Poem- Tlaquepaque
Posted: Aug 10 2005 11:55 pm
I notice not many people have jumped in here with some writing, so I thought I would throw one out there. Feel free to let me know what you think!
Tlaquepaque
These blood red cliffs, these
burning vertebrae embrace
the plaza
and here we are
The heart
the throb buried
beneath these cobblestones
and washed away by ornate fountains
like sin
can be drowned in the plush comfort
of a hotel bathtub.
But here the hard stone snakes
and slithers against the door fronts
of the shops dressed fashionably
in vibrant color, the black glaze
of pottery mirrors bashing the reflection
of tourists in embarrassed wonderment,
sliding their hands sensuously
along the smooth curves of statues.
Can they remember?
Somewhere deep in their collective memory
when the blood was heat and the limbs
vines; tangled
beneath the cliffs we tried to make a nation
and we didn’t fail
just faltered
and moved, then disappeared.
The same stories in the clouds
above Cathedral Rock
are whispered in a thin haze over Vultee Arch
and scratched in the walls
above the slick smoothness of Boyton Canyon,
here in the room where a father
died, a child tells the story
in fingerprints and dust
and the blood still runs,
becomes ink in the promotional pamphlets
floor plans of stone, fills the crevices of these walls
so fragile, like time, like hope,
runs through the smooth course and trickle of spring
into the desert, disappears, like us
shadows along the blackened roof
in a photograph.
Mike
Tlaquepaque
These blood red cliffs, these
burning vertebrae embrace
the plaza
and here we are
The heart
the throb buried
beneath these cobblestones
and washed away by ornate fountains
like sin
can be drowned in the plush comfort
of a hotel bathtub.
But here the hard stone snakes
and slithers against the door fronts
of the shops dressed fashionably
in vibrant color, the black glaze
of pottery mirrors bashing the reflection
of tourists in embarrassed wonderment,
sliding their hands sensuously
along the smooth curves of statues.
Can they remember?
Somewhere deep in their collective memory
when the blood was heat and the limbs
vines; tangled
beneath the cliffs we tried to make a nation
and we didn’t fail
just faltered
and moved, then disappeared.
The same stories in the clouds
above Cathedral Rock
are whispered in a thin haze over Vultee Arch
and scratched in the walls
above the slick smoothness of Boyton Canyon,
here in the room where a father
died, a child tells the story
in fingerprints and dust
and the blood still runs,
becomes ink in the promotional pamphlets
floor plans of stone, fills the crevices of these walls
so fragile, like time, like hope,
runs through the smooth course and trickle of spring
into the desert, disappears, like us
shadows along the blackened roof
in a photograph.
Mike