4th & 5th Selctions, April2012

 

Mega Millions Mania

Whoa

That’s a lot of M&M’s 4

After the rains

After the after parties

After the tears

After the rains

I walk somewhere over rainbows

To discover

I am still pretty much who I was

I walk to the 711 where the scent of money

leaves a trail of desperate men

bridging 911 walls

finally brothers in their loss

discussing earnestly what had occurred

or didn’t

I look deep in all their eyes

trying to ascertain the truth

(are they hiding paper wealth?)

but the truth is simply

that they too

are pretty much the same as before

the blessed event

Walking home I shoot

a reflection in a puddle

of run off waters in a canal

and trees and clear skies

and a self portrait

in the reflection of window that reads:

“Transformations” with an iChing symbol

My reflection is so ghostly

I almost disappear in the glass

and I’m thinking

that the women in this beauty salon

maybe have the right idea

That, or antiquated notions

Me, too, me too

On the way home

I sense someone stalking me

It is one of those desperate old men from the 711

going home to his wife

St. Patrick says:

“So it goes”

and so it does

One question though:

How come

with so many local strip malls

there is no one stripping?

--Richard Velez

In my dreams,

rushing elephants strapped with AKs

bum rush me away from

            gourmet grazing grounds

where I’m munching and crunching on

coconut cream cookies, cucumbers and you

Love is in jeopardy

Then, unexpectedly,

Wu-Tang comes

rapping, hip hopping,

singing and swinging

all mach 10 to the rescue and shit

while somewhere in Dreamland

in my dreams

somewhere over the rainbow

in my dreams

Rambo Sambo dances the mambo

In my dreams, you ask

why do we in the ghetto

wear chains of Cuban gold?

Some say it’s a status update

re: our current state of enslavement

but others remind us that in other times

gold chains symbolized ladders to Heaven

               --Richard Velez