Richard Garcia

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The Clouds in Room 606
 
People think clouds are so quiet. Not so. When I walk past their room in the hotel all I hear is their racket of clash, smash, bang—I want to yell, Shut the fuck up you stupid clouds! But if they could even hear me above their din they would laugh and imitate me with flashing shards of lightning followed by bolts of exclamation marks slicing the sky in their room and stirring it into a tornado of blank pages and snow flurries of confetti made from white chads from a hundred three hole punchers. You should never book a room in a hotel where clouds are staying. 
 
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The Black Fan
 
The black fan dropped on the floor, Pick it up and speak to me. The black fan held against my lips, Je T'aime. The black fan rapidly cooling my face, I long for you. The black fan tapped against my cheek, Not now, quizas mas tarde. The black fan flapping its wings, We are not alone. The black fan tapping against my palm, Where are you? The black fan rapidly shut and thrown against the pavement, Go away and stay away. The black fan dangling from one wrist, Sì, Tesoro, sì. The black fan, fallen on the floor, Die with me.
 
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The Scarab
 
It's like blue has become every colour whose name you can't remember. As if you finally got your ticket to ride and float above the city, not in the least bit sorry and there is your dog down below filling out an evaluation form that concerns your future when blue becomes a special kind of money. I mean the blue-moon lacquer finish on the rare Egyptian scarab. The blue scarab drifting across the white sky like a refrigerator magnet or a planchette on a Ouija board sliding by itself, in the blue hour, when you imagine blue imagining blue.  
 
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Saint Valentine           
 
Let’s hear it for Saint Valentine, although there were many of them over the centuries. Valentinus was one of several Saint Valentines to be beheaded. Later, a chapel was built over the saint’s remains. There are pieces of Valentinus, arms, legs, ears, and of course, his heart, scattered, on display all over Europe and Asia Minor. Abelard and Eloise were famous lovers. He a priest and she his student. Her uncle did not appreciate their union, and one night, took him aside and demonstrated his displeasure by having him castrated. Both took refuge in separate monasteries and wrote love letters to each other for the rest of their lives. She, bride of Christ, wrote to Abelard, Let me be your whore. Forget candles, chocolates and flowers—love is dangerous and deadly. Mona Lisa with her vacant eyes, with her thin-lipped smile of scorn.
 
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The Watcher 
 
I hold your black, lace fringed negligée to my face and inhale deeply. I am in a green field that is pitched, tilted against the sky. The helmet of a warrior has expanded into a national museum. Your braided belt is unraveling into the scent of lavender. I see a cavalcade of wicker baskets, each one empty. Dawn, the tactical withdrawal of a retreating darkness. The vulva shaped flower of a single blossom. Clitoria fragrans. Flutter of mourning dove wings. The lamp sways, oscillates, interrogating time and counter time. Two wrists, two metal cups entwined—a toast to us. Tell me, Amante, are there still days—are there still nights?
 
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Last Night   
 
I was on trial for the crime of loving you. Your circus friends and lovers testified against me. Sandro the strongman in the leopard suit said I had no right to interfere with their family. Chow and Choy, the Siamese twins joined at the waist chanted, Not one of us, not one of us. My sister who died before I was born was dressed as a Gypsy and played you. I was my own lawyer and testified on my own behalf, which was difficult since the half of me that was painted black agreed with the charges. What a clown, what a joker, what a Harlequin I was—who did I think I was to love you? I sat in the docket, I could not control myself, I flapped my elbows, I croaked and squawked, chicken feathers flying out of my mouth as I tried to speak.
 
**
 
Some Kind of Forever
 
I am getting my pickup line ready for the next time I see you. It may be in an art gallery. You will be gazing at an installation titled, Some Kind of Forever. I will approach and ask you, Do you ever get tired of being a goddess? You will not even turn your Nefertiti head or acknowledge me at all. It is then that I will notice your necklace; it seems to be made of wrinkled scrotums. I will back away; I may not be ready for you in this, your Kali manifestation. Maybe I will go to meet you somewhere else, when you are in a better mood—perhaps Paris during the liberation or a balcony in Barcelona in the 23rd Century. Or maybe we will both be children in a convent school in Rome during the early '60's. I will be sitting behind you in class. I'll tap you on the shoulder and when you turn around I will point to my glass eye that I have plucked from my eye socket and placed in the inkwell. You will not be impressed and turn away, looking so very bored with me.
 
**
 
The Golden Light in Late Afternoon  
  
 
Even in Kyoto--hearing the cuckoo's cry—I long for Kyoto—even though I've never been to Kyoto. When I am in you Los Angeles, I try not to miss you, Los Angeles. That would be like missing a hooker. But I do miss a certain lady, the way we would sit on the curb sharing a cup of coffee. She told me her aspirations, which seemed rather modest to me. To live in a big-assed house and drive a big-ass car. There is a place I miss. It resembles the San Francisco I grew up in. But there Twin Peaks is only part of an entire unmapped mountain range that stretches towards the south. And Mount Tamalpais just across the bay floats in clouds resembling Mount Fuji as painted by Hokusai. I miss many places I've never been to. But most of all I miss a little town in Italy. I don't know its name and I have never been there. But I am there sometimes with you. You don't exist either. And the sidewalk cafe where we sit together, where you raise one eyebrow and ask me If I'd like to take a shower with you after we wake from our afternoon nap . . .
 
**
 
The Night Wind

The night wind swishes across your window reminding you of the ocean wind and the surf and the cream-colored lace fringes of your lover's black panties. She left a pair, unwashed, just for you. She knew there would be a time when these same panties would cause you pain. A pain that would never end for you. But not for her, she would be far away, and hearing of your pain would give her pleasure. Why don't you wear my panties on your face like a mask to protect you from the plague she will think? Why don't you cry and dance naked in the streets with my panties on your face? Why don't you die, and then die again and keep dying until you get it right and know how to die like a man?
 
**
 
At the Welcome Inn 
 
If I were to see you standing on the balcony at the Welcome Inn, looking down at the alley, a blank wall, a broken wheelbarrow, a twisted aluminum ladder, and a broomstick, I would approach quietly from behind and lay my arm across your shoulders. All this I would say, making a grand gesture with my other arm, could be ours. If this was not half memory and half longing the backdrop would rise: the alley, a blank wall, a broken wheelbarrow, a twisted aluminum ladder, and a broomstick would disappear. Where would we be? Tuscany would be nice. A small country inn. The backdrop would descend, that hazy green illusory countryside behind the Mona Lisa.  

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The Bag Dance  
 
Ever on the lookout for a plastic bag to use as a doggie bag, I spot one behind a wrought iron fence. It is a small bag, but not too small, appears to be clean, just right. I kneel, one hand holding on to Max's leash, and put the other hand through the slats of the fence. Just then, the bag catches a bit of breeze and drifts to my left, down along the fence, and stops. I stand, take a couple of steps to the left, kneel and reach through the grate again—and the bag slides along the fence again. This goes on for a while. I am just about to grab it when Max takes an interest in a cat under a parked car, and pulls me over from my squatting position just as my fingers are touching the bag. This rolls me over onto my back. I return to my feet and dust myself off and glance around to see if anyone is watching me. Never mind the bag. I start to walk off with Max—who needs another doggie bag anyway? The bag fills with the breeze and, rising, it strokes the fence as if saying goodbye to it, and lifts up into the air, passing right in front of my face and I calmly reach for it. I am about to say something to Max about how the crafty hunter lets his prey come to him, but the bag pulls away from my grasp. I reach again, and again—now I snatch at the bag as if I were shadow boxing. Max is lying on his belly with his paws over his snout, as if he is thinking, What a stupid master.  Enough! I walk away with Max, but the bag follows along, on my left now, shoulder height. I am not interested. If the bag wants to come along who cares. Then the bag gets caught on the rear fender of a parked car. I reach for it, but, catching a breeze, the bag slides up the car, slides across the roof of the car, down the front window, and across the hood. I leap for it and end up sprawled across the hood. I calmly push myself off the hood as if lying across the hood of a parked car were an everyday occurrence for me.  The bag, in a tiny breeze, lies wavering on the pavement just ahead of us as if it were pretending to be wounded. The wind dies a bit, and as we walk by the bag I try to stomp it.  I miss again, and off it goes, rising, leading us on. That's the way it is, I tell Max. First you talk to your self and then to your dog and then you perform an interpretive dance in the street with a plastic bag. What does my artful dance mean? Something about love I suppose. How we don't recognize it when it is right in front of us, how foolish we look chasing it, how we try to possess it, how it angers us, how easily it sails way. Something like that.

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Richard Garcia's poetry books include The Other Odyssey, Dream Horse Press, 2014, The Chair, BOA 2015, and Porridge, Press 53, 2016. He has received a Pushcart Prize, and has been in Best American Poetry.