Pure Poetry

In my post on border issues, I mentioned Luis Alberto Urrea. He is a writer that I am a teensy bit obsessed with. I was first introduced to him when I read his novel, The Hummingbirds Daughter. AMAZING. And then I discovered his non-fiction--thrilling. And now I am onto his poetry. And it is startling, and strange, and wonderful.

Ghost Sickness is not his first book of poetry, The Fever of Being was published in 1994, but I have exhausted the Glendale Public Library's collection of Urrea, and can only find it on Amazon for $60! Ghost Sickness is also out-of-print, but you can find it at your library or on amazon (if you click on the titles, it'll take you straight to the site).

Here is an excerpt from Ghost Sickness. Enjoy!

Ghost Sickness

12.

Hit it.

Drive mad across town, radio tuned

to sizzle-spit mariachi howls, drunken wide-hat wolves,

sixgun poets bawling pagan gospel of tequila

love

murder

ruin.

Six men in a Volkswagen, uncountable ghosts on the roof

hung on for dear death, rubber burn on cobbles

as we spun another corner, laughter's nasty

calliope calling, dogbark

midnight outskirts

of some flyspeck town,

cemetery next door

to the whorehouse, away

where the shouts and the shooting

and the trumpets and the shatter wake no one.

Grass shacks lined the compound where the women slept

with washtubs, tv's, candy, photos, vinegar,

cigarettes, magazines, radios, memories, dreams,

chamber pots, underpants, razor blades, make-up,

bottles, babies, nightmares, and one bundle each

of rubber-band letters from some dreamboy who went

and never came home.

Dig the sign: CLUB VERDE PARA HOMBRES:

CUELGEN SUS PISTOLAS.

Hang up your pistols, boys. Fat cops at the door

touched us all over, felt us for hardness under our clothes,

pulled from the men's belts .38s, .44s, hung them

on pegs by the bar. Dark stench of toilets

let run from the stalls. Drunks kneeling

at the bowls, penitent supplicants t

to the Virgin of Filth. An inside--

shaky--legged tables

of tin--flaking stickers stuck

to our forearms, bright

paper freckles: TECATE

DOS EQUIS

CORONA

CARTA

BLANCA.

Homosexual bartender's long blue eyelids.

Concrete dance floor stained

into maps of lost worlds

by spilled beer, by bootheels, by flat

women's sandals.

Black hair dyed orange

as cheap boots.

Black armpit feathers plastered with sweat.

In that corner, rock and roll:

the blind guitarist

followed the sounds

with his head, thin as sticks,

sang:

Old jou need is lob.

Love is all you need.

Love is all you need.

You can buy it here.

Unzip your hair, pull off your skin.

We watched them dance--farmhands

worked hard at having fun, the whores

raised crops from them and pulled them

off to harvest.

All those dresses

in the farmers' hands gone limp

wilted

by 1,000 palms.

We danced with them.

Love is all you need.

Around the room

cheap wooden doors

let light escape

in yellow stripes

from closetrooms

with 1 bed each, 1

light. 1 jug. 1 bowl.

1 woman.

1 filmy

sexy girlie thing

flung over the 1

wooden chair.

No exit.

I saw the crucifix above the bed, then her.

Cigarette burns tattooed her skinny arms.

Through an open door

I saw.

Love is all you need.

She dipped a knotted flower

rag into her bowl, ran water down her chest, her neck, her leg,

then opening her thighs her other leg

so tired it shook. I knew

that hair as thin as mist

uncurled from moistened flesh and rose.

She wiped her nodding breasts under her dress, washed off

the heat,

washed off the weight from her brown ribs, washed off

the smell, the feel, the

fingerprints.

And then looked up.

I smiled across the room, embarrassed rogue

through sheets of smoke.

Her stare burned my smile to ash.

You smile so easily, muchacho.

You think you offer me condolences, or is this

business? Do you

think you understand?

Love is all you need.

You'll never understand

until you lie here

ten or twenty nights

and think of home.

Love is all you need.

You can spend money

to rest in me.

I'll carry you.

Would you carry me?

And if we meet at noon

Love is all you need.

In the town plazuela,

you with your notebooks

and me with my flowers

always careful not to greet

anybody

Love is all you need.

You will look away.

Ashamed at what you put here.

And I will walk away

out of town the long way

because the finest part of me you bought

was silence.

Love is all you need.

Neither one looks back.

Then you go

but I remain

tomorrow

and tomorrow

and tomorrow.

Love is all you need.

Her lips were smeared, the color crushed smiles.

I pointed to my mouth. She wiped her face. The knot

of cotton flowers cleaned her teeth.

We waved.

The blind guitarist shrieking in the corner.

The twisted Jesus writhing in His torture.

The brilliant coin cascade that hit her bed, a dark ranchero

pushing in, she glanced at me, her hands

at forehead, heart: sign of the cross. The closing door.

She loves you yeah, yeah, yeah.