Hernando/Fernando
1Hernando Fernandez played cowboy games
against imaginary Indians;
sometimes he was the hatchet man
with skin of caramel brown,
I, six-gun shootin' sheriff
milk-chocolate white in a no-name town,
a hero, posse-less, fightin' savagery.
We raced through dry deserts
emerald green resplendent leas.
Upon me unsuspecting
silently, I let him
nudge his knife,
dull, flaccid, harmless
with no handle grip
pressed flat against my back
just below the curving hip
bone, guttural gurgling ghetto lip,
moans and groans he learned at home,
cross cultural shack attack,
and I succumbed
and let him have his way –
record, rewind, replay:
Surrender!
Now the hero has his turn to play
to win
lose or draw–
a tragedy that no one saw
coming.
2
I rope my prey air-lassoed
to the ground
no other scout to hear
brave sounds
emitting from his encircled throat
my arms around his hairless chest
arm-locked
my shadow and me
front to back
gun loaded
ready to aim, fire blanks
(it is too soon for stark reality)
and he feels the barrel in his back
pressing hard
just below the curve of hip
bone (déjavu)
wriggling, wrestling
trying to wrest the rod
from me
before it might accidentally
explode before its time.
I maintained full control:
Surrender!
On cue, stop action,
reverse the view
full face to face
we both
Surrender!
3
We rested, Hernando and I,
white man and redskin
interchangeable foes
beneath pale sun-bleached sky,
he looking out
I seeing in
him a new freshness
(who knows what I wanted
from him, me, us;
but, he, my friend,
felt us pouring liquid
into one cup of us,
concentric circles,
growing wider, flatter
than the one succeeding it
disappearing into itself,
that pool of us,
Hernando and me,
droplet in a people sea
of so many seamen, more
who know nothing of
Fernando Hernandez?
Hernando Fernandez?
whatever he was called -
a dearest friend to me.
Poetry by NotaDeadPoet
Read 856 times
Written on 2007-01-05 at 05:09
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