RICHARD VARGAS

i woke up #2

i took the time to listen to Beethoven’s 9th
this morning, and the sounds were like
none i had ever heard. the thought of
ol’ Ludwig pulling notes from the air
and putting them down on paper, one
by one, layering and overlapping
instruments into a sweet cacophony
of music no regular human mind
could begin to comprehend was
too much. i closed my eyes and
imagined his state of sweet madness
as the art channeled through him
like an electric current sent from
light years away. i felt his symphony
begin to take me over, control the beat
of my heart while tears of sheer
ecstasy left salty tracks on my cheeks.
uplifted with a level of joy unknown
until now, the ceiling of my apartment
began to blur and fade. the sensation
of a gentle pull raised me up.
i was looking down on the building
then the street, the city, the horizon
became the far-off blue of ocean

and sky, then faded to black and
i was surrounded by stars and suns
planets and celestial lights of all
colors and hues…

gasping in wonder
gasping for air
the music was me
and i became the music
it was pure and good.

peace filled every part of my
body and spirit. this is it, i thought,
this is what it is all about. we all end up
like this, we return to this. when it’s all
over we are embraced in the light
no matter what we do here. all the
drama here is nothing in the end.
love is all there is
love is all there will be.
we are love and loved,

and
that is all.

the morning after the eclipse

the couple living under me
are going at it again
he yells and screams
things crash to the floor
or bounce off the wall

her voice is soft and muted
and it drives him into
a testosterone tantrum
now the sounds she makes
are cracked with sobs

ever since O.J. and Nicole
whenever i hear this shit
i pick up the phone
call the cops

upon arriving they
buzz me to let them
in the bldg. and the ear
shattering noise it makes alerts
my bickering Ralph and Alice
that something is amiss

they become quieter than kids
caught raiding the cookie jar

that was around 2:30 am
it is now 5:54 am
another night deprived
of a good night’s sleep

i’m sure the sun
the moon
and the earth
have nothing to
do with this
but it sure would
make better sense
than it does now

Richard Vargas earned his B.A. at Cal State University, Long Beach, where he studied under Gerald Locklin, and Richard Lee. He edited/published five issues of The Tequila Review, 1978-1980, and twelve issues of The Mas Tequila Review from 2010-2015. Vargas received his MFA in Creative Writing from the University of New Mexico, 2010, where he workshopped his poems with Joy Harjo. He was recipient of the 2011 Taos Summer Writers’ Conference Hispanic Writer Award. He was on the faculties of the 2012 10th National Latino Writers Conference and the 2015 Taos Summer Writers’ Conference. Published collections: McLife, 2005; American Jesus, 2007; Guernica, revisited, 2014; How A Civilization Begins, 2022, and a fifth book, leaving a tip at the Blue Moon Motel, published by Casa Urraca Press in 2023. He currently is host of a monthly poetry open mic in Madison and is a reader of poetry submissions for a midwest art journal, Of Rust And Glass. He resides in Wisconsin, near the lake where Otis Redding’s plane crashed.