He Wore Blue Velvet

They wrapped
the baby
in blue velvet
because he was
a boy.

Now,
he wear pinks
and pastels
and argyle
and gun metal gray
because he is
a man.

[Based on Prompt "What's Your Birthday" - the song is "Blue Velvet" by Bobby Vinton, #1 on September 27, 1963, the day I was born. Thanks to https://dversepoets.com/ for the idea.] 

What Falls Away

 These days
I find myself
falling apart
easily.
 
My arms are tired
of trying to hold
myself together.
 
My body keeps telling me
in aches and groans,
“what are you
holding onto that
for?”
 
My exhausted brain
unfolds his director’s chair,
squats his weight
upon it and exhales:
 
“Let it fall away.
This body wasn’t meant
to last forever,
so what makes you think
your will is any stronger?”
 
I don’t want
to let everything
fall away,
just the
old, flaky, dead
stuff,
which
makes up more of
who I am
every day.
 
So I’m letting it all
fall away;
if it cannot stay affixed
of its own strength,
then that’s Life saying
I don’t need it.
 
But still,
way deep down inside
the pilot flame is still lit,
the rhythm still beats,
the juices still flow,
 
and I realize
the Great Interconnection
 
as I breathe in
the same air as
Socrates, Jesus and Groucho
and bathe in the same rain
as a delicate hummingbird,
a breathtaking mountain,
the pebbles in the stream.
 
Help me
to easily let go
of what
I no longer need
and
remain steadfast
and strong
and true
to that which
never falls away.

"What Race are You?"

The conquerors
came to my mother’s door,
kicked it in
and invited us
to accept Jesus
at the tip
of a sword.

What could she do?
They were on a quest,
a holy mission
guided by The Great Commission
and imperialist avarice.

Subjugate,
rinse,
and repeat.

With each new soul,
each hungry, crying mouth,
with every generation,
the original sin
was watered down,
until eventually
there were enough
mestizos
that they qualified
for their own
ethnic checkbox,
their own profile-able
category.

Fast forward
centuries and continents
later…
what is your race?

Father was
a Spanish rapist
a Christian murderer.

Mother was
a humble Indio,
a surviving stoic.

I am not half-White.
I am not half-Indigenous.

I am mixed
and troubled
by my father’s cruelty,
humbled
by my mother’s strength.

My blood is
impure,
and so is
my race.

Popsicle

We had 

a simple popsicle
between us.

I asked her
“do you want 
to split it?”

“No, but 
I’ll share it.”

She knew 
I’d eventually
understand.

This is the difference
between 
mine and ours,

and I pray 
it informs 
my every interaction,

and this was how
she used 
a simple popsicle
to teach me
a profound lesson 
in loving. 

Waiting in the Fog

My daughter says
“you need to write again 
and tell everybody where you’ve been.”

I’ve been nowhere in over a year,
cherishing anything safe and dear,
but these thoughts of mine aren’t even clear, 
so often I dwell in a cloud of fear.

I went out into the world again
revisiting places I hadn’t been, and 
while many things looked how they used to look,
even the bookstores had fewer books.

Everyone zipping at their pre-COVID pace,
like the pandemic was elsewhere in outer space,
except half the people had covered their face.

The other half stupidly danced along
defiantly ignorant, like nothing was wrong.

I never thought we’d live this way,
year after year, day after day.
My heart ached from all the memory,
and I wanted to go back in history,
be free from this pain
like it used to be,
but my wish went unanswered,

it just haunted me.

So where’ve I been?
in a fog for a year,
waiting for my spark
to come back around here.

First Impressions Matter

One of my earliest memories:
standing in line 

with my parents

at some amusement park

or public place,

(that's how early this memory is),

and I was holding my father's hand.

I was so little

probably 2 or 3

and I was just immersed 

in the experience

so much

I heard my parents 

from behind me

say

"What are you doing?"

So I looked behind me

and there were my parents

so then whose hand

was I holding?

I looked up 

and saw a beatific 

face of a chuckling,

middle-aged 

African-American man,

just smiling at me,

amused at this mystery child

holding onto his hand.

That image of smiling grace

is fundamental to who I am.

All my life,

as a Mexican-American,

I've never felt anything

but kinship,

acceptance,

for African-Americans,

and I wonder if

that smile had something to do 

with it.

First impressions matter.

The Sound of My Voice

I would sing you
love songs
all day,

but you don't like 
the sound of my voice,

so I still sing them
to you

but it's just
in my mind,

where I imagine
you love
the sound of my voice.

Disinhibition

 In the turbulence
of passion,
moistened skin, 
400 thread sheet count, 
I am happily,
wondrously lost, 
my imagination
and lustfulness 
trying to keep pace
with my heart rate.

After all these 
years, days collected
and stacked
high and haphazardly
as fall leaves 
in November,

this intensity,
this raw disinhibition,

saying things,
moving in ways
that can only 
be earned
through time,

to a climax 
of orgiastic,
timeless ecstasy.

One Last Nice Moment

New Year's Eve
ticking over 
2019 to 2020.

I find my 23 year old 

daughter

who is diagnosed with 

borderline personality disorder

in the kitchen.

I gently hold her

by the shoulders,

look her squarely 

in the eye and say

"Well, on the good side,

God didn't take 

either one of us this year."

She stifles a smile

and tries not to hug 

back,

but doesn't try 

too hard.

Finally caught,

she dismisses me

with a derisive

"Stalker."

That's a good way

to wrap up

2019.

The View From Here

She takes a drag,

looks out the window,

sees the familiar,

perfect red

white

blue police lights,

and thinks,

"I don't miss those days."

Where Were You?

In times of anxiety,

stress, worry,

I manage to get through it.

Most times I don't care

about the quality of how I handled

it,

I'm just glad it's over.

Then,

In a vain shallow

snottiness

I ask God:

"and where were You?"

In typical

elegance and wisdom,

God replied

"Where were *you*?"

On Having a 23 Year-Old Daughter with Borderline Personality Disorder (for Sarah)

She lives in

an insular world

of emotional instability

and impulsivity.

I live with

the possibility that

the illness

will overpower

the meds

and she'll do something

impetuous

and unintentionally

tragic.

Most nights,

as I make

my final rounds,

set the house alarm,

and walk up

the darkened stairs,

I see the light

from under her door.

Maybe she's awake

and her mind is racing.

Maybe she fell asleep

with the lights on.

I'm just grateful

I know where she is

and that she's safe. 

Christian is a Verb

Make yourself known

not by your label,

not by your word,

by your action!

 

The grace and kindness

with which you’ve been entrusted

must sprout,

emerge or

explode,

whether spontaneously

or as a premeditated act,

 

but,

it must exist

and

it

must

matter!

 

A follower in isolation,

selfishly hoarding it

squanders this gift.

 

Christian is a verb.

 

You don’t need to

be crucified:

 

just feed a hungry person,

or water a plant,

or just sit and listen

when needed.

 

Christianity is a belief system,

choking on legalism

and self-contradiction,

but Christian is a verb,

so

commence Christianing!

Ritual (Over 100 Quarantine Days)

When the work

is done,

I retire to the garage

to smoke my cannabis,

watch a sitcom rerun

and unwind

as I always do.

I walk to

the front of the house

to check 

my daughter's car

to see 

if it is locked,

as I always do.

I walk around

the black

2012 Honda Civic

and check the doors

and the windows

as I always do.

Noting this ritual,

as I have done over 

100 quarantine days 

in a row, I numbly think:

"There is 

absolutely nothing special 

about this day."

At that moment,

I became conscious

of the purple in the dusk,

the melody in the breeze,

the hopeful laughter of 

the children playing 

up the street,

the scent of her hair

lingering from an

earlier embrace

and the warmth knowing

all was safe,

calm and bright 

for the moment,

and the truth 

whispered in my ear:

"Every single thing

about this day

is special."

Forgetting

As parts of
her drift away,

weightlessly

as if released into
the infinite darkness
of that eternal night,

laughing memories
of our life together,
important names,
evocative music,
the taste of enchiladas,

are evaporating
as ice cubes on
a summer sidewalk.

Thankfully,
along with
those treasures,
my mother
is also forgetting
the cold score keeping,
the distance, the invulnerability,
the pain of
my father's abrupt departure,

and I find
that she says
she loves me
far more easily.

You Just Can't Please Some People

March 1999:

When my father
was taken
at 64,
two days after
his own mother,

I was angry
and I said,

"God,
why did You take him
so quickly?

I didn't even
get a chance to
say goodbye."

June 2020:

As I watch
my mother
video-calling from
her newly-installed
hospital bed,

I hear the
fatigue and slow-surrender
in her voice,

and her mind
is disconnecting,
her memories
are falling away
like rare coins
from the worn pockets
of her lifetime,

and the pain
of this sight
makes me think

"God,
why are You
taking so long
to welcome her
home?"

My Rain

My rain comes 
in meek droplets
and unforgiving sheets.

Rarely does it wash
anything clean,
merely adding
another layer
of dirty air,
baking itself
on the roof
of my car,
or on a cheap plastic
backyard chair,
miscreant weeds and
unspoken-for
mounds of dirt.

No,
my rain is
unpredictable
and it takes
a day or two
for its musty
grasp to be
loosened.

It can gray-dampen
a sun filled sky,
sit on my plans
and cruelly,
unceremoniously,
remind me
of my ultimate
helplessness
and finite
abilities.

My rain
comes in memories
of loss, regret
and longing

and even if
I try
to hide indoors,

it is always
rainy season
in there too.

[Written for https://dversepoets.com/2020/06/02/rain/]

Ascend

Those old love poems
worked hard
but failed to fly;

these poems, for you,
ascend, never looking back.

[Posted for https://dversepoets.com/2020/05/21/mtb-5-line-japanese-poetic-forms/]

Portal

Implicit in
every portal,
every entrance
every pathway
is a decision:
do this
or do that.

Most days
the choices
are overwhelming
and I rely
on habit,
other’s decisions
or time
to decide for me.

Today
I walked through
the door
that said

“try writing again,”

and now
that I have
crossed that threshold,
I stop to consider
whether
I carelessly
skipped over
the portal that said

“write something better
HERE!”

[Posted for https://dversepoets.com/2020/05/19/dverse-poetics-about-portals/]

“Isn’t This Fun?”

The usual vibe
these coronavirus nights
is
my Ollie
planted between myself
and his sexy grandma
because we have
a king-size bed.

We play,
we giggle,
we slow down

and some nights
he fights sleep,
violently, desperately
as though something
in his 30 month soul
whispered a lie
that the sleep
would be eternal,
forever.

Finally,
his strength abates
and he surrenders
to the cool darkness
as we all  do,

and his breathing
is slow and deep,
as “The Cat in The Hat
Knows A Lot About That”
softly lullabies
him into narcosis
and this is our life:

the three of us
in this cozy, wondrous
cocoon of love,

and just as I drift away
I hear the cartoon cat
gleefully exclaim:

“Isn’t this fun!”