Jose Padua: A Brief Meditation on the Clouds That Hover Over the DNA Building in York, Pennsylvania
I always knew this was
where the instructions
were written
Jose Padua: Puñeta
Mother, you were the history
that never made the books,
the woman who fed us
chicken flavored with garlic
and ginger, sweet pork with
soy sauce and rice
Jose Padua: Those Years That Went Down
daytime drunks
still gather,
no longer hidden by
the ornament
of night
Jose Padua: With the Morning Moon Shining Down Upon Me through These Thick Walls
This morning I pounded
a nail into the wall
using a book
by Franz Kafka.
Jose Padua: My Favorite Bartender in New York City
My favorite bartender in New York wasn’t
some hot young thing with a sexy foreign
accent but a woman in her 60s who’d say
“Nice to see youse guys”
Jose Padua: I Am a Small Guitar
I am a small guitar in a large room on a Saturday
sometime after four when the last lunch guest
has driven home, beating the rain…
Jose Padua: A Routine Evaluation of My Accomplishments at a Late Stage in the Middle Part of My Career
These years of love
have sustained me far beyond anything
I ever could have imagined; a dusting to
an inch of snow overnight on cold asphalt
resulting in a two hour delay is all part
of the good life.
Jose Padua: A Short History of Monsters and Everything Else that Gives Substance to the Dream
in deference to the perverse dreaming
of the dwindling numbers of the upwardly mobile as
they trash and burn their merry way to their new luxury
condominiums decorated in beautiful pastel colors.
Jose Padua: Until the End of the Rain and the Sudden Demise of Endless Rainy Nights
let us gather our objects of grief like fierce weapons
against the kingdom of the ruling class
Jose Padua: On These Passing Hours of Butterflies and Dangerous Living
In my darker hours I like to imagine a knitting club
where no one is allowed to smile.
Jose Padua: In Proclamation to the Emperors of Agony
Seeing an audience in Central Park holding up their middle fingers in unison is one of my fondest memories—even though I wasn’t among those for whom the finger was intended.
Jose Padua: Silent Tongues in the House of the Rising Sun
what’s even more beautiful
is that tonight in my small sleepy town
I can look up to the sky and see
a deep blue silence surrounding
a half, nearly see-through moon
Jose Padua: Head Over Heels
At the doctor’s office in Charlottesville, Virginia
to investigate the possible reasons
for my ten-month-old son’s large head,
the doctor measures my own
and informs me that my head size
is off the curve, off the charts
Jose Padua: Directions in Music and Other Ways of Approaching the Day
what he wants to do
sounds better than
what I want to do
we sit in the car
and listen
until the song is over
Vox Populi 