Coffee

I have always loved the simmering
of a freshly brewed cup of coffee.
It has an aroma that fills the blank spaces
within my mind, and makes sense
of the nonsense that I write.

Sugar and cream go well,
though Chet Baker does fine,
with some morning sunlight or
an evening breeze as
Liquid Ambers waltz outside.

Andrew Venegas
San Jose
SJSU
poetry

Halo

There is a game on the XBOX
that you may of heard of.
It is called “Halo.”

An amazing melding of science
and art, it combines the genius of
pizza with the absurd delight of friends,
into what can only be classified as – well,
insomnia.

But isn’t it beautiful,
thoughts and movements to joyous laughter
that bellow from the summit of a soul
till sometime far past midnight?

Aren’t they beautiful,
those recollections of the faces
that you know, and all the moments
left in the framed cases of yesterday,
gently hung inside your mind
for safe keeping?

Andrew Venegas
San Jose
SJSU
poetry

Listening to Records with Satchmo

“An arching voice encapsulates the beauty of the sound,” I say,
and Satchmo smiles.
“it rolls and tumbles words within a chest,
letting them simmer before being fired out like rockets.”
Satchmo holds his trumpet firm against his sternum,
two shining rows of teeth shimmering as beads of sweat roll down
his glimmering face, a blue stage light directly above him.
“Let’s play,” he says.
“Yes sir.”
And I strum my bass guitar to that old familiar beat,
that string of bops and bars that always prelude his
sumptuous blaring.
He squeezes the iridescent horn between his lips,
and a rush of music streams from the bell
and into my burning ears.
“Ah,” I breathe.
It is clear and soothing, and it does not lie.
It preaches like Sunday,
like this ground is holy and these notes are
heaven’s keys to salvation.
Satchmo wails alone through the homily,
through the Eucharist, and outside beyond the
steeple peek, across the vineyards and
fields and cities where people are weeping for deliverance.
And then, quite suddenly, Satchmo stops –
and listens.
I have stopped too.
“There it is,” Satchmo says, “That’s the best part.”

And we are delivered.

Andrew Venegas
San Jose
SJSU
poetry

The Summit

A frog speaks to me in a sea of green fields that stretch from where I sit inside my car on the side of a vacant, winding road, to a distant point in eternity, beyond the mountains and the valleys and all the now vague nuances and cares of a troubled world.
And my heart sighs fondly at the chirping of a robin that serenades me from its perch, an owl calling in the distance, and the wind that whistles around my ears after blowing over waters that flow nearby.
I breathe in slowly through my nostrils, inhaling the sweet smell of summer grasses – the fragrance of the trees – and I let it go for the hopeful promise of another day. “This is not heaven,” I remind myself, “this is my home.”
But it is not meant for everyone, I’ll admit. Just like steel monuments reaching like gods to numbered points confuse and numb my wits, amateurs are often lost in this half-forgotten twilight, and many never come back. They are the ones you read about in all your papers and essays, “the disappeared” in Walden ponds.
No, it is true, this is not a world for weekend warriors – it is a battlefield for our souls. That is not a lilac – napalm – not a rustle – explosions – and if you’re not prepared, there’s a coffin just your size.
We are daredevils here, tempting fate for fleeting moments of perfection that inevitably scatter in a muffled hush into the jungle around us.
That is why we come here, after all, again and again, when friends and family beg us to stay inside and watch the movie, when they ask us for help in their gardens. It is our nature.
We are the all-devoted samurai; we are the dreamers of dreams. This is our hell, our ever-rising summit, and our playground in which we find ourselves alive.

Andrew Venegas
San Jose
SJSU
poetry

The Final Words of Sir Thomas Love

And now I sit amongst these piers
And look upon my yesteryears
And dream of minutes that I’ve held-
Those wilted wastes of longing hell…

No other hand shall my touch grace…
As no more grace shall touch my own…
For me the sun has shined its rays
And sent its beauty home…

And twilight beams upon my face
in one last flash before it’s gone,
as here I lie in dying state
for love of love’s last throngs…

The ocean’s tide
recedes, resigned
To dash into the night,
and sweeter dreams replace the trees
that sway with snow-flushed pride

till images of silver rings
disgrace my broken face,
and kisses in the park I walked
resume their haunting chase.


Can time forget the things I’ve seen
and lay those demons down?
Can people ever be the same
to hearts as thrashed about?

Can perfection ever ring again
when moments fleet so dear,
and leave the wrongs of life unchanged
to fester through the years?



I pray to dear Saint Michael,
while Saint George holds his place;
a daunting, grim reminder,
of holes born out of fate…




whippoorwills and crows fly low,
a crown of thorns set high,
nailed at hands and feet to bleed-
for sins agape tied;
forlorn for beauty’s sake,
and crucified by jealous masks
for want of sleepy words I spoke,
before my waking gasp…



“This isn’t what it seems,”
can seem a many things…
…and I have known them all,
with chilling, bitter taste…

A powder blanket strewn around me;
my tender hands despise my eyes-
I wear my skin too small and scrawny
to simply crawl inside;
and everyday I die…

and everyday I die.

And now I sit upon this pier,
And look upon my yesteryears
-and dream of silence yet to come
as lonely waters weave a shroud

that washes gently across my chest
till darkness overcomes me,
and I rest.

Andrew Venegas
San Jose
SJSU
poetry

Writing Songs with Dylan

I’ve often wished to write songs from indignation
turned to righteousness the way
he did, with that scruffy, careful belligerence-
to have my guitar strum forgotten notes
with heavy-handed intention-
to only remember the longing pangs of my soul
when the lamp mixes with a cigarette to send
a lonely chord blaring through on a wisp to a dreamy lull-
to walk into the typewriter and see the world
as it was meant to be,
without the politics or the talk and loss of innocence.
That is what I want-
to kiss the god of optimism and hold the reins of change-
to wander through these barren valleys and war-scorched earth,
and feel a gentle rain rinse away the mud;
to see clearly all the moments of my life with purpose,
and breath a cleaner breath with ease.

Andrew Venegas
San Jose
SJSU
poetry

If you

If you’re interested, plastic shelves still hold the secrets. You still can search through metal buildings while sipping cappuccinos from Styrofoam cups, wearing the latest fashions sewn by revolutionary debutants. The ancient is not required, not something retro even. It is not found in stuff, as it is. It is the chiming of momentary stillness, a layer of dust rest upon the fresh and ruined, and its secrets are still intact. For the record, most of most everything is fleeting nonsense, though it is beautiful nonsense.

Andrew Venegas
San Jose
SJSU
poetry

There is art in a woman

There is art in a woman’s back,
in the way she curves into the sadness of the moonlight
to give it grace.

The way it bleaches all the worries from your eyes
to leave the milky softness of a dream.
There is beauty in it.

No, it cannot be denied.
Its very presence moving,
it lifts you till you fly.

Andrew Venegas
San Jose
SJSU
poetry

The Post Pre-Metaphysical Blues

The mango days of pre-pubescent twilight
were set awhirl by the gods of possibility
and enchanted by the starlight seen in flight
from the corners of young star’s eyes.

And now, distance fosters a romantic nostalgia
for things set in place-
a game of chess written
above the heavens, two opposing sides
of a convoluted board in which the two peach halves
of destiny have arranged their pawns for a beautiful
dance of elegance and grace.

A melancholy satisfaction at the sum total of totality,
like a mathematician appreciating a newfound formula-
like a nurse cherishing the last breath of the patient they’ve nursed-
like a pair of newborn hands that brush its mother’s face.

A world of objective subjectivity
in the absurdity of daily life;
and metaphysical blues mixed with ecstasy,
for the joy of a realized dream.

Andrew Venegas
San Jose
SJSU
poetry

Celluloid

How does the world feel? How can it feel normal, as I sit in my car, ticket already placed gently in my jacket pocket – an hour before the show begins? How does it feel when I am waiting, two hundred miles away from where I should be, a couple hundred thousand heart-beats away from my next kiss. Is this efficiency? Am I an outlier? Where does this fit into the equation? I see no unseen hands, nor have I the faith and hope to look. Not all ‘things’ can move some hearts to joy, and it is this truth I most accept. I am here to tell the prophets that they are blind. I am here to tell the mind it cannot know. All things seen are not seen true, so who are we to call them ‘right’?

The show proceeds and I perceive a show – not the celluloid or the wall.

Andrew Venegas
San Jose
SJSU
poetry

Cowboys

Cowboys ride the trains at night now
and circle the cities that broke all their dreams.
They long for their women in lavender dresses
that moved to the ocean to live on their own.
They won’t ever cry, but sit smoking Reds-
and smile at the flicker of “was”.
'Cause the sun has been setting on the moments they blessed
since the day that they built that first fence.
And they carry the weight of the mountains forgotten
in the feel of their blue, denim shirts.
Hands, swollen from wrestling the sweet life that bore them,
till the highwaymen swallowed the West.

Yes,
there are still cowboys,
I’ve seen them at midnight,
Riding the trains all alone.

Tipping their hats to the graves in their chests
that remember the earth as a child.

Andrew Venegas
San Jose
SJSU
poetry