Monday, August 5, 2013

Albino Carrillo


A Ghost Explains How He Passes from This World to the Next

The past as a memory
of the past, the last time
prophets like Kachinas
spoke to you in the mountains
above the casino
the reconstruction not quite
like a campfire
but not as the woods were either.
If there is something sullen
at your disposal, let me know--
I’d take the lake, that one in western
New York. Although
lately I've been thinking
of the waffle iron,
of clear French glass
which held cool beverages.

***

Doña Ana County & Beyond

I could smell the freshly cut
alfalfa at my grandmother's farm in Hatch,
that night ate fresh roasted corn & green chile
from an iron skillet she kept
hanging on a nail
next to the outdoor fire pit.
I can tell you I've driven
in the desert in the middle
of the night looking
for nothing except
the one great galaxy you can see
in the hills outside 
Tucson when there is no
moon and the dry
desert hurts your eyes,
even at night. 

And, if you need to know, my brother and I hunted
blue bellied lizards, horned
toads, red as the Gallup
hills, into the far afternoons
of distant Dinétah.
When my abuelito played
his fiddle, it was for bar gigs
for weddings--he possessed
a talent from the stars
but was far away
unknown, by day the postman
in Las Cruces. 40 years
of mail. He had a garden
that rivaled Babylon.
Thick red roses, irises, hollyhocks,
pecan and chinaberry
trees. That's all gone
now. And I am left to
write about the fate
of my friends and children
in this fiery life I stumbled
upon. One spring morning
when it was raining hard,
large drops, the sky was
black-green, free of life.
Listen:  right now, of
all things, Pachelbel
is playing on the radio
in the kitchen. I am in Ohio
with that woman
I met at the height
of the storm. My soul
remains scorched
by the New Mexico
sun, the high altitude,
the threat of radiation.

***

Calculations Done Under the Stars

The earth and macadam
painted your bare feet
like thunder clouds
in mid July display. That
your eyes
would be ashamed
not to take
me in. That I am
a ghost or will
be and somehow need
your experience to guide
me, for now. The road
is broken. By fate
your road and mine
have met on a stretch
of land neither of us
ever imagined. From
all the darkness, of
night, of the thin soul,
I have arrived in light
alongside you, in
this hallway, merely
talking. Is there
not something
I’ve always seen in you?
One word
describing the nameless
stars weeping over
their own nakedness,
one word
that is not yet breathed
for we both fear the lies
the yellow moon tells in August.
We are both here--
on this road
looping like a möbius strip,
on this road that returns
us to the granite facts
of loneliness, the plaintive
confession that all's
not as right as it should be,
that the morning glories
blooming in the hot, early sun
mean more than the nameless skies.

***
***

1 comment:

  1. Really cool stuff, Albino. Nice to see you here. It is a formidable place.

    ReplyDelete