#921

Skyscrapers give us the finger
from the freeway, their shining mouths
laugh at us as our arms fall off
and we try frantically to pick them up again.

A gargoyle hangs upside down, incognito
on the municipal building
while the Virgin Mother sobs through
the alabaster walls of the nearby cathedral.

You have seriously considered buying
a sandwich board to wear on the corner,
and charge folks to write whatever they like
on its surface, becoming your Bible.

Here's a start:
Stop playing ventriloquist
with your stigmata, magician,
something we can all get behind.

A lone string of Day of the Dead
flags is caught on a lamp post,
wind-lifted, it marks our meeting spot,
where I can read blueprints on your hands.

#752

I'm too tired, too exhausted by
the constant attempt to present
myself subtly, with some sort of restraint,
and now I find myself,
hair matted and eyes ablaze
walking the sidewalkless streets of North Hollywood--

and I declare, in all sincerity,
that I am done--that I will proclaim
from this abandoned parking lot
with weeds growing from cracks
in the pavement, waiting to be pulled
to unzip the crusty face of the Valley--

I've pinned two cloth swatches to my shirt--
one that says
it doesn't matter what you think,
but what you do--
and one that says
it doesn't matter what you do,
but what you feel--
and then take off my shirt completely
and stand there,
knowing things aren't that easy,
that you've got to carry it around
like a goddamn barbell over your shoulders

and I proclaim it from this lot,
under a square of sunlight
through a cloud, here, in the lot
across from the Chevron, on Victory, north
of the carnicería, accepting that

I've now got to move forward,
with these lead bones, but a root
shaken loose from the pavement.