P O E T B O R D E R L I N E poet line border three words from Tijuana marching up and down the page on the street scribbling in the long diagonal plaza daring yourself to double entendre border line poet - border poet line poet border line - poet line border line border poet - line poet border etcetera quotidian combination form six ways to say it from 3 X 2 perm-mutations with more chances of hitting the big one one in six every day than any stinking lottery lightning striking here or there on either side of our little border poet line so So! stop your pen in the plaza mouth of Sta. Cecilia detente la cabellaria - hold your horses where the first tourist wagons used to turn off the old dirt road up from the river here on the flat space where Junipero Serra camped 240 years ago it's grown now into the blighted booming downtown centro where you turn and walk through the thrice-paved plaza of Santa Cecilia sometime called Arguello diagonal street full of re - construction short-pants visitors buying tequila T-shirts on top of the latest rehab color-coded vision of yellow & red cement with accessory vendor kiosks from four painted corners petals of the Aztec world flower aye - aye it's been rebuilt, repainted, retouched once again you saw them digging up the Earth herself last spring examined the raw open trenches like some versemongering arqueolodilettante standing on the prior paving from post-Vietnam looked down to the gray concrete layer inside the ground of early-30s prohibition and under that ye olde west dirt dry brown depth upon primeval Sonora cobblestone but now Santa Cecilia's got a new dress shirt laid down by summer cement workers on top of ragged autumn pants until the diagonal block has become one long swirling two-headed feather coatl-snake from a scruffy eagle serpent head pointing ex-palacio fangs toward IMAC beak at 2nd & Constitucion from where their newly bending body turns all the way down its pedestrian street inlaid with concrete skin twisting in curves along the narrow plaza block towards the ear of corn rattle tail and second separate head pointing out new mariachi stage beside monster aluminum arch towering over Aztec world - flower xochitl in red & yellow plaza cement where dancers beat their drums every Sunday for tips and you STOP poet hold the horses of your pen to strike your match & scribble a cigarette smoke this verse outside the cheap market on the corner of First street beneath its fake aqueduct in the shadow of Hotel Nelson under the ten-storey tall millennium arch with gigantic hung-by-the-neck video scream beaming propaganda straight up Revolution Avenue from here bent over new cement plaza what already looks old yellow-red paving stained by gum, spit, candy, butts here you think of Pancho Morales' poems about the skin of this city and light this snake cancer taco smoke flash scratch struck fire @ five cents the booklet German shepherd pastor aleman relampago brand dog grinning on his cardboard cover your one-in-six lightning border line poet matches your inspiration in the mouth of Santa Cecilia patron saint of art and music ai mi querida santa your mariachis wait for driveby clients in suits of crisp black cotton shining with silver buttons calling out to passing cars waving their instruments at the ranchero narco pickups or vans only some guy with a good job taking his girl out for a serenade - who can tell the difference any more? - guitarron guitarra trompeta violin kiss their fingers with song poet these are your inspiration your living muse men beginning another night of bars and Mexican snacks smell your fresh tacos and spilt beer with Charles Bukowski at Tijuana cantina in spirit if not flesh stop wilderness singing beside and have a drink or three with thee and me . Aya yankee gringo enough Rubaiyat kiss your own fingers border poet line and touch the saint statue shoulder ai ya madrecita mia - beloved little mother quiero tu bendicion - give me your blessing your protection from government versus narco please no more police chiefs slaughtered with Sunday bullets driving the via rapida home from mass no special agents stuffed into sedan trunks no more traps for troubadors who die before they reach Bombay no dawn coming up like Kipling thunder no more death squad war of kidnapped silence no women raped and mutilated on the hills of Juarez no more cars driven off the mountain cliffs of la Rumorosa not even neighbors' dogs howling at gunshots in the night and no power who has barely yet been felt in the thousand years of m i l l e n n i a l terror now being born no nuclear jihad bomb blowing off fortress SanDiego collateral dust cultural damage cross-contamination smallpox gas dancing across our drinking fallout border line poet no shades of gray federal soldiers prowling these paper streets automatic pen rifles slung over their shoulders scribbling glances with border city police forces no more rams horns blowing apocalypse bullets outside drug money nightclubs ackack ack ack ack ack ack AK-47 headlines screaming in Spanish NARCO BATALLION DISAPPEARS devoured by crocodiles no, no, no, not tonight no war we must protect the weekend drinking tourists with verse poet line border make love not war poetry whore in that thrashing knot there before the gay bar no that's only the plaza badges beating transvestites who dared to touch a man right there . oh shit - don't look . turn away little gringo girls and boys turn away into MERCADO POPULAR for smokes tobacco, tobacco will keep them awake eleven twelve thirteen bucks the carton one-third the price of the other U.S. side smuggle them across to sell on the street pay for that other devil from hell itself crystal rock cocaine methamphetamine or something more sophisticated upscale ecstasy and drug rape in drinking clubs holy mother Santa Cecilia save me from their traps only find my satisfaction in tequila, beer, smokes no, my son, you must also take up your cross and write poetry Escribir, por ejemplo: "La noche esta estrellada, y tiritan, azules, los astros, a lo lejos." like Neruda if you dare compartir his starry night where they tremble blue in the distance filthy beast cigarettes azure smoke coiling snake like Satan assaulting heaven un-rolled into verses and lines less than two dollars a pack here in Mexico on a border zigurrat ci g a r e t t e s on this farthest river corner of homeland prime three thousand kilometers before any pyramid and they, no, we can all still smoke in restaurants and bars cafe cantantes from both sides of the frontier we can all write poetry in this valley where Junipero Serra camped 240 years ago on this same flat space this page above the river where he wrote in his diary : began this conquest of California today beyond Espanol . . . once upon a time in 1769 before this plaza was this place he found the land to be full of lovely fields where a beautiful stream of good water was running and we camped there, without approaching the nearby Indian village. It is a large piece of flat land a league more or less from the sea - or so it seemed to me. The animals pastured greatly there and ourselves, without any worries except to reach San Diego tomorrow.... well, stranger gringo from a foreign land some things have not changed without any worries except to reach San Diego t o m o r r o w but all the others yes are gone replaced drowned under the new holy megalopolitan see where your lines poet border on ex cathedra verse .