Uses and Customs
“First the woods
and then the women,”
those talamontes taunted.
Forest rapers.
Illegal loggers, bad government,
and cartels.
The village men?
Didn’t know what hole
to shit out of, sooner raise a hand
to beat their wives
than wipe their own ass.
70% loss, mushrooms gone,
mother tongue starved.
Fifteen women had enough.
Sticks, firecrackers, threadbare
shawls, and masks
against thugs and police
with AK-47s.
They took five hostages
in a stone church, made barricades
of burnt out cars.
Those bells rang
high over women with seized
machetes and guns.
The villagers rallied.
Purged them in one—
a menstrual clot.
Their fogatas burned
for nine straight months,
became a pulse, a forge.
Signals, defense, cooking
and more.
From mothers they learned,
everything that ever mattered
passed kitchen to kitchen,
Mother to daughter.
The right to rule
their own territory upheld
by Mexico’s judiciary.
The women restructured
their entire society.
They replanted their trees,
went jogging at night.
One bonfire
remains, the beating heart,
where ten women gather
to discuss affairs.
“Things can always be better,”
said sensibly over stew.
If the forest is a house,
and Cheran is a kitchen,
you might say
a woman’s place is the home.
As usual, men get it wrong
about who’s got
the huevos.
Archetypical
Listen, listen,
gather ’round my cauldron,
the best pair on this green earth
is some stern, gruff warrior woman
and her fancy peacock husband.
I’m talkin’ imperial concubine shit.
Long, thick hair, thick lashes, chest resonance.
Raspiness, accent curly and homey
like tigrado sheepskin.
Listen, woman’s got preferences.
Don’t you ask this fool
’bout no power tools, hell no.
Does electric guitar count?
He should make good sounds.
I’m talkin’ Spike Penny Dreadful Gomez Addams shit,
‘cept She’s a sunshine Terminator
full fat froth over those hot goth lips—
do you see my fuckin’ vision?
My love, Osiris.
I’ll pull a Frankenstein.
It’s bedtime with Isis when I read his rites,
way I spit tongue twisters off the Book o’ Life.
Remix on Dracula, Castlevania,
Hades and Persephone—
yeah, I know, I rolled my eyes.
I’m talkin’ satin bowerbird shit,
his woman’s favorite colors
are his entire personality.
She is not easily impressed.
Lemme tell you ’bout men:
They gotta know who’s Boss,
who’s Baby,
who’s a Good Boy,
and who among them
is the Best.
Writers’ rooms hate His ass—
shit, just ask Jesus—
’cause he’s the only One
a Goddess be fuckin’ with.
Want a better world?
Build a Better Man.
Ya’ll just petty sons
of Judas Iscariot.
La Llorona
Heard people dream
’bout goin’ to work naked.
School or some shit.
Wouldn’t know what that’s like.
Dangers of a creatrix,
they ain’t just nightmares,
it’s gore-ing the lily,
a crucible amaranthine,
older a woman gets
it’s hardly hyperbole.
As it goes,
if you would know,
do not fear to see.
Notice she’s always crazy
for shrieking, weeping.
Only his hurt is holy.
Take a plain clothes office buildin’
and put a sea of howlin’ faces
strainin’ through metastasized flesh
burstin’ at the seams.
Fry that amygdala early.
Don’t ever look away.
Call your target by name
and incinerate.
Remember that scene
in Smoke Signals?
Where the very worst insult
in Thomas’ arsenal is to say
you make your mother cry
and ask
what are you doing with your life?
When my Mother greets me,
her smile’s all teeth.
Dog Star
Some dreams have sequels,
total recall of more than you know,
something greater
than the sum of its parts.
My back was injured
and I bed bound, and boy
if you can’t move topside
you’ll do it underground.
All the way down.
A place I know well.
The sky was pitch black,
like the backside of time itself,
unblinking over an unlit below
somehow visible. I know now
that it was the sprawl of Mexico.
Lost to a flood. Uninhabited.
But trust
some asshole left their dog behind,
still chained in the yard.
Guess that’s what I came for.
A big fat black lab or some such.
This boy ate good. Largely unconcerned
with his fate. Made no move
to escape. Glossy and healthy.
I broke the chain easily,
hoisted this jolly idiot
into a fireman carry
only to wade
miles
through unknown territory.
Shit, he was heavy.
But, he was happy,
so much potatoes
on my shoulders.
I made quick work
of the labyrinth.
Junk jungle of refuse,
tangled.
I found
the farthest edge
of “town.”
Then
by the dumpster
of a pristine gas station,
the ugliest dog
I’d ever seen.
Hairless, emaciated,
twisted into unnatural shape,
backwards legs, missing teeth, drooling,
cowering.
Said alright buddy,
you’re coming too.
I’ve still got arms so
we’ll figure it out.
He was so scared
of the light,
certain I’d hit him,
nursed his abandonment.
For all I’ve got teeth,
I can still be soft and sweet,
and there’s never been a dog
wouldn’t come to me.
So Fatty ‘cross my neck
and Scaredy ‘cross my chest,
I hit the last leg
of the journey. Jumped
onto a moving train
into night, we got out
us three.
Xolotl
Round two
of Disaster Pet Rescue
had me digging rubble
off an aquarium.
Buried
this pale fish lizard thing,
frilly and gilly, smiley face.
God damn it
gotta carry a tank.
When I woke,
where pain had been
full tilt orchestra,
now a shut door.
A dead silent room.
Where the fuck
did it all go?
How?
I never took drugs.
All oxy accounted for.
I am occasionally
somewhat stubborn.
Cold body, spine sweat.
I could walk again.
First of all,
no way that guy was real,
Google triangulated his ass up.
Axolotl. Water dog. I’ll be damned.
In shrinking and polluted waterways
they choose to stay
instead of mature on land.
Stuck. Backward. Yet.
They outlive their peers by wide margin,
and unlock an ability medically significant.
Axolotl regenerate.
Dismemberment, damage
to body, brain, or spine matters not.
They just…fix shit.
Put it back
the way it was.
It was there,
and then it just wasn’t.
Another thing:
named for Xolotl,
a god of the underworld.
The ugly twin.
Hideous, mutilated, misfortunate,
filthy, diseased. You guessed,
a dog.
Finest Moments
I wandered
as a child. Knew every dog
in the tweaker ghetto.
Also some old folk, here and there.
Knew enough
to never trust men. But one friend
in common, man’s best.
I farmed affection,
muzzles, tongues, and tails
through a chain link fence.
All I needed.
Now dogs like to dig
places they shouldn’t,
get into shit,
things people want hidden.
That’s what Xolotl did.
Dug up the bones
of humanity, drug them out
for his beautiful twin to see.
The winged serpent of heaven
had to bleed.
Regenerate.
I have a spot
in my garden. It’s dark red.
Stained the cement, naked
when I hit downward dog
to vomit wine.
No running water, not even a pot
to puke inside.
Me and Guinevere
in the moonlight.
Corgis were bred for herding.
I have a spot
on my low back. A mole.
Looks a bit like a dog’s nose.
‘Bout where she’d boop ya
if you broke formation.
Biggest lie the devil tells ya
is that you’re alone.
wyrdwind 