Poetry: Selections from Facundo Rompehuevos

The time of monsters

it's strange to think there are millions

perhaps billions, of poets in the world

millions who stare at their paper or

screen and write about what they think is

important—i mean, that's all there is,

there's nothing else, nothing transcendental

it's not that big of a deal, like doing the

laundry or going to the bathroom, a driving

test, a last will and testament, it's both

serious and trivial at the same time, a unity

of opposites

they are bloodless, inorganic like the

mechanisms of a camera documenting with

precision the world around them

shutter-speed fingers typing and they take

good pictures—framing is key to any cage

they make a life out of it; they go to school

for it; they've invented degrees

professorships, courses and seminars

unironically; and they charge you money

straight to your face; woe is the tattered

scribe with holes in his pockets

they barely write and mostly scream with

broken mouths—their tongues were severed

in prison or childhood accidents—their teeth

have been knocked out—their throats

overflowing with bile and blood—ugly

violent monsters with little self-control

they fight, they fight, fight themselves at

times, because they can't see anything else

experts in experience—they taste things

ingest things and get sick: that's how they're

able to throw up so much, so violently

since people first learned to chisel on the

cave wall, they've always first had to break

the stone—there has always been a need for

violence

Small noble things

my mother gave me sugar cubes

to calm me down when my dad

would toss over the furniture

and crack the bat on the walls

and kick the television and punch

the windows

sometimes it worked, sometimes it

didn't

but he also gave me a toy chainsaw

when i was in elementary school

because i didn't have anything

to bring to show-and-tell

my brother lent me money

when things were hard

my abuelita would give me pesos

to buy candies from the corner store

a sugar-tooth i never outgrew

the alcoholics and junkies at the

meetings sharing shameful

confessions—the valor of fuck it

the day laborers at the corners

sharing stories of breaking

the cabinets or the drywall they

installed when the employer

woudn't pay, que se vaya a la verga

pues

a private and profound mantra

it is what it is, caí lo que caí,

así es, cuando te toca,

te toca, sí o no güey?

the families who fight and hide

from the cops, from dpss

from the landlord who would

call the sheriffs it it came down

to it, who they'd also fight if the

time came

the vendors who call you joven

even though you're not

and let you pay next time for the

bacon-wrapped street dog

no te precupes mijo

the ones who have dedicated

their lives, however bad

to noble things, however small

Ecclesiastes 3:20

the wound on his thumb had gotten so bad

and he had gotten so high that the combination

made him hallucinate chubby white worms

crawling in and out of his old, black and oozing

scabs

he scrubbed it raw, thinking it would get rid of

the worms but it only gave them more exposure

and enthusiasm

in a moment of half-lucidity/half-sobriety

and pure terror he finally went to the ER

where the doctors promptly kicked him out

because he was too high, rambling about the

worms

dejected, he wept for the loss of his thumb

now certain it would either be devoured by the

fat worms or that it would just fall off like a

dried and dead branch of a tree

so he found a nice shady spot underneath a tree

in a nearby park and lay down, closing his eyes

and giving himself to the earth, hoping it would

have him and not reject him because of all the

fentanyl coursing through his polluted and ruined

veins

Facundo Rompehuevos is an activist, writer, husband, father and recovering alcoholic and drug addict born and raised in the San Fernando Valley. He writes poetry, fiction and nonfiction. His work has appeared in independent literary and poetry journals, such as Unlikely Stories, Rusty Truck and the political zine Red's Not White. He has two books of poetry: Irreconcilable Contradictions (2017) and Grabbing the Stars from the Sky (2021), both published by Fourth Sword Publications. His books have been sold at Stories Books & Cafe, the Last Bookstore and Skylight Books. He is currently working on his debut novel.