Nighttrains

When i blow open green bottles

straight across hump of a frozen tongue

when i shove brown glass

through skull of a possum

and pass from my ears a baptism of red piss

when i cry from my butt like a jackal

and throw limbs of a dying mule into the river

when i spit venom from the head

burn codeine into a cosmetic paste

and grieve into a wax of dried bulls

when my mystical bunions jam eyes

into searching spit of a starving wolf

into cosmic lips like monkey genitals

And i receive my pickled turned skeleton of rusty chains

in the bodega

i receive a symbolic heart made of five middle fingers

in the bodega

i receive a teeth parade of yellow roses to leave the bodega

and cross the rio grande

onto the flatbead bones of a musty nighttrain

I say

to see me loosen jaws like a snake

to see me exhausted after a few strikes

to see me pay dirt to the ice hog

in my masai-pachuca-doo

squatting on a pillow of old zoot suits

squatting among the names and breeds

breaking down cheeks dotted

on this night train

and i say i dream of the 1943 riots

I say i dream in a hailstorm of riots

And i say riots dream into a mass of skins stooping

on flatbed bones of a funky nighttrain

And when i siphon sweat for fuel

from this patron saint of chronic diarrhea

When i turn this rubber face into a spotted puma

and take on the forceful winds of the prune pickers

When my laughter dominates the last seat

And i burn labor contracts into brown port caca

Then I approach in mother of pearl and human blood

in father of smoking and coughing throats

and in my jelly of coyote strings

who is to say what when i approach

I mean somewhere along the road in this cold cold chicken shit

somewhere along the road in this wasted body

somewhere along the road eat stocks, bonds feathers

somewhere along the road confiscate borders from wild dogs

somewhere along the road shove them into the imperial valley

somewhere along the road cry hard

and let this night train sink its

rundown rectum of electric chairs into heaven

and say fuck it

I see a way through the maroon glass of this milky way

I say i see a way through for the cradle of hulls

sticking through these indigo ankles

I see a way through

for these torn shoes stinking like dead cats

I see a way through for these blood-streaked legs

I say i see a way through

for these pus-riddled holes in their suction-cup lips

and when i pass through toothless combs coming from armpits

of the bodega

when i pass through bats on corkscrews coming

from the bodega

when i push my mortified flesh from this bodega

and walk with the mildew of an old zoot suit

walk tall in my mud-packed-masai-pachuca-doo

walk among the survivors from the musty nighttrains

fuck it

I say dreams are like riots

i say we dream in a hailstorm of riots

and I say riots dream into a mass of skins

coming from flatbed bones of the funky funky nighttrains

Source: On the Imperial Highway (Hanging Loose Press, 2009)