Jose (JoeGo) Gouveia
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José Gouveia, first-generation Portuguese-American; author, 3 chapbooks of poetry; member, Highway Poets Motor Cycle Club; Editor, RUBBER SIDE DOWN, The Biker Poet Anthology (Archer Books, LA 2008); Editor, DANCING ON WATER (Cape Cod Community College, 2002) & Poet-In-Residence Cape Cod Community College (1999-2000); Author, The Meter Man column, The Barnstable Patriot & host of “The Poets Corner” radio show, WOMR-FM, Provincetown. He holds an M.F.A. in Poetry from New England College. His first full-length book of poetry will be published Summer '09 by Archer Books.
For more information, visit the Biker Poets & Writers Association website. www.bpwa.net
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Annual Cow Slaughter, 1975
The bull hung from the timbers of that barn
like St. Peter on the reversed cross, blood
pooled the barnboard floor, indicative of the ocean
my grandfather crossed, bringing old country ways
to the New World. Its rear hooves clacked
as the knot tightened in hoisting. Front
hooves tied, pointing toward its hell, an inversion
of it’s killers lives. Sacrificing this beast
prevented a last supper, the bullet in its temple
served our winter dinner tables: carne vinho de alhos,
cacoila, with the blood we’d make chourica.
But first came bleeding, the slitting of throat.
I remember my Americanized aunt praying my father,
beseeching I was too young to witness slaughter.
But this was my body, my blood, my ascension.
As my eleven-year-old hand reached for the knife
the same way my three-year-old body leapt to grab
malasadas (fried dough) at festa, Tia Maria screamed,
running away from the slaying and butchery, back
to the house where the women cooked whatever we killed.
Under these peg and beams, now only men remained.
Now was my moment during the roughest time of year-
I’d cut the throat to bleed the cow, preparing meat
for meal. Pai would butcher the beast later. First
I’d slit its throat, enter the world of men who feed their families.
Fear poured over my brow to my lips, the taste of vinegar
marinated me. I can still feel Pai’s hand clenching mine.
He made me push harder, the way a man would, making cattle
bleed for steaks. As the blood began to flow over
the back of my hand, he let go, sent me to the house
where the women would remove my clothes, wash
the blood from my hands, bless me with their holy water.
Evel Knievel
You stared death down
Over drag bars and cars,
Launched greatness
From ramps of ambition,
Grit and mettle.
Breaking records
And 40 bones,
You denied death
For better job opportunities.
When the night officer,
Attempting his hand
At poetry, nicknamed
You “Evil,” because
It rhymed with “Knievel,”
Had he a clue the couplet
Would race down the gauntlet,
A former bank robber
Stealing fame to his name?
You stole the show
At Caesar’s Palace,
Leaping the fountains
Of your youth,
Taking to the air
Rubber side down
And shiny side up,
Forever thrown
From the sparkle of chrome
Into the Wild World of Sports.
Twenty-nine days comatose
Couldn’t alter your ego,
The surgical steel
And fused backbone
Refused to bend,
With a will stronger
Than your welded frame,
Wonder was fed
By the forkfuls
To young boys dreaming
To be Evel.
Strategy, Not Violence
“All women are whacked,” he tells me,
because the woman he’s dating got mad
at the bowling alley when he stopped
in the arcade to play shooting games.
“She thinks I’m obsessed with violence,”
he protests, claiming he’s the most pacifist
guy he knows, “short of being a homosexual.”
His online game of world domination,
“is just strategy,” he says, “not violence,”
played simply because “we’re guys.”
Adds she’s crazy saying the world needs
more feminine minded leadership. “Hell,
she’s admitted she wants a lesbian affair,
with me there, and that’s why I’m still there.”
“Because we are guys is reason enough,”
that and “she enjoys anal sex,” he adds,
and that kind of feminine is hard to find.
“Although she has issues, deeply rooted issues,”
that are really nothing on the surface, compared
to, “real problems, like my job,” which is why sex
is, “pure escapism,” and he has no problem with that but she does.
“Why does she want me to talk to her more during sex?
Guys don’t do that. That’s not why I’m there.
I’m just there waiting for another woman to join in.”
That’s what guys do. It’s not violence, just strategy.
