Puerto Negra

I’m behind a black door

then, a green one,

then  a turquoise one

then my casita and

yard out of Max Ernst,

growing while I watch…

time moves quickly now.

Outside the black door

the half a block freshly 

paved,  with cobblestones,

and a brick sidewalk wide 

enough for  a dog…a 

convent-like establishment 

directly across from my door…

two or three other great 

houses take up the rest

of the block behind their

Spanish walls.

Mine is the last place after

you enter the black door..

two casitas on  the right, 

down an open corridor,

a beehive of rooms on the left,
one outside wall missing,
open to the air, I think that's
where they cook....

directly behind the church…

my neighbor has the face of 

an  old Mexican satyr…he

kicks around a soccer ball

with his kids in the street.

I’m a black door man.

What if the first door was green,

the second, red…the third  black…

well, I guess, black is a good

place to start…. the first forty

years of my life ‘till I began 

to see the light….hear the music

of color…the forest green outside

my window…old women with

faces reflecting rainbow of years

walking the streets in their aprons…

army jeeps with a man on the

machine gun…young people

high on everything playing drums…

the aged San Fran hippie refugee,

smiling gap toothed in his tie dyes

with a trumpet or toy xylophone…

Huicholi maracami  selling beaded

fetishes…the Scot, selling his bread

off the back of his motorcycle.

outside the black door.