Fall 2008, Volume 5

Poetry by Raul Ruiz

Untitled (A poem with the stomach flu)

I think, wanting to be anywhere else than here
sick under a summer sun and too homesick for words,
of the rain coming down
the glowing Marcy's
the glowing headlights of cars
the lavender plants feeding off the drops drinking the
      air believing in truths built on dirt
      on the hurting hands of our fathers the
      fingernails always caked with dirt
the open bookstores wild notes on O'Hara Cisneros Twain
      a pair of thin ankles rising to feel
      old Whitman on a high shelf breathing its
      own ink tasting its own pages
a loud Fingerprints only record store to know what I was
      talking about, Sun Ra flying through black
      speakers I ask someone is that really an organ
      sounds more like earth splitting, what the fuck
the many windshields showing the outside no-sun colors
      colors belonging to my old grandmothers who
      loved and cried when their husbands died and know
      the dirt of Chihuahua to be a quiet skin that
      heals with the touch of a little girl sleepy at two
I think of the rain and I think of the umbrellas making
      all the girls look like models for salt even the
      ones with the mean look and tight pants
      with thick wrists and violets for tongues


BIO:  Raul Ruiz has an Associate degree from Long Beach City College and will graduate from California State University, Long Beach, in May, 2008, with a BA in English. He plans to pursue graduate school.