day of the dead dream / as per instruction

toothy deadheads
sugar skulls leer at the exiled
falangist’s autoerotic
death by hanging
& the bolshevik’s ice pick
mambo

the streets of pachuca on the day of the dead

feral cats wail in diego rivera red
birds puff into frida kahlo clouds
& fill the empty spaces in air

quetzacoatl appears
headdress plumes aflame
chest pockmarked with
american bulletholes, circa 1848

his axe bearing
the head of alfredo garcia
while peckinpah hovers
staring from black bulletholes

&

in thee guadalupe hidalgo hovel
a disembodied voice reads canonical poets
in a basso profundo that peels the paint off the walls
men called jesús gather at the window
smiling the toothless smiles of the zapatistas

to the south
the subcommandante downs another brandy
defaces a pri poster
& crushes an errant sugar skull with
a mirror-shined combat boot
wondering
99 years after the revolution
if zapata ever had it this good

& why the hell trotsky came
on the day of the dead
to eat so many sugar skulls

image courtesy of icarian times.

“I don’t write out of what I know; I write out of what I wonder. I think most artists create art in order to explore, not to give the answers. Poetry and art are not about answers to me; they are about questions.”
— Lucille Clifton