Brent Ameneyro: California Poets Part 10, Three Poems

Brent Ameneyro

October 20th

California Poets: Part XI

Brent Ameneyro

Three Poems

LIGHT IN THE DARK

I don’t have the strength to call the number

on the missing cat posters

tell them been there brother

don’t hold your breath

nobody told me not to inhale Devil’s Breath

not to touch Angel’s Trumpets

I touch them anyway

let the smell soak into my skin & then

vacuum to remind myself

death doesn’t come all at once

maybe I will call

tell them coyotes don’t howl at the moon

& about Mirabell Gardens

how the marigolds glow at night

MELANCHOLIA IN THE MISE EN SCÈNE

angst in the darkening leaves

low angle shot of a tall bent blade of grass

reveals God weeping

the man is not in frame

the woman has walked off set

the hereafter is heard

carried by the wind

saying everything here

is before

the quails exhibit a clear

understanding of caesura

the perennials quite obviously yearning

after the birds takeoff

nothing here breathes

WORKING CLASS RELIEF

I don’t have to worry anymore.

We went shopping today,

bought things we didn’t need.

I have nowhere to go. A passing car

creates geometric birds of light.

I don’t have to worry anymore.

New wallet: spent money to hold

money, to make money look good.

We bought things we didn’t need.

We watched a nice movie, one that doesn’t

follow the usual model for dramatic tension.

I don’t have to worry anymore.

New computer: for my writing, I said, to make

art, even though the old one still kinda works.

We bought things we didn’t need.

She fell asleep halfway through the movie,

her head draped on the leather armrest.

I don’t have to worry anymore.

We bought things we didn’t need.

Author Bio:

Brent Ameneyro is the author of the collection A Face Out of Clay (The Center for Literary Publishing, 2024), winner of the 2025 NIEA Juror's Choice Award. He was a Letras Latinas Poetry Coalition Fellow with support from the Academy of American Poets, a Poets & Writers Get The Word Out Fellow, and a recipient of SDSU’s Research Award for Diversity, Inclusion, and Social Justice. He currently serves as the poetry editor for The Los Angeles Review and as an associate for Letras Latinas at the University of Notre Dame's Institute for Latino Studies.