Puerto Penasco’s Day of Infamy

A bona-fide presidential candidate visited our pueblo
many years ago
and there was a colossal party for him in the plaza.
They made birria for the whole town.
Old man Haros donated the goats.
The only way they could make that much birria
was in 50-gallon drum barrels
like the ones we use for our trash
which sometimes gets picked up and sometimes not
depending on how hungover the trashmen are.
The party was a fabulous success.
Everybody came and all agreed the birria was to die for,
no one had ever tasted such succulent meat
or such savory sauce.
Well, how do you do,
in about 6 hours
the diarrhea dropped by, Mr. Reliable, knuckling
the doors like a bill collector.
Everybody and their cousin Juan
got the runs.
You could see people suffering their physical necessities
on the shoulders of the rutted roads,
squatting behind the gas station,
behind the date palms on the malecon,
behind every god damn rock
and there are a lot of rocks in this town,
it’s even named after them.
Such moans and groans hadn’t been heard
since Sodom and Gomora,
the dogs were howling and the cats were yowling.
Everything shut down, no school,
no one went to work.
The fishermen didn’t go out,
they just put their butts over the sides of their boats
and crapped into the bay.
It was said even the octopus got the chocolate squirts
but I don’t think that’s true.
The medical clinic filled up like in wartime
and they had to set up a tent on the side
and the store ran out of toilet paper and paper towels
causing some messy scuffles.
If poop was phosphorescent this town would have illuminated
the countryside for miles around.
The presidential candidate was not exempt
and spent his trip home on the airplane throne
though to his credit he didn’t highlight it
in his public speeches
where he swore to end corruption,
to raise wages, fix the roads
and take care of the elderly and the children.
Sadly
he lost in a landslide
after which he made one dopey cameo
on an unpopular television novela
based in Cuba of all places
and then slipped away
into the annals of history.
Suffice it to say
the government has summarily ignored us since then
and that’s why our roads still rattle your guts.

Poor Manuel

is 44
and lives with his mother
who never seems pleased to see him
and never has the fridge stocked
or the dishes washed
and then his girlfriend got pregnant and had
to quit her job at the Ford plant
and move in with them.
He started driving for Uber with his mother’s car
after they both hounded him day and night
instead of encouraging him to follow his passion
which is online betting. Not his fault
he’s had a run of bad luck
for 8 years, and all his aunts and uncles and friends
have disappeared like the honeybees.
Not his fault a couple bald-headed thugs stopped by
his mother’s taco stand
and threatened to burn it down.
Not his fault there’s a crowd of people outside the house
on Monday afternoon
yelling obscenities and plastering the car
with hundreds of post-it notes
with nasty things written on them
after spray painting “CHINGADO MALA PAGA”
on the front door.
Not his fault they slashed his tires
and his only flesh-and-blood brother won’t bring him
a can of Fix-a-Flat.
Not his fault the Forty Niners can’t shore up
their front line
and keep getting their knees broke.
He can’t control the interest rates
of the corner loan sharks
any more than he can control the weather.
Nobody in his family can understand
basic economics.
Not his fault his stepdad won’t just die already
so he can pawn his dialysis machine
and his television where he watches football
even though he’s blind
and couldn’t care less who wins or loses.
The blood sucking world has been far too cruel
to poor Manuel
who never harmed a flea.

The Monument

He was a town monument
standing on the corner of State Street and 21st
with his big sign:

ACCEPT JESUS CHRIST
OR BURN FOR ETERNITY.

He was fit and blond and had a little smile
like he knew something
the rest of us didn’t.
Nothing phased him, not heat or cold
or wind or rain.
Not heckling, car exhaust or street punks.
I used to honk at him when I drove by in my taxi
for 10 years
which seemed like an eternity.
Presidents and fads came and went
but he stayed,
constant as the Tucson mountains.
He was there from 9-5, that was his job
and he loved it, he believed in it,
he was born for it
while the rest of us swirled around him
bewildered, trying to make it,
shaking our heads at this lunatic.

I finally quit that miserable job, headed to Mexico
where things were ok for a while
but eventually went to shit

and I dragged my wretched soul back to town
16 years later, still a skeptic and looking
so much older
people didn’t recognize me.

The town had changed, was now more monstrous
and deranged,
the traffic had become hell
but there he was, by God, still standing there
with the same sign
on the same corner
with that same little smile.

I swear he hadn’t aged a day.

Trying to Decipher the Madness

Natalia’s sister Rosalinda has a one-eyed cat
and a one-eyed husband.
Her husband’s name is Rinaldo
and really he has two eyes
but one doesn’t work,
ruined from the diabetes
so he wears an eye-patch.
The cat doesn’t wear an eye patch.
He doesn’t seem embarrassed
about that disgusting sphincter on his face.
His name is Morgan
after Captain Morgan the rum pirate.

Rosalinda is a little pickled
but she’s a good sort.
She sells burritos and tamales
to buy Rinaldo’s insulin.
She comes over and talks to Natalia and Suegra
about doctors and the shitty medical system.
They lay Suegra’s prescriptions on the kitchen table
and try to decipher the madness.
Nobody can understand a thing these doctors say.
They’re always in a hurry and couldn’t
give a crap if you lived or died
and the receptionists are so annoying
doing their nails and gossiping,
cluelessly healthy and beautiful
with their soft jobs
and boyfriends with two good eyes.

Well, Rosalinda says, time to go home and feed the twins.
Meaning Rinaldo and the cat.
They all walk out and bitch a bit more
beside her dilapidated Celica
leaving me here on this ragged chair
thinking about playing doctor
with one of those receptionists
and a buttered rum to soothe the soul.

Walking with Milarepa

The liquor ran out
in our little pueblo, Milarepa,

and the world is closing
in on us.

Low as a nettle-worm,
I walk the perimeter of my yard. 28

laps make a mile.
The yard is burnt sand, the turns

banked like a carousel.
Wise men don’t build houses on sand,

I’ve heard tell, Milarepa. Hour after sober
Bardo hour, I plod along dizzy

and oozing, my old face red as a shrimp
boiled in samsara. I daydream I’m on a beach

poking for purple octopi
in the rocks and scooping chocolate

clams into my pockets,
instead of just this slow

melting away. Kind Milarepa, silly Milarepa,
meditating with a butter lamp

on your head, the sun
is the big butter lamp. I have run

my body into the ground—I reek like a washed-up fish
and am ashamed. What did you make

of shame, Milarepa, while you sat
on your mother’s bones?

Or while you walked the countryside
under the stars, like white beans

scattered with a broom? I don’t know
how I will end

but I do know I’m not
ready yet, and more and more I feel

freedom is only in the mind. Whisper
to us, Milarepa, from across

that great gulf. If we are naked will you shelter us
within the walls of emptiness?

If we gallop will we gallop
upon the plains of bliss?