Riesa
10-16-2006, 09:58 PM
Stepping over a half-dead Mexican
with a gash in his skull,
we climbed the beer-slimed
steps with our gringo-go-ahead
through gleaming sideways looks,
Josés and Jorges on their
fifth Reposada greeting us
with oye!'s and shifty grins
As we headed towards the balcony
where others,
tired of whistle blowing servers
pouring poppers down virgin throats
drank cold limón beers on a Tijuana tweak.
Joel, with choirboy lips quoting
Dylan’s Tarantula while she’s off getting
beers and a round of shots,
gets drunk enough to ooze
secret pouts and lecherous sizzle
in my direction,
My fury fueling fiery laughter
and Amy back again with confused loyalty:
“Aren’t all poets deranged anyway!” she professed,
hardly lifting her starry eyes as I left them to their
Mexican night.
It’s true, I did take slow
enjoyment in novel thoughts,
and had a wildness buried beneath
a Christian-school upbringing
that poetry unearthed, but
his crooked coffee-bar look
and deviant intensity
gratified her in a way
I couldn’t touch.
I recall
out walking on a winter beach -
she invented a boy-man with an adventurous soul
and a fondness for cats and fine wine, with a touch
of enigma to him, just to keep it interesting;
But that summer,
instead of going home
to blueberry farms
and clam-chowder air
she followed him to a transient hotel,
where the two of them lived on
greasy-spoon eggs
and Colt 45,
her wrapping paper dream
distorted to brown-bag reality of
thrown whiskey bottles,
eggshell silence
and day old coffee
With ashes in it.
Last we heard he was in a Florida jail
for battering his pregnant wife;
and Amy’s number’s unlisted now,
but she owns a couple of tough tomcats
with Mafioso names,
and there is a man who,
like the shine of gentle rays
softened with sweet morning mist
cherishes her Olympia blue eyes - eyes that are
clear now, except for that slash of amber
that wasn’t there
that night at El Dragon Rojo.
with a gash in his skull,
we climbed the beer-slimed
steps with our gringo-go-ahead
through gleaming sideways looks,
Josés and Jorges on their
fifth Reposada greeting us
with oye!'s and shifty grins
As we headed towards the balcony
where others,
tired of whistle blowing servers
pouring poppers down virgin throats
drank cold limón beers on a Tijuana tweak.
Joel, with choirboy lips quoting
Dylan’s Tarantula while she’s off getting
beers and a round of shots,
gets drunk enough to ooze
secret pouts and lecherous sizzle
in my direction,
My fury fueling fiery laughter
and Amy back again with confused loyalty:
“Aren’t all poets deranged anyway!” she professed,
hardly lifting her starry eyes as I left them to their
Mexican night.
It’s true, I did take slow
enjoyment in novel thoughts,
and had a wildness buried beneath
a Christian-school upbringing
that poetry unearthed, but
his crooked coffee-bar look
and deviant intensity
gratified her in a way
I couldn’t touch.
I recall
out walking on a winter beach -
she invented a boy-man with an adventurous soul
and a fondness for cats and fine wine, with a touch
of enigma to him, just to keep it interesting;
But that summer,
instead of going home
to blueberry farms
and clam-chowder air
she followed him to a transient hotel,
where the two of them lived on
greasy-spoon eggs
and Colt 45,
her wrapping paper dream
distorted to brown-bag reality of
thrown whiskey bottles,
eggshell silence
and day old coffee
With ashes in it.
Last we heard he was in a Florida jail
for battering his pregnant wife;
and Amy’s number’s unlisted now,
but she owns a couple of tough tomcats
with Mafioso names,
and there is a man who,
like the shine of gentle rays
softened with sweet morning mist
cherishes her Olympia blue eyes - eyes that are
clear now, except for that slash of amber
that wasn’t there
that night at El Dragon Rojo.