully understood.

more violence will come, more death, more sex politicians, more magnates;
and the next great torture killer is yet to come.

it all keeps coming.

small tragedies.
small deaths.

the terror of a person
alone
is dismissed.

nothing made him do it.
it just happened and it will happen
again.

friend

I find it very disagreeable, being a dashing romantic as I am,
that you would do such a thing as cheat on her.
a man with class would cheat behind closed doors,
keep his mouth shut and keep her legs wide open. 
but you made me a part of your game when I met her,
I couldn't say anything to unfoil the plot, or lack there-of.
a year went by and I didn't say anything.
she wouldn't give it up enough, you said.
the lights had to be off and her dressed hiked up. 
she would cup her tits and her pussy
and when you tried to maneuver your cock
around her fingers she said "no".
but you did it anyway and maybe she liked it in the end
but that's not how it usually goes, pal.
defender of right and just romantic love and
advert of the cupid's arrow. haha, what a crock of shit.

there is a time when pain becomes
so incapacitating it becomes difficult to think,

it becomes difficult to make the decisions like tying shoelaces or shaving.

the retardation of the mind is the end of all
moderate thinking.
a wounded god creating "art"
then becomes a hero.

--

this is my line to walk along with the gods.

gods among men are remembered while 
the rest are forgotten.


some hold onto the edge not wanting to get up.
just holding.

goodnight

two drinks down and I feel much better. 

a slow recipe towards death,

a little bit of grass, 

a hazy way to endure. 

not like tough-boy poets who once had horse races, boxing matches, 

bull fights, bar fights, whore houses, planes at war,

winston churchill and all of the presidential assassinations. 

I would like a way out of here, but I'm trapped inside pages.

sometimes I don't want to come here, or I don't "think" of coming here,

but then I'm here anyway.

I'm here to say the little I have to say,

maybe nothing inspiring or spiritual,

bu fragmented pieces of me.

I bleed, ideas like dreams that don't often make sense,

but must find a way to exist.

your pictures can not break me,
the thoughts of you like searing pain that bring me to my knees, can not break me. 
mercy with your heart for my soul, is not enough, the light of day, is not enough, the marching band
playing is not enough. teen years gone. innocence gone. yearbooks signed and dismissed,
letter-men jackets hanging in the closet, scrap books, friendships, gone.
the light of day came only once for me and when it did,
you were with me and it was autumn and the leaves were falling
as we promised each other a love of immortality.

notes

It's the 4th of the july and there are gunshots in the streets and sirens

and people yelling in the streets, hardly american or not american at all. 

tomorrow is my birthday and for my birthday I want a time machine to 1984

for a smiths concert or to 1954 for Miles Davis. 

I want to see Tommy Dorsey with Frank Sinatra in the 30's when he was young,

I want see the big bands, white musicians, black musicians, and tito puente. 

purple

I thank the lord for this small bit of herb,
for the land it grew upon, and for the sun it brings.

mary jane has come to rescue me from the madness that lives inside.

if there's ever a time in the future that I will not remember,
now I will, because I wrote this,
and I will remember.

it's soul music coming through my ears like marvin gaye,
when they used to have those big brass sounds, horn sections, back-up singers.
big people with sounds that were so talented.