Faded Light
In Conchos Chinas afternoon turned
to salmon clouds and faded light.
We sat submerged in Jacuzzi foam
listening to Buena Vista Social Club
recorded in Havana
our thick blue glasses filled
with cool mojitos.
Four famous chords
announced Compay Segundo
playing Chan Chan live.
It was the year before he died
and summer dripped time
thick as honey.
Sitting naked
in bubbling water
playing footsies and touching skin
we drank mint rum
and felt the harmony
of a seven-stringed armónico.
We believed
we would live forever.
Compay believed he would too
but his kidneys failed at 85.
I hope mine
will last that long
but nothing plays forever.
Monsoon Afternoons
arrived like freight trains
every day at three
dumping solemn rain from discontented clouds
colored with anger
clearing beaches along the malecon
filling oceanfront bars
we'd sit on the roof
at Eagle's Nest, sheltered
beneath the bar's thatch top
Puerto Vallarta spilled
down hillsides beneath us
its orange terra cotta housetops
drenched by a summer pour
we'd talk of Yankee superstars high on Steinbrenner's money
discuss unprotected sex and how viagra works
argue Latin American politics and Catholic confessions
joke about my beer belly and her skinny legs
wish we were back in the ocean
or feasting on tacos and tequila shots
instead of listening to the relentless rain
Travis Blair is an old outlaw who lives a mile down the road from the University of Texas in Arlington where he graduated back in the Dark Ages. For 30 years he worked in the movie industry before taking up writing poetry. His poems have been published in Znine, Taking a Chance, South Africa's Kreative, Plain Spoke and in next month's Instant Pussy. His collection of poems written in and about Mexico is being prepared for publication this fall as his first book.
