Saturday, February 24, 2007

Two Poems for Jo

























1970's Dancehall

honky-tonk live wire
down in Mexico
me and James Taylor
singing the same fine
traveling blues
for you

Get up offa that thing
RIP King James

I take his advice
shake to relive my pressure
dance away to live




© Odilia Galván Rodríguez, 2007

Friday, February 23, 2007

life's elixirs


















turmeric yellow
dye threads of princesses robes
elixir for pain



© Odilia Galván Rodríguez, 2007
The Yucatan Penninsula, Mexico


Wednesday, February 21, 2007

Flying Away



















for Hawk

early morning
calla lilies open happily
as the bottle brush sway
camellias curtsy the
geraniums still slumbering
deep purple and
blood-red bougainvillea
drape over terracotta
bricks like a Spring
waterfall singing into
blue clay pot that’s a
round quiet face
with earrings
starring into the sun

monarchs fly south
all this way
I hope they caught
a glimpse of you
a few weeks ago
in Santa Cruz
before heading this way
that a bold one
flutter-kissed you
on your round
succulent cheek
I so miss kissing you
seventeen years is a long
cut out of a rock
like me

here I sit
in a beautiful
mountainside jardin
of a house carved
overlooking a river bank
from way up here
I can see
Popocatepetl and
at night the twinkle
star lights of Mexico City
who’s just erupted again
we’re old but still smoky
hot like those brick-red
chipotle chiles
I missed so much

I imagine you
many miles away
stepping out
of your childhood skin
yet keeping it close
instead of tossing it
trying on adulthood
like a new tuxedo
looking in the mirror
you’re not too sure
it’s you or if you could
ever really see
yourself in it though
the new feel is tempting

I’m here (starting)
another life
without you and
though my right arm
has not been lopped off
there’s (still) the feel
of something essential missing

the pen keeps moving
across the page but
my muses are saluting the sun
perched comfortably
in the fig and plum trees
alongside escaped parrots
showing off their tail feathers
while wolf whistling at me

gold canaries (who flew all the
way here from an elder’s patio in Morelia
who purposely left their bright bamboo cage doors
open so on that very day her soul could fly
with them as she passed into eternity)
sing a new day sun song as I sit here
thinking of you and
remembering the future


©Odilia Galván Rodríguez
Mexico City, February, 2003

YOUR MORSE CODE OR ... .._ .. _._. .. _.. .













for dad

I have a gun and could use it

to end my suffering

spare others the trouble


of having to care and then



if in the past, I am also gone

then those no-named, 


with our people's faces

those humans 

those hundreds, no, more

did not perish on that

icy cold Korean ground

covered in white clouds


from the big guns 


put in my hands


murdered and for what


there was no glory in being


a minimum wage gun for hire


my rage at what I did


lasted a lifetime


though I tried to drown it


in alcohol


like my father before me



unlike him, I was always pulled


from the drink at the last minute


liquid claws weren't strong enough


to keep me under, though now


a lure of those voices in


the loss of air and anesthesia


got me in touch with all their souls


who wanted me with them





© Odilia Galván Rodríguez, 2007

The Yucatan Penninsula

Monday, February 19, 2007

NINE HAIKU FOR DAD'S SPIRIT

















now your days are spent

sitting at my side staring
believing your eyes

I write you poems
rivers you never sat by
so the tears won't flow

over the rainbow
is not the place you went to
spirit world's a door

writing in Spanish
childhood's other mother tongue
I don't speak N'dn

en las cantinas
pasabas muchas noches
perdido joven

(in the corner bars
you would spend many a night
there you lost your youth)

the last time we talked
I'd lost my voice to the cold
you got the message

did you go away
just so you could be near me
crying in my ears

raro el dia
nubes negras el cielo
yo lloro el sol

(the day, a rare one
black clouds make up the sky
I cry for the sun)

espejo, claro
que ves en tu ventana
la infinidad

(the looking glass, clear
what do you see through your window
infinity)

love, light and progress!


© Odilia Galván Rodríguez, February/2007

The Yucatan Penninsula, Mexico

Saturday, February 17, 2007

CATCHY BEATZ



















RICOCHET BALLET
DANCING WHILE UNDER FIRE
FUTILE TO RESIST

© Odilia Galván Rodríguez, February, 2007
The Yucatan Penninsula, Mexico


photo: http://flickr.com/photos/51805098@N00/42465971/

Thursday, February 15, 2007

HEART HAIKU



















THUNDER HEART


ELECTRICAL CHARGE
KEEPS THE RHYTHM PUMPING STRONG
THUNDER BEING'S GIRL


TAKE HEART

I HAVEN'T THE HEART
TO FALL IN LOVE WITH MYSELF
LOST AT SEA ALWAYS


STRAWBERRY SLUSHY

STRAWBERRY MUSCLE
MIRACLE PUMPING OUT LIFE
SLUSHY MUSHY MOODS


HEARTENING

mending broken hearts
healing salves sooth serious
bypass surgery


MISMATCHED HEARTS

mismatched hearts collide
residing in horse's stall
scars last a lifetime


MORE HEART

our glass half empty
pearls of the past embeded
yet my heart is full


HEARTS, BLOOD AND BEING

HEART'S A BEATING MASS
WINE FLOWS FASTER THAN BLUE BLOOD
MY MIND IN MY CHEST


Gyrations or Generations

a new father is born
your son
but he's always running
like the other one
it's like they can't sit
still is not for them
playing and laughing
games of all kinds
in their mind or on
the board in front of
them they are always
in more than one place
at a time and a brain
can wear out like all
other muscles
your heart just
stopped



© Odilia Galván Rodríguez, 2007
The Yucatan Penninsula, Mexico
All Right Reserved