What is its Name?
A shadow is a shadow but what is its name? I call mine Bubba Ho-Tep like that Bruce Campbell film. A cloud is a cloud, but what is its name? The one above me I have named Predator 2. What would you call those spy balloons over North America? I call each one The Spy Who Loved Me. I feel so deflated some days that I do not have the mind coordination to come up with any name.
August 4, 1993: The Ryan Express vs. Robin Ventura
What were you thinking, Robin Ventura, charging the Ryan Express after being hit by a pitch? If not, for that charge to the mound, my brother Juan would not have made that frame, the photo cut out from the sports page. Ryan had you in a headlock with his fist about to give you one of the many noogies you received that fateful night that would be celebrated for years. Google it if you never seen it. We have the fight framed for posterity. You never got a punch in, Robin, but that took guts going after the 46-year-old legend, 20 years your senior, whose punch was just as fierce as his fastball. To add insult to injury, Ryan stayed in the game while you were ejected.
The Moon is Dying
“The moon is dying,”
she says to me.
“It will come back
tomorrow,” she adds
matter-of-factly.
I said to her, “Did you
know the wind was
dying too?” I then said,
“The wind is also
coming back.”
She looked at me
and sighed, “Wow,
my sighs are coming
back too. I can’t
recall my last sigh.”
I told her, “Did you
notice the grass is
dying?” She said,
“That’s okay. At least
you are saving water.”
“Of all the dying
things, I would miss
most, it would be
the moon,” she said,
sighing two times.
The Place I Was Born
As long as my memory
remains intact I will not
forget about the place
I was born, where I was
raised by my abuelos,
Elpidio y Florencia. I
learned so much from
my mother’s parents.
I would only see them
one more time after 1975.
It was the summer of 1978
when I last stepped in the
land of my birth. I left a
life behind to live a new
life in California with my
parents and siblings. I
remember crying at 18
years old upon hearing of
my abuelo’s death. Did
I break his heart when
I left him and my abuela?
They were always with me.
I did not know it then.
Interesting Shrub
Twilight was no apparition. Sunrise was no illusion. I shared my lens with the trees, the hard cement, and the bees. The ancients gods were a myth. The thunder disagreed as it roared beyond the clouds. I felt a drop of rain. Snow was too far away. I could see it high up in the hillside mountains. I felt the cool, crisp air. My lens captured the leaves but not myself. Camera-shy, I opted to film the arteries of an interesting shrub. The sky was all ablaze. Suddenly, twilight came. The trees spoke to me about the black sky coming. Bio: Luis lives in California and works in the mental health field in Los Angeles. His poetry has appeared in Fevers of the Mind, Kendra Steiner Editions, Mad Swirl, Unlikely Stories, and Venus in Scorpio Poetry Ezine. all drawings from Luis as well.
Fevers of the Mind 