Tex-Mex Buddhism

My sister bought me a
little blue Buddha,
mass produced for
a mass culture

the little fella
sits in my guest
bathroom watching
people wash their hands.

He must know, by now,
that soap won't get
us clean and neither
will he, with his

made in Vietnam sticker
on the sole of his left
foot; we cover our hands
and our eyes with water.

Light

just like delicate dew
pulling petals apart
with morning weight,

I bring down the knife,
a butcher's blade, on
delicate cake

the kind that makes
a crumbling seem quite
like the shaver's shake

the edge, so
shear, that van Gogh's
ear would tremble; it would
quake

just to think this
white icing
applied right after bake,

a second's passed
a second half and
strawberries will ache

like morning dew
with spring anew
pull pedals as they wake.

Dog People

I have never considered myself a "Dog Person"
in fact, until recently, I was far from it,

but today, I got a dog; we got a Dog,
you and I did, because now, after today

it's gonna be all I write about
she's gonna be what's on my mind

Mark Twain called dog's
Gentlemen, and the kind of heaven

he would want to go to; but this
dog, our new dog, she won't even

notice me or listen to me, like she
knows that I'm just faking as a "Dog person"

she walks away when I call her name,
she knows when I'm forcing a smile

dogs can tell when you phone it in
and its kinda sad that I'm hurt

because I am a "people person"
and they buy it all the time.

Apply to Teach at Ri0 Hondo College

I've been putting this
application off for more
than a month and it,
it is due today.

Instead of working on
the said application
I'm writing you this
poem and I can hear

you screaming at me
through the page:
"Make your life better!
Finish the application!"

but I will wait until the
pressure mounts and I've
literally made myself sick,
I will agonize and displace

I will hate everything including
myself and this poem and, especially
and, this application that I have
left unclean for so long like

dishes in the sink that are covered
with bugs or grading that has sat
undone for weeks, waiting for this
application, just waiting for it

to finish itself off.

Dreaming with No Morning

we are each of
us, a multitude
the seeds from
which the tree
of life developed

the secrets of evolution
are and time and death,
there's an unbroken thread
that stretches from them to
us

those are some of the things
that molecules do; we find
animals doing things that
we, in our arrogance, think
was unique to us

Science

the poetry of reality
the story of humans is the story
of ideas, that shine light into
dark corners

they don't feel frightened
by not knowing things
there's a larger universal reality
of which we are all apart

with it,
we improve our
lives;
from our lonely

point in the
cosmos, we have
for a brief moment
we improve out lives.

Cry baby

So sensitive
The little black dog
Our good wife
Twenty five to life

Anybody who grew
Up in Chicago had a
Dad that used to drink,
Protect our loved ones

Let's just talk,
Gay money
Street money
Nightstand cash

I wore this for Peter,
Did you hear moms divorcing
Number three - brothers
Undercovers, you sound

Like such a bitch. Are
You gonna leave him?
Does everything have to be
About something?

It's a whole new ballgame,
The swans are a swimming
I'll trade everything for the geese,
I'll explain everything to the geeks

Full Circle

seventeen times I've given
you a call, knowing nothing
about simple slurps of
surreptitious serum

sling that gun from
your Texas hip and kiss
the tip of my tongue;
snakes don't love aquariums.

That opening the size
of a star, a black-hole,
a carpet rushed and shaved
with sheers for sheep

sleeping sheep stand,
palm trees and Sheppard
and sand, no water, rocks
and sand, just air and night

raining torrents, a mouth
full of kitty-litter; I
clearly remember your eye-
socket full of sand from

jumping head first off the
swing-set into the box,
the kiddy-liter box and
now your in prison; eating crow.

Rocking

When we wait
for the words
to come, we all

do different things,
some of us drugs, or
writing without purpose

or coffee or something
to get it out and going,
to have our 6 days of

creation, so our seventh
can be for rest; I catch
myself rocking back and

back and forth, the flesh
on my palms moves like it's
attached to the keyboard.

Much like Bill Gates in
this boardroom or a stomach
aching child outside the nurse,

I rock like the words can
be willed out

(phone call)

It's raining now and
the kids are out to PE
and your in a t-shirt, cold

you'd like me to come bring
your rain-jacket. I decline.
I clearly don't have time for that.