Poem #3 to Accompany Stills from the Film Semi-Tough

WHAT THE TEQUILA TOLD US

First it reminded us: with it we shall not reckon.

Then it made us thing everything would be OK.

Then it made us feel impossibly awesome.

Then we were 100% sure that what turned out to be the floor of our
taxi was the roof.

Then the great hordes found a way to jive, if only for a few seconds.

We thought for a moment about a herd of moose in response to a cavalry.

Then it told us good night.

Poem #2 to Accompany Stills from the Film Semi-Tough

WHERE WE FOUND IT

Just when we had nearly forgotten
what we were looking for of course
was when we found it; we found it
in the pits of our knees and elbows;
it was in the misshapen snarl of our noses
as we sniffed for it.

Now that we have it, we can begin
to wonder what we will do with it;
like youth we will probably waste it;
like instinct or passion or fear
we may feel we have not used it
but have been used by it.

In our high & low search for it
came the most tangible benefits of it:
the stretching of our bones;
the tug of gravity on our bellies.

Poem #1 to Accompany Stills from the Film Semi-Tough

SMILE

What to do when
the marquis is full
of names you have forgotten
or never even remembered?

When the sunlight
of celebrity has you squinting,
thank your dentist --
he has taught you
so many things.

But is there a gift
or a retort finer
than a smile?

YOUTH BECAME

Confident uncertainty
so slowly became confusion;
I don't think we noticed
even while we lengthily
and even eloquently mentioned
it in our poems and songs.

Now our pride is all we have
to keep us going, our finely-tuned
interests in ourselves and each other.

The starlight shines most brightly
inside the club; out underneath
the bridge, the night keeps getting darker.

On 77 South, my brother-in-law
and I navigated from town to town
through the Rio Grande Valley.
The girls in the back with the baby
sang along from Willie Nelson song
to Willie Nelson song, and I wondered
why at night we never stay up
thinking about the things we do right.

But when the sun went down
the back seat went to sleep,
and the front seat did the singing.
By the time we hit Highway 100,
I was thinking about a redhead
from Hereford who I once knew
and wondering what we'd be today.

Tomorrow we'll go fishing;
I'll make invisible homes till sunrise.

Rachael exhaled into a big round symbol
of rebirth, and when our egg skips
across the green grass of the park,
and when evening falls like candy,
and when the blood veins
in our drunken faces start to pop
like cascarones, Spring begins
and our later-ons and remember-whens
become right now.

You were the luckiest
dirty green floor
on Easter Sunday
in the world
when she walked by
on Sunday. Sunday
checked in white
and green, wooden
heels clicking, and
(where is my head?)
at the top of the stairs:
one last party, and
goodnight.

My Love Is Like The Springtime

My love is like a freight train baby.
Ride it so slow.

My love is like a brick wall baby.
Come bang yourself up against it.

My love is like the subway baby.
It don't always run the way it should.

My love is like the springtime baby.
Red flowers poppin' up all over the place.

My love is like the export soda crackers baby.
100% vegetable oil.

My love is like a three-hundred pound heavyweight boxer baby.

It's gettin' all up inside your face.