Blue Skies

At the Panamanian border Jack limped across the bridge with the woman and boy in tow. He hoped that it would be less stress than into Costa Rica. The bottle of Nica rum fit into his hind pocket covered by his shirt tail, he knew that he would need it shaking as he did. The hounds were on his heals and his cover was thin, he'd shaved and cut his locks but that fucking scar face of his would stick out like a sinner at church. They had been traveling with a group of Gypsy's but Jacks drunken misbehavior had the three of them ejected from the caravan. So there he was with a cut knee and broken ribs crossing the river bridge not to look back. The future was vague and the money thin, but with that bottle of Nica rum in his hind pocket, Jack owned the world under clear blue skies.

Spaghetti Hounds

Denny Blue lends a broken tooth smile
as he and Jack part ways.
Jack headed south
and Denny north.
Crossing the border
re-entry into
Costa Rica
the spaghetti hounds
rip at Jacks hair
and spray him with
DDT.

Casino Royal

Denny laughed so hard his tooth fell out.
He's on his way to a wedding in the cold lands.
Jack walked out of the casino
$2500 cordobas richer
buying drinks for all.
They ate drank and laughed
for $40 US.

11:00 am

It was hard for Jack to write without drinking, either he was hung over or drunk when he created the best.

that fucking Polack
sucking on Jack's security blanket
"I'm paying you tomorrow
for beer I drink tonight".
Denny Blue sick in bed
Lorenzo Pelon
making all laugh without language
licking shit dust and cookies from the street.
The night guard never witnessed such madness
in a place where
coffee is so thick
cream vanishes into a Bermuda triangle
and thirst for beer welcomes a Polack beating
A beer will taste great
at noon
because only alcoholics drink
before noon
and that's why my writing stinks

Pranksters and Drunks

After one month at the same place it started feeling like they we're living down there. They found all the outlets, they bought rum on the corner and cigars off the plaza, they drank prior to dinner at The Black Iguana and played billiards above the arches. the streets always covered with shit and the gutters flowed with gray water. Denny directed traffic and Jack awoke with the shakes eating fruit in bed and reading Miller's Tropic of Cancer, where cunts were so great they swallowed men whole. The boy had grown, not only physically, but his voice had changed. For the moment, time stood still as the rum spilled. Jack grew old in the Central American time warp with broken ribs and shakes in the morning. His wife was the strong hold, the one certain in life, she watched over them like broken sheep, catching Jack when he fell and filling his glass when it emptied. She made arrangements, she knew what day of the week it was, she retained the names of dark streets. She loved Jack deep into the night while the boy slept dreaming of some place sane far from here. It was if they themselves had become Merry Pranksters only they had missed the bus. They danced on 200 year old floors above the bartender, spilling drinks that found their way through the cracks in the floor onto the patrons below.
The monkeys had been trained to pick coconuts on plantations so it was easy for them to adapt to human tasks. Denny trained them to operate the blender and pour Pina Coladas. The monkeys had a hard time choosing which pineapples were ripe so every once in a while Denny and Jack fell ill to the toxicity. It was Fair Trade, The monkeys ate mangos on margarita days and bananas on daiquiri days. Fair Trade Alliance Monkey Co-operative.

Consequence

Here she comes
moving up on you slowly.
Montezuma's revenge
just got over
the consequence
of robbery
then a kick in ass by
bacteria
puking and shitting.
Antibiotics and new credit cards
will pull one through all the shit in the world
where we ride buses
sweating with locals
the ones tourists
dare to ride.
Denny Blue and a good buzz
diesel and dust
and all night long
short Nica skirts.

Skin

Jack fell hard from a bottle of Flor de Cana, scraping his knees and hand, his shirt covered with street dirt and shit from the gutter. All trust and honesty stolen along with the credit cards and camera. Denny Blue holds a helping hand assiting Jack from inner turmoil, discrase and distrust from an origin so deep, so unfamiliar, a place as solitude as alcoholism a place as pillow soft as dream and warm as blood, where self is discovered alone. Jack wears a skin of someone else.

Black Shirt

It's fucking pancake day when all Jack wants is eggs. His ribs sore as he snores into the morning of black shirt day. A fugitive on the lam with broken ribs and a hangover, with horse shit stains on his knees and Denny Blue loads a plane all bald, not trying to stick out with his mohawk light on pancake day when all Jack wants is eggs and beer and a glass with clam juice and salsa inglesa con picante to settle the hangover prior to Nica hands groping his back in the parlor of seeing hands. Jack lies on his bed all drunk in the dim lit room paranoid of federales planning an escape from the Spanish tile onto the neighbouring tin roof and down into the gutters of the rat town below where he runs from the gun-toting cops and squeaking doors of a fresh shaved face hiding identity and cashing in his chips in exchange for freedom in a smoky casino in the heart of the city where horse shit collects like dust fiber and the gutter and cut mangoes in plastic bags gather flies from the market where children sell their souls as the iceman chance his calls and church bells ring to the uninstructed artist on the shaded esquina drawing horse driven poverty passing in the heat as Jack hides inside at 1.75 liter bottle of Flor de Cana beside the bowl of melting ice he laughs at the night guard until he stirs his own paranoia and runs from his black shirt and ripped jeans into the full moon back alleys of Granada where Denny Blue hops a cab from the airport in Managua to help Jack's paranoia with some "O" that he picked up in Egypt prior to the takeover when Denny was there with his harem of young lust fucking and smoking "O" while Jack made raw deals with untrusting Russians and now on the lam in his black shirt all drunk spilling his eggs on the single bed sleeping in his jeans and running in his sleep from rooster crow calls and the blue water of the pool where Frida walks off her pain as a lady yells in the background in rhythmic trance selling "empanadas" "chicharons" and ice made from the rat tap that makes you puke till your teeth fall into the water in which the ice is made from and it's 11 in the morning and on the lam Jack hides from the sun in his bed with eggs and ketchup stains on his black shirt and white sheets in a single bed clashing with paranoia and broken ribs and the guard drinks rum until he doesn't know who's in and who's out.

Granada

Cigar smoke and rum
nights under black sky.
The International Poetry Festival,
a world wide collective
streets filled
poetry flows through microphones
to spill onto the streets
and pool in the gutters.

Sucking Cock

Jack fell hard shit faced drunk breaking his ribs on the edge of the foot tall brick wall. He knew that it was a form of redemption in spite of his attempts of initiating an orgy. "Servicio Completo', a bottle of Nica rum, a coke and a bucket of ice along with your own set of tongs in which to fetch the ice, all the allowance for great disaster. Cock fights and rum, put $150 cordobas on Jimmy's bird.
Sitting on the porch Jack witnesses a black cat crawl from the lagoon with fire eyes, the one they call "Chico Largo", the devil in animal form offering sex and money in trade for your soul, seven years of all you want only to disappear into fire.
Check into the hotel in Granada, greeted by an incarnation of Frida, inviting Jack into her room filled with dead black roses and lust, crutches and scares, pain and ejaculation.
Seven years of fucking and money in trade for body and soul, fame and vanity into the fire eyes of "Chico Largo".
Drink rum with no hangover and spend money that replenishes, no redemption for seven years.

Isla de Ometepe 2