postcard poems from the Americas



1          Pisco
Lima cries for Spain.
Spain was a swan in its hands

with a rosy cloaca

and a cock that tasted

of bullmeat.
Lima cries for Spain.



2          Cachaça
In Sao Paolo,

a monarch’s fears

are many.
Yet few could imagine

the statutory pain

of a marble face

eaten by acid rain.



3          Mezcal
Boys sell chiclets

in Tenochtitlan.

Beneath the catholic church,

Aztec temples.

Beneath Aztec temples,

the savage lake.

A man pastes posters

for a salsa band

at the temple gates.

And your mother, too,

they have raped.



4          Bourbon
On pillows of Hampshire green,

its father’s breast,

Washington weeps

Keep! Keep!



5          Seco
¡SILENCIO! EVERYTHING!

In the cantina,

Panama is drinking.



6          Rum
Every song Havana sings

is a prisoner’s song

from El Morro

with a voice of ballast rum

and sand.
Havana has much to offer.

Havana has HIV infection.

Havana has a lovely complexion.

Havana offers much of what it has.

Havana has shingles.

Havana has crabs.

Havana has what Havana has.



7          Chicha
In La Paz, men whistle. Men bang bangers and crank crankers. They thump and bump.

They rub and hump. They harrumph. When the men speak, they speak only to say, We

men speak very little. Men under their hair handle nuts and bolts like the breasts

of women. They twist clockwise and counter-clockwise fitting things together. Men

tighten things up. Men loosen things off. Men work at women with their hydraulic

couplings. You can see men under pressure, beating within the heads of men.  You

can see men in their heads beating men. The soft skulls of men. The soft slick

skulls of men. They could embrace men. They could kill men. Men hold gears to their

teeth like apples or the beautiful tips of cocks. It is hard to take men, there are

so many. Look at these streets in La Paz – covered with men.



8          Pisco
A massive steel beam is moved by a crane stenciled with the capital letters IOTA.
A man crouched on his haunches paints a chainlink fence with rust coloured paint. 
A woman rinses her mouth with water carried in pipes of copper mined from the open pits of Chuquicamata. 
In the smoke from smelter #8, Maria and Co. incorporate. 
At a meeting of the syndicata, a Codelco man raises his hand feeling a sudden secondary syphilitic stigmata.
He seconds the pain of Santiago.