Mango Street Parade

Here were palm trees for Christmas
Sugar sand and a melting sun
A mango street parade
First mirage slivers, then a loud wave
It swallowed you whole
With the rest of San Juan.

It was all makeshift
Fake beards and hand-me-down music
Girls with sheets for dresses
Stomping shaking colliding
Excitement had a monopoly on them all.

Goodbye elegance, hello colored lights
Caffeine vibrations and rum nights
They threw mangoes on the street
And candies in your hair
Melting in the heat, into
Heavy saccharine air.

Everyone a dancing candy
Wrapped, unwrapped, on
Cellophane streets
Sticky skin and sweat like
Syrup, dripping from
Body to body, from
Chin to chest, from
Sole to concrete.

A tropical soup
Of boiling dancing things
It caught you and
You danced, too
In wild shakes and feverish spins
Fighting hot wind
Fighting gravity
Fighting the memory of reality.

It was just a mango street party
And you, a mango too
But only briefly
Until you ripened and fell
To the sideline, no longer weightless
A broken spell.

You sat in wrapper heaps
Sweat now a quiet dew
Watching the parade
Parade on by, to
Other burning streets
Far away from you.

Can Décor

I actually started this blog a while ago just so that I could write about these sardine cans (below) and other foods and containers that blow my mind, but the material turned out to be too limited to keep me interested so I quickly gave up on the idea. Now I’ll go at it again, and just be less focused.


These cans are awesome. I had a house full of sardines when I saw them but I bought them anyway. Why not? I’ve had much better sardines than these, but no others whose empty cans I want to scrub clean of sea scum and fish fragrance until my fingers go pruney and I’m bleeding out of aluminum splinters. (This procedure comes after a lazy three days of suds-soaking.)

music fingers

I'm melting
into the chair
forearms
sinking
into the desk
fingers
pulling
at the nerves
in my forearms
legs
heavy
in the seat.

I'm sinking
into the chair
and my neck
can barely
hold my
head
and my head
can barely
hold my
eyes
and my eyes
can barely
save my
eyelids
from

falling
down.

but my ears
are full of music
and so
my eyes
continue to see
and my mind
continues to dream
and my fingers
on the keyboard
continue
to support

me.

Sunday Night Game

It was one of those nights
When the weather's mood
Matched mine.

There were leaves on the ground.
I wanted to pick up leaves like words.
I wanted to pick up words like leaves.
And petals off my nose.

It was a strange day,
The day the amateur found romance
In his fingers.