Today I Will Wander To the Brothel

today i will wander to the brothel those divine friends of Jesus where i will intercourse with the ladies in my growing Spanish write some lines to ponder while they wash clothes and bathe i the balneologist with the brandy we watch t.v. novellas share laughter, sip the liquor risibility creeping as jungle vines laughing at and with the world while summer's oppression lies outside above the tropical fan in perpetual motion until a tempest rips reality away we toast those in some new york dinosaur grasping at a decade of some man's thought to gas pedals working Los Angeles over and over we drink to the flies breeding everywhere parents who offer their children to prostitution thievery, starvation, war, slavery trains arriving, children sold to factories making cheaper goods, cheaper life, and tennis shoes it was in Belize i noticed Howler monkeys abandon no child at some border we drink to the religions performing miracles everywhere but the hospital granted it is God's domain collections for the orphanage minus the commission a lady at the orphanage wanted you to know and if you listen they will blame God for all of this humans demand perfection in everything but themselves the detritus looks to me like manmade today i want to voyage into laughter's oblivion here where the ladies busy the day prepare for the night escaped from the rum tabula rasa here is my escape from my hovel the dictionary i have already read once outside the mountains scream, slash, burn here i share shots sharing conversations in the mother tongue the one so rare for the poet to rise above never venturing here at night where the customers have their fill later one will walk to town, get a taxi they will load the poet and papers in i stare back to the alohas, adios those divine friends of Jesus will throw away the empty bottle the taxi knows these times the road thru the neotropical forest thoughts lost in leaves, limbs, alcohol the driver helps me upstairs finds the key, opens the door the desk has come to know he does this a few times a month when he goes to the post office, bank he pays the bills come morning the bed accepts the cigarette burns he must leave his jungle hovel where the lines consume him remembering now the woman euroretarded, who explained sex was all the poor have for pleasure as i left the hotel i left her a jar inside was a a pig's liver the note attached simply said have the men warm this for pleasure it will produce no more abandoned children today he wants no mind he only wants laughter's oblivion Jesus and friends so, Olga, i finished the story i never came to condemn nor condone sip brandy, chat awhile, forget outside those fires raging across the mountains i just wanted to be with my sisters learning the mother tongue during the day when the whoremongers sleep the men have come to resent my smiles fear the ladies have shared their secrets as i traverse the pueblo i wonder how your killer is doing i hear he found Jesus in jail i found Jesus in you remembering midnite mass, people staring prostitute, poet, brother, sister the true family is not always sanguineous you taught me my first prayer in Spanish Jesus hanging on the cross smiling for the first time just us girls having fun that was all we ever wanted tonight my heart lies broken i am crying again teach me to forgive, Olga where once i had a beating heart now a tempest rages and in life, i must go on teach me to forgive that your memory enriches my life with a virtue a friend of Jesus taught me forgiveness San Blas 92 Patient Stones Encased in talent like a uniform The rank of every poet is well known They can amaze us like a thunderstorm Or die so young Or live for years alone Wystan Hugh Auden