Two Poems
A Tortoise without a Shell
She blocks the sun with her hand so it might not blind their love again
When the milk runs dry it is time to die
She can’t understand him even when he speaks clear
It is easier to fuck with passion for 1 day than for 80 years
BIO
Kirk Alvaro Lua is from Madera, the Heart of California. He is currently living in Arcata attending Humboldt State University where he has earned a BA in Writing and is studying for a Spanish minor. He is of Mexican descent and was raised immersed in the culture. The first piece of literature that got him interested in writing was The Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams. He would like to thank Barbara Brinson Curiel for guidance and friendship. His first teachers of poetry were his parents. His mother taught him how to write and his father taught him how to say fuck it.
Tea pot, her whale song, whistles come home
She looks through her window, over the sad sink, so calm
Lack of outside sound
What is important over what is better
Vertical stacks towering, overwhelming
Bukowski, Jeffers, Fante, Carver, McCullers
Acting badly as if they were my family
They resemble furniture, not elephants
Peace over love
Is this the work of God or the Devil
How loyal is a hungry dog
When has the night ever been silent
She can hear his heart
She can hear the animals cry across the blue grass, yellow sky,
And orange sea, red sweat, vengeful tears
Everything bleeds together, she and him, night is painting
The sun rise is burning across the ridge of her nose, regret runs down, bitter honey
The spoon is too loud
Compared to what the sunrise brings
Time to say grace
A head rises before the rest, witnesses heads down, hands folded,
Stomachs empty, lips mumbling, eyes resting, God missing,
Children laughing, adults frowning, and the Devil waiting
You have no blame
My mother helps her out of the car, then to the coffin
His chin stubbled, missed when shaved
Her tears burst onto his wrinkles; they are rivers that gutter their life
Blooming his grave
What is a tortoise without a shell?
My grandfather is dead.
In A Name
I am what my Mexican mother and Mexican father made from urge and Catholicism.
I am the new born who cut off my mother’s enabling umbilical cord.
I am a boy who understood why my father yelled passively.
I am the younger brother of my sister who forgot about the yelling but embraced the passively.
I am influenced by day dreamers.
I am the lover who came too early.
I am the ex-lover who understood too late.
I am the one they had.
I am the one she now loves.
I am the one who writes so I don’t have to speak, so you don’t have to strain to listen.
I am the one who writes so I can talk to you.
I am the one who reads so I can listen to you.
I am the one who writes to keep myself from weeping frantically in song.
I am the one who writes because I only know one song on guitar.
I am the one who writes because I’d rather laugh aloud.
I am the clown who didn’t know he was to be laughed at.
I am the one walking deep in a frown, deep in a thought, unaware,
with my pants zipper down.