a sad song on the fourth of july
 
the fireworks aren't 
as bright this year
 
escaping death at the
sight of every sniffle
gets old after a few
weeks, let alone 
months
 
but it's a sad song
on the fourth of july
 
on the back porch 
with something strong 
on the rocks
 
just you, a tomato 
plant gone wild and 
the fucking mosquitos
 
these are the nights 
you used to sit in a
cemetery and read
shitty poems to the
dead and seek advice
 
you swear to this day
you saw a shooting star
in a beautiful woman's eye
 
she left you for dead
a few weeks later
 
just poor communication
that is all
 
deep down you know
death licked your lips
that night and you were
ready to give in
 
another bite on the leg
 
hindsight wins yet again
---------------------------------------------------------------
enjoy your youth
 
i always laugh when
a younger woman
calls me handsome
 
i tell them to enjoy
their youth
 
this face is what 
happens when you 
are never given the 
chance
 
eventually the 
conversation
turns to money
 
as all conversations 
seem to do
 
we are nothing 
but prostitutes
to whatever this 
earth has decided 
for us
 
not everyone is 
ready to be called
a whore

Hypnotized

I go through
every day as
if I am a zombie,
one of the living
dead.
In fact, that sums
up exactly how I
feel. Hypnotized,
going through the
motions.
I have a big photo
of Karen that I
keep by my bed.

Every few days
I will wake up
enough to start
screaming, and
crying, " How
could you do this
to me, babe ?
How could you
leave me to face
this awful world
alone ? "

Then, thank God
I go back into my
trance, and nobody
knows how I really
feel, they all think
that I'm doing well.

But I know, and
Karen's photo
knows. 

our indie goss
 
I’ve had it on cassette 
I’ve had it on CD
and now I’ve got an mp3 of it on my phone,
and I’m telling you:
whatever the format, it’s always the same:
 
two minutes and five seconds
into Ceremony by New Order,
the volume jumps. 
I can’t figure out if it’s just the bass 
being twanged especially heavily 
or an actual recording blunder,
but I swear,
in any format I listen to, the volume always seems to jump then,
even on the remaster. 
 
I don’t care if I’m wrong or mad. 
a part of me likes feeling like I own this observation,
like it’s a secret between me and the band,
and that’s ok:
after all, isn’t that what all music should sound like?
 
of course, 
if you
dear reader 
have heard it too, 
then I guess we’re both in on the secret 
and that’s ok too:
 
isn’t that what all writing should feel like? 
 
 
a cold pillow evening 
 
standing at the delivery doors out back.
smoking a roll-up 
made up of the fag ends 
of other roll-ups,
you whirl the stiff bastard of your left ankle 
until it finally cracks
whereupon, right, whereupon
some prick behind you 
feels the need to point out that 
“your shift only started about 10 minutes ago”. 
some prick that
may or may not be your manager – 
if she isn’t yet, she will be soon enough 
with that attitude –
and  
 
there’s a little ugly bird whose breed you’ll never wiki 
doing a sort of flat-footed tap dance 
on a low wall opposite. it looks like it should be smarter than
that. like it’s pretending it’s happy. 
 
“well?” you hear. 
evidently she’s still standing behind you. 
she’ll be manager any second now. 
 
a scab slides off your left knee 
only to fall into your sock 
like a cornflake, wet on one side
 
and no one asks the bird what it’s up to.  
 
 
the happier repressed 
 
they say
everybody 
is in their own hell
but really
it’s usually a hell
of someone else’s making:
 
it’s
a job 
or a boss
or a landlord 
:
a cage you were bequeathed.
 
but if you’re truly in 
your own hell,
like say 
from indulging a bad friend
or by choosing to be miserable 
with a miserable partner
 
then congratulations:
you’re about as free
as we can get.
 
just keep
your freedom 
the hell away 
from me.
 

Failed Haiku
 
1
Blank page on my laptop
A tree still waiting for leaves
 
2
A hazy childhood memory
The dense, swirling fog 
in which a killer might lurk
 
3
Passing clouds 
cast fugitive shadows 
over a hayfield
Lines for a poem
that vanish on waking
 
4
Bright red patches 
on the wings of blackbirds 
Christ’s wounds
 
5
Your inner child
A figure pursued across the ice

Panic Attack on a Tuesday Afternoon

I'm falling to ash again
Blinding myself to my blessings
Turning the spotlight to my troubles
and hating myself for being cognizant of it

I don't see the glass half empty
I see it shattered and pressed against my neck
I see a thousand paths to nowhere
Can't find a single one that goes anywhere

If you think 
that you think 
your thoughts 

I'd say you like 
having that thought
that you aren't thinking

It Could Be Worse It Could Be Raining

Up, out of bed 3 pm Saturday San Jose Costa Fucking Rica, I can smell the rain with a mixture of car exhaust and diesel fuel, gray skies gray world, just the Gods reminding me what a hangover looks like, the storm has already saturated the city, flooding streets and low lying areas, the smell triggers my olfactory memory machine to recall fond thoughts of Mexico City, resulting in a smile that occupies what feels like my entire face, replaced quickly with a grimace from the pain of this cancer eating away at me like alligators gnawing from the inside out.  
The Gods, hilarious bastards yuckin' it up at the joke they have perpetrated, I could have contracted Lung Cancer, I've smoked everything that can catch fire, Liver Cancer, the fish drink like me. Quote from a past love Christina. I drink like a fish I once stated, "No Santi the fish drink like you", Cancer of my blood, I've shot and tried to shoot everything that would dissolve in water, even cough syrup with codeine as well, Stomach Cancer no, never been a big eater, the thing I enjoy most Sex, so I get diagnosed with Prostate Cancer. 
Those of you thinking Karma, kiss my ass, you people piss me off more than christians, as though there is some cosmic cloud waiting to rain down retribution for malicious acts I may have performed during my present or past life, now I am really agitating myself, past lives what a myth, Karma was created to pacify the Egos of those who don't have the balls or aren't willing to fight back.
Bad luck the culprit maybe, luck doesn't exist good or bad, it's just the consequence to an unforeseen event, nothing more, but there are those that need to believe in some mystic force, an omnipotent deity controlling their destiny, you think I'm coming off a bit self righteous do you, demonstrating my best character flaw. 
Andrea calls often to check up on my condition and has accompanied me on a few IMRT sessions at the hospital, seeing me going through therapy made her uncomfortable, so she stopped coming, she seems to call shortly after I've injected a massive dose of morphine and I'm too high to carry on an intelligible conversation, when I do attempt to speak I drift back and forth from English to Spanish then French causing her to laugh, her voice brings me back into cognizance,
" Español Bigotes! Porfa Espanol"  
I once asked her to dedicate five years of her exclusive affection to me in return for a sizable inheritance, assuring her I wouldn't live that long, she declined graciously with a passionate kiss, her hands cradling my face.
" My love I think there is nothing that can kill you. Let's leave our relationship where it is, And I believe you will outlive me and I'm only thirty years old." I had just celebrated my fifty-sixth birthday and that was eleven years ago when I made my request,
She has never asked me for anything except during moments of passion, I've attempted to convince her she does love me only she doesn't know it, falling in love with a man like me is a risk she isn't willing to take. 
I'm out of coffee, cigarettes and morphine, exiting my place with no umbrella, off to the Pulperia and Farmacia, the prostitutes flash their twenty dollar smiles and Los Bichos de Calle (street insects, bugs) are out early searching for Rocka Tocka (crack), the deluge increases its intensity, the sky crackles with lightning, it could be worse, it could be raining.

Fuck it 
 
as I approach 50
I grow tired of trying to fix
all my various problems—
my emotional problems 
my people problems 
my drinking problem 
it’s like pretending 
I’m somebody else
somebody I’ll never be
 
so...fuck it—
I surrender 
I’m done fixing anything 
it’s a waste of whatever time
I’ve got left
 
this belief that we’ll die
at 85 after a long retirement 
is a hubristic 
modern fallacy
I’ve had a few classmates go 
already
in their mid 40s
people die
in their 40s and 50s
all the time
and don’t you forget it
 
shit...they die in their teens
and 20s too
and in cribs
and wombs
 
back to my so called
problems...
I guess I could be sorry 
it’s taken me this long
to figure out
that they’re not problems 
at all—
that this is just more
cultural propaganda 
clinging to my already too old
too heavy 
concrete shoe soul
like a thousand rotting 
dead
skins
 
so again 
fuck it
 
someone has to be me
and someone has to be you
so we may as well
quit pretending 
and really go for it
you know?
really inhabit ourselves 
fearlessly 
because after all
nobody can play these parts
better than we can 



The Same Old Face
 
it’s always those with power
telling the powerless
to not take it personally—
it’s just the market
you’ll find another apartment 
one you can afford 
you’ll find another job
don’t worry
 
there’s no need to hate me
there’s no need to curse
or spit on my shoes 
 
why are you so angry?
 
and while those 
with lots of power
can be vicious 
 
worse are those
who’ve been powerless themselves
and now they have a little bit 
and they’re testing it
you see
 
they want to know
if they have the stomach
to do
what’s been done
to them
 
just like 
they always dreamed
 
I like to imagine 
they’re surprised 
at themselves
by how easily 
they slip into the role
of master
 
I like to imagine 
some crisis of conscience 
 
but they probably
don’t even notice—
 
they look in the mirror 
and see the same old face
 
they haven’t changed 
a bit

What Are You Supposed To Do ?

Just what are
you supposed
to do, when the
bottom has fell out
of your world ?

I don't know, I've
tried heavy drinking,
but that's just made
me worse.

I never want to get
a drug habit again.
That is seriously 
the worst of the
worst.

So, what the Hell
do I do ?
I really don't know,
that's why I'm asking
you.

I just get up each
day, and try my
best to go on.
Writing helps, but
I'm only writing
about once a week.

Before it was usually
four, or five poems
each week.

I don't know  
I don't know what to do.
That's why I'm asking you.

Another Day in Paradise

If Jesus lived now
his mug shot would be 
on the AP wire as the face
of the man who attempted 
to throw a live alligator into
a crowded bar in Florida.
He’d have done something
criminal on the tail end of
a three-day binge like driving
a stolen car into a line of
charity bike racers, taking out
bystanders, competitors and a
utility pole then, undeterred,
backing up for another go around
despite a steaming, leaking radiator,
detached bumpers and caved in
windshield. Deployed air bags 
don’t count.  His stained t-shirt
would have an AK 47 decal,
a slogan like “My rights doesn’t
end where your emotions begin.”
In his next life he would be a
Shotgun Judas with a sawed off,
infiltrating a political rally,
church fundraising event, for
the homeless. His chest tattoo of a
screaming eagle with a US flag
decal in its beak is where the 
service revolver bullets go.

No Man’s Path
 
Fewer footsteps these last few months
Less trash from a foodless land
Empty backpacks left behind
 
Not a grave mound near
Songs no longer whispering
Behind the far trees lumps of decay and bones
 
Dust covering most of the bent grass
The path a thinning trail
Scavengers’ fur lies in lines from starvation
 
The wind dying
The dimming sun blends into the night moon
Man or woman hasn’t left a dream here
 
Something like smog in the air
The scent of losers everywhere
As a few of us still chase the glories of heaven
 
Birds have not flown high for years
Swirls of feathers lace the treetops
Tiny eyes like pin holes full of sand
 
Ants cover hilltops like dry beads moving
Swarms taking their time
Silent with their billions of mini legs
 
Scent of far cities crumbling
Hum of drums on the skin of earth
Now a nothingness of importance
 
No man’s path from one dead-end to the other
The way is not by foot
But by heart.