snapshots of mexico

my nails are pink
my hands are stained
I was just trying to be
beautiful
and here I am instead
like a child
smiling through this madness...

-~-

today the television showed me
the nuclear family
wanting more room for
more babies and
maybe more dogs
and every single house was the same
and the woman, she loved all the beiges
"look at the color,
I love it
I love it"
she kept proclaiming
where there was no color there
at all
to be seen

and now I say a prayer
to be free
from the fires of that
very hell
she'd been preparing for
forever...

-~-

the decadence is shifting
it's a cheshire cat moon
and I'm sort of
strangely
missing you...
like cobalt blue...

-~-

I have come to the conclusion that I am going to marry charlie post. not in the conventional sense, of course, but in the realm of his words being everything I could ever want right now.

-~-

spin, spinning
ginsberg in a bag
notebook on display
don't you want to
take
a
look
?
I'm advertising for free

the box is destined
to go home unopened
not a single seal broken

soon I'll be left alone
here
I can't even telephone
see
I don't look like she does
and besides
if you stop by
all I'll be able to do
is say hello
and then strangle you...

so run,
run from me,
please...

-~-

"At the end of the day, they're doing the same thing that all my friends in bands are doing. They write a song and they get up and sing it to people."

Conor Oberst on playing with Bruce Springsteen and R.E.M.

"I never pretended to be anything other than a groupie," she continues. "Remember how Penny Lane kept saying, 'We're not groupies - we're Band Aids'? I met so many gals like that." She pauses. "I'm sorry, but if you're backstage sucking dick, you're a groupie. And that's not a bad thing. Not a bad thing at all."

Connie Hamzy on the life we live and Almost Famous

-~-

so tear the pictures
out of the magazines
and tape them to the wall
I'll spin in circles
in the kitchen
making some kind of love
to all of you
so recklessly
and hastily

-~-

we decided to eat in
a day of love in
a land of strangers
I decided to live here forever
today
and to give the pieces of my past
away

as soon as it's familiar
it's time to leave
but isn't that just how it all
comes to be
no hindsight in advance
we have to guess to
leave things to chance

-~-

so I've wrapped flowers
'round my fingers
in hopes of
enlightenment
empowerment
in wanting to be
free
of you
we barely met
and yet
you're like an infection
you're under my skin
my record is skipping
the words won't come
nothing is straight
or even forward
neither of these
are you
it seems
especially not tonight
can I go to bed early
without being lame?
do I chase you relentlessly
or do I play the game?

(I sit here
with no answers)

-~-

Tomorrow morning, upon awakening, I will be empowered by the sea. The sunrise will give me all I need to know for the day. I will eat, and bury my toes in the sand, and rest. In the afternoon I will wander around in a small mexican village and I will show my mother things, things that light up to me, and I will tell her why. I will become a willing participant in my movie, not a director nor a stagehand. I will simply be. And I will send you a birthday present, all wrapped up in laughter and memories. You are why I'm here.

-~-

of cigarettes and glossy magazines
so here I sit, there's really nowhere else for me to be
wiping the sleep from my eyes and
wondering what day it's gotten to be now
the sun, oh the glorious sun
popped up out of the ocean
preceeded by this glorious glowing
I was staring at god's very lightbulb, it seemed
as I prepare to read books
and to be blown away
by men blown away by their books
barefoot and untangled, partly
it's the daily caffe
in paradise
and here the page ends for me.

-~-

we took a taxi into town and I point at this page with a sparkling mexican sunflower on my left index finger. resort to desert to tourist town. the stop signs read ALTO and it all costs a fortune. tentative plans are for every other year, but then for two weeks at a clip. but I digress...
I ask what there is to do but we can't get past the language barrier, and I'm wondering what else there is to be said. wandering, angry with my mother who tricks herself into things, like three hour walks and financial indulgencies. and then suffers in silence. we loosen up, and over lunch I realize that neither of us are talking much and I'm beginning to see where my behavior patterns are rooted from.
millions of little shops all full of the same things: silver in every form, skirt wraps, beaded necklaces, ceramic in every form, mexican blankets and suns and cheap t-shirts "just do it... tomorrow in cabo san lucas" and such. and you realize you paid too much, maybe ten or fifteen dollars, for your jewelry that you bought on the beach but you don't care. and everyone wants a tip, and everyone loves you... and everyone is trying to sell you something. flea markets in dirt alleys, bursting at the seams with all of those things. children with frisbees full of penny candy, mexican raggedy ann dolls, and handmade paintings for a sacrifice. some in those dirt alleys and some next to the most beautiful marina - where strangely there was the most awful smell, like horribly sick diarrhea that must be right at your feet, but isn't. just rancid. we never did figure out where it came from. beauty, tenderness, filth. riches, peddlers, you have the most beautiful eyes, mariachi band surrounds diners at a sidewalk cafe with no railing, just a drop off to the rocks fifteen feet below. ceramic dishes wrapped in paper bags they bought their rice in. hard rock cafe, gucci, more peddlers, more silver, and a police officer with a rifle at his side. yachts and graffiti hibiscus grows wild next to styrofoam take out trash tossed into the ocean. millionaires and barbed wire. (now I'm thrown off, I drank a cup of desire, and the sunflower points at my cup of coca cola light. buyer's remorse? always. happy? completely.)

this place is simultaneously a whirling gauze skirt in the tropical breeze and a starving child bleeding from the eyes. and yet I invest. strange as ginsberg said today, strange loses it's meaning once it all becomes strange. and once again I've been adulterated by the end of the page... the trip downtown got painted fully I think. I would promise now to revisit it later, but I don't know if I will.

they told me I will be prepared for / fall in love simultaneously on thursday, as long as it's my favorite day of the week. so they say.

-~-

my god, I just can't stop writing. and with that being said, I don't quite know what else to say, really-

-~-

serial calling
a woman bawling
silently
you can't see it, even
but it's heard
maybe just by me
from the look in her eyes
and you and I
place her into the box
of those
who just don't
get it

palm trees
morning breeze
wraps around me
it's the best alarm clock
I ever could have
hoped for

today
and last night
a hundred pages
a need to record
my dreams
they are lingering
for something

and there you are

how's it going to be
rang through my mind
before you even arrived
never a good sign
or is it just that I'm not laura
are you not at ease

and the thing is, I think I just want answers. I wasn't at ease. you didn't take my breath away the moment we re-met, but I fell nonetheless, and it was awkward and that isn't what I want and I walking away from you because it isn't what I want - but I still want to know why you left.

and now, with that staring back at me, it doesn't really matter.

it drained me and tangled me up and maybe it was for me to go to the books I didn't know I needed or maybe it's just another piece, that goes from me to him to andrew to charlene or boston or wyoming and something and something.

but you were green, and green is the person you'll never forget...

-~-

(presumably on the topic of my breasts, from the henna tattoo guy)

hey! miss watermelons! lady!
(points to a cherry in his book)
how about a cherry for your watermelons?

laughing at this seemingly mad exchange:
no, no thank you

tg: how about a pipe? you like weed?
me: please, no. no more!

did that just happen?

-~-

brilliant
bluepurplepink
sunlight fades
over not-quite-voices
and I'm crying...
ashamed
afraid
awake
untrue
to everything I thought I knew...
step after step after step after step
I walk this beach as
sunlight fades...
behind me now it's
dark completely
am I walking the right way?
and the voice says
and I do
and step after step after step after step
it's dark now
the hotels illuminate the beach
like a small city
no, - a town of decadent poverty
the sand slides with every step
the waves soak the hem of my pants
I glance
around
he will be waiting there for you
with everything you need to know
the voice says
so I keep walking

the ease and comfort
that comes at once
from hearing the band
makeshift stage on the sand
africa calls to me, of all things
(gonna take a lot to drag me away... from you...)
I am convinced, in this very moment,
that it is karaoke night
at the villa del palmar beach party
and that howie day himself
is about to appear before me

but it's just a cover band
set up in the sand
mocking me with song
when I left you - or
had you already left me?
I said
"you'll linger on in my notebooks
for a long time to come"
or "for quite some time"
as I tried to be dramatic
and you have
lingered
and you laughed at my top fives
and I want to write you now
to say I went
because you died
long before I shut the door

and now that fades
and in comes howie day
and now I'm sure
that the gods
must be mocking me
and even jesus
got sick of the lepers
all that I needed
was to stand on my wall
to see the view
a little differently...

I decorated my eyes tonight
hopeful
ginger ale
and gay laughter
as my foot hit that step
the second call came
another voice
go back, turn around
the coffee shop
will suit you fine
so here I sit
in my own private
glass covered
directory
of a kind...

smiling now
at rob and laura
and how I really did expect
howie day to be
standing on that stage
(really I did!)
and the cartoon ocean
and the simple words
that
shifted me
changed me
completely
discreetly
it saved me...

-~-

mexico starts to escape me
on a thursday

warm stones on
the soles of my feet
absent-minded ponytail

-~-

anticlimactic
pinata
nothing is broken

-~-

I'm longing to cry out in the night back arched nails digging legs wrapped 'round your... insides. I want tanned thighs but with some romance excuse me but would you let me touch your skin? and the way those pants cling to you, could I breathe you in? I can smell your freshly washed hair and your delicate jewelry twinkles and I bet your neck is like silk... not to mention how that shirt holds you in so perfectly, I'd graze you with the back of my hand down your side and you'd throw back your head, wanting to scream out in delight at what was coming next... but instead we'd have silence - from the inside at least, nothing bout the sound of our kisses and maybe howie real, real soft. my god, you just walked through the sun and I swear you're shimmering... and the light gleams off my pen and I can't help but stare, the tattoo on your back you probably got years ago but didn't want... catching me looking, I almost feel like I need to apologize for admiring you so... and I wonder how you see me here, soft and tired and mad, or maybe you're wondering what I'm writing about but are afraid to ask... you're killing me, you caught my eye and could you possibly see the words scrawled out on this page, I can smell your soap now it's fucking intoxicating and I'd love for you to whisper in my ear and tell me yes, me too, here's where we can meet at midnight and it will be dark so you don't have to be scared bring your red sheet and leave the rest behind...

so tonight I will, I'll take it down to the beach alone away from the lights and I'll lay on my back and make love to the stars and the smell of you is going to drive me right out of my mind... do I leave a note for you behind? would you be cruel or so, so kind to me... come to the beach and see - set me free, please, I'm begging you to.

-~-

a mexican prostitute said to me,
you look like you need something -
you sure you don't need something?

I assured him I was fine
and turned my thoughts
back to the waves
I belong to the holy order of poets
and this is my church

this morning he passed again
hello, hello, remember me?
when are you leaving?
when will you be back?
will you have a husband by then?
you are beautiful
my name is greg
don't forget me, please
I've been waiting for you my whole life
why are you laughing,
miss victoria?

as I stand there in front of
myself
in disbelief

-~-

back to real time, it's 3 am, the power just came back on with a surge and woke me out of my fitful slumber. maybe I will edit these and piece more moments together sometime soon... I sat to write out the wrap-up the last morning before we left, but it smelled like hot dogs and I couldn't stay. like, lots of hot dogs. at 7:30 in the morning. with late vans and late planes we left, but mexico stays with me completely - funny how so much of this has shifted for me already, a mere few weeks later. thanks for listening.