She Wanted Diamonds

She wanted diamonds

She wanted things

Like kisses, lore

Rhymes

Little shoes

The color blue

She wanted

I did

She wanted

I didn’t

I remember like 

an old dungeon tale

Some Goth

Drama

Otranto

High tides

Hard knights

Clanking chains

were all to blame

She wanted to call in sick,

bad sleep

Some land, some sun

Come to my house

in a horse-drawn jalopy

I found you, she said

Like a nickel, suck your pickle

So, I get to keep you, right?

Right?

Keep you like a king,

a snake

Feed you on wine,

tiny white mice

And that’s how it was

And so it was

As old as a ghost

We lasted three years, 

a thousand bottles, and two months

Spiders

We used to catch spiders
Along the hills
Hunkered in tunnels
The smog, the fire

I can see his face
Young
Eyes still full
He was my dad
The shadow on the dirt

Years of want
Of love
Or death
(if that’s what it has to be then I’ll take it)
And anything else
Anything yours
The torture was too much

Too much for happiness
Too much to make it

And now
The hills are quiet
Slanted
The spider sleeps

I miss you today
Hunkered down
Doing this

Morning Report

When Sunday brings this

To my skin, to these walls

I know what I missed

One second, one look

I passed it by, went her way

Of all my mistakes

What I didn't know

The story, the tilling land

The sound in the room

Is what brings Sunday

The tug of her memory 

Next time I'll be there

23

Angel Guardian

On my desk, the tin cross

I'm clean once again

And the TV flick

The hum of this empty room

I chew on these pills

Just one more, just two

For those things I never knew

I rethink the day

Claim the load, the blame

The long gone and dusty name

I love you, I do

Piles

And those backyard poems

Buried like crickets and girls

Make the dirt my home

Dust

I came here with the dust

With the soon-to-be gambler,

the dancer

The married couple 

on their last stand

I made it crawling 

through cactus thorns

Old girlfriends

and dead scorpions

I ordered a beer

and then another

I heard cards smack

and coins drop

I heard good things,

Devil speak

I turned around: there she was

I came here to kiss 

those pink lights

Snapping out a cheap 

magnified dream

Women

Song

Whiskey

The voices said

So, I tried all three

Had a smoke

Stumbled home and fell asleep

The Rifleman

They said he came 

out of smoke

Two-syllable name

Wicked eye

A myth

A manchild

Gnashed teeth

A rifle

Rumbled the hillside

Took its town,

its stones

Shot it down

Burned it down

He knew the Devil

Smelled like fire

He died in the desert

Ate up by a pack of dogs

That’s what I heard

He was Mexican

Son of sad Ranchero

Was seen on a bus leaving town 

with a white woman

A manchild

Gnashed teeth

A pile of dead birds 

and songs at his feet

The Rifleman