Steven Alvarez

& across the pueblo

see yr Tucson monsoon

showers bring summer poppy

flowers blooming bright

& right now a cholla’s

arm bursts through a crumbling wall

& desert winds will win

& down in South Tucson

a corrido plays tonight—

& fingers touch—hold—grip

& across the pueblo

two different hands mold masa

into balls—pat—into discs—toast—flip—smoke—

& stack tortillas

& across the pueblo

saguaro brazos

stretch to July’s sky: barrio

translation: son primos

all stars sing these songs—

that no line marks change, that no

human being's marked

thunder July night—

monsoon flashes—bright—yr eyes—

pajaro ascends

tried to bury us—

didn't know we’re semillas,

each & all of us

agave blossoms

a hundred desert moons

& after seeds new days

4:40 am next to my father

I rest my left hand on my father’s forehead

as he sleeps     I listen to him breathe

struggle to breathe & I touch his right

hand w. my right hand & surely

somewhere there’s a poem abt all this

somewhere in this universe, a poem

for my father, his voice thunders a whisper

when he wakes, sez “two children spoke

to me” in I think a dream, as he touches

stars already    my father sleeps then wakes then

sleeps  & somewhere in this universe, a poem

for him for his visions his life

& what a father means to children in this universe

I can say only that there’s a poem

& it starts not w. him or ends w. me

but it’s a poem & it goes on

6/14/21, Safford, Arizona

Caminando, pinkly

down these strange streets

where I live in Queens

speculating abt what walking these ways

wd be like w. you, our elbows akimbo

locked in strides & synapses

on a spring day like today a Sunday

down these strange streets

where I live in Queens

yr eyes I’ve never seen before see me

cut me deep & my mind’s

painting relief stuff for me to fall

further into like a bigass basket

bc te extraño already

wherever you are right now

I’m walking w. you, beside you

my arm around you, tightly

down these strange streets

where I live in Queens

the sun beats down the pavement hot

& these magnolias blooming around here

w. fat pink blossoms thick as lettuce

kiss the streets as they drop from

the winds & rains of this Sunday in May

I wd gather these blossoms w. you

& press them into yr palms, softly

5/2/21, Jackson Height, Qns, NYC

duration,

of luz that ray of sun shines directly

into her hands

& to my lens

drops of rain stick

mudslides radio sd

winding roads through rolling mountains

& yes la luz into her hands


& green algae in fish tank behind her neon

cactus paddles outside window beyond table

textured oil images on pastel walls

rich in lime & lemon hues

she picked up her nachos

purchased by yrs truly from some corporate

chain w. fresco something in its name

& this might have been the last

smile I remember from her

her eyes closed her wheelchair

right up to that oak table one hand

at her mouth w. a tortilla chip covered

in scallions, cilantro & crema

her left hand in her lap

soft diagonals of jutting luz

& in her room bars of luz

to her hands & to my lens

& I think maybe that luz her papá who died two months prior

or maybe her mamá

or maybe our abuelo

or maybe her abuela

or maybe my abuela

& then down my gaze to her chair’s wheels’

sombras rodeadas de oscuridad y esqueletos

of spokes casting something mysterious

& shine to my lens yes shine brilla brillante

her darkness for she disappeared to death

in this shot spoken softly away

in three ways wheels intersecting

tears statues shed tears hard ones

torn faces & holes fill all abjections

torn rusted broken tears

shed & hard shadows & outside

bluest sky after hardest rain

see rain fell mostly hard

& from inside heard as hard

noted as rough

& outside banners waved

frayed edges of woven spirits strung together

this garden of luz & fire this day emerged

& she worsened w. my father

in her room as I wandered this jardín

de luz for photos & to understand

something abt death in this universe

& fat pomegranates reflected white sun

& drops of rain ran down fat globs

of light dripped down to earth

& in each drop suspended at its

apex before falling I thought that’s

duration right there

& over yonder fountains splashed water

shining sun for my delight

as I thought again yet back to Gloria

worsening inside

& oranges for Gloria to eat I gathered

gracefully offered

to which she gracefully in luz responded con cariño

no gracias primo, gracias

          Santa Barbara, California: 13 January 2010 

Under the Volcano

. . . of many desmadres destinies

  & first of magnificent & sacred agaves . . .

1

so Randy Rove led the way

up 5th Ave & around the corner

to a spot on 36th he sd where we

wd find swell company & sweet

agaves & already maybe I knew

I wd never be gone

this was 2005 . . . Manhatitlán

my new island, I was 25, finding

a life to breathe breaths of something

new, in this greatest of all living

cities

& Randy Rove sd he knew

a spot bc his old buddy he played ball

w. in college hailed from a fine Irish family

who ran bars across the street from one another

one of them Irish, one Mexican,

both literary as shit

& I thought truly I was living

in the best of all worlds

around this time

Lorcan was playing ball overseas

& so I first met his jefe Bob & also

a kind bartender whom I only ever knew

as “the Nurse” & who served me my first

mezcal, from a red clay bowl

& that medicine has never

been far away since, thank you, Nurse,

& I reckon thank you Bob bc

when I stepped into Under the Volcano

I felt I was somewhere where I cd be

me, all that Arizona farmboy bc

no doubt the Tejas in y’all, y’all knew,

& I abounded to ground myself

to that spot, a haunt where folks, folks of all colors

& classes cd appreciate aspects of San Patrician

friendship mezcal mexcellence, all

culture, which Arizona had done a number

shaming me to hide from, brownly, but which in NYC

I cd be, that Catrina from behind the bar

back then, a skeleton smiling at me saying

buenas brochacho

2

second year of graduate PhD program,

Randy Rove & I were in the Finnegans Wake

seminar led by Prof Epstein, badass scholar

knew the libro by heart, & maybe

looked a little bit like we imagined Bloom

& as I studied the book further, the Joyce-Beckett

friendship, mentorship intrigued me

the influence on the one to the other

composing that nightbook & in another class

I was studying “sleep” in literature

but basically reading all of Beckett,

making some idea in my cabeza

that the langauges of the Wake’re wide awake

living w. all possibilities & potential

never sleeping & that Beckett’s first works

imitated this image of allness to mythic

daydreams, but later his writing slowed

to rest w. mathematical minimalism,

efforted to prosaic sleep . . . yeah, working all

that thru btwn more red bowls of mezcal

& brews . . . along & along

first time I met Lorcan

after he returned from playing ball

I told him my sleepy theory, he listened, nodded,

listened closely, as he does, & poured

a libation, loosened up my future profe

voice, questions & insights, & added

ideas abt Borges to chew on.

More importantly for me, I met

another buddy who cd bounce off books

& then in another breath teach me

abt the joys of beers beyond Bud Light

all this I recall early of Volcano 1, there

was poetry, there were laughs, sirens

outside, there was Bob circulating from

one cantina to the next, sometimes

w. a drink in his coat pocket & of course

that time was short, as always, but even

when Volcano 1 closed, maybe I knew

it wd never be gone

3

I left to Kentucky but thankfully

found a place to land at Beer Street

& The Gingerman when wandering

back “home” in Nueva York,

which I knew I wd return to bc I cd

never be a weirdo anywhere else

& yes around this time

I started publishing books, shitty books,

but books, & my first “fan” cd only

ever be Lorcan, first person to request

a signed copy, also there for my first readings,

I remember that, buddy, bc if anybody knew

what I thought I thought I knew I tried

to do, probably that wd be the only

dude who listened w. a friend’s ear

& maybe I knew already the next few books

wd return to under the volcano

4

& then there was Volcano dos

Volcano Redux, different but the same

the same but different me

now 40, now back in Queens,

& new friends, Randy Rove there in spirit

but separated by time & space in Spain

& a new cast of characters

& thankfully for me, friends when I needed

friends most ever in my life

bc I was separated too, from a life

I lived during my thirties, married

an older me, more sensitive

& at that time in January 2020,

alone after ten years, reckoning

who I was, who I cd be, &

searching, & v. v. v. sad

the absolute bluest I have ever been . . .

but Volcano dos, back, strong

& new again, & that felt fine

for me, a symbol for me to return

to someone I used to know

a poet who used to sing songs

to grow as me again

& thankfully w. carnales

bc my sadnesses were always

there, where the poetry always

came from, what drove me from

Arizona, & here, to this star

to crush what made me blue there

& find what I set out to find

which was stories, & joys, tears too,

but life, to really love life, & no

doubt the tacos & mezcal helped

& maybe I knew it wd never be gone

5

& now, June 2022, a pandemic

raged the planet, & I step

back to ask where now

what stories will be

what poems will be

what songs

there were dark days, sad days,

empty days at The Volcano

for months, a little bar

that wd not quit, cd not quit

w. loyal friends

& there were bright days, like

this day, which is moving bc The Volcano

will be no more, but where

memories will lurk, the laughs

too, but firmly, like an agave,

the roots of friends holding

strong to earth, blooming once,

reaching to the sun, always

reaching, reaching upward to the sky

& maybe

never gone never really gone

bc see, they tried to bury us

but they never ever knew

we are seeds

17 June 2022

Jackson Heights, Queens, NYC