ALL RESPONSES |
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I sing of sorrows, forever buried in the sand.
The desert waits for rain in August.
It lies there windblown and thirsty
until thunderheads pour rivers that exist for a day
on rocks and seeds, beginning in arroyo floods,
sinking in sand to underground caverns, watery hells
where bats hang inverted above mounds of guano.
This guitar feels as you do, searching for a friend
Chile, serrano, habanero, bursting with seed to spill,
so full of capsaicim that gloves are required,
picked and roasted for rellenos and salsa.
They burn my mouth, make tears flow, open sinuses
irritated by brown desert dust, and cause sunburned pores
to sweat everything devoured the night before.
All under a sun that won't listen to your thirst.
Why wait until the sun goes down to dance?
It is here on this cantina patio that we find shade,
a comfort to those settled in this plain between peaks.
How odd it is to see snow on distant ranges, when the soul
suffers for lack of cool water. We wait.
Golden liquid, delivered by the barley goddess of the desert,
my smiling flower, is raised to cracked and trembling lips,
a tongue parting its cold, foamy surface to guide this beer of angels
to a dry, deserving soul.
The music grows sweeter with every swallow. Drink.
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these bones are
as old as your mother’s
her who I want to hold to
with peach arms
a lullaby
in a different tongue
the smiling of plaster
just made and spread
touch its core
here in the afterlife
the hours beyond workdays
beyond factories
tender now
shoots reaching up
the children will dance
as if there is only
pounding of feet
and the instant of memory
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(for the photo: The Chair)
we die in pieces
one minute one day one
second at a time
my son used to mumble words
eating oatmeal now he hates
oatmeal and he still mumbles
time is a water snake twisted
around my finger, a dead
branch in a favorite tree
we die in pieces,
first a hair in your nose,
a picked scab on the back of your ear,
soon your whole head mutinies
like thin pirates in search of silver trinkets
we die in pieces,
numbers on a cell phone
deleted by nimble fingers eager for fresh
dialing, fresh numbers
we die because our hands no longer work
we die in pieces,
and music dies in pieces: one note, one rest,
three rests then ten
soon we tire of rests
i smell flowers
i do not smell flowers
flowers come in pieces
we die in pieces
we die every time lover’s flowers are discarded
when all is cried over and questions
persist like fever symptoms, a dying man
will have no more answers
than the pieces of time he has lived with |
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Carpet Circle
Jeremiah Talamantes
7:10: turn on TV
7:11: make coffee
7:16: polish floorboards
7:44: clip carpet
8:57: prune pathway to rabbit ears
9:12: adjust rabbit ears
9:13: pour coffee
9:14: watch static
9:29: listen to neighbors on other side of wall discuss euthanasia
9:33: open door and retrieve paper
9:34: open paper and read obituaries
9:42: read comics
9:47: listen to the rumbling of the sky
9:48: make pi
10:01: write Zebrowski an email
10:17: turn off computer
10:18: think about turning off TV
10:19: sit in center of room and wait for an impression
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For the photo I'm Not Leaving
Here I find a piece of my portrait:
these people painted me, Castilian color over a hungry canvas.
This place filled me, a river thirsting for some place new.
I am not leaving, only remaining
at the shore of yesterday
I find myself again. |
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For the photo I'm Not Leaving
Watch surf pound shore's rocks.
Eye crest's foam, feel cool spray.
Stay back-water safe. |
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| Hello all, I am Jeremiah Talamantes (aka METROFADER) this week's artist. I just wanted to say that I think you are all so very talented. Thank you for the beautiful words and I look forward to reading your future postings! |
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For the photo, Home
I think about buzzards:
how it all starts with one
noticing the dead thing
lying in the middle of a busy highway
to cross the road and thieve
what’s hanging off the skeleton.
And then more vultures circle and soar in
with sly, beady eyes, black to all else,
beating frantic wings through air
to scavenge juicy steals.
They dance around the bones,
growling and hissing as they
knock each other out of the way
to snatch any and all salvageable organs,
still plump with liquids of life.
And they rip muscle from flesh,
delicious hunks of dissection,
overeating to later regurgitate
for their young
food not fully digested.
They work under the hurried light of day,
rushing to finish before the worms come,
taking to flight with each approaching car
only to land back down after it passes.
As they gorge, they care not
if bereaving heirs watch
from the ditch across the road.
The body, abandoned,
a home opened to the public
for an estate sale
thereby, allowing for dealers
to bargain their pound of flesh
and whatever else remains.
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For the photo, Home
Once someone woke in these shadows,
felt the boxes of light lying across his face.
It wasn’t much of a home even then.
He waited even when the nurse came
in red crosses and long skirts
with medicine to help the cough.
Even when the medicine didn’t work
and his lungs felt like blood,
breathing reaching a higher level of consciousness,
he waited.
Even when laying on the bed, rasping and rattling
became the same way of life as counting
the number of cracks on the ceiling, he waited.
Even when bored with praying
for the same thing all the time, he waited,
watching freedom
breathe winter with clear lungs
on the other side of the windowpane,
knowing he’d never see outside the fence
because his life wasn’t worth anything
when considering the lives
of those he could infect.
So even he stopped hoping,
long ago, admitting
they didn’t bring him here to be cured
but simply placed to die.
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For the photo, Home
later that night
she lies beneath his arm
the man cuts it off
so as not to disturb her,
blood spills like used
motor oil
onto the previously
squeaking floor
looking for the words
spoken to her earlier,
he walks outside,
meets a sad man
looking for his wife
the man says
she is only woman
in town who has been
in the dreams
of every man
the man replies
he never remembers
his dreams, at least
not since the thunderstorm
when it rained salt water
and the wounded
went running
the man returns
to bed, slides
beneath her body
with needle
and thread |
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To the photo I'm not leaving
My brother and I planned it out
around the pool over a breakfast
of burgers and tropical fruit smoothies.
The great thing about the smoothie
is that they used real fruit
and I sat daily and watched the
strange black bananas being
peeled, exposing their soft sweet
flesh so soon to be sacrificed to the blades.
They tasted different every day,
depending on who was working,
but they were always the best I ever
had.
The plan was to hide
when it came time to leave
for the airport,
and our dad would naturally
shrug off the loss,
and go back to cold Chicago
to his 70's rambler in the burbs
with his new wife and
step child and maybe,
someday, a dog.
we would sleep
on the beach and bathe
in the ocean,
eat fruit from the trees
and occasionally head into
town and sell necklaces we
would make from shells spit up
with the sand.
it felt that we would
never have birthdays
or tests or holidays
and never have to be
the ciphers between
mother and father
who used our little mouths as vessels
to carry bombs.
we hid them under our tongues
these words that taste like persimmon
or pomegranate but sound like
"lawyer" and "alimony" when
they fell from our lips
and onto ears that weren't
exactly deaf, but numb.
The flight back was bumpy
and the air precise against
our browned and unprepared skin.
Sorry Mom, but I beat
the postcard home.
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For the photo, I'm Not Leaving
At just dark, the sea translucent,
a gull cloud dissipates
into a blue that means lapis,
mystics, angels of old manuscripts,
an old painting restored
a vision in air
of islands rising from smoke
defined and telling what’s beneath
layers of waves,
where sun, crackling
means a quest for what breaks
while skeins of pelicans,
in thin hieroglyphs unravel
the shadow shape of all meanings
above the sea’s salty concentration.
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For the photo, I'm Not Leaving
I'm not leaving, damnit, WE are not leaving
We will face you down daily
Come at us with storms and fury
Pull at us with your tides
Science says in time we will be
grains of sand, an inevitability,
But not before we shatter
Ten million times in kind
Your waves to
Droplets and mist.
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You’ve seen this guy in bars before,
in Montana and South Dakota,
or the movies, the working poor artist,
slinging a guitar or button accordian,
shadows on the wails and lots of smoke,
in bars that don’t cater to winedrinkers.
The lyric’s what a cowboy always sings,
love surrendered,
love claimed,
the world transformed
forever or for a day
by loss or gain.
So it goes.
You can take his life as luck,
as man alone against nature,
a voice calling out from where
you are and don’t want to be,
or a place you’re glad you’re from.
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For the photo Sunday Mourning
Death surrounds us with its blackened wings
Death put us to sleep with wide open eyes
Death rains truth on uncertainty and doubt
Death calls out every breath from our chests
Death crawls slowly between freshly cleaned sheets
Death writes new pages in history books
Death collects overdue bills from debtors
Death cheats gamblers in secret games of chance
Death hides in windows and doorways at night
Death grimaces in skeletal embrace
Death heals incurable ailments on touch
Death gives poets something to dream about
Death distributes final checks on payday
Death breaks sunlight into tiny raindrops
Death fills fertile fields with next year's harvest
Death excels in ruthless efficiency
Death bestows great wealth on heirs to fortune
Death holds all mankind equal in its sight
Death repeats itself ad infinitum
Death wages long wars to feed its hunger
Death feasts on the errors of fine scholars
Death disturbs those who violate the earth
Death touches everyone with cold fingers
Death invites you to its celebration
Life is a good time to think about death |
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For the photo, Carpet Circle
Heaven a circle on an ancient Chinese coin
earth a square inside it—a not quite fit.
So many ways of having, but not wanting
boundaries.
A priest I know rides a donkey
up a mountain to a cliff chapel—
cell phone in his cassock
The mist draped islands could be
where I have been—where
I am going through bands of coral
Bodies of surfers that slash
the scarlet beach could be arriving
out of time—one with sea, sky, having
no parameters
As if I could walk through the soft
cumulus shapes that crown
mountains behind my classroom—
clouds of volcanic ash cooled
millions of years ago
In Bangkok a man rides
an elephant along the four-lane
against traffic—without holding on
to time
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it's partly sober
with a chance of hangover
buy tomato juice
bird herding is best
when the wind is from the west
time to learn to sing
tornadoes at dawn
when it's time to mow the lawn
PJ's opens at ten
the earth needs rain
I spread my arms wide open
and it rains on Mars |
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For the photo Sunday Mourning
he said
“our son is preaching
on the 16th so i hope
you go”
no one sees my panic attacks
when i walk
through those doors
what you can’t see
doesn’t exist
they don’t feel the band
around my chest
or the room spinning
don’t notice
i can’t catch my breath
faster i breath
the more i panic
they guilt me with
“everyone misses you”
because they can’t hear
the pounding in my chest
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The Office
Dad brought home a box one day.
He said it was for me.
But I couldn’t look inside just yet.
He said I mustn’t see.
He put it on his downstairs desk,
In his private office, where
I was warned to never go except
With him. Such times were rare.
He worked from home, “in sales” he said,
Which made Mom look at him funny.
We weren’t poor but Dad always said
We’d be coming into money.
He said the box contained my
Future, anything I’d need.
I’d never have to go without,
And this was just the seed
Of riches he planned to reap for me.
We’d “kicked into a higher gear”.
He also said we’d make plans to move,
Live in a mansion within a year.
So I just peeked in from time to time,
Wondering what he’d put in there.
A clean, unmarked, brown cardboard box
Guarded by his old green chair.
An agonizing week went by, then two.
Dad made no mention of it,
Other than to say that soon he’d bring
“the rest”; and that his boss could shove it.
I recall the day the telephone rang.
I was only ten.
Mom got real scared, cried, packed the car.
I never saw Dad again.
As we hurriedly were buckling up
I said, “Mom, down in the office!
My box is there. I gotta go back!”
“No Way,” she screamed, “it’s useless!”
A car pulled up behind us.
Blocking the end of the drive.
Mom cussed and said, “Stay low!
We might get out of this alive.”
Two men got out, reached into their
Coats, each pulling out a gun.
Mom screeched the tires, hit reverse,
And ran over the ugly one.
She rammed their car aside and screamed,
And I can still hear her say,
“What you want is in the basement,
So get the fuck out of my way!”
The last I saw the other guy
was pointing a gun at me.
Mom hit the gas to flatten
The goon up against a tree.
We were on the run for several months.
Mom was never the same again.
She had bad dreams about that room
Where my abandoned box had been.
At night she’d cry out, “Turn
Off that light! Forget the family!”
I’ve a top floor office now.
An MBA, and legitimacy.
From the Jeremiah Talamantes photo stimulus The Office
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Her piano sounds so different from her chair
It must have something to do with the quality of the air
one said to himself and nobody in particular, but everybody specifically
what is next, thought another?
Will she claim the lawn shovel has grown a cantancerous apostrophe?
Preposterous, that we are here at all,
under this roof in this house, where
a cup and a pail of coal isn't enough
to exhaust the sting in the chimney.
we can use the scissors to cut it
out, but first draw a circle around it
so no mistakes are made, then douse
the grave with dry leaves, and
pray it doesn't grow back. |
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Cantina cantatas
along las estradas
del pueblo veijo L.A.
donde mi madre once played
Los Anglos y Mexicanos
todos Americanos nuevos
primo generacion
La cantina cantatas stayed in East L.A.
while mi madre moved oeste
crossing Pico y La Cienega
(beachward)
where affluence
(and assimilation)
flourished in the sea-cooled air
Secular and sophisticated
we took our cues from
the living roomTV where
all the B&W faces were white, like ours
(Buckwheat & Tonto excepted)
We luxuriated in the exotic romanticism
of arm’s-length Hispanic culture
long school bus rides
through time
along El Camino Real
to Mission San Juan Capistrano
y otros
Flamenco dancers con
las damas muy bonitas
in full skirted costumes
staccato heels
stuttering castinets
a swirl, a flash of Latin colors
Their dark handsome men
strutting round them
moths to a lamp
but with passion enough to stir
even the heart of a grade school girl
Once or twice a year
our neighbors, whose names I never got to know,
would gather extended family
onto the backyard patio
adjacent to my bedroom window
with guitars and songs from
the old country
They’d croon through the night
their cantina cantatas
and those who didn’t
would yip and hoot
in a language I, too, longed
to toss about my tongue.
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