Rust and Moths

The train tracks of my childhood are rusted and bent,
the trees all chopped down, stumps ground.
The old roads are broken, busted into bits of gravel.
Underneath that bland tan paint, a vibrant yellow house
with breadbasket blue trim shines through like history
and its brilliant television broadcasts to our youthful grandparents.

Grandfather milkman gambled away his heart and his bread,
left an angry older brother, a broken Grandmother,
and Hank Williams records to raise Father.
Grandfather soldier gambled away his heart and his head,
left nothing but a Grandmother soaked in Scotch, a starry axe,
and a hot iron on the head for Mother.

The wallpaper peeled more each winter, withered by the gas heater.
This is our Country and these are our Lives, and we are all Oldsmobiles
perpetually westward peering, wrapping our heads around the horizon.
From Dutch beginnings and first Jamestown to the Empty Empire of the Midwest,
the sweet tea dreams of the American South, to the toothy coasts of California,
to the deepest blue isolations of the icy Pacific!

Our hearts hammer like iron hooves, our eyes are vast and arid as deserts.
I was born in a sacred silver bathtub, schooled in the silent cathedrals of autumn.
Each year the old neighborhood ages, the neighbors turn gray as moss,
termites chew and the winds, O Boy, they hover and raze the air!
A cypress house stands forever, a cypress coffin floats like a bar of soap or the Biblical ark,
a cypress tree falls under a windy hand, lies dead and naked, stripped of its bark.

Slammin' Do' Blues

I'm feelin' low down and angry, Baby
'Bout the way you been a-treatin' me lately
Jes' a-cryin' and a-moanin'
When it gets time fer me to get goin'

Now you know I never told you
That I'd stay or ever be true to you
And you knew when all dis started
You'd prolly wind up broken-hearted

But you slap my face when I get home late
You cuss me, Babe, won't unlock yo' gate
And you bitch at me and holla' an' scream
Like some kinda Goddamn scream machine

So go on, Baby, cry some mo'
I can't hear ya over the slamma yo' screen do'
I'll walk or maybe jes' catch da bus
Sho' is a-rainin' hard, and you in such a fuss

Ivonne, the Puerto Rican woman

She is five feet tall and Puerto Rican. She sounds incredibly sexy when she speaks Spanish. She has a great smile which she wields well. She used to watch Star Trek: The Next Generation, but didn't like Deep Space Nine. She has naturally burgundy hair. It was her idea to go see the new X-Men movie. She cooks killer empanadas and brings me beer randomly. She has a great sense of humor and loves to laugh. She is close to her family. She is spiritual but not religious. She has her shit together.

All this, and I am still hesitating.

I ask: what am I supposed to be looking for?

People say: you'll know it when you see it.

I say: that's bullshit.

Love is a myth. Love is a choice.

Memories of a Southern Boyhood

Money was tight. Mama taught school
and Pop roamed the roads. He’d come home late,
tired and sore, rough cheek, rough hands, rough kiss and a sweaty hug.
After school, no shirt, no shoes, look under the garden,
roly polies, beetles, and earthworms. Dirt under my fingernails
and I was just as close to the ground.
Dinner ‘round the family table, honey wood and chipped blue,
grilled redfish, gumbo, red beans, rice and gravy, roast duck.
“Bless this food, Lord, and the hands that have prepared it.
Bless it to the nourishment of our bodies, our able bodies to your service.”
We were tied to the land, we were nailed to the bald tree.
Mass on Sunday, bread and blood, a faceless crucifix, a turned ear.
Got my first blowjob at church camp, but then I was innocent,
pine sap, humid heat, up late, skin on teeth.
Family gatherings, stealing swigs of warm beer,
stories of the Old Country, of mayonnaise sandwiches, peeling wallpaper.
Hiding with cousins in the closet, Christmas day.
On Easter, catching king snakes and crawfish in Contraband Bayou.
On the lake with Pop, redfish rodeo, up early for duck season,
asleep in the backseat, heavy camouflage coat and shotguns.
Feathers stuck to bloody hands, begging dog’s breath, life and death.
The heart is where the home is. The heart is where the home is.