Love

Bistro 7 Flash Fiction

Discards

Toni walked in, scowling, and strode straight up to Nando who leaned against the bar with a glass in his hand.
“You son of a bitch,” he said and swung his fist. One of the patrons, an ex-bullfighter quick on his feet and even quicker to spot a threat, stepped between them.
“Enough!” He shouted as he parried the blow.
“Are you mad?” Nando put his drink down on the bar.
“Me? Mad?” Tears ran down Toni’s angry face and his breath came in short, sharp gasps. “You’re the one who’s mad. You’re the one who’s screwing her.”
“Screwing who, for God’s sake?”
“Raquel, dammit. You know: my girl. What are you doing here anyway? Waiting for her?”
“Waiting my turn; like everyone else. And I expect they’ll call my number pretty soon.”
“You got a ticket?”
“Of course. I always get a ticket. Why?”
“Because I want her before you get her. Here, give me your ticket.”
“No way.”
“I’ll buy it off you.”
“No way.”
“Why don’t you dice for it?” The ex-bullfighter sensing the possibility of both a truce and a bit of fun broke into the conversation. “I’ll be the judge.”
“Cards?” Nando raised his eyebrows.
“Done,” Toni dabbed at his face with a grubby hanky. “But win or lose: you’re still a son of a bitch.”
“Not if I win.”
The crowd made room for the two men at the bar and Nando asked for a green cloth and a pack of cards. Shuffle and cut. Deal. Frowns and smiles. The patrons looked on in expectation and shouted and groaned with each discard. Every so often, a number was called out and a man stood up, gave his ticket to the barman, handed over some money, and went upstairs.
They played the best of seven hands. Tied at three hands each, sweat drops beaded down both their faces. The ex-bullfighter roared approval with every card and checked each discard. The patrons crowded round shouting their approval in bullfighting terms.
“¡Música! ¡Olé!” They chorused as they clapped their hands and stamped their feet.
“Number 69,” the barman roared.
Nobody moved and a silence fell over the room.
“69,” the barman’s voice repeated, a hard stone cast into the silence.
“Well, I guess that’s me,” Nando rose to his feet, put his hand in his pocket, and drew out his number.
“Son of a bitch …” Toni’s voice rose above the uproar. “I’ll get you for this!”
“”What’s it all about?” A new bass voice rose above the crowd noise. “What’s happening here?” Pedro, the owner stood behind the bar, beside the barman.
“I’m next. That’s all.” Nando waved his ticket.
“He wants my girl,” Toni screamed. “I’ll get him … ” Toni struggled through a sudden thicket of arms to get at Nando.
“And who’s your girl?” Pedro’s deep bass voice rose up and conquered the room.
“Raquel,” Toni stood there, defiant.
“Raquel?” The owner of the deep bass voice sounded incredulous. “Raquel? Raquel!” He shouted. “Raquel, get your ass down here.”
Silence.
All eyes turned to the staircase behind the bar.
A beautiful, dark-haired, brown-eyed woman walked slowly into the room.
“This Raquel?” The owner’s voice shuddered in disbelief. “My wife? The woman carrying my child?”
Toni and Nando stood there, staring eyes, mouths open.
“Get out,” the owner said. “I never want to see either of you here in my bar again.”
He drew a battle-field green Glock 21 from an inside pocket, pointed it at them, and shouted: “Run!”
Toni and Nando ran from the bar, their tails between their legs.

Obsidian’s Edge 15

3:00 pm

Old Woman
@
Dainzú

Sandpaper wind
polishing the land
erasing its identity
as barefoot
over dust and stone
the old woman
feasts her heart
on a banquet of song.

A rag-bag her body
stitched together
by memories and bone.

She shows me fear
in these grey shadows
dancing their dust
beneath carved rocks.

Abandoned now,
visited only by ghosts,
this resurrected ball park.
Buried beneath their stones
its heroes,
the men who wooed her.

I look at carved faces.

Which one captured
her flowering heart,
pierced it with an arrow,
and scarred her name
forever
letter by letter
on the face of this rock
?

Obsidian’s Edge 14

2:45 pm

Old Woman
@
Dainzú

Dusty paths
meander beneath
a drifting sun.

Shiftless ruins
cloak the land
in worn-out
shadow rags.

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Scrawny cattle
herded by an old man
and his sly-eyed dogs:

the old woman,
threatened,
stoops and picks up
a handful of stones.

Moving targets:
dust and shadows of dust.
So much stone and sand
sifted through the hand
and trodden underfoot.

In the distance,
a low mound
covered with grass and weeds:

her family’s ancestral home,
its bountiful community
abandoned to the wilderness,
to the wild thorn
thrusting its spear
through her mortal heart.

Weed-filled walls,
empty houses, ruined fields.

Wise old woman
with her hands full of stones:

that first rock
freed from her fist
booms thunder
off the sheep
in a wolf-skin’s
cowardly frame.

Let the candles melt

The title is a line from one of Nandita’s poems. I thought it was a striking image and would make a great start to a new poem. I told Nandita this and she and I agreed to write a duet together. This is the first time I have written a “duet” with someone else. I hope it won’t be the last … Nandita is a very talented lady and a gifted poet. Click on the following link for her blog. It’s well worth a visit or two or three.

mananunleashed.wordpress.com

Your face your name
flicker in the candle flame
Your words your voice
burning with grace and poise

bruised clouds on the evening sky
my arid heart awaits your rain
A burst of silver lining before I die
a soothing balm to my aching pain

your shadow on my mind
how can we be so blind
Your name in my heart
beating like a chained beast

curled up like a dog
asleep at your feet
Let your senses awaken
let dreams and reality meet

Spent match this candle
Light another one from my mantle
let love be heartfelt
let the candles melt

Bistro 6 Flash Fiction

Crazy Glue

Late last night, a fallen star grazed by the lamp-post. A bouquet of golden sparks flew from an iron tree and sanctified the gutter. The gas lamps sputtered patiently in uniform rows. A scarecrow stuttered into the limelight and shook my hand. She was wearing my grandmother’s Easter bonnet, with all the flowers renewed, but she couldn’t keep my heart from last winter’s left over crumbs. Suddenly a tulip thrust through the concrete. It became as red as a robin and flew into the lounge bar of a public house. The bronze leaf necklace circling my throat filled with a flow of springtime song. My heart stood upright, a warped piano in my breast, and my skeleton tarried at the corner to play knuckle-bones with the wind. Torn butterflies of news fluttered round and round and kissed my eyelids when they closed. Yesterday’s horoscope winked its subversive eye and called to the hermit in his lonely cell: “Look out for the stranger with the tin can alley smile. Tie your heart to the tail of the first stray dog that comes whistling down the street and follow it home to the empty house that breathes in and out, moving thin membranes of memory.”

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That’s where I now live. Upstairs, downstairs, a lonely route I tread while the wind at the window scratches tiny notes. Something breaks loose in the confines of my mind and walks beside me. My twin brother stalks through this silvery sliver of splintered glass, this simian mirror wrinkling our troubled suits of skin. I glimpse the old moon’s monkey face through a broken window. Jagged and thin, it wanders like an itinerant snail, cobbled with clumsy clouds. Once, I descended the playground slide in a shower of sparks. A vagabond in a paving stone sky, I rumbled across metal cracks, a knapsack of nightmares humped on my old man’s back. Tell me: when the snail moves house, who stores the furniture he leaves behind? The hermit crab lurks naked on the beach, seeking new lodgings. Who killed the candle and left us in darkness?

Two eyes in limbo watch me roll this snowman’s belly of flab across an unknown, clouded room where yesterday I got lost in the mirror. I know how to swim, but I would have drowned, except the light was too shallow and my feet touched bottom when I let the wheels down. I swam on and in looking for a deserted island on which to build my idle sand castle dreams. Two people said they saw my reflection swimming like a goldfish in the silver of that secret space. They said I stared back out at them with circles of longing ringing my eyes; but I laughed when they said they had seen me, for when I looked in the mirror this morning to shave, I just wasn’t there. My razor dragged itself over an empty space and its sharpened blade scraped white music from the margin of a cd rom that spun on edge like dust rings round a vanished planet. Now there is a black hole where my passport photo used to thrive. Someone plucked me from the circle and cut me out in the dance last night. Today I’m looking for a scrapbook in which to stick myself with crazy glue that never, never, ever comes undone.

Bistro 4 Flash Fiction

Tom knocked on the hotel room door and Dick opened it. He took a pace back and whistled. “What have you done?”
“Isn’t she a beauty?” Tom’s hand twisted into the waist of her skirt as if he were afraid she’d fall over without his support.
Tom and Dick helped her into the hotel room.
“What’s your name, darling?” Harry came out from the bathroom, wearing only his shorts. “You’re a cutie.”
The girl half-stumbled and Tom held her steady while Dick took the bottle from her. Old, and slightly dusty, it had an air of quaint respectability that belongs only to genies or expensive liqueurs.
Dick put the bottle on the bedside table. Tom held the girl, from behind, by the arms, and Harry started to unbutton her blouse. Harry kissed her full on the lips. She showed no sign of resistance, not even when Harry thrust his tongue into her mouth.
“What’s her name?” Dick asked.
Tom shrugged and pointed to a tattoo on the girl’s wrist where the initials “CJ” faced off against a crimson heart around which a large worm-like creature curled.
“Are you CJ?” Dick questioned her and she nodded.
“Op-p-p-pen the bot-t-t-le,” she whispered.
“All in good time,” Dick took her by the hand and led her towards the bed. Tom and Harry looked at each other and started to laugh.
“Oh boy, is this our lucky day,” Tom went into the bathroom and brought out three glasses.
“Only three?” Harry asked.
“She’s out of it,” Tom nodded his head.
“It’s mezcal, isn’t it?” Harry shook at the bottle. “Look: it’s got three worms in it, one for each of us.”

* * *

Later, the three boys sat in front of the television to take in the football game. They sipped at the large glasses of yellow liquid they held in their hands.
CJ lay on the bed, naked, oblivious. Her lips moved as if she were praying. On her arm, the tattoo had changed shape. The worm, uncurling, now flowed into a single word: bruja.

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* * *

“First and goal!” The boys stared at the screen. Behind them, the bottle on the night table started to shake.
“Second and one!” The boys were bewitched by the game. Behind them, the bottle on the table grew in size and the three yellow worms that had been sleeping at the bottle’s bottom, swelled with it, and slowly swam to the top of the yellow liquid.
“Third and one!” The boys were besotted, their eyes glued on the tv screen. Behind them, the three worms emerged from the bottle and stood on the hotel room floor, dominating the room, a trio of unspoken elephants.
“Go, go, go!” The three boys raised their arms.

* * *

The room stands empty now.
CJ has gone. She has been returned to her own room where she is guarded by two enormous presences that have cleaned and bathed her wounds. They have blessed her with their twin gifts of wholeness and holiness and now they are allowing her forgetfulness and sleep.

* * *

In that other hotel room, the screen door to the balcony lies open. On the ground five stories below, three male bodies lie. Sirens wail. The police cordon off the area. Ambulances arrive, sirens wailing.
Above them in the room, a yellow presence scours the surroundings, devouring all evidence of CJ’s sloughed skin.

* * *

On the sleeping girl’s wrist, the initials “CJ” face off against a crimson heart besides which three large worm-like creatures stand on guard.

* * *

Obsidian’s Edge 12

1:15 pm
Water 2

Water seeks its final solution as it slips from cupped hands.
Does it remember when the earth was without form
and darkness was upon the face of the deep?

The waters under heaven were gathered into one place
and the firmament appeared.
Light was divided from darkness
and with the beginning of light came The Word,
and words, and the world …

… the world of water in which I was carried
until the waters broke
and the life sustaining substance drained away
throwing me from dark to light.

The valley’s parched throat longs for water,
born free, yet everywhere imprisoned:

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in chains, in bottles, in tins, in jars, in frozen cubes,
its captive essence staring out with grief filled eyes.

A young boy on a tricycle bears a dozen prison cells,
each with forty captives: forty fresh clean litres of water.
“¡Peragua!” he calls. “¡Super Agua!”

He holds out his hand for money
and invites me to pay a ransom,
to set these prisoners free.

Real water yearns to be released,
to be set free from its captivity,
to trickle out of the corner of your mouth,
to drip from your chin,
to seek sanctuary in the ground.

Real water slips through your hair
and leaves you squeaky clean.
It is a mirage of palm trees upon burning sand.

It is the hot sun dragging its blood red tongue across the sky
and panting for water like a great big thirsty dog.

Water 1 (Obsidian’s Edge 11) was published in At the Edge of Obsidian (2005). Water 2 (Obsidian’s Edge 12) was re-written earlier this year for Obsidian’s Edge. Both attempts are interesting (for different reasons) and I am wondering whether to keep both versions. Obsidian’s Edge is the continuing rewrite of the earlier book. This re-write is part of the ongoing revision of The Oaxacan Trilogy.

Obsidian’s Edge 10

12:15 pm
Mass In the Consolación

(Continued)

That young man
nailed to his wooden frame,
calling me by my name.

The boy on the cross has the wide open,
jeweled eyes of a flayed Mexican god,
living forever and never quite dead.

Black blood flows down his carved wooden face,
a river of coal dust waxed with carmine;
human hair, coffee colored skin,
the air heavy with burnt copal.

Trapped by the ring-master
in a never-ending series
of unforgiving circus acts,

my live-wire mind:
a pinball
bouncing within its triptych
from thought, to word, to deed.

Five hundred years of mixed tongues
whisper their multi-lingual
tale of a golden-haired god
walking out from ghost ships,
their illusory sails,
silhouetted in the sunrise.

Trapped beneath sultry snow,
the old god buried beneath the local volcano
belches his bitterness in lava and ash.

Obsidian 9

12:00 noon
Mass in the Consolación

1
This is not a normal church.
The lady in front of me opens her blouse
and offers her breast to her youngest child
who sucks there, noisily, greedily.

The old man behind me
holds a roll your own smoke
in the palm of his hand
and closes his eyes in ecstasy
as he draws in the marijuana,
holding it between tongue and teeth.

Three dogs, tongues lolling, discover
the bitch in heat who came here for sanctuary.
They chase her up and down the aisle
as the high priest doggedly murmurs
the blessings that uplift faithful hearts.

I have heard these words before.
Bored acolytes pass the anointing oil,
present the sacred wine.
Flowers and candles adorn the altar.

When the old man kneels for communion,
night breath lies whisky thick
on the high priest’s tongue.

I drowse during the sermon:
sacred words, secret worlds
open like oysters;
a laying on of hands;
footsteps leading nowhere .

Seculae seculorum:
that hard, crisp sound,
white and sharp,
like the inside of an apple
when strong teeth
penetrate the outer skin.

Candle flames caress the unwary,
bringing an artificial peace.

Yellow light marches across the altar.
The room warms up with song.
Wide open staring eyes.

That young man
nailed to his wooden frame,
calling me by my name.

Bistro 3 Flash Fiction

Blind Date

You couldn’t see the holes the doctor drilled in my head when he thought he was a woodpecker. You were oblivious to the bland, black splinters sprouting from my fingers and my neck. Unseen and unheard, the ladder-back drowsed its feathered siesta as peace descended to the cluttered attic of my mind. When push came to new love, the bluebird couldn’t find the old silver ring I borrowed from the curtains. How could you care about its failure to sparkle in the sun? When you ran your fingers through my hair, you cut yourself on a feather’s edge and my shirt rose up in the air and flapped with sudden writing, as red as blossoming flowers. You sensed their crimson dampness, but couldn’t see the petals turning skywards to a pallid moon. The clockwork mouse ran down the tower. The clock struck the chaos of a universe at sixes instead of sevens and we knew we two would never be one. You tapped with your white stick on the sidewalk, but before you drove away, you told me to keep my pity for falling leaves, for sparrows in winter, and for the defenseless chickadees who quest at the feeder and leave in fear of the kitchen cat with her dogged stealth: a game of paws and pause, crisp and silent through the green hair of the grass.

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