More Poems That Won't Get Fed To The Publishing Dogs

ACCIDENTAL 2005

I.

Can you imagine if we walked out of the womb?
If we squared the shoulders or fixed the make up
shook the hair, straightened the lapels,
and the spotlight was on us and the womb.
Can you imagine the angst already,
is the spotlight on the womb or me?

Imagine every promise you've made,
and imagine diamonds and coal.

When I wake up in the middle of the night,
the first thing I do is look at the clock.
Should I sleep more? Should I get up?
Am I banging on the womb to get out or stay in?

Imagine every promise made to you.
On the fingertips and the eyelids,
or unconvincingly with a shove in the ribs.

When they say the kid has promise,
they mean his past is irrelevant.
There are many ways to chose to forget
but if I enumerate them, I haven't forgotten.

I want the promise of a better world
and I want it in the last 10 seconds
counting down to what?

The new, that's what.

The new me, the new you, the new world.
That's what they gave the new kid,
we deserve as much.

II.

Later on, we pass out cigars.
We pass out cigars because they symbolise success.
Either a baby or another year done,
we won't know the outcome.

If you measure
you fail
and you will measure again
and fail again
because the measuring
is the failure.

The years that pass are years
you are still alive.
Think about the people who die
on New Year's Eve
without ever knowing the outcome.

*****

MADRID

I.

The gypsies are like humidity,
clinging to the skin, dripping need.

"Please help feed my baby," she mumbles,
rocking cloth in her arms.

A man steps forward.

"That's no baby!" he exclaims,
ripping the cloth from her arms
to expose a doll.

II.

After two months of dirt, my shoes
will be shined in a park in Madrid
because a man snapped up with a towel
and offered.

Two months of a half dozen towns'
dirt clogging my stride and time
now, for the cracked teeth smiling
at me si señor,
to shine the shoes.

He turned dirt to shine, muck
to a sublime shade and spat
and shook his skinny elbows
back and forth.

*****

That's all for now kids. More te folly in the coming days and years.