4 A.M. Words

90 the minnesota review Carlos Fuentes Lemus 4 A.M. Words Lefty Brunette receives coded messages and nonsense words through his memorabilia collection in his duffle bag voyage . Lefty thinks it over and his walls tell him to take a train to Mexico to put together again the old writer. You don't think it will leave your system lifting weightless arms in your sleep awakeness when everyone else sleeps sound If your feet are sticking out of your covers someone's going to grab them and leave the rest of you alone. I've known you all my life brother but you're a stranger and a shit. Your voice is lost to coyote eyes and a dead wolf face. Total interior desert wind storm I knew it wasn't entertainment. For the first 4 seconds I just felt at school. A car slams on its brake in empty street. You want to go to Pot Belly or Sicily A whoop and you've let this happen before. EnONIn Wonderment trying to Escape to change Regain your consciousness and it is floating movement it leaves. Heavy truck going over you shoulders. December 1992 1 When she took me to the plane asking for more money took me to the plane askin' for money Fuentes Lemus 91 I remember her crying over her sister said she didn't want me t' think l^out she said not to think about it feeling useless and I felt chained down and handless and gagged handless and gagged like a wordless man 2993 Respect Respectable Arrestable resist arrest red harvest redeem the barest 2 Faded Dryness of patio snails Lizards do pushups hump on wall Butterfly flowers try for their freedom Flying in place petrified Like under water wood of millions Cactus dare you to join their orgies That guy's not Jesus, he's just walking his goats What if we built a golf course on virgin land Ride your donkey to the green Tee off under the Huichol sol Land your ball in the Virgen's mouth And never again have to pray for pain and rain The rain and the pain The rain and the hail The train and the nail The rain just pulled into town Have visions of the churches Crumbling into each other The blues tone Blue stones of Cathedrals Crashing into each other like Holy hail stones March 2, 1994 92 the minnesota review Texass / Texis Black plumb Nightingales know how to move Dry White crackers get pecked on Is your ass Tex or Mex or black or white or is it gone numb and nowhere? 1996 1 If I could get out what I feel for everyone, it would be a violent Love. I would crack ribs bite off lips swallow tongues and scratch my name across your heart. 2 And he said, "You are an emancipated man." December 1997 1 Well I ain't gonna tell you no story, I ain't gonna tell you no lie, I'm not gonna make the slightest effort. You who have fallen in laps, needy laps. Oh, how great that there was nothing to prove. Oil & vinegar don't mix. We mix. Like the lion and Fuentes Lemus 93 the sand, the moon & the spoon. Like the Fire & the coal, like the crack and the pipe, the hopeful dope, the hateful mother, shadows & surface. My Japanese wisp. December 1998 1 Take the glass, the third one, everything is yours. What has satisfied? Come on, even the gypsy doesn't know. But the gypsy don't know nothing, except spells about unsold roses. And you try. I know. It makes you cynically the cyclops weird chick in the message song, you ain't nothin' buta... You are everything, delicate, fragile, feminine, truly the most. Our repetitions, I listen & find faults. You don't even want to hear. Do we want only our pasts? Those pasts, which are people, here, right now to add what is needed? WE want privacy. But where are the invaders who want to know what shouldn't happen will be seen by them? 2 There was temporary perfection. It was after separation. My private knowledge. Avoided judgement...