Davey Smith , Poet

Davey Smith is a physician by day and poet by night. He's also the host of Montage Monday, which is an open poetry group at the Bluestocking Books in Hillcrest. If you're in the neighborhood some Monday night at 7pm, stop in and talk a little poetry. His personal poetry website: www.squashthebug.com Poems by Davey Smith

Cilantro


Seduced by the smell
of cilantro
the blade slips to slice
my thumb
spilling blood into the green
like Christmas,
and the wounded, warm
in mouth, tastes a lot
like you.

A Revolution Uncommitted
A tiger in a cage
A Picasso in the attic
A beautiful woman in an ugly man's bed
A Welty story in a forgotten folder
A red rose in a crystal vase
A secret talent
A secret desire
A secret love
A lion in a zoo
A bear in a circus
A butterfly in a net
A caged man
A homeless woman
A hungry child
A truthful poem
on a discarded napkin

Barcelona


I

Rain becomes water
sweeping the streets to the gutter.
Nothing is washed away.
Secrets hide in doorways
protected from the wind
at the bus stop
in an alley
under a homeless man's coat.
They loom in stained glass
breaking light into rainbows on the sidewalk.

II

Clinging to the side of the cathedral
a stone saint
drops a dry tear
to the street below.
Eyelids do not flicker
fast enough
to stop the fleck,
you cannot see
but will forever feel.
It is the secret of Barcelona,
the seed of sand
at the heart of the pearl
on an oyster pillow.
It is the ring of soft green
of your right eye.
The iridescent oyster that
learns the lesson
and shuts its shell
to never see the sea
Again.

III

The secret of Barcelona
is not spoken in Spanish.
It is not spoken at all,
but whispered
on the streets by guitars
in the heat of the afternoon
while all who rooted for the bull, sleep.
The bull who died young, sinless and fighting.
The matador who will die old and in bed
wishing he were still in the ring
with the roses on the ground by his dusted boots.
So it is the secret of Barcelona
that the young can live with the old
and still be young
and the old can live with youth and still remember
that they knew the secret first.
Tell me
what Columbus knew,
so when I go forward from here,
not left or right,
but forward
I'd come back
where the secret of Barcelona
is written in little tiles
of different colors and shapes
to jewel a mosaic alley wall
where men
drunk on sangria
pee.

IV

It is what Picasso meant to tell us.
The death of the bull
and the life of the matador.
It is the flight of fifty pigeons,
the curve of an old woman's back,
the sharp corner of a young man's eye
that does not close fast enough
to stop the seed of sand
that has seen the sea
and is the heart of the pearl.
The secret within a secret.
Rain becomes water
sweeping the streets to the gutter
Shh, shh, shh. listen
to the whispering guitar.

>>Back to top<<

Brown

Brown and dark-skinned
I am the color of my people
chocolate like sparrows
a color as deep as anger

Café

Yo soy café, de piel morena
Yo soy el color de mi gente,
chocolate como un gorrión
un color tan profundo como
el café coraje.

by Kevin Velasco
Grade 6, San Ysidro Middle School
originally published in Border Voices

From San Diego Writers Monthly publishes California Writers, California authors, new writers, offering readers info on how to get published, from literary agents, writing coaches, San Diego editors on editing, self-publishing how-to, publishing chap books and short-run books, book doctors, ghost writers, San Diego authors events, interviews of writers, book reviews, free readings, book signings, free stories, online fiction, poetry workshops, free novels, free essays, free ideas, science fiction, humorous stories, rants, funny essays, copywriting, freelancing info, and musings about living on this lonely planet circling a lonely star.