Bio
Here are some selections from my three chapbooks. You can also find my work in Southwestern American Literature, Nimrod, So to Speak, Haight- Ashbury LIterary Journal,Pudding, Conditions, and other magazines.
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Dear God
I asked for a million dollars
a career a reputation
a marriage
a fine house by the sea
and you gave me restless feet
a life of wandering
the infinite path of myself
I asked to see the rest of the road
you said watch your feet
I asked for a guru
you gave me a blood-red rose
I asked for freedom
you took away everything I had
I asked for a savior
you said listen to the drumming
in your heart
I asked for a sign
you said here's the cliff
step off it
I asked for the answer to the mystery
you said sorry, start again
I asked to stop asking
you gave me another question
I asked to be a great spiritual leader
revered by the masses
and you pushed me down in the street
on my face
in front of everybody
I asked for enlightenment
And you rubbed my face in the dark
until I could see nothing
but light
I ask for a new coat
And you give me the wind
I ask to be wise
And you show me
my empty heart
I ask to be loving
and you show me the wall
around my soul
I ask to put an end to suffering
you show me the demon in the mirror
I tell you
I'm in a hurry
and where the hell do I
catch the next train
you give me a lizard
sunning its back
I ask for an ordinary life
And you give me the universe
from Reinventing Fire
Chapbook, 36 pps
Wild Spiral Press,
San Francisco, 1999
(the thing you must ask of the poem)
does it have
blue in it
can you
sit in it
does it
light your cigar
swallow your tongue
open
wings in you
from Seeing Is Bright Between My Hands
Chapbook, 43 pps
Blue Amber Press, San Francisco, 1994
They didn't know what else
to do with you so
they put you here in CYA
where the toughest & oldest
men are twenty-five.
You were the youngest
of the cool-eyed cat boys
& you were shaking.
What they gonna do to me
you whispered.
I want to get outta here.
They do things to you
in here.
You held my card
& your eyes said
Help me
or write me
or something.
I said keep in touch
knowing this might be
the last time
you asked anyone
for anything.
Outside
the metal door clanged shut
I breathed the fresh air
looked back at the wall
wondered what you'd be like
in seven years
& shuddered
knowing I was not a witness
but a participant
to the crime.
from Sky Full of Holes
Investigating the Witness
Have to tell you I
really wanted to send you a letter
O skinny boy
of wise smile
& frightened eyes.
In the locked room
of the California Youth Authority
you clutched my business
card like it was
your mama's breast
fighting your way through
my tough questions
pacing back and forth
like a trapped panther
changing your story
again and again.
Finally you smiled
conceding my win
& said: here's the truth.
This is what really happenened.
You were not a witness after all
Yeah you broke
into the school
stole the computers
wrecked the place.
Okay you said so
now what.
You were already doing time
You were thirteen
& got seven years
for stealing roses
for your girlfriend
The Sidhe have come and gone
They have rearranged the night
taken off my skin
and folded the difference
into my bones.
My great grandmother lays the fish
upon the sand
the ones with torn bellies and gaping mouths
the ones with knowing eyes
the ones already turning into flowers
She moves her tongue
behind her teeth, and names them
one by one.
It is morning, and I am full
of forgetting. I drain the water
from the sink and begin to wash
the dishes. A single petal clings
to white porcelain. I leave it.
The rushing water sings. And I
in my waking slumber hum
the dim memory of an aching
distant music.
The ocean breaks.
My great grandmother with her muscled arms
pulls, and hauls the net upon the shore.
Silver scales still luminous in dark waters.
Learn to cast the web of moon upon the sea.
And bring the fishes home, she says.
They are all yours.
(from an upcoming collection of work.)
The Visit
The Sidhe have visited
my room again, moved the pieces
of furniture, left footprints
all along my floor and walls.
Petals from a strange and sudden
flower still float on the water
in my sink of dirty dishes.
It is morning and I
press my face against the air
trying to see in. The room is quiet.
My great-grandmother was small
and dark and nobody knows
where she came from. Learn
from me, she says in her night voice
the web of moon
cast upon the earth. Feel it
trembling in your fingers
like a fisherwoman's net, and pull
the silver fish upon the shore.
They are heavy, but they are all
yours, every one of them speaking
an undiscovered language.
There is singing, the Sidhe said
brushing their lips against my ears
It is all
around. There is a symphony
of wild sound beneath the surface.
Unmeasured and chaotic, the river
is always longer and wider than
you thought, and the bridge
is never where you expect it to be.