NOT, ACTUALLY

It’s the late 1960’s. Robin, a pregnant runaway in Los Angeles meets Davey, a darling British boy who happens to be gay. Davey proposes marriage to Robin so he can stay in the US and work; continue his relationship with Enrique, the son of a Venezuelan diplomat; and Robin can keep the baby she has pledged to give up for adoption. To muddle their lives and create complications of the ordinary and inane, Robin engages in an adventurous relationship with a dancer who turns out to be enormously wealthy but less available as time goes on. Robin and her friends, who live together in a house by MacArthur Park, become involved in the sticky web of Scientology, connive against the INS and protest the war in Viet Nam. NOT, ACTUALLY takes place at the dawning of the Age of Aquarius, when young people grew up quickly, altered the world they lived in and changed the meaning of innocence.

Black Friday

Giving their thanks with no ordinary feast
Americans from coast to coast
Shamelessly devour food enough to cause complaint,
Which quite often puts them to sleep
So they may
Store energy for the equally traditional
Black Friday shopping on the following day,
When consumers boost the country’s economy
And push the red ink over the line,
Turning it magically to black.

Doorbuster Deals to entice the post-Thanksgiving shoppers
Was not a concept taken seriously by Jdimypai Damour
Until the entrance bulged, snapped and overflowed
With eager New Yorkers
At the darkened hour of 5 a.m.
Seeking a most important supreme Christmas gift.

The blood and bones of Jdimypai Damour
Remained on the floor
Of the Wal-Mart store
As checkers scanned the treasures of holiday shoppers,
Who went back home to eat leftover turkey sandwiches
With chilled cranberry sauce,
And watch the 6’o’clock news
Of the California shootings that left
Two people dead in the aisles of Toys-R-Us,
For the sake of one sought after toy,
Giving new meaning to Loss leader.


(Based on actual events Black Friday 2008)


Thank you for reading.

Awake in the Mid Night

The moon
A crescent
Rolled over on its back
You could toss your hat in the air
Land it on the chin of that moon
To say hello to me

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The Secret Life of Jasmin Garcia Guadalupe

The Secret Life of Jasmin Garcia Guadalupe







Halfway down the steps close to the church
behind the merceria
where she bought thread in late afternoon
after she tells her papi her stockings need mending,
Jasmin Garcia Guadalupe
spreads her skirt into a fan,
folds it across her behind
first left, then right,
this for a little cushion
keeps her tender skin
from the dusty, cracked cement.

Her lips gather the corner of one small plastic bag
filled with water, nectar, jarabe,
sucks like a baby.

Leans her cheek on warm rough wall
watches buses rumble below,
going places she will never know.
Jasmin Garcia Guadalupe
dreams of a seat
in the window
of the big blue bus...
Jesus painted on the back
arms spread wide
oversized palms
with rusty centers.
Jasmin would say
if anyone asked her
that the Bus Jesus says
“Why follow me?”
eyes rolled up to heaven
oily black smoke blowing out his feet.

Lovers steal kisses in shadows;
Señora Diego leans out her window, pulls at her moustache;
niños plucking mangos over a broken fence…
juice runs down their chins, between fingers,
laughing, cussing, shoving, “Animo!”

Ignacio makes the knees of Jasmin Garcia Guadalupe tremble;
bent weary, he comes up the stairs,
work shirt thrown over shoulder
dangling from wiry hanger
he keeps it spotless 'til he gets to the sizzling café.
Ignacio's undershirt with soaking armpits
so white the sun lives in it.

He comes to where the girl sits
whose father would like to kill him,
and stops to find his breath.

“You are the delicious peach.
I think to sink my teeth into your skin.
I think to lick your seed.”

Ignacio passes,
Jasmin shivers,
church bells clang.

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