Saturday Morning Haircut

I hated the iron stool, the black barber's drape,

And especially the buzzing, vibrating clippers

Who seemed to take great delight

Irritating the back of my scalp

Every Saturday morning.

The bare and cold black iron stool

Whined quietly with me,

But after a thousand hours

The hard, flat, iron, stool bit

The bones in my butt.

Dad's voice frowned, “Stay still.”

The clippers were mean,

Laughing at my miserly.

They sent electric charges

All the way down my back,

Down to my right thigh,

Making it want to wiggle off the stool.

Dad's voice smacked my ears, “Stay still!”

I was imprisoned on that iron witness stand,

With a black barber's drape

Covering every part of me,

From my top of my neck down

To the soles of my shoes.

I wished he had gone to work,

On his mailman route,

Delivering bills, and birthday cards.

Instead of making sure

Every single, tiny hair on my head

Was exactly the appropriate length.

I wished that he had never

Gone to barber school.

After the whole morning lay wasted

Along with my hair, on the floor,

My dad would take his silky, soft brush,

And whisk what little hair was left

Off my face, my neck, and the drape.

I wanted to go play,

To get away from the iron stool,

from the clippers.

But no!

“Sweep up the hair and put the stool away.

Before you go out to play.”

Dad oiled his clippers,

Cleaned his brush,

Shook out his black barbers drape,

And folded it like he was still in the Navy.

The wind teased and licked

The back of my freshly shorn head

While I swept up my own hair

From around the cold black iron stool

Every Saturday morning.

Retablo Twisting Twirling Lessons

I didn't understand you, my dear retablo,

Dancing your magical, spiritual, love filled lessons

With your twirling, twisting, outstretching arms

Every morning at six. 

Four years I stared at your dance,

But I didn't yet speak your language.

I didn't know that each twirl, each saint, each leaf

Taught through each twirl, each twist,

Each outstretching of a hand or leaf.

Faithfully, I followed the rules the teachers in black cassocks,

and stiff white collars demanded.

I memorized their lessons while not understanding yours,

In your twirls, your swaying hips,

And your twisted, twirling sing song language.

I stared at your dance every morning at six

I inhaled the incense, sang songs of praise,

Folded my hands and prayed.

And still did not understand your twirling, twisting language.

You snaked your lessons around and around.

You danced and twirled louder and louder.

But I didn't hear your undulating, snaking language

That you danced for me every morning at six.

I stare now at a photo of your twisting snaking dance,

Frozen for four hundred years.

Again, I see your undulating, snaking

Twirls and swirls, and your outstretched arms.

Now each morning when I get up at six,

I rise and ride above twirling snakes

Along the river, under the snaking clouds

Who continue your lessons in a

Language I am almost old enough

To understand.

I love to dance and twirl throughout the day

With my undulating, snaking body

Re-interpreting the lessons

You tried to teach me

Every morning at six.

Shirt Off My Back

“Let's go see a movie,” Earl invites

over the phone.

“What's playing?”

“Who cares! Mid-terms are over.

We need to celebrate!

I arrive on my motorcycle,

Earl in his car.

I can't remember what we watched;

But it is dark and cold

When we get out.

Earl takes off his long sleeve shirt.

He winks,

“I am literally giving you the shirt off my back.”

We laugh,

I put it on and we go our separate ways.

Twelve years later

I ask a nurse.

“Is there a place I can take a shower?

I need to run my worry down.”

She shakes her head.

“Not here, not on this floor.

Go down to pediatrics

They have showers for parents.”

The elevator door opens

I run to the first nurse I see

“Can I take a shower here?”

The Nurse turns.

Linda’s eyes glow with joy filled recognition.

“Mushroom!” She hugs me.

“What are you doing here?”

I tell her our son is upstairs.

He's been hit by a Buick

While riding his motorcycle.

She gives me another hug

And leads me to the showers.

I didn't know Linda called Earl.

The next day, Earl walks in

To the trauma unit walking

Side by side with Linda.

“I had to call him ,” Linda says.

“You're his best friend.

He flew in this morning

from the east coast.”

I hug Earl and cry,

“What a good friend you are!

You really didn’t have to come

All this way.”

“I had to come.

I'll do anything,

I'll even give you the shirt off my back,

Again, if you need it.”

Now, they come to me with their grief,

They come tired, teary eyed, and cold,

Without their dead sons,

Without their dead daughters.

I sit and listen to their sad stories,

Even though I've heard them before.

I sit and wait without saying a word

When a lump in their throats chokes all their words.

I give them my heart

As we sit together and talk.

I give them my presence.

Because I am one of them,

I give them the shirt off my back.

Shed De Doe by Mushroom Montoya

Jeremy walks into my home office,

I look up, giving our son a receptive smile.

His eyebrows want to do battle

As they roll their shoulders toward each other.

His words punch his frustration,

“I couldn't find it.

I already looked in the dictionary.

It makes no sense.”

Our son is holding a book

Whose cover displays a bushy, white-haired,

Mustachioed, white man, Samuel Clemmons.

The title is Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.

Using his thumb to hold the page

Preventing the conundrum from falling out,

Jeremy opens the book

His eyes stomp on the letters.

“It's spelled s h e d d e d o.”

My hand opens, making its request.

His feet slog slowly, elephant style.

He points to his discontent, his frustration.

I gag my grin, quieting it for the moment.

"You can't speed read this Southern author.

It took him too long to say each word

In the sweltering heat of Hannibal, Missouri.

Pretend you are a poor, uneducated, Southern boy

Who just walked into a slave’s home.

It’s winter and bitterly cold.

What does the slave say to you?

Let his words drip out like molasses."

Jeremy’s eyes ask, what?

A deep inhale, a slow exhaust.

"Shed de doe.

It be code out dayah."

We both burst out laughing.

Mom Loves To Scare Us

Mom Loves To Scare Us.

Denise scared me this morning.

As I ran up the stairs

She stood in wait

in the closet.

I jumped and then laughed 

And gave Denise a high five.

Denise is the mother our children.

Through her, my mother scared me this morning.

Our whole married life

We have copied this ritual

This hilarity my mother taught me:

Scare the bejeesus out of them

And then laugh.

My mom laughed when I fell.

She told me I did a great flip

Or she'd ask the table if I hurt it with my crash.

And then she'd laugh.

You don't need to suffer.

Look at the dog;

He bumps his head, shakes it off,

And continues to play.

And then she'd toss her head back and bark-laugh

Pretending to be a laughing dog.

She'd hide behind the couch,

Or the behind the curtain and wait

as we came in the door from school.

BOO! She'd jump out

And squelch our scream with her laughter.

When she wasn't laughing

She would listen to whomever

Or whatever was talking

She knew the plants could talk.

People told me what a good listener she was.

She was.

She listened with great interest

When I told her about my friends,

About what I did today.

She cried with me

When the police told me I couldn't

See my girlfriend

Because I looked like a Mexican

She stood beaming with pride

At the LA county Museum.

She giggled and pointed to my nude photo

Displayed on the Museum wall.

Take your clothes off so they know

It's you in the photo.

She had a magic side.

My mother knew somehow

When things were amiss,

Even 800 miles away.

She ran into the house

Her eyes pulling her to the phone.

“George are you OK?

What? Florinda got hit by a bus, just now?”

How did she know those things?

I know those things now.

Although I don't know how,

But I know.

Our mom had a sneaky smile

That got my gut to vibrate,

Knowing she was up to something,

Always something to make us laugh.

Eccentric Authenticity

They tell me I’m eccentric.

“Well, duh!” says paint brush wielding Lola,

The most eccentric of my aunts,

As she paints flowery eyeballs onto skulls.

Why do you care?

They aren't your family

Tell em' to go to hell

If they don't like you.”

We are all the same,

I've been taught.

I am a minority,

I've been designated.

I am weird and not like anyone they know,

I've been told.

I can shape shift and almost fit in

Wherever I am,

But I like being around the odd ones,

The weirdos who know

They are fine, delightfully fine

With themselves.

I found them Big Sur

When I hid under a mountain of pillows.

We danced while beating our drums

As the spirits took us to see

Coyotes and Pumas, who embraced us with love.

I know that I have a tribal connection,

And affection for those who vibrate

To the songs in our hearts

To the music that makes us dance

To the rhythms of our lives.

We went skinny-dipping in a mountain lake

And shivered our laughter

As we scrawled poems in the water

Of how Coyote gifted us with imagination.

My soul hears them

Flapping their winged flutes,

Tap dancing on their fluid drums.

Performing their symphony.

I heard one laughing in Sri Lanka,

Wearing an orange robe while perusing my warship.

He invited me to the market,

Where we shared smiles while eating lychee fruit.

When I meet my vibratory siblings

My heart swells as our eyes embrace.

We feel each other’s authenticity

Wrap around our shoulders

Like a heated blanket on a cold winter night.

I found them running nude up Tiger Mountain

Where we ended our race and listened

To the giant fir tell us how beautiful

Our unadorned bodies are.

My aunt Lola paints skirts on skeletons as she says,.

I like you best when you don't try to please me.

I love you when you are being

The best authentically eccentric you

You can be.

Peekaboo Pill Box

The blue plastic peekaboo pill boxes

Of my required medications

Tease me each morning while they

Reveal what needs to be ingested

To keep my body viable, today.

And incidentally,

The empty blue plastic peekaboo pill boxes

Tell what days are empty, 

Used up, consumed, and discarded

Into the maybe I'll remember bin.

It didn't use to be this way.

I used to know what time it was

By the position of the sun,

By the tugging of my stomach,

Whispering, feed me, when I was at the beach.

Even though I know what day it is,

According to the empty blue plastic peekaboo pill box,

I can't help but wonder who

Snuck in and stole all the days before.

I look in the mirror and see a body,

The same one I saw yesterday

But not the one I saw sixty years ago,

When I got out of bed on a lazy summer morn,

When there were no

Blue plastic peekaboo pill boxes

Waiting for me.

Now, I see my childhood friends

Who look like old people,

As old as my grandparents,

Wrinkled, grey haired, and slow,

With their own

Blue plastic peekaboo pill boxes

Teasing them in the morning.

Overgrown distorted freckles

Decorate my hands and arms.

Where did they come from?

Did they hop on my arms

Last summer on my hundred mile

Bike ride to San Diego?

When I was 12 I rode 12 miles to

Knotts Berry Farm and thought

That it took all day,

Because it did, back then, before

Empty blue plastic peekaboo pill boxes

Told me what day it was yesterday.

Who are these kids that call me grandpa?

Who want me to pick them up or

Who wrap themselves around my leg,

Sitting on my feet, laughing, and giggling,

While I carry them one leg lift at at time?

I wonder if one day they, too, will have

Empty blue plastic peekaboo pill boxes

Telling they what day was yesterday,

And giving them the wherewithal

To ride their bikes 100 miles to San Diego?