The problem with Little Fish
was that he couldn’t drink
and paint at the same time.
He sprayed our entire Victorian house blue.
Windows, trim, pipes, doors,
everything,
and then reclined against the fence
with his all-Indian crew,
beer can in hand,
as if reveling in a job
well done.
I don’t know if they planned to go back and
scrape the windows and doors,
repaint the trim,
or if they’d just forgotten to tape
and were too drunk to give a damn,
but that’s how we found them,
drunk against the fence and laughing,
when my father pulled his ‘56 Chevy pickup
into the driveway.
I’ll never forget the look on Little Fish’s face
when my father heaved the garbage barrel over his head
and dumped what must have been
a hundred beer cans
at Little Fish’s feet.
Little Fish looked down at the
sprawling mound of aluminum
for a long time,
and finally into my father’s eyes,
and then up at the house,
which was blue on blue on blue.

-- Johnny Cordova

He was the toughest kid
in the neighborhood,
twelve years old,
in and out of juvenile hall
already.
I’d heard he carried a switchblade
and had used it to stab a high school boy,
that he broke into houses
and stole a car.
I’d never met him before,
only heard the stories,
until he walked up
to where I was shooting baskets
in my driveway after school
and asked if he could
have a shot.
I passed him the ball
and we took turns shooting.
He wasn’t particularly skilled,
neither was I,
but I was surprised that he was so polite,
passing the ball back to me when I made a shot,
taking a shot himself when I missed.
I did the same
and we shot around like that
for a good hour,
observing schoolyard etiquette ,
until my mom called me in to eat.

After that he always stopped
when he saw me.
We’d shoot around
without talking,
never talking,
and when he was ready to leave
he’d say, later,
and walk off
with his head down.

Sometimes when walking to
the park with my friends
to play football,
or baseball,
depending on the season,
I’d see him walking alone,
he was always alone,
and he’d nod his head
from the other side of the street
or casually wave to me.

I never asked him to join us.
I sensed that he wouldn’t have wanted to
and I didn’t want to put him on the spot.
But it felt good to be the only friend
of the toughest kid in town
and I think he felt good about it
too.

-- Johnny Cordova

Nobody really trusted Gypsy.
He lied, he stole, he cut bad deals,
talked you down behind your back.

He liked to brag about his powers,
carried around a Tarot deck, claimed to see
the future on your palm, said anyone who
crossed him would suffer his spells.

Still, he was considered harmless,
until these two Indians came from South Dakota,
two Sioux on the bum,
chasing drink,
riding out the wrecked circle of their lives.

They found one of the Indians lying in a doorway,
an ice-pick stuck in his neck.
Word was, Gypsy did it.

Some said it was a simple argument,
others a bad deal.
Nobody knew.

But the Indian didn't die.
Five months later
four Sioux showed up.
They didn't say much, just sat in People's Park,
passed the bottle in a circle.
They never asked anyone about Gypsy, who
couldn't be found anywhere,
and then they were gone.

Gypsy seemed disoriented after that.
He wasn't bragging about his big magic anymore,
didn't have the same enthusiasm for his stories.

The Indians never returned.
And later that summer
Gypsy disappeared for good.

Almost a month went by before
anyone even realized he was gone.

-- Johnny Cordova

A Berkeley high school student
sits next to me on the BART train
and opens a black and white composition book
to pages of poems scrawled out in longhand.
They are free association mainly,
psychedelic word play,
over-reaches at meaning,
the kind of stuff I’m embarrassed to admit writing
when I was his age.
There’s nothing I can say or do to help him.
He’s got to write himself through it
and if he’s honest with himself,
if he keeps going through bad times,
if it’s in him,
he might finally arrive
at what needs to be said.
In the meantime, we race along the bottom of the bay
through the tunnel to San Francisco.
It’s late on a Friday afternoon and
I can see our reflection in the window
as blue light streaks by
and the high screech of steel on steel
leaps from wall to wall.
Not too long ago I would have
written about how pathetic this boy is,
how terrible the odds are against him.
Now I think, at least there are two of us here
who are still more interested in poetry
than surfing the internet.

-- Johnny Cordova

Every morning I sit on this mountain
and watch my thoughts swirl and disappear
into the great river of mind.
I am no longer seeking enlightenment.
If enlightenment wants me
she knows where I live.

I have been a thoughtless man,
banished from the company of others
because for too long I sought
my own pleasure and gain
at the expense of ones
who needed me.

Now I sit alone on this mountain,
through wind and sun and snow,
in this second life,
and I pray for the seasons
to break me down.

And this mountain has gotten inside of me.
I hear it rumbling through my hollow bones.
It rises in me like a dark sun,
sure and devastating,
slower than the slowest time,
until I no longer know
if what remains is me
or the mountain.

-- Johnny Cordova

I talk to my grandmother maybe
once a year, usually on her birthday,
and the last few times she has had the same response
when I’ve asked her how she’s feeling.
“I’m ready to die,” she says.
And she means it.

She’s 84 yrs old and despite
being almost completely blind
will not allow the words “nursing home”
to be spoken in her presence.

My other grandmother died five years ago,
after years fearing every ache and pain,
of complications from a spider bite.

Both grandfathers have been dead a long time,
one from 33 years of breathing black dust
in the coal mines of southern Colorado,
the other upon falling out of a row boat
with wading boots on.

I like the way my grandmother’s going out.
No complaints, no despair, no denial of the facts.
She sits and listens to baseball games
through the television screen that she can no longer see,
gets up to fix herself lunch,
stumbles over a table leg,
catches her balance,
lights the burner on the stove.

-- Johnny Cordova