| Muses Review - Poetry - Summer 2005 |
| Back to: Poetry. |
| Charles P. Ries poetry: |
LOS HUESOS (the bones) by Charles P. Ries Source: Monje Malo Speaks English, p.10 I sit with the dead tonight. I have brought my father's tobacco and my grandfather's beer. Between their tombstones, I light a sparkler and (with eyes open) imagine them standing and dancing before me. So I get up and dance with them, turning, spinning, and falling to the ground. As I catch my breath, I look up to see their smiles shine down like porcelain stars. They point at me "There's our boy, he's come to drink and smoke with us. He loves the lost ones with a heart as big as heaven and inhales our graves as if they were fields of red roses." The beer widens my eyes, makes the deep night opaque. Revealing a tribe of dead lovers who protect us from devils and demons, insuring our first communions and last rites, ready to welcome us back home with cold soft hands. The graveyard is full. The living and their dearly departed sit in tight family circles telling old stories that recall ancestors whose names have now been given to babies. We pass funeral cards, rosaries, and wedding rings among us - tiny monuments to people whose portraits hang along the stairs leading to the cellar where we make our candles, crush hot peppers, and shed our tears. We slice lemon cake, eat chicken breasts, and drink tequila in the Cemeterio de Santa Rosa. The ghosts are all brown, except mine. Pale faces who've passed over - German, pot bellied, serious white people, who, in life, had things to accomplish. We sing and dance to all the dead gone. Mock death and remember a cast of bit players who slip into our dreams with whispers just before dawn. As I pour my tequila into the earth I see their spirit mouths open and skeletons rise to dance three feet above the ground. White vapor swirling like clouds. Sweet misty blankets that embrace the tombs of my family. --------------------------- NOTE: This poem is from Monje Malo Speaks English, Page 10. I often go to Mexico. Last year I was there to celebrate the Day of Dead. A night when friends and relatives go to grave yards to be with their dearly departed. While there they eat and drink the food most loved by their dead friends. --------------------------------------- THE LAST TIME by Charles P. Ries Source: Monje Malo Speaks English, page 20. I was thinking about the last time I was in love. When I realized she was thinking the same things at the same time as I was. The constant erection, forgetfulness and tears. Everywhere was a bed. Everyday our hearts bled into buckets big enough to wet the thirst of 1,000 red roses. Do you suppose love - true love - parts the curtain and allows angels and night visitors to circle this light? A light that smells like cinnamon and sounds like children's whispers. We had only to breathe the same air to believe it. Seven months later she returned to her husband and the sad chains. Love hasn't shown up since, except when I find her in the features of people I see. This nose, those eyes, that chin. They remind me of the last time I was in love. ---------------------------------- NOTE: This poem is form Monje Malo Speaks English, page 20. I love the work of the late, Albert Huffstickler. In this poems I tried to write in a manner of the great Huff. |
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| Charles P. Ries, Poet from Wisconsin |
| The poems are copyrighted to Charles P. Ries. Poems are published in Muses Review with permission from the author. |