Spoiler
This is a long work, if you dont like lengthy reads in your poetry, dont read this then complain about length, I just warned you.
Awake, awake, no I'm not.
Controlled falling, people call it walking, my heel is bruised.
I don't have eyes, just vacuous pits that let light in.
Bulbs older than me gasp to life,
illuminating shops that haven't sold a thing
since Kennedy was still smiling.
The lonesome caravans pass through
human valleys of darkness,
shopping carts loaded with what
a nobody needs.
Along the main line houses have character,
the hard kind of character,
the kind a prize fighter has;
broken nose, crooked leg, funny teeth.
Mutts and mutt bitches growl, cower and grin
behind chain-links, posts and open air.
Home means where you let your boots fall,
where your troubles have time to fade,
or even increase, maybe even overwhelm.
For some, its three bedrooms and a back-yard,
others its an apartment with a balcony,
a project with no safety,
and for a few, nothing at all.
The hospital broods
with it's back to the highway
a clinic to it's face
and suburbia to it's left.
Cookie-cutter houses with every shade of green,
their yards are nice too. (For reference, this was a money joke)
Hinajosa, Pat Williams, other places to smoke,
to celebrate your baby girl's fifth year of life,
to sleep under the stars without a meal again,
to play soldier and gun your friends down,
all with either a smile or a tear.
East-side, West-side, Parkside.
New homes, old homes, no homes.
Nobody walks anymore, not like me,
not to see, to think, to breathe
sick air with grandfather's poison.
Nobody around to get sand in their eye,
to breathe the diesel fumes,
taste the horse, sheep , cow musk.
An island of concrete, tar and steel.
Vessels of every shape and size
arrive and depart
no more a part of all this
than the seasonal winds.
Fields fed by the Colorado.
They feed the rest of the state
and nation.
We have a rivalry with no rival,
and our region isn't a slouch either.
Just ask the Salten Sea.
Feed lots make you look at your steak,
listless eyes capture light,
sad fireflies that die as the night takes over.
Its a place we hate, that we wander,
we seek to escape, try to improve,
find love, lose love, tell lies,
make apologies, raise children,
grow crops, bury dogs, say goodbye,
lay relatives to rest,
remember kids who don't remember being kids,
and watch the world pass through...
on their way to anywhere but here.
Brawley makes you want to rip your teeth out.
But its the place where your teeth grew in.
Home is where the heart is,
here the heat gives you a stroke.
You never leave the desert.
You just get lost in it.
Its home, for better or worse.
Mostly worse.
But its home.
Estas Impuesto. (You get used to it)
But other than that it was awesome! Very unique! 