James Diaz

Poetry

 

What Else Do You Want To Know?

 

on the road

where the north is a guiding light

trying to save my life

please don't hurt my veins

I have the information / where was I?

 

did I learn to grow old

as I barely clung

like an ocean you know

and when we cried

the earth rotated 

the place we longed to understand

completely shattered

 

where the stars undid their depth like a garter belt

beautiful wasn't I?

and full of pain

to account for California

floodlights 

the scars 

the heavy haul

the motel pain

I have burned my dreams

if I wasn't dying I needed to be told who to be

Galileo, falsehood is our second state

this north is a flood of bad information

while the snow and the lodges on highway 80 dissipate 

besides, keeping quiet is the wisest move

on this road where there is nowhere- no one to be.

 

 

 

No Skin In The Game

 

In the back of who's torn up van

this lane

early god

I pop pills

it's hardly special 

 

but you should know

I remember the scars on your knee

 

where sky folds over fields like trauma

I carry limited details

in back pocket

I hate the south

I never put my lips to the scratched glass of a greyhound

as I'm traveling in the red

only momentarily

 

Keep the spit out of my destiny

when a dry house weeps

I hate your motels alongside the northern highway

"Yeah, she stayed here, but that was two nights ago."

And I'd travel further, but I'm starting not to care

that's the upshot of getting old

 

bucket or pail

where the thick tide sleeps 

eating men like hollow wings

where the shadows fail

romantic suicides

to keep my tired mind from pushing thought under the imaginary pillow

 

the death

it would mean so much to me

but you're only a burden

in the house of heavy song

while stuck air congeals

I am a silent smile

 

I'll give you that

the night (out) of gas stations 

goes red.

and tired falls

ahead of me somewhat.

 

 

 

When Was I Ever As Sad As You?

 

A  song-whale twisted with the slow rolling inside night colored loud falsetto - eyes tear laden a true carnival of blue rain in a bottle - free from the grind of scrap metal - down in the oil paints bottom edge a hermetic fusion - nothing to write home about - an inkling of tall serpent light - the sound of the hive administers its grotesque touch - garden of bones the fog erased the strange blossoms - real clumsy city birthing neon - a body on the road rubber scum - the story gets fuzzy here - onward kamikaze a scream from the hills metal skin - sky shell bursts in psychedelic color - planting green tendrils in sewer pimps that shake out the poison on the tip of a tongue - fire glitch from the off center - an ocean of sound underneath the veins of the city - collapsed micro-bodies and all seeing eye stem - from the dark bottom a gutter of stars -

 

My head is like iron in a safety wound - dust on the walls - conveyor machine grim enduring baboon - the first entertainer Bang! - the interior sound of the bone hill - johns under the rusted roller coaster - underneath the tethered city - strangers in the garden of the sky - rainbow walls against half collapsed clock eyes - a black taxi in the scum of the sublime - a tide of blue mouths from his open wrist - nailed to the spot the ice cold jaws - sexual formation through human nature - saturated accumulation I accept your paper hat - burnt inside cranial inspection - the eternal morbid prosthetic - petulant jack boots eat out your poison from the ulcer womb of sky, micro stitched in the humming flesh.

 

 

 

The World Begins at This Dead End

 

up and down the highway a hundred times over -

 

mittens and warm coffee -

 

a tube of blood -

 

bathroom stall -

 

out the door - through an alley - out the door - and repeat -

 

through an alley - out the door - in winter - a crime spree

 

out the door - ( someone stumbles ) in winter -

 

on the main drag - they give you what you need -

 

through an alley - the dead ones - in winter -

 

(someone stumbles) - coke and hash - thirsty dog - 

 

out the door - in winter 

 

and repeat -

 

on the main drag -

 

twisted guardrails on the highway - 

 

engine dies out - a violin - no good coat (player) -

 

handcuffed - scratchy records - bedpost -

 

vaudeville - coke and hash - back in 2002 -

 

and repeat - in winter - 

 

the corner bars are full -

 

Oh Marlana - on a wall

 

rooftops - every Suzi - tenement -

 

150 mutiny wars -

 

stumbling drunk to our motel room -

 

metal studs - a bottle of rot gut - ashtray - floor -

 

15 pieces discarded - dirty magazines -

 

sidewalk - storefront - read it over again -

 

sidewalk (in Italy) storefront - (backwards) -

 

memento - pale - tumescent -

 

driving in circles - we arrived at the scene -

 

in Italy - palm extended to the smoky mirrors -

 

dirty magazines - ashtrays - once again - read it slowly - 

 

(backwars) strung up - at the city dump -

 

all my efforts thwarted - yack - yack - yack -

 

if only you knew - near twilight - the jack pines are listening - 

 

once again - read it slowly - 

 

15 storefronts - no one gives you nothin' - all that you need - 

 

we arrived at the scene -

 

I'll keep repeating myself until I break the mystery -

 

ashtrays - Berlin bar room - un operachi - 

 

nearing the board walk (1942) Nina - on a train -

 

Hotel lobby - murderer's in very room -

 

tenement lift - warfare -

 

lifting velvet sacks up off the floor -

 

Dublin - downstairs - 15 minutes ticking -

 

winter wall - gas station nuclear light.

 

 

 

It Ain't That Bad

 

first impression - now in new york - home is: important hydro ( moxy ) real snow on horizon - which is red - the color in give me that damn thing - words anything - words (melting) help, please - awful things with tendencies - towards - things converge (push) primary (notice) number - dis-lashed - from tubes - nor feeding - out - silence (to) or sold - I am beginning to not care what makes sense - there is perfect speech (crossing) cold dogmatic street to river - dogs or drug idiots in the neon (hustle) size (mere) pictures of (women) oversexed - in water side (houses) - watches - going from - train rides (through) the other end of things nothing (much) motels keep lights on - in swimming pools the leaves are dead - isn't important so don't notice. 

 

 

 

Yeah Right

 

Held underneath the night

some beauty still that I find

worshiped under the claw

of midnight's paralysis

 

While dreaming there are those

who wake with their bed frames hardly warmed

the matter loosens blood against the clot

where words were caught against

 

And I will always wonder if you made it

to Nebraska in that old beat up Chevrolet

and slept in the roadside motel

that I undressed you in that first night in October

 

There are many things I should have said

but we seldom know the right words

So I will just hide shivering under the bed

the storefront's neon burning 

the bus leaving without me

 

and many miles now that are before me

unlike Frost I have no promises to keep

I will only follow the imprint of snow across the highway

and tell you what dim secrets this city has stolen. 

 

 

 

James Diaz is a writer and activist, living in upstate New York. His work has appeared in HIV Here & Now, Chronogram, Cheap Pop Lit, Ditch,  and Foliate Oak.  His first collection of poems, This Someone I Call Stranger, is forthcoming from Indolent Books (2017). He is founding editor of the literary arts & music journal Anti-Heroin Chic. http://heroinchic.weebly.com/