Removing Skin

Work by

Trevino L. Brings Plenty

Removing Skin. Copyright © 2014 by Trevino L. Brings Plenty. All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. No part of this may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the cases of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

Cover art by Ryan Hayes

Thanks much to Jade and all my friends for their encouragement and support.

Copy editing by Glynis Irwin

The first section of this collection appeared in Shedding Skins: Four Sioux Poets (American Indian Studies), Michigan State University Press (January 31, 2008).

Contact information:

E-mail: trevino@trevinobringsplenty.com

Website: http://www.trevinobringsplenty.com

Contents

These Features

Here We Go Again

Ghost Shirt Litany

How to Be an Indian Male in the Early 21st Century

To Rid the Egg

The Question

No Eyes

To Find the Indian Wisdom

Park Sandwich

Building Rooms to Sell Dreams

Brain Damage

Watching You Sleep

Part Gravel, Part Water, All Indian

The Desire Burns

Crazy Horse Nightmares

Life Money

No Heart to Deal with It

The Pallbearer

Lakota Language Lesson with Benjamin

Removing Skin

On Dark Earth

Meals

It Is Called a Chow Line

When He Goes Home

To Grow Sound

He Was Like That Today

Silence 6 Feet Deep

The Music of Sleep

Zero

It’s in the Night

6 Months Before or After My Birthday

Night Train

The Joke Is on Me

S.O.S.

The New Lover

The Secret between Rain Drops

Evil Knows Your Name

Prey and Victim

When They’re Finished

I Am Reasonable

The Big Heart

Details

This Is How It Ends

The Danger of the Artist’s Life

The Bottom of Heaven

A Plain Day

Finding Failure

I Am Ready for Lunch

The Crazies

In This Room

Spice of Sadness

Dead Whistle

You Love

She Is Now a Poem

On Top of the World

The Guest on Dark Earth

Bones to Surface

Dear Gentle Writer

Writing Is War

From the Heart

Finally Some Clear Thoughts on Poetry

When I Compose a Poem

The Open-Mics

Here It Is

I Shit Better Poetry than Most Can Write

How to Write the Heart

The Liar in You

Defending

Cells

Simple Good Nights

If You Can’t Be Good, Don’t Get Caught

B.S. Theory

Staring Charlie Self as Tomahawk Missile

Treluv, Undaunted

... And All a Good Night

About the Author

These Features

Here We Go Again

I sat in a chair

in Lucy’s new apartment.

Another lady was there

who I never met.

She introduced herself and said

her name was Alicia.

She sat at my feet facing me.

She had blue eyes, auburn hair, fake and bake skin.

She asked if I was Native American.

I said, “Yes.”

“Native Americans are so cool,” she said.

“They are very spiritual.

They are in touch with the earth,

and, oh my god, there is the Great Spirit.

You have a beautiful culture.”

“It’s not all mine,” I said.

“Native Americans have so much wisdom,”

she said and leaned closer to me.

“Do you know any sacred stories?

Can you tell me a story?”

“Okay,” I said.

“This one took place in old times.

There was a lone cavalry soldier.

He was stationed at an abandoned fort in South Dakota.

There were Lakotas not far off.

The Lakotas watched this man

and wondered at his strangeness.

They saw him cleaning the fort.

They thought he was crazy to be alone.

Then they saw him trying to communicate

with a wolf that had white front paws.”

Alicia interrupted me and said,

“That is the storyline for

Dances with Wolves.”

“Yes it is,” I said.

Then Alicia stood behind me

and started to run her fingers

through my hair.

“It’s unfair,” she said,

“Indian men have such beautiful hair.

It’s so dark and thick and soft.

You are a beautiful man.”

“Thanks,” I said, “But you know

I have more of that beautiful hair

around my cock.”

Alicia quickly pulled her hand away.

“You’re disgusting!” she screamed.

“Maybe so,” I said, “But your ideas

of me are just as repulsive.”

Then Alicia sat on my lap and kissed my cheek.

She stood and left the apartment.

“There you go, Trevino,” Lucy said,

“You have a great way with the ladies.”

“Yeah, I know,” I said, “The crazy ones

come to me like flies to dog shit.”

Ghost Shirt Litany

I wear her dead father’s shirts

which are heavier than muslin shrouds.

He is in the ground

from an overdose

and I sit on green grass

thinking which kind of

bugs are crawling through

his bones.

I wear these shirts

everyday.

They are worn out.

Some with cigarette holes,

some with puke stains,

some too warm for summer.

All these shirts

in my closet,

all these nights

I pass out on the couch,

and wake before the starlings.

I am caged in these clothes,

in this red world,

in this destruction,

in these ghost shirts.

How to Be an Indian Male in the Early 21st Century

You must be birthed from an Indian mother.

She must be in her teens.

She must come from an alcoholic lineage.

And you must say this is so.

You will never meet your father.

You will grow uncertain about your manhood.

You will be angry.

This must be so.

You will sit in a cafeteria,

greasy fries and cheeseburger before you.

You will know all these people

are all different ideas.

All these people will never leave.

A bearded white man sitting 20 feet away

will look you over.

He will wonder at your cheekbones,

your long hair in a ponytail,

your dark brown skin.

He will want to ask what tribe you are.

He will feel sorry for you

and your people’s history.

He will imagine you half naked

like what he saw on T.V. last night

and what he has read in his large,

Western novel collection.

He will hate you

because you don’t fit his model.

You will see this bearded white man.

You know he is watching you.

You will imagine him in the same

period clothes as he was with you.

You will feel sorry for him.

You will sip your water in a clear plastic cup.

You will imagine the bearded white man

wearing buckled shoes, tan stockings, knickers, puffy shirt,

vest, topcoat, and a large-brim hat.

You will wonder when his glory days

ever began. You know he smells foul.

The white man has maybe bathed once a year.

This was the strange custom of white people.

You will start to mimic the way he is eating

and sound out the strange nuances of his language.

It will anger you when you look around

the cafeteria and see mostly white people.

The white woman 5 feet away wearing a yellow dress

and dipping bread into her soup will see you.

She will want to take home a dark man.

She will hate you

because her husband is white.

Her life is easy,

it has to be.

She has two white children.

She will leave this family.

She will use you.

She will break your heart.

But she doesn’t do this to hurt you;

she does this to leave her unhappy marriage.

You see this white woman in a yellow dress.

Her wedding ring is very expensive.

You imagine her wearing a low-cut red dress.

You imagine her leaving her family.

She must be unhappy with her life.

You know she is watching you.

You know you must end her marriage.

You will be in your late thirties.

The anger you had all your life

will eat you alive.

You will drink heavily.

You will not care

when your mother calls long distance.

You will let your answering machine pick her up.

You will die from a fatal injury.

This must be so, but not until diabetes sets

in your body and most of your sight is gone.

You will be a dead Indian male under ground.

All the noise you had in your head

will finally be silenced.

This could be one end to your story.

To Rid the Egg

It wasn’t long ago

3rd world reservations

destroyed hope

in the newest generations’ possibilities.

In the 70’s

my mother was damn lucky

she was not

sterilized by IHS butchers.

My mother,

a brown woman,

birthing U.S. enemies;

brown children

that grew up

in urban California.

Here I am

years later

waking to new information

on the death of my genes,

death of my land.

Making it out

of the doubt

I had in my facial structure

and skin color.

I say now it was luck,

but really it was

survival.

My mother saving

her grace in the children

she nourished

while piecing together

who she was

in a manifest destiny world.

Mothers are creators

of what we are;

part history,

part failure,

part discovery,

part resolution,

all fire.

Indian women

birth those who will

demolish

this monster

that controls all.

This machine

created

to liquidate

brown people.

In the U.S.

my mother survived

sterilization

by

secret legislature.

The Question

We lived in San Jose, CA

on welfare, commodities, WIC.

Found broken toys and ill-fitted clothes

at a Goodwill drop-off.

I attended mostly all white schools.

I hated my coarse black hair,

my large cheekbones, brown skin,

and very Indian sounding name.

We lived off of the city,

ate $1.50 tacos with diet soda,

and on weekends with family,

partied until early morning crying fits.

My mother’s mother drank herself to death.

My mother’s father chose homelessness

and pushed a shopping cart.

My uncles would sit in a back room

cooking up heroin or hubba rocks.

Indians in a city, that’s what we were,

pow wows in college gyms,

moving every year into different motels

or cheap rooming houses by railroad tracks

kept warm by open oven heat.

T.V., public transit, white families

every year giving us used board games, clothes, food

while me and my siblings hid in a closet,

watching them wanting to help an Indian family not struggle.

To be Indian is not to be a savior for white people.

To be Indian in a city is not tragic.

And now you ask me where I am from.

I understand your question,

but will answer it with, “Next question.”

Alive in America is all we are.

Let’s leave it at that.

No Eyes

1.

My grandfather had his eyes stolen.

He said they were

in a Smithsonian Museum.

The last image he saw

was a blond-haired woman

bending over him.

He was newly back from Japan,

he was still wearing his WWII uniform.

He said it wasn’t a good thing,

but he was sadly satisfied his eyes

were set next to his grandparents’ bones.

2.

My grandfather was a brakeman

in his late teens.

When he lost his left pinkie finger,

he quit and joined the army.

“There were a lot of Indians

in the army,” he said,

“We were seen as American heroes

when we wore our uniforms.”

He said,

“Know this, grandson,

the people were not all warriors.

My cousin was a painter and storyteller,

my brother was a fisherman,

my sister tamed horses,

everyone ate food, breathed air, drank water.

This is the family lineage.”

My grandfather rolled a cigarette.

He was wearing sunglasses.

It was evening just before supper.

“Every man wants to huff and puff

their warriorness,” he said,

“But the real work is peace.”

To Find the Indian Wisdom

She is a lingerie model.

She has orgasms for money.

I am Native American, an Indian, to be precise.

Sex for money, this keeps our rent and food going.

She thought because I am Indian,

I come with extra knowledge/wisdom.

She wants me to be the earth she walks,

this is not how it is.

I am a man who is not earth.

I am a man who is in need as anybody else.

I accept her work and that is all.

To her, I am well-grounded,

not that I have feelings, in fact

there is no feeling when the job is sex.

I am dead and I am dead.

I am a man, but really another consumer.

We all fool ourselves with love.

I hate her for what she does,

but she pays the rent and keeps me alive.

Besides, what’s the point of living anyways,

to be hollow in what I believe and want day and night?

NO. KEEP SELF ALIVE ONLY. THERE IS NOTHING ELSE.

I am an idea, she is a woman,

both don’t work when money is exchanged.

After our last fight,

I kicked her out the door

and threw five dollars at her.

She was worth her full pay

and I gave it to her.

She is gone and I am alive.

What more can you ask.

Park Sandwich

I sleep in a park across from a church,

the San Francisco sun on my face.

I vomit on the grass.

I load my bags over my shoulder.

I don’t need anything else.

My feet hurt from

walking around town,

and a good drink will be great.

The church is handing out

a PB&J sandwich, chips, a can of soda.

I eat this down,

drink the soda with

an Indian woman with wild hair.

She smells like she is packed

full of cum and shit.

She asks if I want some company,

she will do me good.

I think hard about this,

and say no.

My cock is sore

from too much masturbation

with cheap lotion,

so much so that my right palm

is just as chapped as my cock.

She says she is Spokane Indian,

her name is Charmaine Elixer.

I say to her I’m visiting from Portland, OR.

She pulls from her pack

some sweet grass and

gives it to me.

I light it and cover

my face with smoke and throw it.

“What you do that for?” she asks.

“I don’t need all that shit,” I say.

She kicks my shin

and picks up the burning strand

and covers my feet and body with smoke.

“Brother, stay strong,” she says,

“I can tell you got something

good about you.

I love you.”

“You don’t know me.”

“How did you feel when I said it? Good, huh.”

“Good ain’t great and great ain’t good.”

“You are a smart fucker, enit.”

“I know some things.”

“Stay strong, brother,

we are Indian and

have inherited the earth.

Our lost white brothers and

sisters have destroyed us and built

this shitty city.”

“It was bound to happen

sooner or later.”

“Stay strong.

Take care.”

She walks out of the park

and into the void of the city.

I feel holy and American.

I take a bottle from my pack,

take a pull,

stand and walk into the same void.

Building Rooms to Sell Dreams

I sit on brick steps

after work with my homeless

friend, Red.

He said he woke this morning

to rain hitting his face.

He was dreaming of his mother

beating him with a plastic

slot-car racetrack.

Each hit across his body

was the love he hadn’t known,

the truest sense of safety lashing him.

He dreamed of his uncle

holding him down, face buried

in the thick, carpeted floor.

Naked and cold,

the lights on in the living room,

the T.V. showing rap videos,

his uncle said he would kill him

if he told anyone.

Each thrust Red received

was someone taking an interest

in his life, it was lovemaking

to an Indian boy and Red

closed his eyes from then on.

I smoke a cigarette and

take a pull on my beer.

“Those are only dreams, Red,” I said.

He said, “I don’t dream anymore,

I only remember.”

Brain Damage

I am reading Ceremonies of the Damned.

Louis is going lost,

his wife’s Alzheimer’s is

making her disappear before him.

My co-worker who suffered a head injury

and is barely mobile;

when I first started working with him,

he bragged of his wife who finished grad school,

and now the wife is divorcing him and keeping their son.

I am leafing through my book of loss,

of all the deaths and self-destruction.

“STAY ALIVE, MAN!” Walt Curtis wrote on back cover.

And it’s back, maybe never left.

More deaths in my life,

more loss happening around me.

Where is the comfort in sticking around?

But they are still alive.

Louis’ poems still come out

after his wife is dead.

My co-worker has moved into

an adult care facility.

Nurses take care of him;

he still smokes his cigars.

It is all in the mind.

Loved ones will become as all do,

another name associated with emotions,

another reason for anger/sorrow,

another stone on the rock pile of self.

These trials will come and go.

Brain damage or not,

depression or happiness,

it is the same come and go.

Watching You Sleep

You expect me to talk

of how I feel while

you were out.

I try not to feel,

it will go all wrong if I do.

I’ve been down

that red district road before;

it’s shit and you only get screwed.

So take this as it is.

I spend my time

between drinking and writing,

both I am doing my best not to do.

I fend off the grizzly in me.

I keep down the owl that cursed me.

I keep suicide on the other side of the room,

close enough to know it’s there.

Life and death are in a 69 position

working away until the sun burns off the night.

They are waiting for me to join in.

I can climb in bed with them or stand back,

either choice I am fucked without

the benefit of orgasm.

But then again it might be

the way you were

in a hospital bed,

deep on morphine,

moaning, sweating, ready

to let it all go.

It didn’t matter anymore.

I can only wish for so much,

but you were the lucky one.

I stand next to your bed

ready to punch a hole

in the wall,

ready to tear apart your body,

ready to curse you

in your final underground bed.

Part Gravel, Part Water, All Indian

It’s not by accident

I live in a city.

It was calculated:

a blood-line of misery,

a non-white skin,

a tongue not made for English,

years to germinate genocidal loss.

I live to wait as anybody else

not for hand-outs,

but hand-me-down lives:

work boots, white T-shirts, blue jeans.

I am the Other of this

American Other masked in common clothes.

My homeland is occupied by debt.

My language is not in my dreams.

My heart is ripped to shreds.

My lungs burn with fire/smoke.

My body is diseased by civilization.

My mind is a nomadic madness.

I live where concrete sterilizes life.

The Desire Burns

I’ve had my fair share of women

and I’m tired of the same crap.

Love them, then they leave,

it’s always better

that they leave me.

It’s less of a crazy affair.

But I think it’s time to settle,

grow some children,

and whittle in old age.

I need magic that only a woman has.

That love without pity and despair.

That love medicine salve

to ease my joints when

I walk with cane

and sip coffee

on a hot bingo night.

I was on a walk with my cousin Faron.

It was early evening.

A sunset was an hour away.

We were winding through

the Black Hills

and we came upon a cliff.

I let loose a yellow arc stream

and a loud laugh.

Faron saw it first

as I was too delighted

with my piss vanishing

in the world below.

“Look at that,” Faron said.

I shook off and covered up.

Faron pointed out to

a white smoke plume

headed toward us.

The closer it came

the more an image solidified.

Faron fell to his knees, terrified.

I straightened my back

and watched the mass change

from a white buffalo

to a woman.

The woman stood before me

floating over the cliff edge.

She had long black hair,

dark eyes,

full lips,

cheekbones for days.

Her curvy body was covered

by a white buckskin dress.

I wanted to lay her down.

I wanted to make her my wife.

I wanted her to have my children.

I wanted to grow old with her.

A gust of wind blew

through my hair

and a chill went

through my body

like she was feeling it

from the inside out.

I raised my right hand

to her face

and touched her left cheek.

It was soft.

She leaned her head into my palm.

I looked at her beauty

and felt lost.

Faron, still on the ground,

started crying

and covered his head.

Piss trickled down his legs.

I looked down at him.

“Get up. Bitch,” I said.

He whimpered and mumbled, “No, no, I can’t.”

I shook my head in disgust

and set my eyes back

to this woman’s eyes.

The sun behind her sunk

into the horizon.

There was a buzz of crickets

and mosquitos while

wind rushed through the trees.

“Whatever you want,” she said to me, “You can have.”

With my hand around

the back of her head,

I pulled her close.

I brought her face to mine,

and kissed her.

“Stand,” she said sternly to Faron.

He stood and looked down at his feet.

A hard wind rolled my bones

and my ashes flew over the cliff.

She took his hand

and he led her to our camp.

Crazy Horse Nightmares

In my dreams,

I ride a red horse.

This beast is fear.

It is my friend,

father confessor,

my will to go

deeper into the night.

I am headed home.

I am alive and chased

by Crazy Horse.

I feel his arrows hit

my body.

Each one is made

from those I had

let down,

those who loved me,

those who wondered

at my anger.

Who is my death bringer?

The one who loves my body?

The one whose desire

is to take part

in my soul?

Have you made

these arrows to fling

at this huge piece of meat,

these bones,

this skull?

Here I am

living the history

that brought me

to the now

in the work I do.

We all want to be warriors,

but if war is all the time,

there are no winners.

In this, how do I measure

the small triumphs

against this self-doubt?

Where is the beauty

I am to walk?

Half of my life is

not in my control.

Half of my life

is destroyed by

Crazy Horse nightmares.

I wake to count the glories

in one hand,

and in the other palm

hold the happiness

that can kill me,

that can set me free,

that I am needing to swallow,

and finally be safe

among the shadows

that circle my days

and covers me at dusk.

I am an urban Indian

in a city of broken people.

I am the one who killed Crazy Horse

in every Indian

on any street corner,

office desk, or barstool.

I killed those who made a hero

out of a warrior.

Life Money

“Fuck you!” the young, white guy yelled

into the hot mid-afternoon air

while walking past me.

I was smoking a cigarette

at the entrance of a natural food store

across the street from a pawn shop.

What the hell is this?

I thought, blowing out smoke

and making a fist.

I looked down at my only weapon;

an acoustic guitar in a hard-shell case.

The white guy was with

two white girls and another white guy.

They were crossing the street

when a mumbled, “Fuck you”

in response came from around the corner.

Then the white guy yelled again,

“‘Fuck you?’ took you long enough!”

and continued to walk away, laughing.

I knew it was a homeless drunk that mumbled.

I didn’t want it to be,

but when I looked around the corner,

two Indian guys,

my age, sat on the sidewalk.

They were bumming change,

wasted out of their minds.

They were cursing

at the white gang.

I pulled hard at my smoke

and felt like kicking the shit

out of every white male I saw.

I pulled hard again and

walked to the Indian guys.

“Hey, where you from?” one of them asked.

“I’m a Lakota from South Dakota,” I answered.

“Hey, brother,” the other guy said,

“I know you don’t like seeing us like this.”

“Shit, man,” I said, “You are still a skin.”

I dug deep into my pockets and gave them

my change. I rolled them two cigarettes each.

“Thanks,” they said in unison.

I saw it in their eyes,

those Indian eyes in love with drinking.

“Take care,” I said and walked to the pawn shop across the street.

I had to make rent this month.

I live paycheck to paycheck.

I could easily be homeless.

My grandfather was homeless.

Shit, I am in a city

miles from my homeland.

Damn near homeless.

I love to drink and

I’ve seen it in my eyes

many times, many nights.

A dangerous love

made mad of this world.

And an unbearably white thing

yelling at me,

“FUCK YOU!”

No Heart to Deal with It

It is a connection

Indians have with each other.

I feel it sometimes,

and want to run from it,

but some days I don’t mind it,

the feeling of

unknown Indians genetically

drawn to each other.

“These people have no heart,” he says.

“I guess so,” I say.

I have seen this guy

walking the downtown streets

once a week, and now he sits

next to me on the bus.

He is in his late 40s,

short in stature, crooked teeth.

He is wearing

a black Member’s Only jacket,

faded blue jeans,

and a baseball cap

which reads, “Native Pride.”

He is probably asked

once a day

where is he from,

or

what tribe he is,

or just,

hey, brother.

I am asked this once a day

and why not?

I am the Indian

individuals want to have

to give them a spiritual path

or right a wrong done

by manifest destiny.

I have long hair,

brown skin,

large cheekbones.

I am a big fuckin’ Indian.

I am a witness

to the Relocation Act.

When I was child,

my mother and I moved

from the reservation

ghetto to a city ghetto.

I lived most of my life

in urban surroundings.

I went to schools

where people hated

the Mexicans, Vietnamese,

Koreans, blacks,

and were indifferent to Indians.

As a child I watched

cartoons and public television,

MTV when I was a teenager,

and as an adult, nothing.

“I can feel these people’s eyes on my body,” he says.

“Well, alright,” I say.

Every morning,

on the crowded bus to work,

I have an empty seat next to me.

If they are a bit crazy

they sit next to me

otherwise they don’t approach.

I can feel these passengers’ fear.

It mingles with

the stench of piss,

B.O., and shit on the morning ride.

Who hasn’t felt like an Indian?

Who hasn’t felt like a tragic warrior

or a noble savage,

not knowing Indian people

are neither of these

unless they choose it

like everybody else.

We have all played

cowboys and Indians as kids.

In adulthood some still play it,

still choose to be Indian,

choose this secret life,

but then they can choose

to end the game,

and go back to being

anybody they want.

Not Indians—

an Indian is an Indian is an Indian.

There is no way

not to be Indian

if you are an Indian,

only the prescribed

false ideas

of what an Indian is.

There is no universal idea

of an Indian

because each nation

is its own nation

with its own

culture and language.

“They have all these colleges,

but no heart,” he says.

“It is too much

to talk about, Friend,” I say.

“Let’s say we just

don’t want to deal

with it this morning.”

The Pallbearer

I have it in me.

I hold it down to maintain.

I am written down as a pallbearer,

but I am 1,400 miles away from

another grandfather’s funeral.

I could let it dissolve me,

I could rebuild the night,

I could make everyday motions

to not think of the father of my father.

I don’t know any different family

than the one I lived with, or

any other stories than the ones that included me.

My uncles on my mother’s side

said my father’s side of the family

was a good Lakota family.

I hear my grandmother’s voice on the phone.

I am at work and can’t show much emotion.

The owl in my chest contracts its talons.

“It’s okay, if you can’t make it,” my grandmother says.

“Okay,” I say.

“I thought you should know he died last Sunday and

this Sunday we will have a wake, then bury him Monday.”

My grandmother says my sister wants to hear my voice.

I never had much conversation with her.

We talk for a minute,

then my grandmother is back on the phone.

“So, whenever you come home,” she says, “you can

visit your grandfather at the national cemetery.”

“Okay,” I say.

“Sunday, they will pull him on a wagon to the wake,” she says.

“We picked a drum group. Are you married?”

“No,” I say, “Not for a long time.”

“Alright, take care out there,” she says.

“We will hear from you soon.”

“Okay,” I say and disconnect from her.

I don’t know when I’ll come home.

I am in Portland, Oregon.

My family is in South Dakota,

my family who I only know by name,

my family who thinks often of me.

If I had a car I could make it home in 24 hours.

If I had money I could take a plane.

I know I am going to stay in Oregon.

I will do what I have to do here

to help with my grandfather’s journey.

Lakota Language Lesson with Benjamin

I sit at the kitchen table

with my grandfather.

We are learning the Lakota language.

We listen to a cassette recording

he made three years ago.

We sound out the strange words together.

We say the words for

all my relations, good,

woman, horse, cat, dog, home.

All those drinking years he had—

I remember them all.

His marriage, years as a chief

in the Marines, no-good alcoholic children,

grandchildren’s birthdays, his youngest brother

who drowned, the remaining brother who died

two years ago, his ex-wife who died last year.

My grandfather can’t recall any of these.

A brain blood clot pressed down

and crushed his memory.

A year after surgery he has regained

his motor functions and speech.

My grandfather and I take a break

from our language lesson.

I make him a ham and cheese

sandwich on 12-grain wheat bread.

I place it on a plate

with a handful of baked potato chips.

I set the plate in front of him

and he says, “Thank you, sir.”

I open a can of diet cola and

pour it into a plastic cup with ice.

I drink from the can and set

the cup next to his plate.

He says, “Thank you, sir.”

“Lala,” I say, “We are doing good, enit.”

He says, “Wast´e.”

It was dusk when my grandfather

and his two younger brothers

were drinking near the Cheyenne River.

The youngest wanted to swim across

the river. My two grandfathers

drove in a pick-up truck over a bridge

and parked on the other side.

My grandfathers watched their youngest

brother sink in the middle of the river.

They couldn’t do anything about it.

“Lala,” I say. “I think we are doing good, enit.”

My grandfather smiles and says, “Wast´e,”

and takes a bite from his sandwich and eats

a couple of chips. He asks for a straw,

I get one, and place it in his cup.

In the mornings I dress my grandfather in

blue jeans and western shirt. He slips on

his white tube socks and brown cowboy boots.

He stands before a mirror and combs his thinning hair.

“Phoebe,” I say to him. “That was your wife’s name.”

“Phoebe,” he says, “that’s a funny name.”

“Major and Abraham,” I say to him. “Those were your brothers.”

“Yes,” he says, “Major and Abraham.”

Before his surgery my grandfather talked at me

in the Lakota language, point blank.

When I was younger, I asked him at a pow wow

if the Lakota drum group sang any words.

My grandfather laughed at this and said, “Yes, Takoja.”

Three years ago I remember my grandfather sitting

at the kitchen table with a tape recorder in front of him.

He said he was making these tapes for his grandchildren.

When I’m away from my grandfather he asks my wife

where that nice man went, not remembering that

I am his grandson. My wife says to him, “He went to school.”

“When is he coming back?” he asks.

“Soon,” she says. She says, “Soon.”

I press play on the cassette player after my grandfather

finishes his meal. We sound out more Lakota words.

As we sit at the table, he says,

“My voice sounds funny on that machine.”

I say, “The language sounds funny, enit.”

He says, “The words feel like home.”

I say to him, “I think we are doing good, Lala.”

My grandfather looks at me and says,

“Wast´e, Takoja. We are doing good.”

Removing Skin

I sit at another poetry reading.

The poet at the podium

rambles on about nature’s beauty,

and the lost Indian tribes

along the Columbia River.

I am the only Indian in the audience.

Yes, there has been change

in a people’s history.

There have been those

who were massacred

for wanting to live

peaceful lives.

This is true now

around the world

as well as in America’s cage.

Time doesn’t heal wounds

when fresh ones are opening.

This poet’s new book

includes pictures

of the Columbia Gorge

and snapshots of Indians

fishing its shores, perched on scaffolds.

The poet chirps bland descriptions.

I sit and take this in.

I am bored with every word said.

What kind of Indian

does this white man want?

Would he be satisfied

if a Lakota family adopted him?

That wouldn’t make him

any closer to Indian people.

He can still loosen his bolo tie,

remove the turquoise jewelry,

discard any sense of Indian sympathy.

I can’t remove my skin

or rip out my heart.

I can’t stop feeling

lonesome and at home

when I listen to a Lakota drum group.

Has this poet ever been to an Indian wake?

Has he seen the joy and sorrow

in his grandmother’s eyes

when she spoke the language?

Can he see in his family

the legacy of termination

by biological warfare

in blankets that did

their job

and chemical warfare

in alcohol

that is still working its confusion?

Does he know the feeling of hatred

while quietly sitting on public transit

just because of their appearance?

“It’s tragically sad,” he says,

“The darkness enveloped the river people.”

This place wasn’t dark.

I would only call my home dark

if I was foreign to it.

I sit and ignore this poet.

He is relieving his guilt

waiting for the audience

to flush it down.

I know I have never disappeared.

I know I am Indian and alive

in the 21st century.

I jeer after his reading.

It was more pretty lies.

On Dark Earth

Meals

Mine is a red owl

asleep in the day

and hunting in the night.

I keep it well fed

else it will claw my lungs,

tear my kidneys.

Most of the time

it is calm,

beautifully perched

in my chest.

But sometimes, it

turns its body,

opens its wings,

and flies into the dark.

Then I am alone

looking for purpose,

finding the sadness

of my hands

touching my face,

combing my hair,

tending old wounds.

When the owl returns,

I keep it awake

out of anger

until it throws up

its meal.

I choke on the loves

it has hunted,

who were once

all of my loves.

It Is Called a Chow Line

I see them every morning

waiting for breakfast

in a line along a building

wrapping around the city block.

Homeless men and women

smoking cigarettes,

nipping at bottles,

wiping rain from brow.

They squat or stand,

then the line moves

into the soup kitchen.

The meal is free.

It is warm inside

as they sit at tables

swiping S.O.S. with

a flaky biscuit

and blow before

sipping on their hot coffee.

During the meal

there is laughter,

a small prayer is answered.

They stay as long as they can

until they walk the streets

and sleep somewhere out of the rain.

When He Goes Home

Ask the ocean

and it will tell you.

This is where he will be

in its cold,

in its uncontrolled waves

under moonlight,

far from anything and anybody.

The voice will take him out.

Its long tongue swallowing his body.

It will be dark that night,

he will be the same.

To Grow Sound

I use sleeping pills to learn how to talk. I am drowsy, can’t read anything. Speech is slow enough to understand. I sit on a couch of another hospital. They’ve taken my blood.

I waltz with an I.V. stand up and down the halls. The music echoes around me. “Why are you here?” they ask. “Who was it that called us?”

I move to the rhythm my slippers make and there is laughter here.

There is joy in lucid concrete, joy in television dramas. “Someone who loved me,” I say,

“someone who was a mouse.” We all carry life in our gown pockets.

I buried a starling’s heart in mine. I take more pills and think I am thinking the day doesn’t matter.

The orange Jello is molded, candy bars are rubies for the tongue.

My mouth says, “water, love, hope, despair.” My eyes see hunger, tranquility. I have learned to make sense of windows,

white walls, and linoleum floors. My ears capture fluorescent lights.

I talk now of rescue and salvation. I dance on the sidewalk in a city

I forgot was yours.

I talk again like everyone who has made love to you. I don’t need pills.

I need tragic rain and comedic, rich soil to grow who I was.

He Was Like That Today

Damp from the walk in the rain to a bus stop,

hung over from the previous night’s joys,

sore from sex and heartache.

Everyday is work to not collapse.

Every night is a fight to sleep.

It’s in his dreams where it all comes together.

A bloodied bird, a stained white lion,

his large hands around a peach,

his mouth soaked with its meat.

He walks to work every day from a bus stop

to his windowless office.

He sits and wishes it wasn’t like this

and writes notes of disillusion

of the mad houses of youth,

of the women who have taken him down.

The lunch he eats is hollow.

The water he drinks is weak.

He is moving sand in a dish

and naps with the lights off.

In this one,

a black rose in a woman’s hair

if he just pulled it out,

everything would be perfect.

There is a knock on his door.

He doesn’t wake.

He pulls the rose from hair

and is awoken by a hand on his shoulder.

His office is lit.

His sadness is new.

He leaves for home.

He closes his bedroom door

and waits in bed.

Silence 6 Feet Deep

Another worm crawling

through you again

is another lover

who will live

with you longer

than I had or could.

You had many lovers.

They took you

for what you gave.

You were another

depository hole

with the redemption

of a beer bottle.

All those nights

you left to find

something better,

someone you could

settle for, who would

keep you happy

if that was what you needed.

None of them loved you

except me.

And while you were away

I waited for you.

I shoveled

fresh dark earth.

I filled the void

that holds you now.

All your lovers

weren’t there to help.

It has been 4 years

since I buried you

now you wait for me.

The Music of Sleep

The story is the same every night.

The ingredients are as any meal.

How do you measure what

changes in the heart?

The same question is,

who is living in the head?

It is a father’s concern

for a child who will become a man

and leave the home

that was built for a dream.

What story is it

you want to hear

to make sense of your world?

I will tell it,

but it wasn’t mine

and you will keep it as your own.

Sorrow’s tears are not the same as happiness,

happiness can settle the body.

Both are from the heart breaking open.

This is it, child,

you sleep before its end.

I cover you in a blue quilt

and will continue tomorrow.

To hear a child sleep

is not the same as to hear a child’s laugh.

To hear a child sleep is not silence,

it is a pause in music before it churns again.

Zero

To destroy a home

is to break my heart.

I have done both

with meaningless

words making the

reality I will die in.

I sit again

in a cafeteria

eating greasy food.

I am back to nothing.

I will be at

happy hour after work.

I’ll get to

the point I’ll feel

like my relatives;

angry, confused, let down.

I’ll be the man

wearing a dead junkie’s shirt

from a family

wrecked by a dead junkie.

I will look at

the Willamette River

afterwards and think

I can easily swim across it,

but that wouldn’t be who I am;

that would be

my uncle and grandfather;

both drowned at night decades

and miles from each other.

They are the same blood as mine,

the same secret pressing my skull,

that destroyed my love,

that will burn down my home,

that will,

everyday,

talk of dark matters.

We know what the owl

sings in our chest

that great expanse of emptiness;

the dark love slow as molasses

fast as a bullet in a drive-by.

Where are

the Twin Tower

tombstones

of my dreams?

I want matters

outside of me

to do the work.

My love has been

this way from the beginning;

a sad sugar cube

crushed and separated by ants.

And this is hope—

small beings breaking

down this body

as the larger

tragedies have done.

The thing is,

this isn’t new.

The thing is

to not let anybody see you cry.

Be a man,

a man I never was.

Be a stone

naturally dissolved by rain.

Be a cloud

ripped apart by the sun,

but this is too poetic, too feely.

This is who I am, now, here

eating bad food, smoking a cigarette,

and again down to nothing.

It’s in the Night

It’s in the night.

It’s in the wait.

We make the impossible

in the smallest details

that construct the unknown

in the night among

birds that call out,

among train horn blown.

We are cells,

billions upon billions

to make solid self.

I remember the dead

they are billions of lives

in one individual.

A story plus a life

equals the tentacled story of one.

It’s in the night

I look at a star as one cell,

one light present for a moment

to make a difference

for the faintest glory

that may end at any second.

It’s not so much the light

that is visible,

but all the darkness so enveloping.

And I say, “Night, why do you ask so much

of me to make who you are in who I am?”

I wait, as does the night’s silence.

6 Months Before or After My Birthday

When I die

I want you to think

of sand dunes

near the Pacific ocean,

feel how Mahler

felt when he composed

his symphonies,

breathe like

Coltrane blowing

A Love Supreme.

When I die,

I want you

to know

this is what

I have known.

Night Train

My love,

know each night

I sit on the back porch

and hear a train

scream and it

reminds me of you.

You are

death,

wine,

cigarettes.

You are

the one

who

exploded

my heart.

Every night when I smoke

on the porch I am glad

when I hear a train

fade into the night,

and you are not

here to see

me weep.

The Joke Is on Me

There is a woman who loves me

and I am sorry for her.

She isn’t so much a woman

as she is a chipped, scratched

mirror full of

7 years bad luck.

I see her as the mother of a child

who will learn to hate me,

who will wonder at my safety,

but always love who I am.

These are the worries of love when

she is content and not dismissive.

She could do better without much noise

as I have now become.

Is she the creator of longing,

the finisher of life,

the manufacturer of desperation?

The woman who loves me

is the fraction of how I live them

and an apology is defeat

on the grandest scale for

a thing as what I am.

I look at the woman who loves me,

see all that I am in being wrong:

an invisible father,

debt infested,

drunk at happy hour.

And the woman who loves me

can only wait so long

before she picks herself

out of the vomit I live in.

I look at her face and

wonder when she will finally

put me out of my misery,

lay her hand over my throat

and squeeze all hope from my eyes.

We are made to disappoint each other.

We are music composed

from burnt-out light bulbs.

In bed she loves who I am

and says so, but

I still wait for the punch line.

S.O.S.

He watches rain drip

off of rusted leaves.

It troubles him,

touches him,

takes advantage of him.

It could be a crying soul,

a dark figure closing his eyelids.

He smokes and sees the shiny streets before him.

No blue bird’s song is calling.

A wind is blowing through his pants.

If he could feel,

it would be cold.

He is going through the daily motions

wake, dress, work, undress, sleep.

But the night is larger than the sea,

the day is broken into sand grains.

He is waiting for eternity to slow

his body to rest.

He is untamed by love.

Death daydreams and wine are excuses.

A conversation is a made apology.

His hands tremble with old scars.

He is calm for litanies,

reserved for solace.

He is gone, but not done

and there, over his shoulder,

rain drips from rusted leaves.

He is ready for rescue.

The New Lover

To say where the story begins

is to say it has ended.

I wish it was that easy.

Easy enough to begin, “Once upon a time,”

but a break-up was a turn in perspective.

There was nothing that really broke, just changed.

Another rain drop in a rusted bucket,

another chrysalis pushed open,

another winged thing flying lost.

It was brown ocean foam, it was sand under a fire,

it was new blood on an old razor,

it was hair released from a pin,

it closed and opened only,

not a finality, but another wait.

I pushed its ink along paper

like my worn shoes on pavement,

scuffed and taking it without regret.

I measured my lovers

in metal shavings from a bronze statue,

each sliver was a tear that dug

its way in my heart.

My magnetic heart gathered shards

that were meant to dig

as deeply as they did.

I know I am a fool to say

once upon a time

I loved that which left scars

which began a story

continued from another story.

Once upon a time I opened

the drawn curtains and saw

my mistakes flutter around a lamp

and once upon a time I began

you this way.

The Secret between Rain Drops

I think about it every day,

I look in a mirror in the morning.

Who is it I see, what is his purpose?

It is my secret that could

come closer to an answer.

When it rains

there are no worries,

there’s no doubt.

When it rains I am happy.

When it lets up

my secret comes back.

It is something

like the emptiness filled

with a bird’s flight,

like the weight of a child’s smile.

I can tell you my secret

but then I will have nothing

left to keep me sane.

The rain picks back up

and I will leave it at that.

Evil Knows Your Name

Evil can be wrapped in the love

sitting on your lap

tearing down your chest.

Evil has all the soothing words

to make the ears curl.

Evil can look you in the eye

and easily confess its love and

great concerns for something

it knows and you can barely figure out.

Death is simple to Evil.

Life is cheap to Evil.

You are another joke for Evil

to whittle and burn.

You are exhausted by the toil

and you are thrown like ash

from a cigarette.

Evil made the rules,

and smiles

a child’s satisfied smile.

Never believe in love.

Love is evil.

It destroys beauty

in art

from the skull’s gray matter.

Evil would like to say

it is on your side

and you would believe love

is not Evil,

but you are the fool

to say love is needed.

Every foundation

is built to be blown to bits.

If you know this of love,

then you know this of Evil.

“Come,” Evil says,

“And lie to what you want.

I am your beloved.”

Prey and Victim

There is one perched on my shoulder,

digging its claws in my back

and eating me alive.

I am half meal

in the evening

and gone by morning.

The small spark I carry

is the strength

between holocausts

and bestiaries.

I never asked

to be torn apart,

but sometimes

when it mauls,

parts of the body

die off

in shreds,

in pulled meat,

in rotted limbs,

in exposed bone.

Time is split

between alone

and not well.

Love is to watch

fire burn in water

and greasy feathers

darken with bone marrow.

The only birds we become

are vultures in a frenzy,

ripping each other apart.

When They’re Finished

She walked down the sidewalk

her long yellow skirt and brown shirt

flapped in the summer wind.

Sometimes it’s the best part

of their leaving,

a final salute with their

backside.

But they have always

stayed in my head

years later.

This has been the same

with all my women.

I see them like a sad, torn flag

on a pirate ship drifting off

to a new body of land

after they had their time

with me.

I Am Reasonable

In her reasoning she said,

“People are not meant to

live together all their life.

Monogamy is temporary.”

I said,

“Humans are not meant to

live, we are born to die,

but that is too simplistic.

I know what you mean.

That is why

if I

had to live with you,

like you did

with your mother,

I would do

what she did,

and kill myself.”

“You’re fucked up,” she said.

“No,” I said, “I am just reasonable.”

The Big Heart

With my ear against her breast

I heard a heart beat,

lungs breathe.

I felt her fear of

the monster in me.

She asked if I heard anything.

I said, no, just the ocean.

Details

Unless from the beginning

you say fuck them,

you have to play by their odds

and to figure those out

you have to ask

about their past relationships

or how they grew up.

From there

add it up

and decide

which kind of anger

you want from them

or how you want them to dump you

or plan how to drop them.

A good woman can make

you want to kill;

while with

a horrible one,

you want to throw

her in a ditch.

But after they are all gone,

you still think about their

ass, tits, hair, scent.

Was she tight

or a wet paper bag?

And what really tears you up

are the small details;

an index finger,

a scar on the chin,

an eyebrow curve,

a pinkie toe,

a sincere laugh,

a mole just below a nipple.

These nothings can drive you crazy,

make you drink all day

or write down in a notebook

a poem about

how much you hate

their guts

or how much you

liked screwing them

or, as in most cases,

how you wish you never met them.

This Is How It Ends

I am sitting in a bar at happy hour.

I swill the same gold confidence in new pint glasses.

This can be anywhere, and I am anybody.

I yell, “ANY REASON IS A GOOD REASON

TO SAIL AROUND THE WORLD.” I mumble to self,

“but I’ll have the one I hate the most, myself.”

“Hi, there,” I say to a nice lady at the end of the counter.

“FUCK OFF, YOU UGLY MOTHERFUCKER!” she yells.

I pick up my drink and walk over to her.

“Baby, I like your style,” I say.

“You lack class, but you have style, and that’s what matters.”

“You are a sweet talking motherfucker, for sure,” she says.

“Treluv,” the bar-keep says,

“Stay away from her, she’s mine.”

I say, “Man, I don’t mind sharing.”

“Go sit down at your regular spot,” he says,

“before I throw your ass out.”

I say, “It’s cool bra, I was just joshing.

You have a sweet number there with a nice potty mouth.”

“Yeah, don’t I know it,” the bar-keep says.

I sit at my spot and blow a kiss to her.

She flips me off.

They all will, in the end, break your balls

or if you are lesbian, your ovaries, I guess.

Some have class with no style,

some have style with no face,

some lack bodies but have money.

Some will take you home

and rebuild you into a man.

I wake to my room thrashed

not knowing how I got home.

I am in bed, sunlight burning my eyes,

but for some reason

my contacts are out.

I reek of cheap perfume and

I am wearing only one sock.

The Danger of the Artist’s Life

Monday night,

I ate a can of chili

with saltine crackers.

This is not too far

from my average

diet of ghetto market

corn dogs.

After finishing the bowl,

I had heartburn

and the hiccups.

I went to sleep

and around 3am

I was violently

awakened by stomach pangs.

The chili gave me bad gas.

I had to expel it

for 20 minutes.

Exhausted, I went back to sleep.

7am, I was again

violently awakened.

I gasped for air.

I was choking

on a small amount of vomit.

This would have

sucked to die

choking on vomit

from a can of chili.

It’s slightly rock and roll.

But all the same,

not glamorous.

I went back to sleep.

I woke,

went to work,

and all day felt

uneasiness in the bowels.

Bad diet,

diet cola dehydration,

and poorly written poetry

are my daily norms.

Lest they kill me

I will do the same,

but as age sets in

maybe I should ration

the danger.

The Bottom of Heaven

I only saw her from behind.

She stood in front of me

as I sat in back of the bus.

She had a great ass packed in tight jeans.

There was a small gap

where her legs met her crotch.

I wanted to slide my hand through it.

I knew there might be

something special like

a delightful squirm or

some kind of possible life,

but I just sat and looked.

I squirmed in delight with a hard throb.

I was off of work and

she made the bus ride home wonderful.

A Plain Day

I have seen her many times

on the morning bus ride.

She’s a beautiful Korean woman

with long black hair,

wearing too much make up.

She is well dressed.

I watch her read a book,

and every now and then

she looks out the window

at the buildings, river,

bridges, street signs.

Today she looks ordinary,

but it might be my mood.

I notice a wedding ring

wrapped around her finger.

Nice, I guess, as rings go.

She is wearing well-fitted jeans,

two-inch heels,

and spiked under

the right heel

is dried dog shit

the size of a half dollar.

She exits at the university.

I watch her walk the aisle

and out the bus doors.

Finding Failure

I kept searching

in bottle, can, pint glass.

I relived everything.

I was alive in the search.

I said the same stories

over and over,

refined the contours,

reshaped the words,

labored over the tone of voice.

I was too tough for tears,

too far from failure,

but it was there.

It dug in my skull,

blurred eyes,

deafened ears,

burrowed in my gut.

Someday

I’ll see you

and put out

my cigarette

in your face

just so

you know

who I was.

I Am Ready for Lunch

A chili-dog is heaven,

diet cola is a good drink.

I am working as

a library clerk moving books,

making copies, sending fat envelopes.

Daily, ink marks my hands and wrists,

paper cuts are sharp angel bites.

Some days I wish this would end

and some days it keeps me alive.

I wish I could be a trust fund kid

and calmly sit and pretend

to be cool and desperate,

but I am not.

Everyday is war.

Weekly, I might lose my job,

maybe I will find another one,

but all cases are a perdition.

Work is a slow burning of a tough dog.

I am a man made into a bar of soap.

I have my simple functions,

and they are many,

and they are mundane.

My perseverance is measured

by lack of sleep

and numbness to sunlight.

To get to places

where I can be content

is a reverie destroying hope.

I work war on a computer screen.

My nametag has my picture on it.

I am as casual as a sailing missile

destined to melt flesh and obliterate

families and homes.

I work day in and evening out.

I have no imagination

to write about nature.

I will be damned if I write

a concern for a tree.

I walk hallways,

ride public transit,

wash my small amount of clothes once a week.

I flip the holes on my socks

to not have to walk on them.

I am surviving paycheck to paycheck

and with each one I wonder about death.

No, I really wonder about death.

Death is cheap.

Death is easy.

Death will come.

I will not wait for it.

I will not make time for it.

It is just a thought

dramatically turning life

into a silverfish

crawling through the dank

blood veins in my body.

I will leave for lunch now.

I will stand in a line to

receive a meal

that will rot in my gut,

then come back to this desk,

this dust, and this life.

The Crazies

I don’t know if

the eyes are the windows

to the soul,

but you can tell in the eyes

if they are crazy.

They will throw insane

stories at you.

Some go on about

their once pet snail

or their cat who

had the most interesting personality.

They would say,

“This one time Whiskers....”

Madness is alright

when you understand it.

In fact,

it is quite boring.

“NEVER PLAY CHESS. IT’S NOT A GAME!”

another crazy would say.

Day in, night out

they keep coming

like a wounded bird

talking of dead roses or dead cars.

They have septic minds

and feel a need to share it.

The best thing to do

is nod and walk away.

In This Room

In this room

the men are comedies, and the women are tragic beauties; the food is brutal, teeth bite rubber hoses.

In this room

love is bled, sewn together, thrown in an oven, and eaten.

In this room

we are the wolves the butcher knife separated; we are the ones who marked time by hair cuts and electricity at our temples.

In this room

I captured a red-breasted bird. I fed it crackers and spit;

I kept its head under water until its song waned.

In this room

music is from a lone speaker, feet shuffle on tiled floor,

the back of a hand is bliss, fingernails are sunrises.

In this room

we screamed like horses hitting faces against padded, white walls

that absorbed our blood and desires.

In this room

a window is terrifying, doors are cages, beds lose hope,

blankets keep people away.

In this room

I am homely, sitting in a wooden chair, rubbing the back of head, listening to the sirens in the deep night.

In this room

night is louder than horses in a fire, darker than a child's hold,

more alive than electroshock.

In this room

I wear thin blue clothes, keep my hair short, read the same sign again and again, lick my lips, and press my right index finger into my left eye.

In this room

I lost god against the bedpost, lost eyes to time, lost the horse’s song to the bird’s story.

In this room

I loved the name on my shirt, the sound of it was home, the letters were mine, the name was who they called me.

In this room

black ants crawl across my face; I crush them with my thumb and feel them press into me.

In this room

I don’t belong in bed with fear any more. I don't belong with those who fixed me. I don't belong to black seeds sown into night, reaped in the afternoon.

In this room

I push hard against my chest, push hard against gravity, pull out from this room where I don’t belong.

Spice of Sadness

Sometimes they are like that.

You have tears in your eyes

and/or you have to take off your shirt.

It’s like dropping a bowling ball.

It’s like a world of pain

became green and serene.

I had a bad one

one late night

riding the bus home,

waiting for an hour transfer.

I was feeling it coming on.

It was hard.

I tightened and held it together

until the only place to go

at that time was Denny’s.

Yeah, when it is gone,

it is really gone;

wipe after wipe,

and there is a small spice of sadness,

a little flutter of the heart,

while you flush the toilet.

Dead Whistle

She walks around the parking lot

whistling for someone.

Here I sit watching her,

wondering if I should

answer her call.

That is one way to find

something, whistle,

but the dead don’t answer

whistles in the day,

and be wary if you call

at night, they will come.

They come, I guess, like most

after living flesh,

a conversation, or

company.

She walks away and

I don’t follow.

I sit and wait

for the next one.

You Love

This hour I am not afraid to hold the letter I wrote.

You were always patient.

I was cooked olive oil, slow and hot and ready.

I sit still tonight, candle light bouncing on wall,

you are dead and watching.

I can hear you walk my wooden halls

and it is you who turns my lights off

when I am drunk on a Sunday afternoon.

I believe the songs hands compose

and I believe in the promises water drowns.

You are spilled across my desk soaking anything near.

You taught me to hold, but be willing to let go

and if it was true it would return.

I divide my time between folding clothes and sweating,

cooking meats and boiling eggs.

I sip wine like a bamboo plant and let go.

I am a man who cries in the morning;

I am a sad beetle walking across a table and got stuck in honey.

I open the letter I wrote you, in it I wrote the one word

that feels like alone, smells like oak , looks like flame,

hurts like laughter.

It was what you taught so well every night

when I slept with my arms around you and my face in your hair

like a tangerine freshly cut in a basket.

You said if it was true then it would return,

but with that it would leave again.

You taught me to be scared of that which I loved so much—

you love,

you love,

you love.

She Is Now a Poem

We meet for a few beers.

I let her read one of my newest verses.

She has all my books,

but this one is a new piece.

She reads it and tears up

at my contemplation of night.

We talk about

anti-depressants, suicide attempts,

hospital visits, and shrinks.

“If we had children,” she says,

“They would look like us

black hair, brown eyes, cheekbones.”

Then we are in my single bed.

She darts her tongue in and out of my mouth.

I have to pull her hair to slow her down.

I teach her to kiss.

I suck on her huge tits,

her areolas are shaped like faint stars.

She leaves her panties on.

She won’t let me slide in.

“It’s a mess down there,” she says,

“I’m on my period.”

She says, “It’s a good thing

we don’t do it, I want children.”

She moans when we kiss and

I poke at her black panties.

“If you can’t be a poet,” I say,

“then be the poem.”

“I know,” she says.

We kiss at the door.

She leaves, walks into that

great, lonely night I wrote about.

I relieve myself in bed alone

thinking about her tits,

her moans,

what she would’ve felt like,

and my disdain for children.

On Top of the World

I was in the wrong

as a kid when

I stole my mother’s food stamp booklet

or drank from my grandfather’s wine.

I was punished for taking

anything that kept me from family.

My sister’s father used a wire hanger

across my thighs, ass, and kidneys.

It didn’t matter, I took it all.

I was slapped across the face with bare hand

greasy from frybread or

lashed in the back of head

by a beaded buckle with

the family’s name carved on the leather belt.

If you hear it long enough

it becomes real,

a good for nothing,

a maggot,

a bastard child,

a poor Indian boy.

You get broken down

to the point where a smile

feels like lightning before

a thunder clap blackout.

I envied those who leaned

against a wall in time out or

had their allowances withheld.

But

now

here I am, 20 years later,

the luckiest bastard

on a weekend

in a Manzanita motel

with the ocean a block away

and a naked woman bent over

looking out the window.

Her big tits flopping

with clothespins pinching her nipples

and my hand

slapping her ass

while I go between rubbing her wet cunt

and stroking my cock.

All my mistakes and troubles

are in orgasms on her back,

and taken out with the ocean’s tide.

The Guest on Dark Earth

I think of it daily.

With what daydream do I fool myself,

whose hand is on the wheel,

whose life does it steal?

I am one guest.

I am one question.

This earth knows no different.

I am a skin flake on its head.

I buy my dreams off the street.

Where are the friends

who stayed last night?

Where am I tomorrow

if I am lost today?

I write you this

all the way from hell’s heart,

and I say there is heaven.

I say there is god,

but these were once questions

I promised myself.

This dark earth conceals my sanity.

I sit among rocks under a bridge

and this is all I have now.

You wonder why I asked.

I am near it that is in us all,

winter after summer,

sleep after a hard job,

ash and dust after the body ceases.

There will be dogs barking all night,

blue birds awake in the morning.

This dark earth calls me back

and I am tired enough to give out.

Bones to Surface

Dear Gentle Writer

It was photocopied

and stamped with the date received,

my rejection letter

from a literary journal.

I was relieved.

I hated waiting for these letters.

The letter read apologetically that

they could not accept

my submitted pieces,

and were sending them back

in the included S.A.S.E.

I looked hard in the letter’s envelope,

my submitted pieces were not returned to me,

though a slip was included

so I may subscribe to their journal.

It was written as if I was the bigger man

and could accept the rejected business proposal.

I threw this away

and filed the letter

in my thickening rejection letter folder.

Art is business.

The soul is wholesale.

The raw poet is a discount retail item.

Poetry is cheap product.

Writing Is War

1.

Every letter is a bullet,

each word is a landmine.

There are many casualties

and body counts.

The battlefield

is the blank white page.

It is a parched desert,

soaking blood.

Faces are victims

with flesh dried to jerky.

The exchange of commerce

is a gain for sustenance

to continue the effort.

The defense is cleaning the barrel,

and waiting through the noise.

The offense is ripping the brain apart

for morsels, matter, and strength.

There are no veterans for this war.

Nobody makes it out alive.

2.

Everybody has dreams

of being a soldier,

a warrior, a writer,

and all want victory.

There is no

celebrated homecoming

for this war.

Only a nice casket

if the money is there.

And all end up

in a 6-foot-deep hole.

The writer

dies

line

by

line,

crippled

with each breath.

Here you stand,

before it all and

think it creative.

It’s not.

It is death every day,

on every street

with names changed

and scenes destroyed,

laid across a page

with a title for a tombstone.

From the Heart

Say what it is

of the subject.

Be clear and to the point,

don’t waste energy

on poetic license,

or cleverness, or triteness.

If you don’t know what

you are saying

then believe

the reader will be

more lost than you.

Make music, not flatulents.

This is writing from the heart.

Be not afraid of memory’s darkness,

kneel down and suck out its power.

Finally Some Clear Thoughts on Poetry

I kick the mule everyday.

Idealism is a dead end.

Every night, if I am out

with the poets

boredom is the norm.

The poetic voice

is tired of the tropes

that once made literature amusing.

If I have to sit through

another ramble

of uninspired garbage,

then

shit,

I should be dead.

But I too

write of “lame souls”,

if we must use

trite words and syntax.

The art of writing

is making the mundane

interesting. Right?

I put myself

among the artists.

They are like piranhas gnawing

spoiled flesh.

We all waste our time

on creating and

wanting to be accepted

by a bunch of nothings

that don’t make a difference

to anybody else

unless we fool ourselves

to believe it does.

Do you think

it makes it any better or easier

to write of this place

in dainty words,

too precious to exist

in the reality it tries

to describe?

Poetry is the mind’s excrement;

too full of idea kernels

and too overripe to eat.

When I Compose a Poem

I think of her curves

while I brush them with my hands,

the wetness of a kiss

cupping her tits.

There is a thunderhead in my head,

rain through my veins.

It’s not sad, not anger,

it’s something brewing for sure—

love maybe, but that

turns to comfort;

hate maybe, but that

is too easy.

There is her body next to mine

in a dark room with white walls,

classical music is on the radio,

Mahler is turning an orchestra

into sea foam,

the neighborhood dogs bark at yellowed stars,

and faint gunshots are heard far off.

Someone will fall tonight,

but it’s not me.

She calmly breathes

and wraps her arm over my chest.

I will drink water

from a mason jar

after we are finished,

after I am exhausted.

I rinse off in the bathroom sink.

In the mirror I see my face

caved in around my cheekbones.

I flush the toilet,

and walk back to the bedroom.

She is waiting under a green quilt.

She is moving like a caught rabbit

in a sad net, not knowing what will happen.

I join her and we wait.

When my wrists cramp and eyes blur,

this is how I compose a poem

while I play GTA: Vice City.

The Open-Mics

Therapy sessions, epiphanies on nothingness, emptiness—

they are all rants.

They are not interesting, not profound.

They are a bunch of fluff.

They are hack versions of Buddhist ideas.

They loudly read these words,

they assume they are deep,

or at least try to be deep.

Use ideas of nothingness,

but don’t rely on it.

The only true nothingness

is when you are dead.

Living is creating art.

Some rant about craft,

but they are uninventive,

they are bullshitters.

Good or bad ideas are okay

as long as they are clearly executed.

To say one will reach another

with their words is another excuse.

Words hit everybody no matter what

and depending on where someone is in

their craft that is no excuse.

Do good work, put out product

the shit-slingers will still whine.

They are full of theories, but can’t

write anything interesting.

Know this,

they are peons to the writer’s life.

Open-mics are not the end-all of work

that is put into art.

The pen, computer, typewriter, voice

are transistors.

The finished item is the judge of craft

and it isn’t dependent on line breaks—

the art is off the page,

it incubates in the brain.

Overall, if anything, the idea is the art;

how it gets there is insignificant.

Here It Is

Here it is,

publishing with Death.

I stand.

I wait.

I stand.

I wait.

I check my watch.

It stopped working

yesterday. I know this,

but I still check anyways.

I shake my head.

I spit on the floor.

To my right, there are pigeons.

The rumble of an airplane

breaking the sound barrier

is ripping though my chest.

My boots are caked with dried earth.

My callused hands rub against each other.

I am a file clerk (poet) doing my job.

I drop off pieces of paper.

Death is not easily impressed.

Death stamps my pages.

The scent is sour milk.

This is eternity, smooth as jagged glass.

I lumber back out into the world.

I am hard edged to these peaceful wars.

I Shit Better Poetry than Most Can Write

Poets who don’t understand

the rules and respect them,

they don’t know how to break them.

Their work ends up sounding

like a bitch’s moan about

their unintelligent, uninspired,

and overall trite verse.

Their lines are weak.

Their thoughts are bland.

They say/write too many words

that have no meaning.

They are cheap ink

on cheap paper,

crapped in a generic voice.

They work their generalities

and have a sense of entitlement

just because they call themselves poets

and thus wish others

to give them due respect, unjust as it may be.

Damn, if one has to live to their word,

then one becomes their word.

This is dangerous and limited, if not boring.

Wishing, demanding, hoping for respect

based on their work.

If it is good work

then enough said, it’s good.

But, as is the norm with most poets

who hack away in their rooms

waiting for the world

to proclaim their genius,

if it’s bad writing

they are best left to rot

with their words.

Name-dropping the latest poet

they are reading to gain

a superficial intelligence,

yet not understanding any of it.

Oh, the literary bravado

is a steamy pile for sure.

Pretentious poets are fakes.

Self-entitled poets are beggars.

The written word is beyond the weak-minded.

How to Write the Heart

How to write the heart

is simple.

Your heart has to have been broken

many times,

and there is a nagging voice

in your head,

and your palms ache.

There, the words effortlessly flow

from fingers to pen to page.

There doesn’t have to be a broken heart

at that moment of writing.

It could be hunger

or low sugar levels.

There is always something wrong

when you write a poem

though life is okay.

That something could be

a need to relieve yourself

in the bathroom.

It is a want to change a history,

a desire to calm the head voice.

There is a wrong tearing

your chest apart.

It is frustrating because

it is really nothing at all.

Just a self-induced hallucination.

The heart is a simple thing,

the head is what’s disturbed.

The Liar in You

Put your

odes

out there.

Do it

while

you can.

You want

my death.

I am waiting

for it

myself.

Ask for my praise,

I’ll give

you nothing.

Write

your

lies

like

any cheap

biographer.

You don’t

have to ask

for the soul,

it has been

torn out

long before

and fed

to the dogs.

This roulette,

my finger       

is on

the trigger.

My hand is

gripping

a pen,

every letter

is a

blood cell.

I don’t care enough

for this world

to say I belong here.

So you

want me

dead.

I have beat you

to the gate.

You want

this Indian in

your B-movie,

you want

this Indian

to be your petty lines.

Bullshit!

Let’s see

how your weak words

hold true—

I

know

my

work

will.

Defending

I write everyday

and I know what it is

to be chased by despair.

But one day

they would read what

I wrote

and call it out.

Read my fake experiences,

not believe my imagination,

hate what I did.

Say I could’ve done better,

say I wrote for high school kids

in a suburb who didn’t know anything

of low-life struggle.

Buk said it before me,

“Those who need to write

in the streets, don’t have

the streets in them.”

I too sit at a computer

typing the world

in simple, blue language.

Do I care if you like

what I write?

Buy my books and I’ll give you an answer

or buy my beer for a night and

I’ll tell it all.

Reading/hearing most poets,

they sound like dusty farts.

But I found it in Buk,

no existential crap,

a nice and easy read,

like a good fuck,

not depended on ambiance,

just straight to orgasm.

Cells

Simple Good Nights

In the Wooden Nickel, I sat on a bar stool at the end of counter and ordered a drink. I was finished with today’s labor. I felt disgusted. I didn’t want to be bothered. I wanted to enjoy a nice evening, alone.

“You’re George Medicine, right?” a male voice said. “We like your stuff.”

I looked to my left and there sat a young couple.

“What are you talking about?” I said.

“Your poetry, man. We like it,” he said.

“Oh, yes,” she added.

“Thanks much,” I said.

“Man, you tell it like it is. Where are you from?” he said.

“Didn’t you read my bio in my book?” I said.

“That’s right,” he said then continued, “I’m part Cherokee, Irish, Scot, English etc…. Lara here is half Blackfoot and Irish.”

“Is that right,” I said.

“Yes,” she said.

“Man, she’s good,” he said.

“Yeah, I’ll fuck your brains out,” she said, “I have a tight pussy that will rub you raw.”

“Damn!” I said.

“She gives the best bob and suck, too,” he added.

“Maybe some other time,” I said, and sipped my drink.

“Here’s my card. Give me a call if you need anything.”

I took his card and put it in my shirt pocket. Lara wrote her name and number on a matchbook and gave it to me. I put that in my shirt pocket too.

I lifted myself a little from the bar stool and tried to squeeze one out, but it felt like some shit came instead. I left to the bathroom and cleaned up. When I came back they were gone. I sat back on the bar stool and was relieved.

A pimp and his whore, I thought. What the hell, they thought I had money.

Lara sat next to me at the counter and ordered a drink. I looked around the bar. She was alone. I wasn’t surprised.

“You have real pretty hair,” she said.

“So do you,” I said, “I wouldn’t mind pulling it while I thrust your world apart.”

“Maybe,” she said.

“Was that your pimp?” I said.

“No, just a friend,” she said, “He’s kind of crazy, but I guess we all are.”

I sipped my drink, coughed hard, and one slipped out. She giggled and lit a couple of matches.

“Good thinking,” I said. I rolled a cigarette, lit it, and inhaled.

“Can you roll me one?” she asked.

I rolled one and looked her over; black hair, black suede jacket, white shirt, no bra, high heels, and a red skirt pulled up showing some thigh; her body curved in just the right places.

“Thanks,” she said as I gave her the cigarette.

“I’ve been here two years,” she said. “I moved from Billings, Montana.”

“Why did you come to Portland?”

“I needed to get away from my family. I lost custody of my son to a real S.O.B.”

“I’m sorry,” I said and placed my hand on her knee. She didn’t move it away and leaned closer.

“Yeah, now I work at a grocery store and have to pay child support.”

“Fuck,” I said, “that sucks.”

“That’s the way it goes sometimes,” she said, “I know my son gets everything he wants, the father is from a wealthy ranch family.”

“Well, that’s a good start. That’s better than most of us.”

“Yeah, I know. I thought I hooked me a good one, but he turned out to be a controlling asshole.”

I pulled my hand from her knee and placed it on the counter and sipped my drink. She grabbed it and put it back on her knee and moved it up her inner thigh.

“A controlling asshole, huh,” I said, “sometimes I have problems controlling mine.”

She laughed. It was an embarrassingly loud machine gun laugh. I moved my hand up her skirt and felt her wet with my pinkie.

“Ooh,” she said.

“Let’s get out of here,” I said. “I live around the corner.”

“Alright,” she said.

I was amazed how she could down her drink as quickly as I could.

“Let’s order one more,” she said.

We both quickly downed those and left the bar to my place.

I lay in bed as the sun rose and filled my bedroom. She tossed and turned in her sleep and quietly mumbled, “No, stop. Don’t do it. Get away.”

Some nights are good, I thought, but we don’t get enough rest in sleep. I turned her back to me and rested my member between her legs with my face deep in her dark hair. I wrapped my arms around her, cupped one of her breasts, and slept.

If You Can’t Be Good, Don’t Get Caught

“Are you drunk?” she asks.

“I had a few,” I say.

“God, Trevino, you—”

“Speak up! Your damn cell phone is breaking up!”

“Why did you call me? It’s 2:30am. I’m sleeping.”

“The cops say I should call someone for a ride.”

“I can’t get you. I hate it when you are like this, call me tomorrow.”

“No thank you.” I disconnect and drop the payphone receiver.

I take off my bag as the cops say and the Not-So-Fat cop goes through it. I give the Fatter cop my ID.

“That’s an interesting name,” the Fatter cop says. “You Indian?”

“Every damn day,” I say.

“Don’t swear around me, boy.”

“I may be Indian, but I’m not your nigger.”

The Fatter cop punches me in the stomach and I throw-up on the side of his car. The Not-So-Fat cop pulls out a book from my bag.

“You a poet?” he asks.

“EVERY GOD DAMN DAY,” I say.

The Fatter cop punches me in the stomach again. He hand-cuffs me and throws me in the back of the squad car. They get in the front seats, start the car, and pull out of the Plaid Pantry parking lot.

“If you vomit back there—” the Fatter cop says. “Shit!”

I vomit on the back seat before he finished his sentence.

“There,” says the Fatter cop.

We park on a dark, secluded street. The Fatter cop steps out of the car, pulls out his baton, opens the back door, pushes me over on the vomit, and starts to hit me on my chest and stomach and legs.

“‘You funkin’ idiot. I’m not stoic, this is just my face,’” the Not-So-Fat cop reads aloud from my book, “That’s some funny shit.”

The Fatter cop chuckles while he hits me on the side of the head.

I wake outside the downtown police station. They pull me out of the car and walk me into the station. They place me in the drunk tank after processing. I take a shit on the toilet with the other “innocent” people watching. There is no toilet paper. I take off my shirt and use it.

“Hey poet,” someone yells, “They really fucked up you face.”

“Fuck off,” I yell.

“Roses are red,” he says.

I sit on a bench and vomit blood and beer down my chest.

“Violets are blue,” he continues, “You ain’t shit...”

I nod off.

I am released from the station at 10am. I walk to the bus mall with no shirt under my coat. I wait for the bus as pedestrians quickly look at me, then turn away in disgust. The bus arrives and I ride it home.

I am home and rinse my face in the kitchen sink. Blood and water roll off the dirty dishes down the drain. I dry off, undress, and sleep the rest of the day.

B.S. Theory

I stood with my friend, Dick, at the bar counter. We were on a kick of B.S. talk. We were feeling good about the night. We were at a Nuclear Winter Formal. (People dressed in post-apocalyptic attire. Most people there were hipster and they were too cool for any kind of silly fun.) I wore an all white church robe, gray snakeskin cowboy boots, and a large, straw cowboy hat. I was a post-apocalyptic savior-type. Dick wore a pea coat, red pants, brown penny loafers, and a white western shirt with mother of pearl buttons. He didn’t have time to get a costume.

We were checking out the ladies at this event. There were so many gorgeous women around us. They were very sexily dressed. They showed a lot of leg, well, they showed a lot of naked space. Most were models in the Nuclear Winter Formal Fashion Show, which was part of the night’s festivities.

At times I am optimistic but this night I wasn’t. Dick wasn’t in need of a lady, but he did long for them. He has had a long, ten hard years of bad luck with ladies. Of course, there were good ones in his life, but those relationships quickly fizzled out. Dick came to the conclusion that he had come across women who were perfect for him and he knew they were, but he ended up sabotaging the relationships; he thought the women he dated were crazy when in fact he was the crazy one.

We looked around at the gorgeous women. I sipped my drink and he sipped his.

“There are a lot of hot ladies here,” I said.

“Yep,” he said.

“I mostly see them as trouble.”

“How you figure?”

“I have this theory, and it is only a theory, and it doesn’t depend on if it is applied to males or females, hetero or homo. Relationships are hard work; they are another job. A job that is soul required. I look around us at all these beautiful ladies and I am turned on, but I know they all will, as they should, exhaust me. They will break me down and build me up like a meaty callus. They will change me for the better, and for the worse. I know I will break their hearts, as they will mine. Well, hearts are made to be broken. They will be as I will be to them: trouble. Trouble is a complication when one is dealing with another individual. Almost, you can say, another school of thought; another belief system; another wager of ether/matter.”

“Yes, I see.”

“Relationships are a gamble. Individuals are a gamble and if you want to be a winner, you have to gamble, but in the end, both will be the losers.”

We sipped our drinks. I tipped my cowboy hat to a lady. She turned away from me in disgust. Dick smiled at a lady and she did the same.

We were two losers looking for a winner.

Staring Charlie Self as Tomahawk Missile

“I look good, real good,” Charlie Self said to himself in a Nordstrom’s full-length mirror.

He was in full vintage regalia: painted leather vest with hanging horsehair tassels; soft, leather loincloth; moccasins; face paint; plastic, red choker around his neck; his long, coarse, black hair cascading down his shoulders with a colored turkey feather in it. All the women smiled at him as he walked through the perfume section and out into the food court of Lloyd Center Mall.

When people in the food court saw him, they either had a surprised look or whispered to the person next to them. Most of the women he walked by smiled at him and lusted after his chiseled features and watched his behind as he walked to the photography studio, owned by a liberal lesbian couple, that specialized in antiquated scenes of the “Wild” West.

The studio used different canvas backdrops: desert, plains, forest. He stood before them all in photo examples on the walls. He posed with every kind of race combination in his career as an Indian model. His one rule was no pictures of him in any violent settings.

Charlie lived in Portland, Oregon for over 16 years. All his life he danced at various pow wows along the west coast. His family traveled the pow wow circuit every summer. Dancing and sports were his life’s passions. He always admired the way his regalia clung to his sweaty body. He loved the attention he received and was humbled by dancers young and old giving him respect.

In junior high and high school Charlie was very athletic. He participated in swimming, soccer, baseball, hockey, track and field. On a full scholarship, he finished college with a B.S. in political science. He stayed on for another year to receive his teaching certificate until he came to the conclusion that he didn’t like working with kids and stopped his academic education.

Charlie looked for work after he dropped out of the teaching program. He was in his early twenties. He was in limbo. He had no career. He felt like a failure. He found odd jobs. He was a clerk at a Plaid Pantry, a bouncer at a rock club, a lab tech at a research facility, a survey interviewer for the Indian Health Board; all these jobs spanned two years.

Toward the end of his shit-job career Charlie dated local strippers. He saw the money they were making and started his career as a stripper. He worked at a male strip club, the Silverado. He was known as Savage Love Medicine or Tomahawk Missile. He did private parties. He was the exotic, Indian dancer who worked hard every day and night. He was making good money. He was having the time of his life. He didn’t use dope or drink alcohol as everyone around him did. His drug of choice was sex.

The director, Bone Apart, saw Charlie while location scouting in Portland, Oregon for a Hollywood friend. Bone Apart saw potential in Charlie Self’s look. At closing time in the Silverado, Bone Apart went backstage to the dressing room and asked Charlie if he ever acted in films. Charlie ignored him at first while he changed into street clothes then told him he wasn’t interested. Bone Apart gave Charlie his business card and left the Silverado.

After a week of thinking about a career as a film star, Charlie phoned Bone Apart.

“This is Charlie Self, I’m in,” Charlie said.

“Oh, good to hear from you, Chuck” Bone Apart said. “Listen, I have this great film I’m working on right now. The storyline is this vigilante who is out to kill a bad cop who killed his family. I think you would be a great sidekick to this guy. You would be the brains as well as some brawn to help this old buddy of yours from Vietnam seek revenge. What do you say?”

“The name is Charlie Self and I’m not interested in that. No films. I only want a starring role. I want you to direct me in porn videos.”

“Well, Charlie Self, you did some homework. Meet me at my studio next week. I’ll send you a plane ticket. We’ll get right to work.”

Tee-Pee Creeping (golden showers); Wind Cave (all anal); Pow Wow Sweat (orgy); Liquid Scalping (cum shots); these titles were a small sample from Charlie Self’s immense video catalog.

Working in the porn industry Charlie felt uncertain if this was his life’s calling, but he kept at it anyways. Charlie was having fun in Hollywood. He met and partied with every famous actor and porn star alive. He was featured in various national porn rags. His famous quote was, “What happens in your butt, stays in your butt.”

After five years in the porn industry, Charlie Self quit. He moved back to Portland and lived on his money saved from work in Hollywood. It lasted one year. He had to look for a job.

Charlie stood still while shaking the hand of a black guy in clothing from the nineteenth century. Everyone who worked at the photography studio knew Charlie’s past porn career. Every now and then a customer would ask Charlie to sign their video. It didn’t bother Charlie much or the liberal lesbian couple who owned the studio.

Charlie was making a decent wage as an Indian model, not the same as what he made in the sex industry, but he was comfortable. At times he felt too comfortable and something ached in him, something he knew he didn’t want to admit to himself.

Doreen, one of the lesbian owners, called to Charlie after he finished a photo session; there was a phone call for him.

“Charlie Self speaking,” Charlie said.

“Charlie, how you doing? Are you getting bored yet?”

It was Bone Apart on the phone. Charlie was surprised and a great sense of relief over came him.

“I want back in,” Charlie said.

“Well, I’m doing fine too. Good to hear you aren’t dead. The girls and I miss you. I’ll send you a plane ticket. I’m glad we’ll be working together again. See you next week.”

Charlie stood with a white family for another photo shoot. This time he couldn’t hold back his joy. In the middle of the photo shoot he had to take a break because he wasn’t looking stoic enough. Charlie sat on a bench outside the studio and let out a joyous yelp that reverberated throughout the shopping mall.

Treluv, Undaunted

Treluv’s a Typical Fool—and Not Much More

New Year’s Day Was a Blast

Treluv removes his vintage topcoat and carelessly discards it on a mixed pile of clean and soiled clothes in the corner of his studio apartment. He unties his blue suede boots, removes his pants, and slides on a pair of rust colored shorts. These simple mundane actions would be impressive if Treluv was in anyway disabled. But he isn’t. He is just like any slacker with a menial job and living in a self-induced squalor.

Such feats are the order of the day for Treluv, a 28-year-old whose carefree lifestyle is never hindered by the harsh world of a homeless man; well, that is if he was a homeless man, which he isn’t.

A video game slut, hack poet, and failed musician who prides himself on his codependence, poor eyesight, and failing hearing (from too much loud rock and/or roll music), Treluv also possesses a deliciously dull wit.

Asked if there are any poets out there in the poetry scene, which he weekly partakes in, who’ve caught his eye, he says, “If there are any, I have probably smelled them by now.”

Indomitable spirit.

“There is a picture of Treluv wasted at last year’s New Year’s Eve party,” says Treluv’s band mate, Destro, pointing to an unframed picture of a shit-faced Indian in a cowboy hat that hangs above a fireplace in his Southeast Portland home.

Treluv started to party at the Rabbit Hole in December 31, 2003, hours before the turning of the new year. The aggressive booze spread through his bloodstream before it could be vomited or pissed out. He was more determined than ever to have the time of his life.

“We thought it was a stomach flu,” Destro says. “But by the time we began our set, we knew he was wasted, but so was I and everyone at the party. We had a spectacular show.”

Treluv arrived at the party fully clothed with makeup smeared across his face.

“He didn’t even want me to look at him,” Says Destro, 23. “He was covered with make-up and his long hair knotted, so I stuck a PBR in his hand and said, ‘Let’s blow this shit up.’”

Destro was reluctant to have Treluv fitted with prostheses or hosed with the last of the evening’s booze while Treluv was passed out later that night.

“I thought it would be hilarious to have him in fake limbs and when he woke the next day, and see, on his face, a surprised look and laugh at him while he cried at his newly missing limbs.”

Treluv’s wild boozing ways shone through earlier in the week leading to the New Year’s party.

“The fact that he is a lazy-ass mother fucker is beside the point,” Destro says, “He can rock with the best of them and blow minds with his wicked guitar licks and bass-face vocal stylings.”

Despite the hours of trial and error, Treluv’s band mate says Treluv’s creativity and ingenuity have cut through all the mediocrity that is the norm in Portland, even while he is wasted, all others are one tenth of his genius.

“There’s nothing Treluv’s not capable of doing,” Destro says. “He might not be much of a good friend, and from what I heard, not much of a good lover. Come to think of it, he isn’t all that cool to begin with, but he do what he do and he be happy with it. Nobody can take that away from him.”

The Poems Flow Like Diarrhea

Open-mic poetry readings are Treluv’s favorite part of the week at Noir’s “Subterranean Beat Revival, SBR,” every Sunday night. Tonight the poets read from notebooks, pieces of torn paper, or from memory their wry poetry of personal uneasiness in today’s hectic world climate. When asked about his skill level in writing poetry, Treluv gives himself a 9 on a scale of 1 to 5.

The part of the poetry reading that he dislikes the most? “Boring, antiquated poems and poets,” Treluv says.

After sipping pint-filled luxuries, the poets were eager to get a little revision done on their poems before their name was called by the evening’s host, Dull Cocky. Treluv stands and walks down the hall to the bathroom while reciting vocal exercises. Sally sells shells by the seashore; how much wood can a woodchuck chuck if he could chuck wood. He is next to read on the small stage, which makes use of a vintage, silver microphone that is reminiscent of a rockabilly’s wet dream mouthpiece. The poets uneasily sit in booths or on chairs waiting their turn to shine.

“Treluv knew quite a bit about poetry before he got here,” Dull Cocky says, “He’s the biggest poet superstar in his head and he does have quite an enormous head.”

Hearing this, his friends encourage Treluv to do a few cartwheels, which he does and fails with effortless grace.

Treluv performed a poem that included popping and locking and pelvic thrusts. After exiting the stage to a bored audience, he came back and flipped them off. The audience looked about, indifferent, and a childish Treluv vowed never to return.

“Don’t cry, crybaby,” Treluv says to himself.

A Sweet Spot

After his reading, Treluv returned to his booth to collect himself and relieve his parched confidence. His Lady Friend slid herself over as Treluv plopped his large frame down. Noir’s booths are a recent upgrade from the small crevasses they previously had. Treluv comfortably sits and listens to other poets mumble their words. He scratches his crotch and shuffles his papers. He takes a large bite from a cheeseburger and stuffs four tater tots into his mouth. His Lady Friend says to slow down his eating. Treluv sticks out his tongue and continues his pace.

“Treluv wasn’t very popular at other poetry readings and they don’t love him here, too. They don’t think he’s cool,” Lady Friend says, who’s been with Treluv for over a year.

Bar owner, Queen B says it was clear early on that Treluv wouldn’t fit in with the other self-absorbed poets at SBR.

“He was hated right away,” she says, “I discussed with many of his friends and editors after a few weeks of reading at SBR. There were about five or six people talking about how things would work for him here. Someone finally turned to him and said, ‘What do you think, Treluv?’ And he said, ‘I don’t give a fuck.’ It’s always been that way with him.”

Genius Idle-Tude Begins at Home

In the room that he shares with his 3-month-old computer, Treluv installs another PC game. Books, pieces of paper, socks, CDs, clumps of hair, and paper bags are littered on the floor. His white cat licks itself while the stereo blasts classical music.

Next to his bed are plates with dried or moldy food on them and cups stained with various shades of liquid.

There are piles of photos on his bookshelf that feature several shots of a lethargic Treluv passed out or looking stoic underneath a Portland bridge.

“Below the bridges and much like the Willamette River, it smelled like shit and piss, but I didn’t care,” he says, admiring the photo.

Other PC games sit on top of the computer tower or around his desk.

“I spent at least 6 hours a day on this one,” he says, holding Grand Theft Auto 3. “I played it so much I think I might have suffered permanent wrist damage.”

On his bookshelf are all the books Treluv has written in the past 7 years. Although he admits to not liking any of them, Treluv insists they are not any good.

“I don’t like writing books, but I will since I have to,” he says, finishing the installation of a new game with a psychotic smile.

... And All a Good Night

Christmas was our favorite time of the year. Christmas Eve my brother and I would wait late into the night. We wanted mostly toys for Christmas. That’s all. We would lie in the fold out bed in the living room as the Christmas tree lights glowed in the corner by the front windows. Dreams and snores were heard all through the night.

My mother was a single mother. We were urban Indians living in San Jose, CA. I remembered living on a reservation in South Dakota a few years before my brother was born. It snowed every winter on the rez, but it didn’t snow in San Jose, it rained. We lived on the second floor of a one-bedroom duplex apartment. We didn’t have a car. Our transportation was public transit. The apartment complex was next to a freeway on-ramp. There was a mini-mall across the street that included a K-mart, a Chinese restaurant, and a sporting goods store.

The weekend before Christmas there was a knock on the front door. A white family (husband, wife, and child) in smiles and festive sweaters entered our apartment. They carried boxes filled with wrapped gifts, used board games, old toys, non-perishable foods, and a turkey.

My brother and I hid in the closet and watched them.

“Where are the children?” asked the white father.

“They are visiting their cousins in Oakland,” my mother said.

“Oh, we wanted to see the children,” said the white mother. “We wanted to see the surprise in their faces.”

“They are not here. Sorry,” my mother said.

I watched this family from the closet and felt the anger in me grow. I watched the white father look around the apartment and nod his head in approval. My mother decorated the apartment in cheap Christmas paraphernalia from Goodwill. The day before the visit, my mother hung a picture of Jesus on the wall next to the Christmas tree. She stopped hanging a crucified Jesus because my brother would start to cry every time he saw it.

“Have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year,” the white family said as they exited our apartment.

“Same to you,” my mother replied.

My brother and I rushed out of the closet and started to dig through the toy box. My mother took down the Jesus picture and placed it in the living room dresser. My mother carried the food boxes to the kitchen. She placed the turkey in the freezer and the rest of the food into the cupboards.

My mother prepared a meal for us. She told us to sit and eat without her. She left us to take a shower. My brother and I sat across from each other at the kitchen table. As we ate our macaroni and cheese with hotdogs and drank our powder drink mix. We listened to the shower running and faintly heard our mother sobbing.

The previous Christmas, my bother and I found the Christmas presents hidden in the bedroom closet. They were unwrapped. It was a large box. We pulled it out of the closet and looked at the toys and clothes. We were disappointed and pushed the box back into the closet. We said we would act surprised on Christmas day when we saw the gifts again. On Christmas Day, my mother took pictures of us with the gifts and our forced smiles.

Every year my brother received presents in the mail the week leading to Christmas. They were from his father’s family. I never met my father and didn’t receive anything from that side of the family. My brother opened these presents as I watched him. He showed us his new clothes, new board games, and Christmas cards with cash in them.

“Look brother,” he’d say, “look at all my presents.”

I secretly hated my brother. He was three-fourths Indian and I told him to shut up. In my anger, I called him a half-breed. I didn’t know what that meant, but I heard it from my uncles and grandfather when they talked of my brother.

After dinner we watched TV, folded out the hide away bed and went to sleep.

Christmas morning, my mother turned on the radio to wake us. Loud Christmas music ripped me out from my dreams. I dressed and used the bathroom. My brother was already awake and talking on the phone to his father. My mother started cooking dinner early. She had breakfast waiting on the kitchen table. We all sat down to eat powdered eggs, pancakes, bacon, and drink powdered milk. We had to wait until noon to open gifts.

My uncles arrived at our apartment mid-afternoon. They had with them liquor bottles and half-racks. They were already lit with the Christmas spirit.

“Merry Christmas, you little maggots,” one uncle said, handing my brother and me a paper bag containing nuts, an apple, and two candy canes.

Another uncle placed a bag full of nuts on the kitchen counter. My mother poured the nuts into a large plastic bowl and set it on the living room dresser with a nutcracker next to it.

When my uncles arrived we opened gifts. There was one large present addressed to me, it had a large box shape to it. The week that it was under the tree I wondered what kind of fantastic gift could be in it. I hadn’t received a large gift before. Of my four presents, I opened the largest one last. I quickly unwrapped it and was instantly hurt. I wanted to run away at seeing such a horrible gift. My uncles laughed at me as they saw my face. Their poorly grown mustaches and braids shaking. The large present was a large box of diapers. I looked at my mother in complete disappointment. She smiled at me, shook her head, and told me to look in the box. I opened the box and there was a NBA-style basketball. I was still disappointed, but forced a smile anyways. I wasn’t into sports, but a basketball was better than nothing and it was better than a box of diapers.

After we opened our presents my brother and I took off outside to play. We met with neighborhood kids. They talked about the cool stuff they received. I didn’t say much. I was always ashamed of my family. I never invited any of my friends inside my home. I feared one of my uncles might be staying over and was drunk. I left my bother and went over to my best friend’s house and played his new game system. The game system included a robot, some kind of gun, and games. I was jealous. I only played board games with my family. All the games I played were not alone. Playing board games with my family was usually the time I heard about my other family members’ lives. I wanted to have a game system so I wouldn’t have to hear about who was doing what. I wanted to concentrate on what I did, and not anybody else.

My best friend’s family was poor like my family, but his family didn’t have practicing alcoholics. He had a stepfather who called him son. I had uncles who gave me nicknames like Good-For-Nothing, Maggot, or Bastard. They were very descriptive Indian names. They were not as simple as son. Each of my names contained the mood my uncles were in. Each name placed me in a possible future no different from my uncles.

After a couple of hours watching my friend play his game system his mother said my mother called and I had to go home for dinner.

The turkey was carved and food was halfway gone. More of my relatives came to the apartment. The biker family downstairs had their apartment open. It was a duplex Christmas party in motion.

I ate and went to visit the family downstairs. The biker mom said she was part Cherokee Indian that’s why her name was Cherokee. A few weeks ago, she showed me how to make a blowgun using a PVC pipe, pins, and cigarette butts.

“How’s your aim?” Cherokee asked me.

“I suck,” I said.

“You’ll get better. Just keep at it.”

“I will.”

I didn’t tell her I threw my blowgun away after I killed a pigeon behind the apartment. Watching the pigeon bounce around then stop moving, I vowed never to use the blowgun again. I carried the exhausted pigeon in a piece of newspaper to a dumpster at the driveway end on the street corner. The pigeon died in my hands. I threw the blowgun and pigeon into the dumpster and went home to wash my hands.

I left Cherokee’s place and ran to the alley behind our apartment and waited until all the drunken noise ended. I befriended an alley kitten, he and I kept each other company. Late night, I walked back into the apartment. The place was littered. The cleanest place was the living room closet. I made my bed in the closet using winter coats.

About the Author

Trevino L. Brings Plenty is a poet and musician who lives, works, and writes in Portland, OR. He is singer/songwriter/guitarist for the musical ensemble Ballads of Larry Drake. He has read/performed his work at poetry festivals as far away as Amman, Jordan and close to his home base at Portland’s Wordstock Festival.

In college, Trevino worked with Primus St. John and Henry Carlile for this poetry work, studied with Tomas Svoboda for music composition, and Jerry Hahn for Jazz guitar.

Trevino is an American and Native American; a Lakota Indian born on the Cheyenne River Sioux Reservation, South Dakota, USA. Some of his work explores the American Indian identity in American culture and how it has through genealogical history affected indigenous peoples in the 21st century. He writes of urban Indian life; it’s his subject.

Other titles by author:

Real Indian Junk Jewelry (2012)

Shedding Skins: Four Sioux Poets (2008).