I Lost Two Poems

 

one was tall
vertical
handwritten
centered on the page
the name of the poem
was "wild horses"
about the stones song
written in a cafe
where they were playing it
well it was more
half bar/half cafe
lights were dim
and you could order beer
the poem was dedicated to bill
and he still hasn't seen it
because it is somewhere else
in a landfill
on a barge
being used
to line the nest of a crow
or lifted by the wind
across the mississippi
across the prairies
over the colorado
and into the mountain meadows
to land on the back
of a grazing mustang
surrounded by wildflowers
snowy peaks behind her

the other poem
was about
chicha and huaraz
huaraz and chicha
i wrote it in
in a friendly's notebook
in a cafe on lake st.
that serves cardamom lattes
(friendly's is the name
of the cafe/bar
where i wrote
the wild horses poem
and they sell notebooks)
and then after writing
the poem
i lost the friendly's notebook
and with it the poem
chicha is a drink
you make from
fermented corn
but i was writing about
the music chicha
which some people call
psychedelic cumbia
which i first heard
echoing out of the houses
facing the snowy peaks
of the mountains
in huaraz peru
i bought several cassettes
of chicha
and listened to them
in the mid 90s
i wasn't sure about
what i was hearing
the high register organs
the loping beat
the four-note lead-in
to each verse
like a quick appetizer
but i still kept flipping over
the cassettes
as I navigated milwaukee streets
walking in the shadows
of downtown towers and spires