Poem by “E” (a.k.a. EROBOS

Poems by “E” (a.k.a. EROBOS)

“HUSBANDS”

With the most friendly and congenial greeting I could summon on a Monday morning, I said ‘good morning’ to the woman who sat to the left, inside the community based organization, this woman, whose baby granddaughter’s wheel carriage was bent under the weight of an old corpulent sax player who had lost his balance at a community outreach the day before, taking my time, energy, strength, to straighten out the severely bent wheel; this same woman, whom I complimented when I tasted her vibrant, arroz y abicheulas; she had smiled liked the sun breaking through the clouds, a kiss on the cheek encouraged her socialization, we had a beautiful community event, with perfect weather to boot...This same woman, in response to my most friendly and congenial greeting that I could summon on a Monday morning; recoiled at my touch, like I was a giant spider with the face of a rat and the body of a snake, she bared her fangs at me, like I was a rapist, like I was a composite of all the men that used and abused and disrespected her, like I was the man that broke her heart when she knew what love was, way past the point of healing...At the community event, she told me that there is no ‘Mr.’ to her ‘Ms.,’ and she isn’t ‘Mrs.’ anybody...in fact, she doesn’t miss them at all...she told me that both her husbands are dead...and those are just the two she talks about....I did not know that I had that much power over a woman to the point of making her react so honestly...to make her revolt in disgust, like I kidnapped her in her own home; like she woke up to use the bathroom at 3 in the morning and there I was, reaching for her like Swamp Thing with scabies and bedbugs on the tips of my fingers...Maybe, some quality I may or may not possess, reminds her of her dead husbands, reaching out from the grave, searching through the past, saying to her: “I’m not dead....We’re not dead....To have and to hold, till death do us part!...Why are you still there, playin’ the victim, black widow bitch!...You think you survived us....but we’re the lucky ones....You were our partner in sickness, disease, and addiction....We are waiting for you regardless....” With the most friendly and congenial greeting that I could summon on a Monday morning; it was not me that touched her hand...it was her husband. 8-21-11 22:43hrs

Poems by “E” (a.k.a. EROBOS)

“CRYING,” AFTER JIMMY SANTIAGO BACA

I cry for the things I’ve never had; I cry for the fact that I always need; I cry for the children I do not have; I cry for the mother of my children that I have never met; I cry for the family that I do not have; I cry for the family that I left behind; I cry for the things that I don’t know; I cry because of the things that I do; I cry for the Earth’s pain; I cry because I don’t know what to do about it; I cry because I am in pain; I cry because the pain motivates me; I cry because I am selfish; I cry because I’m not selfish enough...I cry in the loneliness of a prison cell; dank from decades of past souls who have become overwhelmed by the acceptance of things that they could have changed; the unwillingness to change the things that they can; and late arriving wisdom of not knowing the difference. A facade has no tears to shed. Men, machine-like, not paid to kill or be killed like the Marines, but sent to die by way of physical, mental, and emotional attrition...whether it’s our old selves, personas picked up from others or created out of the convenience of making an impression; strangers that we became; will eventually die one layer at a time on the shells of years that will peel away like an onion. The insanity of street life will be stripped down and replaced with clarity that’s better served elsewhere; Some of us will never show our tears to the world...cold granite walls, steel bars, iron metal gates, absorb tears like a sponge; I walk with a penitentiary in my chest; the prison gun turrets are hinges that open into my spine; the walls and fences are my ribcage; my stomach is the mess-hall, my brain is the law library; my heart is the strength of the weight shack; my legs are the yard; my arms are cans of jack mac; my mouth is commissary; my dreams are at liberty and are free to go wherever they want, but for some reason they always seem to come back on the count; my wishes are mail; my bitterness is odd number visits, my net bag is family reunion; I sweat state boots; my stress is conditional release date; my skin is Corcraft greens; my headaches are alternative to violence and CASAT; my ears are “red dot”; my tongue is buffing pad, my hair is parole board, patience, tolerance, cow shit smell, potatoes, cabbage, cornfields, uniforms, batons, name tags, and DIN numbers...and my eyes...they cry.... 3/31/14 19:45hrs

“SEMI-CIRCLE”

I’m sitting on an A-Train stuffed to the gills with bodies of every color, size, shape, and type. Standing, not a foot and a ½ directly in front of my sitting and quite relaxed form, is a middle aged, pudgy white woman. She locks her fatigued gaze upon my bland stare, with wide cow eyes, pleading with me nonverbally, hoping against hope, that I would let her and her two full Trader Joe’s bags, and her bulging white leather purse that looks like an Olympic size spam and wonderbread sandwich, sit down. I look upon her Catholic school skin tone stockings, and the mass of spidery multicolored veins on both of her pale, fleshy, drumstick calves, pulsating, throbbing, and antsy with bothered, unnatural life, that remind me of watching the Road&Rail report. Her cute, yet non-sensible shoes, betray her weight to gravity and her insteps look like Chinese dumplings on a sacred mission to destroy aforestated shoes! Her eyes have fixated upon me with pitiable, grim determination, unblinking, for so long, that she’s about to tear over. The first thoughts that rush into my mind are those that remind me of the fact that this plump, pink specimen of humanity, usually, would regard me as The Invisible Man, she would acknowledge my presence on the street, or in the park, or in a store, with suspicion, distrust and disdain. She, as routine practice, would come to regard me as her potential rapist, mugger, pickpocket, or all of the above, she would, on any given day, acknowledge me with scowl, frown, or leery eyed with fear or wide with angst and foreboding...my act of defiance, my denial of Anglo-American entitlement, is not anywhere near the full circle that it ought to be...but I do know this: I am not getting up...I am never getting up.... 8-14-14 11:27hrs