National Poetry Month 7: Playing Games

Playing Games

Jack Garcia

My mouth says, “Play with me,”

a sentence composed

of consonants and vowels

and the whoosh of air in between

the ticking of my tongue and teeth,

affected by the round of

my mouth. Lips that are good                                

at kissing or giving head,

but not so great at whistling;

nothing comes out my lips

but air, cold and biting like winter

winds that rip 

my lips.  Lips that get too chapped,

no matter how much Vaseline I rub

on them in the mornings,

sticking like the peanut butter

I lick and suck off the spoon,

my little skin flakes like a frilly fringe framing

my teeth.  Teeth filled now with metal

dots (like dice showing snake eyes)

where once were cavities,

where once were metal

braces, for two years and two months,

the brackets snagging on 

my lips when I smiled.  I smile

even when you hurt me, or worse,

when I hurt you.  I praise, I wound,

I profess many truths I don’t believe

anymore, giving lip service to prophets,

lovers, and gods like vomit from

my mouth, swilling in the toilet

when I’ve had too much to drink.

Greedy and deceitful, mine is a mouth

which has often lied… lies so comforting

I wrap them around me

like a fringed blanket to keep

my mouth from quivering in the cold

as you roll snake eyes and land on Park Place.

“Yow owe me 1500 dollars,” I say, chewing coyly

on my hotel.  You shove rainbow money into my grinning mouth,
choking me with my own hidden agendas like the tongue I can’t roll

into a taco but, boy, can I roll it over you.

National Poetry Month 6: Exuvia

Exuvia

Jack Garcia 

A frantic woman wailing in the night,

for help, she begs, and answers to her plight.

Four teens come running out the door to see

a hanging man like cobwebs in the tree. 

My son, my son, she screeches at the moon,

with fists like rocks slung at his warm cocoon.

No flying butterfly, but fetid flies

that swarm severely ‘round the thing that dies. 

At just sixteen, the smallest girl steps up

and like a spider climbs the web to cup

her hands around the noose to free the prey.

A thud, a shriek, the others look away. 

One sad cicada fallen from his shell,

for no one heard the buzzing he knew well.

National Poetry Month 5: Peter

Peter

(A found poem from a page of J. M. Barrie’s Peter Pan) 

I am

sharp

silence

listening for

quiet

adventure.

National Poetry Month 4: Religion

Religion

(A found poem from a page of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter)

 Antique

angels

lifting

the

mystic

sanctified

tongues.

Faith is

proof

of           frailty.

National Poetry Month 3: Dirt

Dirt
Jack Garcia

 

The rich soil between my fingers.

The smell of the earth.  The way

it supports me, pushes me up

like a dandelion. One minute,

all yellow-petaled and cheery.

Rooted and strong.

Then suddenly all fluffy-headed,

scattered about by whatever

wind the world wishes to dismiss

me with.  A small child with dirt

under her fingernails grabs me

by the neck and exhales,

using me to get her wish.

It’s either she or me, I see.

This soil isn’t rich enough

for the both of us.

National Poetry Month 2: "Tell Us a Little About Yourself"

“Tell Us a Little About Yourself”

Jack Garcia 

What do I say?

Do I tell the room that I’m afraid of matches,

or that I get uncomfortable around big dogs

that like to jump on me, or that my favorite cocktail

switches between a Coke and Rum or a Margarita

or a Long Island Iced Tea depending on the night? 

Do I tell them that I’ve made out in a baseball dugout

or that I’ve had four teeth pulled

or that my biggest fear in life is that I’ll amount to nothing,

or worse, that I’ll amount to the wrong thing?

Do I tell them I watched every season of Glee,

even when everyone hated it? That I can’t whistle?

That I don’t care?

That I sometimes talk to myself when I’m alone?

That I stand in the mirror, pinching my stomach rolls in disgust?

Do I tell them that I’m not sure about God anymore

because if He exists, then He’s just one more person I’ve disappointed? 

Do I tell them I once saw a little girl

get run over by a produce truck in Chile?

Watermelons fell out of the back

when the driver hit the brakes,

breaking into pieces—smashed

red pulp like the little girl’s head.

The neighbors sprayed the streets down

with their garden hoses and the water flowed

like pink lemonade around my shoes.

Do I tell them how I wanted to cry?

How I wanted to go to her

and with the power of the Spirit

raise her from the dead?

Heal her?

Anything? 

No.

I say I’m from Colorado and sit down.

National Poetry Month 1: Moving Pictures

Moving Pictures

Jack Garcia

 

“You’re not doing it right,” he said,

packing the powdered herbs more tightly,

lighting the fire that will start

the moving picture show. 

“You need to inhale deeper.

With your stomach, not just your chest.”

I try again, coughing, laughing a little.

The smoke scratches at my throat

with its vaporish claws.

Dust-smeared images flicker

on the torn screen. Faded

Technicolor slows down

and slows down

until it stops with a rip

in the film and a cigarette burn. 

All life is on pause.

Then, slowly, the colored lights return

and in slow-motion I unwrap him,

his clothes like rolling papers,

and we laugh at how funny our movie is.

I inhale all of him, not just with my chest,

but with my whole being

and he tickles my throat.