Henry Oso Quintero

Often times I've told you
How they do not see the misfortune they make

How we live among them and they do not see

My Brother Bats High along and above
Coastal Savings and Loan
Swallowing their shaded swarms
Of mosquitoes mussed to living by the sewage
The stagnant water of our paved filth

I only know of three personally ---

Though maybe more
Who know that possums talk to cats
Hissing beggings

Haavvve yahhh gottt a kibblesssess

Playing weak then dead
Actors all round Holly and the Wood

And yes, I Coyote
Have walked down Wilshire
And hunkered humped tail up past Hand N' Cock ­Park
And Visited the King of Televisions

In the West Wood
All down the walk
Brother I tell you switching
My head from street to window
Just the same

Watching Racoon Mother
Bright though she be
Cutting her hands on can and crack jars
Just to look at food in the foul

And Dammmmm the two legs
Without breath are drowning

They come here for the Wide Fat Flat One
Blaring bright into their cubbies.

Here they set the young to learn
To cover their skin in the name of others
Watch the dreams of quarrels fighting
Feeding loving and fucking touching
rather than to practice doing it themselves

Pups play it in the electronic hearth
Game it over and over without repercussion
percussion

THEN LOCK AND LOAD!!!

Thunder BOX THUNDER BOX

That my friend
Is a MAC 10 and
Here
In this window over
And over I see their children running
Out of schools
Bloodied
Crippled of course I never see the dead-
To Waste---they burned or buried
Far too deep to dig.

And the News Man Prayeth-to the silent lonely eyes drowned in the light

Could this ever happin' gen???

Of course my friend
Trust in me
Job's in the bag
Just like those kittens in the canal

Look at them

Drop deep in your work
until you I need not
NA and Da---nothing and white
Drowning all colors in the hues of
Lexus Seadoos and the swirl of tick and tack
Spreading and falling across the desert like dust devils

They all watch
They all must have seen
The Gaunt Grizzly working for the Russian Circus
On piered parking in Santa Monica

Though treated "fairly well"
Well kept and celled he felt
As he whispered to the water

"Cousin Sea they do not see
in seven generations
barely can they count their own
years in relation
bastards they truly be

Teachings of a soft hand
On the back of a neck

Looking at the sunflowers of a madman
Then turning to a warm summer
Passing over the hairs on their arms
Like a glass of light
As it pierces through the same
Yellow towers in the back
How he told the truth
I
Truth to the dirty voice of bittered mold
Black along the edge of the sink
Wet
Wet and mildewed with the smell of wash and waste
Show em you're clean in true to the black that rattles the brain to a stuttering body consumed in the spirit of your hole eye ghost
Teach them limits
Limit an example of passioned compassion
Placed on a pew in shame calling a boy of 96 moons
Ripe adult the same impatience as the electrical hearth
Your heat as black as the tube from hence it came

Copyright © Henry Oso Quintero , 2001.  All Rights Reserved.

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