Me No Habla With Acento
edited by
Emanuel Xavier
SMASHWORDS EDITION
* * * * *
This book has been published by El Museo del Barrio
in
collaboration with Rebel Satori Press
Copyright 2011 by Emanuel Xavier
Discover other Rebel Satori Press titles at:
https://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/rebelsatori
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Rebel Satori Press, P.O. Box 363, Hulls Cove, ME 04644
EL MUSEO DEL BARRIO, 1230 Fifth Avenue at 104th St, New York, NY 10029
www.elmuseo.org
Publication Credits
Grateful acknowledgment is made to the following publications in which these poems first originally appeared:
Edwin Torres: “I’m Trying To Perfect My Assent” first appeared in XCP #20, 2008 (Cross-Cultural Poetics). “The Intermission Clown” first appeared in Yes Thing No Thing, 2010 (Edwin Torres, Roof Books).
Nancy Mercado: “The Dead” and “In My Perfect Puerto Rico” first appeared in Black Renaissance Noire Magazine, 2010 (New York University). “Milla” first appeared in ALOUD: Voices from the Nuyorican Poets Cafe, 1994 (Henry Holt). “On My Return from Puerto Rico to the U.S. or (the Idleness of It All)” first appeared in In Defense of Mumia, 1996 (Writers and Readers). “No Nothin” first appeared in It Concerns the Madness, 2000 (Longshot Productions).
Urayoán Noel: “Foray” first appeared in Sous Rature, Issue #3, Summer/Fall 2009. “Beached Wail” first appeared in 5AM, Fall 2009. “Nobody Home” first appeared in Acentos Review, Spring 2010. “Manco Munidades” first appeared in Boringkén, 2008 (Urayoán Noel, Ediciones Callejón, San Juan, PR).
Sheila Maldonado: “Pool” first appeared in Poetry in Performance, The City College of New York, 2003. “At the Meer in Harlem” first appeared in The Portable Boog Reader 4, 2010.
Lisa Alvarado: “Bashert” is an excerpt from Raw Silk Suture, 2008 (Floricanto Press).
Jason “Majestik Originality” Hernandez: “For Her” and “Took Your Seat” first appeared in Verses/Poetry (Inside the Mind of an Emcee/Poet), 2009 (CreateSpace).
Contents
Sin Pelos en la Lengua
by Emanuel Xavier
Hyper-hybridized
cumbiaelectronica bachata-hop beats
by Gonzalo Casals
ME NO HABLA SPIC
I AM TRYING TO PERFECT MY ASSÉNT
FATHER TO FATHER
THE INTERMISSION CLOWN
BIT BY BITE
ANXIETY GALLERY
GILA
MORTUI VIVOS DOCENT
LA PELONA AS BIRDWOMAN
MORIBUND TRIPTYCH
I KNOW WHERE I’M AT . . . TELL ME WHERE I’M FROM
RAINBOWS
BABY BLUES
MY NEIGHBORHOOD
Erik “Advocate of Wordz” Maldonado
LIE WITH ME
MARCH 4th, 1992
GRAND BATTEMENT EN AVANT
ON THE SIXTH DAY
BORN TO RUN
GRAND CONCOURSE SOLITUDE
THE ENTANGLEMENT
CRIMSON BLOOD WITCH
ON WEAVING
THE ENCOUNTER
TRANSCENDENCE
NO HATCHET JOB
ONLY THE HAND THAT STIRS
KNOWS WHAT’S IN THE POT
MADRE
ARROZ CON POLLO
FOUR FATHERS
SANTA ROSA
CROWBAR THING
SIDEWALK LIBRARIAN
BROWN DREAMS
Roberto “Simply Rob” Vassilarakis
ROUND MIDNIGHT
HOMBRE BELLO
HERITAGE PIECE
SEEKER
WTC
LETTER TO MY SON
MATADOR
SPIC
EL BOTELLÓN
CONQUEST
MADRE AMÉRICA
MI CORAZÓN
THE GIFT OF RAIN
MISSING
THE DEAD
IN MY PERFECT PUERTO RICO
MILLA
ON MY RETURN FROM PUERTO RICO TO THE U.S.
OR (THE IDLENESS OF IT ALL)
NO NOTHIN
LITANY FOR CHANGE
FORAY
BEACHED WAIL
NOBODY HOME
MANCO MUNIDADES
SING ME A SONG
TRIBUTE
ODE TO SANDRA MARÍA ESTÉVEZ
AGENT IN THE BLUE SHIRT
T’ URU TAKI (MUD LULLABY)
UN MOMENTU
OMENS, 1781 (VOC DE MICEALA)
SEÑOR TUPA
SAVE THE DATE
I’M SURPRISED THERE’S NOT MORE RELIGIOUSLY INFLUENCED EATING DISORDERS
I HAVE NEVER BEEN LOYAL
BREATHALYZER
SELF-PORTRAIT OF A BOY KICKED OUT OF HIS HOUSE
RHYTHM OF LIFE
SPOKEN WORD OR POETRY
THE CREED
THE MAN IN BLACK
POOL
HOMEBODY
FUTURE TENSE (MINOR TRIBE: 2012)
THE NEGATIVE REPRESENTATION OF SHEILAS IN THE MEDIA
AT THE MEER IN HARLEM
ART OF MAKING LOVE
MOMENT OF SILENCE
OVERCOMING DV
SIP NIP SNIP
THE POETS
ABUELITA
AMERICA’S BRAINCHILD
BASHERT
HOMECOMING
COURTING DISASTER
VOICES AT EL MORRO
GHETTO NOSTALGIA (PALADINO AVENUE)
PIETRI POETRY
ODE TO A BROTHER: BASHED BUT NOT BEATEN
Jason “Majestik Originality” Hernández
PRAY FOR ME
FOR HER
TOOK YOUR SEAT
THE REQUEST
INCONFORME
ANCIENT MEMORIES
ANTIGUAS MEMORIAS
A TALE OF LATE OCTOBER
I MISS YOUR FRIENDSHIP
NOTES FOR A POEM OF MID-NOVEMBER
HERITAGE PIECE (INDIO)
MR. FLORES
SPIC
WHO WON’T BEND
VITRUVIUS
INHERITANCE
ZOO
ILLUSIONIST
SIN PELOS EN LA LENGUA
Writing an introduction for this anthology has been quite a dare. Perhaps it is because experience has taught me there is absolutely no way one person could ever speak for an entire community. Within the modern day Latino/a poetry scene in the United States, the only genuine commonality shared is that we live in a country where we are all still a minority. We share our truths creatively using English, Spanish, and/or Spanglish words to paint our canvas for an insatiable audience longing to find themselves somewhere between the sentences in our poems.
To mainstream America and the United States census, we are all the same except for maybe different shades of skin color. To those who have a better grasp of reality, we encompass diverse cultures, beliefs, and maybe even accents. We all strive to be loved, respected, and heard within the realms of the American dream and, as poets, we allow ourselves the permission to challenge and create dialogue as we capture the world around us with metaphors or slang.
The word poetry itself derives from Greek origin and the Latin word poeta, which means poet. Nonetheless, however evocative or lyrical we might strive to be, America has simply cast us off as Chicano or Nuyorican poets or spoken word artists and boxed us away into niche markets without much regard for the rich mosaic that form our great oral tradition.
Much has been written about the notable contributions of Pablo Neruda, Federico García Lorca, Jorge Luis Borges, and other poets who wrote in Spanish and whose works were translated into English and other languages. For the world at large, it is perhaps more complex to embrace contemporary Latino American poetry because it is a mash up of languages, vernaculars, and styles. Whereas in other countries most people speak more than one language, living in a country where most believe English-only is the way to go has nurtured a more rebellious and “edgy” aesthetic to our verse.
The work of Edwin Torres, Pedro Pietri, Cherríe Moraga, Miguel Algarin, Sandra Maria Esteves, Raul Salinas, and other iconic modern day Latino poets is therefore more uncompromising and reflective of what we have been subjected to as a community. In order for us to reach our youth and bring poetry into their lives as a more accessible art form, some of us have embraced elements of hip hop while others have become storytellers and yet we have all taken on the role of teachers somewhere along the way.
This collection is a celebration of just a handful of the many talented and promising Latino poets that have emerged in the United States. The poems you are about to read are the result of migration and years of challenges.
These words cannot be boxed or checked off in a single category because we are all influenced by the world around us and, in most of the United States, the world around us consists of diversity. We are a product of our society with an understanding of what our parents taught us about our backgrounds.
We rhyme and we don’t. While most would rather cast us as formidable speakers at cafes and bookstores, I give thanks to El Museo del Barrio for acknowledging our art as poets and spoken word artists.
This book is a testament to the many contributions of our people to this nation, and one of hopefully more opportunities for us to be heard louder than ever before on our own terms- with freedom and orgullo en el corazón, siempre.
—Emanuel Xavier, Editor
Hyper-hybridized cumbiaelectronica bachata-hop beats
Nuyorican poetry and El Museo del Barrio were born around the same time—parallel gritos demanding that Latino art in New York should be seen and heard.
By the 1960’s, a generation of Puerto Rican workers had already lived out their adult lives in the city, and birthed children who had no recollection of the island’s sights, sounds and smells. These children began to create poetry, paintings, and performance art out of their big-city experience. At the same time, those who remembered la isla worked to preserve the often-overlooked legacy of its artists— poets like Julia de Burgos, Pedro Pietri, and Clemente Soto Vélez, and artists like Rafael Tufiño, Marcos Dimas or Carlos Osorio.
The epicenter for this Nuyorican arts movement was the East Harlem neighborhood of El Barrio. In 1969, Raphael Montañez Ortiz, with the help of community leaders, teachers, and local families, founded El Museo del Barrio as a platform for the Puerto Rican art that was then invisible in the city’s major museums. For the first time, New York’s children could see at El Museo that our people painted, drew, and sculpted, and had been doing this for millennia. That same year, the homegrown revolutionaries known as the Young Lords illegally took over the neighborhood’s First Spanish Methodist Church to set up breakfast and education programs for local families. In that church, Nuyorican poet Pedro Pietri performed the searing debut of his Puerto Rican Obituary—a classic that went on to inspire countless other young Latino poets. As Urayóan Noel once said, “Until Pedro Pietri, I didn’t know we wrote.”
Out of this rich shared history, El Museo and the Nuyorican poetry scene evolved along similar paths. Both have grown to embrace not only Puerto Rican artists, but also the incredible variety of Latinos who have since arrived in the city, from Sephardic Jewish Argentines to Afro-Dominicans to Mexican mestizos.
As third, and even fourth, generation Latinos mingle with recién llegados in this constantly shifting global crossroads, Latino visual artists and spoken word poets are now spawning work that speaks three or more languages and sings to hyper-hybridized cumbiaelectronica bachata-hop beats.
As identities become even more hyphenated and our cultures absorb each other, it’s no surprise the line between visual arts and poetry has also blurred allowing for the rise of performance art, a major part of El Museo’s programming. At the same time the definition of art museum has evolved as well, with the expansion of El Museo’s public programs – including poetry and literary series among others.
In recent years, El Museo has taken an active role in the city’s poetry scene. Through our monthly Speak Up! spoken word poetry series, we’ve hosted spoken word artists including this collection’s editor, Emanuel Xavier; and contributors Edwin Torres, Caridad de la Luz (“La Bruja”), Rigoberto González, Urayoan Noel, Frank Pérez, and Roberto “Simply Rob” Vassilarakis, among many others. Starting in 2007 with a single poetry evening at the museum, we now present eight spoken word programs per year, with about five poets performing at each one—plus open mic sessions where new poets are welcome. We’ve also begun a series of poetry-writing workshops for youth, led by the Peace Poets and La Bruja. And in our permanent collection exhibition celebrating our 40th anniversary, we’ve included a live video of Pedro Pietri performing at the Young Lords’ church. History comes full circle, here, in the neighborhood where the whole revolú began.
It only makes sense, then, that El Museo should present Me No Habla With Acento. This, our first venture into publishing poetry, is just the natural evolution of 40 years of Latino visual art and poetry growing up together in New York. To paraphrase Pedro Pietri, “here we come, here we come, donde our roots are from.” Enjoy!
—Gonzalo Casals
Director of
Education and Public Programs,
El Museo del Barrio
Cheeseburger in Paradise, 2010
Mixed media collage
By Edwin Torres
i remember one afternoon in soho
sitting on the sidewalk
with my longhaired cat, harry
single and carefree
showing my beautiful pet to the world
people passing by, saying
what a cute spic
i remember my first day of my first job after college
running to catch the subway
wearing a maroon vest on a spring morning
passing under a pigeon’s butt
dropping a wet one on my back, giving me
an aura i’d never live up to, people whispering on the platform,
what a cute spic
i remember my first poem
at an open mike, the host
announcing my name among the many
the crowd holding their applause
the bartender, the muse in the bathroom
the clergy at the front table, gathered in judgment
of a cute spic
i remember my first connection
between artifice and libido after my first show and tell
weaving that tendril of libertine inhalation
through the temporary airspace of second grade
my wet-spot palpable, little Veronica in polka dots
playing horsie with my hankie, thinking
what a cute spic
i remember the late night drink
set-up by the
morning phone call on tenth street & avenue a
playing strip scrabble
on PCP, running out of letters
before socks, until the only words left were
what and cute
i remember my first assignment to compose a lecture
as a visiting professor, choosing as my topic
the apparent-only-to-me
similarities between futurism’s early fulcrum
parades
and the first migration of nuyoricans, prompting the class
to pick through the
paper’s remains, leaving no grace or misguided
flower child
unlit
which subsequently
sparked the chair of the department down from
her throne
to admonish, why bother with spic when the sixties have passed
i remember the city i love
reflected in plate glass
on a monday morning in midtown
jackhammers and blue skies
pierced though Chrysler, scraping miles
above the seething rush, breathless and barking
in unison, what a cute spic
i remember having the chance
to perform for the king
and my drummer using lipstick
to write a message on the king’s giant ass
while i kept dancing, the audience
howling in underwear
that matched the failure of a cute spic
i remember a girl with my last name
who came up to me after a show
to tell me how
lots of people with my last name were watching me now
and that i needed to be responsible now
all the while me looking at her legs
thinking, what a cute spic
i remember my
sisters
teaching me how to dance salsa
when i was in junior high
the hips following an island i’d never been on
excuse me, politely holding my hand out,
could I have this dance, my sister playfully
responding, why yes you cute spic
i remember holding an umbrella for Debbie
in 7th grade after a dance
waiting for the bus, my first act
of chivalry before acne
the hot girl in class, under my umbrella
not looking or saying a word, on a rainy school night, but i’m sure
thinking, what a cute spic
i remember my uncle
taking me to cover a wedding, my main job
to hold the flash and eat free food
his humor continuing through the music that looked
and tasted like butter or was that cheese
on the car ride back, laughing non-stop at his own puerile stream
and me thinking, what a cute spic
i remember the audience levitating
in the middle of a poem
just one mic on a slightly raised platform and me
shapeshifting through eyesight, the sound out of my pupils
blurred in an ocean of green effervescent inertia, the shapeless horde
hovering through the unbelievably intact embryonic fluid
of a star cluster’s dna spiral, my spic-ness re-sourced
as kinetic quasars through light years of fragile diplomacy
thinking, it doesn’t get any spic’er than this
i remember re-reading every email i sent
to feel as if i were the person
receiving my own words, basking in their clever reach
to feel the warmth of many messages
from many people, all of them me
a conglomerate of sinewy desperation
wrapped up in the viral opportunity of a cute spic
i remember that time in the mailroom
after months of talking a good game
finally having to prove
that of course i’d done it before, the cleaning lady
walking in on bone and flesh,
carpet burns and saran, oh...excuse me,
wrap, is that your...oops, what a cute...whoah
i remember the need to keep secrets
and hold onto something
that no one else had, just to own something,
until my tummy hurt
and the stain that followed explained
a backlog of excess discolored by the lifelong
incineration of a cute spic
i remember performing a butoh dance
wearing nothing but a thong and black body paint,
an enigma hiding in full view
my older girlfriend’s friend in the audience
confirming hydraulic suspicion
both of them
nodding, cute and hmmm
i remember changing the light bulb
for a smaller girl on the lower e
my long frame standing on a wooden crate
after a few bong hits, her hands
holding me steady by the hips
my belt lined-up with her brow, her lips
mouthing out, wota keyute spike
i remember skinny-dipping
in an ocean after a reading and thinking
this feels great but first I need to get a reading
near an ocean for this to ever happen
as the naked yoga doppelganger compared tree
postures in the moonlight to my exposed id
while remaining balanced by the chant of speak with spic
i remember being trapped
by stanza and convention
where words had been withdrawn
from the vault of language i maintain
as an obelisk for rhizomic displays
of rendered territory flared into the stigma
of a tediously benign cute spic
i remember getting 50 cents
stolen from me by the bully
down the block, seeing an easy mark
in high-water pants with freshly bought Matchbox racer
held tight in my pocket, praying
he wouldn’t force my hands out, laughing, as i walked off
to his bully friend, yo spic you think that’s cute, punch
i remember being seduced
by the stage
wearing industrial foam on my head
while a ping-pong ball
made its way from throat to hand
as my disembodied voice emerged through my rectum
offering the boatman’s dilemma, how much for a cute spic
i remember running from a mouse
into the beehive
of a pajama party cross-town
slipping under the covers
before knowing what to do there
spooning in the wrong position while
fingering the button of a cute spic
i remember waking up one morning
from uneasy dreams and finding myself
transformed in my bed
into a giant cucaracha helpless on my back
draped under a flag of colors and shapes
i couldn’t pronounce, my mom opening the shutters
letting the sun in, singing, oh what a beautiful spic
i remember the best of times
the worst of times, the age of wisdom
the age of foolishness, the epoch of disbelief, the season
of hope, the winter of despair, the morning of cocochi, having
everything before us, nothing direct to heaven
going the other way in short…the noisiest authority insisting
on the superlative degree comparable only to the tale of a cute spic
i remember the conceit of discovering
a catch-phrase built around identity
and how fleeting the prospect
of a fused mass, guided by skincolor before brainpower
the astral dimensions inherent
in a dna of parable presenting the overwhelming
differences that claim how the one is cute before the one is spic
i remember finding a banana peel
under a year’s worth of newspapers, my refrigerator
duct-taped shut so i wouldn’t be tempted to store even more
unopened containers and my sports jacket
ironed along a complication of creases to better present an
immaculately pressed emblem of normalcy
to the world outside my congested walls, what, a cute, spic
i remember meeting the person i would spend my life with
and not knowing until years later
that i knew my life had just been completed
the first moment our eyes met
but not knowing that moment would not be realized
until many years after, lost in the time travel of love’s engaged mess
by sonatas both cute and incomplete
i remember thinking i needed a format
to contain my writing and in the process
stumbling upon a giant machine that would one day
dictate to the world how to think and compose
sentences by stealing what had been written
and rearranging a sense of magnificence with a sense
of boredom into the, by now, stock regurgitations of a cute spic
i remember sitting in soho
with my two-year old son
surrounded by expensive buildings
where there used to be none, the world passing
me, just thankful to get some rest
in the sun’s imperfections, the people
ooh’ing and ahh’ing…what a cute spic
I AM TRYING TO PERFECT MY ASSÉNT
by Edwin Torres
I’d like to sliver A-mer-ica
live in a separate A-mer-ica
one that is more of a-ME-rica
the one that I don’t THAT’S America
Entering the USA
Leaving la isla behind
Leaving The Atlantic behind
(the Atlantic culito...if you will)
Limping into America’s horizon
(all these ways are ways of same)
America waiting for us
open arms joweled with expectation
and furry eyebrows, dismantling
her strip mall hairdos
Havana No Seño or
Negila or Negril
Gi’tude — but not me...
BIENVENUDO
TO THE BICOASTAL LENGUA!
Forked tongue mandala — speech so true
splits the tongue...
into bi-coastal lesions
as America tries hard to perfect her ASS-ent...her AC-cent!
(oye Sombra...wheng deed my Other bekom djur Other?)
Tongue-iva
Lady Saliva
Mounted Imbiber
Ridin the rider
but no one rides wit me
‘cuz I’m wit me
and I ain’t no one
see, we all wanna piece o’dat lengua
Syllables caught on her ear
screaming echolia for the PaPa-patria
melt down your moetrics MaMa-mantra
Lip-piss-sizing on her back legs, America
rears up and proudly mounts
Rapunzel’s locks, casas blancas, ivory torres, ebonic flores,
edwín porés — open your bordés
and call me you — I’m another taino
reachando — por tu
O lonely widow of vari-coastal impunity
safe against your bargain culture, illegally
aliened by the color of grass — how ironic...
to gain freedom...
you must acquire a card...
the color of nature...
O Merdre-Rica
O Mer Rica
O Sea of Rich Chica-CACA
O-WHO-sica
O-YOU-sica
OHMMMM-MALAVA
PALA-BRAVA...MU-sica
O-CooCOOM-bia
Hum-BOMB-bia
Afri-SUM-pica
Come-COME, miha
O-MA-MA-rica
O-PA-PA-rica
O-WHO-WHO-sica
O-YOU-YOU-sica
OH... I wanna mix-up
a-mer-ica
live in the other a-mer-ica
maybe discover
a-ME-rica
because I’m alone...I’m America
FATHER TO FATHER
by Edwin Torres
it has been too long
since I’ve seen my father’s grave
I can remember the grass,
its shape, the weeds spelling out
how long it’s been
I can smell the flowers
left by my aunt
reminding me how she visits
with a frequency
any brother would cherish
the row of tombstones
the cars passing by
the umbrellas when I was little
the cake and coffee at
grandma’s house afterwards
I can sense the desperation
as I walk between the rows
on top of graves
searching for where I thought he was
once again
am I trying to live through you
imagining you as I could never be
is this what I need to resolve
before becoming a father
before the legacy you’ve left me takes root
let’s have a talk pop
when you left
I barely had a grip on what you were
what I’d become
and I’m still that boy imagining himself a man
but what is that supposed to be
pops, what does it mean to say man?
is your legacy pride disguised
as machismo, the conflict
of the new age Puerto Rican
why don’t you let me find you
there are beautiful people
who find themselves trapped
and no matter how often
they are told how beautiful they are
never believe it
until one day it happens
and that self-worth
is what completes them
and I don’t know
if it’s you or me that needs to be told
but one of us is beautiful
so just let me find you
I’ve met men who have shown me
heard their conversations
seen apparitions, witnessed the actions
of what would form a father figure
put all that together in my head
and still I find myself
tripping over something that used to be there
let me find you
maybe you’re hiding
maybe you do need to be told
maybe what it comes down to
is you and me
talking man to man
whatever that means to you
THE INTERMISSION CLOWN
by Edwin Torres
The man, the woman, the dog, the ball.
The black man, the white woman, the black dog, the red ball.
Not once did I mention
the relationship between the man and the dog.
Never the lover, the ball. Nor the woman kiss
the man before the ball returned by dog.
Nor did I bother with waves, or ocean
or beach. The sun hitting the hair of the woman.
As the man came close to her cheek. The dog
caught in the sun, by the ball’s
returning gaze. Never do we learn
how intimate the man has been
with the woman or the dog. How long
have they been in each other’s lives, arms. What is the ball’s
relationship to the dog, to the color. New or favorite.
The same could be said as red.
And not once have I mentioned if the dog belongs
to the woman or the man or the black or the beach.
And the woman, trying to escape the man’s
grasp. And this, a prelude to a breakup
in a matter of minutes. The ball in the red mouth
a transition in orbit. The shoreline baked
in golden sandstorms. Blue waves
on a fading shift of ardent erosion.
Nor do we smell the way they both
ignore the dog. Joyously retrieving the ball
from the ocean. And what about
the manner in which this viewer came upon them.
How I used walk to cross
that part of the telling. That obvious alert
into when we enter, and when we go.
The porous weight that follows echo.
Trailing talk behind each tiny summit of rock,
strewn with reminders of what belongs together.
Catching the size of sirens before they drift apart.
The travel to never-be in the giant size of things.
Never did I mention, how they all tried to become
the other. The man, the woman, the woman, the man.
The dog, the ball, the ball, the dog. The secret
of each other’s knowing. The red, the black, the white, the gold,
unearthed in my viewing. Nor did I allow my witness
a true flight. A risen consequence from the pit
of what I brought with me. My history attached to theirs,
in alignment with my telling.
And when did I leave out how I left. Where,
in this story, is the time or position of the shoreline’s
pass. Every change affecting its greeting.
Each wave, another frame, another stone.
And in what I’ve just told you
did I ever mention thought
or gift or carnival. The horizon’s volume
relived as a tremor, doing its vertical remember in you.
Its impulse for legs, to stand apart
from perspective and light.
To walk
in the telling of things.
BIT BY BITE
by Edwin Torres
Fuzz or static
choose one, eight hours earlier
and I will live your stream —
the sleep you swim in
entire fields of feedback
prophesized as hair
Windswept across sierra
plateaus submerged by sandmen
and water saints, Isadora’s virgins —
Goya’s Saturn
carnivorous father hands me
clear strokes to behave
As one would
if drenched by howling dunes
across ancient bones —
ambient feathers
on daughters the size of fireworks
dormant water bombs
Gathered by feral tomorrows
what’s worse, a nation without a sun
or a moon —
that’s easy, no moon
without a sun
you only live in the dark
Which is blood
when slammed against
fly or mosquito —
penetrate sublimity
through a mask of light
disguised as sweep
What is haze or fuzz to you
will someday ride the bare back
of all your moonlit swims —
a silhouette of elegiac serenades
curved along a color
dreamed eight hours ago
by Rigoberto González
Portrait One: Rebel Shot Through the Eye
A bullet displaces the eyeball. It pierces
whatever it sees. My son, keep away
from broken glass, his mother used to plead.
And when she bows to bless him, the dead man shatters
her teeth. Now, she speaks through the asshole
of her lips, her tongue a mole that quivers at
the smallest hint of light. Unmoved, the son locks
his face to the sky as his mother fans the fire
on her jaw, yearning to kiss the next passerby.
Portrait Two: Decomposition Cycle
Bald chickens roam the dumping grounds.
They’ve pecked each other’s combs off
and are angered by their ugly skulls.
What better comfort than pinching the pimples
off the hands that no longer feed them.
When the flesh slips off, the birds panic
at the sight of chicken bones. What betrayal
to be tricked into becoming cannibals again.
Worms boil in their stomachs clenched like fists.
Portrait Three: The Colonel Smoking on the Balcony
The tobacco is Cuban. The pipe fibula.
The dogs disguise themselves as mud
and will be spared the spit. Fireworks tonight—
Chinese ingenuity, American artistry.
The whole town comes out of hiding
now that the houses are gone. The show
begins: when the church explodes, children
scream; when the car explodes, children run;
when the children explode—
GILA
by Rigoberto González
It’s no curse
dragging my belly across
the steaming sand all day.
I’m as thick as a callus
that has shorn off its leg.
If you find me I can explain
the trail made by a single limb.
I’m not a ghost.
Don’t be afraid.
Though there are ghosts here—
they strip down to wind
or slump against rock to evaporate.
Sometimes I crawl beneath the shedding,
backing up into the flesh pit for shade.
Praise the final moisture of the mouth, its crown
of teeth that sparkles with silver or gold.
I make a throne of the body
until it begins to decay.
And then I’ll toss the frock--
death by hunger, death by heat--
off the pimples of my skin.
Don’t you dare come into my kingdom,
peasant, without paying respect on your knees!
What generous act did I commit
in my previous life, that I should be
rewarded with this paradise:
a garden in which every tree that takes root here
drops its fruit eye-level to me.
MORTUI VIVOS DOCENT
by Rigoberto González
I
In the trunk, a blouse with breasts, a skirt
stretched open by hips that have shaken off
the last whiff of talcum powder at the pothole.
Clumsy dancer, dropping her shoe somewhere between
Mexicali and Calexico. If she were breathing
she’d let the whiskey tell the tale,
sultry syllable after sultry syllable—sí, mi amor.
Mummies are this century’s mermaids,
rattling songs that will stop a heart. If we let them,
says the whale-eyed sailor, hands cuffed
to the steering wheel, mumbling the madness
of a man who found a woman whistling
beneath a Mexican moon—music so pretty
he just had to keep it from ruining the terrorist world.
II
This is how you ruin the terrorist world:
cut out the yellow heart of heaven,
drop the bloodless stars into the sea,
blind the women who sit to wonder on the shore.
I knew such a woman. I’ve kept her comb in my purse
after all these years, since the night my father found her
walking home from the Cachanilla hills.
You know the names, El Abanico, El Dollar, La Puta Eva
y El Pinche Adán, places so plump with pleasure
even the air turns to stupor, drunk with a sensory coma.
Clarification: she was not the body in the ruby corset,
not behind the pair of tassels, not inside the scent
of tangerines. My mother was the mop and bucket
wiping off the fingerprints on the promiscuous wall.
III
This is how you press against the promiscuous wall:
drill the pair of diamonds on your back and moan;
hold your breath, float face-down on the vertical pool;
sway with the shadows set in motion by a swinging
chandelier—an angry father come to claim his child.
He did not catch me then, but he caught me
walking home, my knees still numb from dancing
with the men who love their mamacitas pink
and puckered as if they’re sipping wine transparent
as the cloth across their thighs. What could I do
with lips like mine but kiss or whistle loud enough
to be the visible woman my overworked mother
never was? So, papi, keep your only son holy as you stuff
me in the trunk: I’m wearing mother’s blouse, mother’s skirt.
LA PELONA AS BIRDWOMAN
by Rigoberto González
Tonight
I dared to crawl
beneath the sheets
to be nailed down
around me,
waiting for my lover, she
who enters
without knocking, she
who will unstitch
my every seam
along my thigh,
my side, my armpit.
She who carves
a heart out of the heart
and drops it
down her throat.
Sweet surrender this
slow death in sleep
as I dream
the love-making
is autopsy. How else
will I be hers
completely? Be her
treasure box I said:
a trove of pearls
and stones, the ding
of coins cascading
through her fingers.
The bird over her shoulder
not a parrot, but an owl
to be my mirror
when I close my eyes
and shape a moon-white
bowl out of my face
where she can wash
the hooks of her caress.
Still with water, I’m
one more thing to penetrate.
I’m one more spill
of secrets on the floor.
A puddle glowing green—
she doesn’t have to be a sleuth
to see I’ve taken
all the anti-freeze.
A puddle thick with red—
she’ll kneel
next to my wounds
and pray for me,
a string of pigeon skulls
her rosary.
By dawn our bone pièta
breaks out of its shadow,
unleashes its cicada cry.
My daughters drag
their bodies, bruised as bats,
out to the light
and burst in flames
like marigolds.
The crows will leap
down from the trees
to pick them clean.
And my beloved bride,
beloved wife, will laugh
until it hurts her teeth.
It’s the feather
of her tongue—
eleventh finger—
I recall
and not the catheter
while the priest recites
his holy dribble
and the churchyard
worker takes a leak.
My sons hold up
their chins with pride
that they have done
their part to hide
my suicide:
they’ve clipped
my fingertips
to lose the track
back to my prints.
But my beloved knows:
she crouches
on the highest branch
and drops an egg
that cracks my coffin.
Concussion light
squirms through
and I’m in heaven once again—
those times
we screwed like hen
and rooster: I
the squawking chicken
blacking out, and she
the hammering cock.
MORIBUND TRIPTYCH
by Rigoberto González
(left panel)
Agony in the light bulb as you lick your dry teeth,
watching the crows on the wallpaper. In evidence
every failure visible: shoes that have lost not one
but both feet to the crows on the wallpaper;
a belt that couldn’t rope the belly in; two nickels
and a penny that missed the last pocket to the street.
On the dresser, a dead man’s wallet and the useless
black hole of its mouth. Your children mock you
from the wallet’s window, pretending a prison
like the crows on the wallpaper. Your wife
is nowhere to be found. No use looking around.
She has tired of waiting, she has turned
toward the switch, she’s out like the crows.
The room deflates, kicking up dust through your
hollow throat. And then not a sound. Not a cough.
Not even skid marks in the fury of escaping crows.
(center panel)
Apples know this truth: skin and muscle soften
into the edible bruise. And then the strange comfort
of surrender. If anyone can bite you anymore she will
want revenge for the brutal surface of your hands
and how they could pry anything open—sealed door,
clamped knees, stubborn hinge of the jaw. Weakling,
even the orchids can bully you now. They crush
their blossoms against your cheek and won’t
let you see past them. A warden in white rushes in
on the hour and plunges his knife in your arm.
In another world you could out-blade him with
the razors in your rage, but not in this one, where
your throat won’t release its spit-bubble or whimper.
Even the chair dragging its club foot complains
louder than you. The window claims all the attention
when it undoes its housecoat in the morning. Petty
thief every bird that picks at the sill and takes
a piece of your will to trap it behind your teeth.
Little do any of them know that you are simply biding
your time in this disguise. Deflated, your viscera will
swell like sausages. You keep a secret: beneath
the sheets, you grow tumescent-tough, assailant-mean.
(right panel)
A birthmark creeping up your face.
If we had mouths, we’d kiss it, but the gods who made us
gave us windows through which everything escapes.
The last man who loved us flew out like a sink
and he took the entire kitchen with him.
Let us fondle your mole like a wet papaya seed
and we’ll build something bigger, beautiful, and black—
an avocado with a bubble of gold instead of a testicle.
In autumn, we grow fingertips and the tulips change back
to the poor white roots that growl like scars.
And the spidering commences: leaf crawling after leaf.
We will remember you each time a cricket
because its chirp is another small thing we can’t hold.
And though the gods who made us gave us legs
we are like chairs to be weighed down into place.
We travel nonetheless. When you sleep we move
into darkness; when you dream we hide among objects.
When you die we walk you through the funnels
of final song. Let us know when you finish
making pumice from the beehive of your heart
and we’ll teach you how to burn the bed from the inside out:
from the wood a casket, from the sheets a shroud,
from the flesh a million cherries on the ends of cigarettes.
I KNOW WHERE I’M AT . . . TELL ME WHERE
I’M FROM
by María Rodríguez-Morales
I know where I’m at/Brooklyn bred by way of East New York
A Puerto Rican/Nuyorican/Latina/married /mother of four
But tell me where I’m from/ oblige me a bit more
That rich port/that we’ve been taught/
Christopher Columbus founded
The land where Africanos were enslaved and bounded/
Where woman were scarce in a land so rich/
Tainas y Africanas were added to the mix/
And thus this beautiful spectrum of color/
Los blanquitos/negritos/ my brown sisters and brothers
Descendants transcend cultural boundaries/
They transport me to my past/
I have come to ask/ almost afraid to admit
That I was once immune to my history and its indigenous inhabitants
I’ve searched for answers/ in lessons/ that schools didn’t teach
Two stepping to Salsa beats/front to back/side to side/
the rhythm moving my feet
Hector Lavoe/ Willie Colon/ El Gran Combo
Lechones/bendiciones/y baños de flores
The Saturday/ before the Puerto Rican Day Parade/
Cars of all types/would line up Broadway/
El ritmo de mi país /blaring from every speaker/
Horns honking/flags waving/mi isla bonita
And I felt alive/my heart overflowing with pride/
But once the sea of flags /that lined Fifth Ave/ were all gone/
A part of me died/
My identity was compromised/ by MTV/
Fly jewelry/dope kicks/French tips
And yet I didn’t know shit/
Who were our heroes/our influential peoples/I wanted to know/
This is when I discovered Pedro Pietri/Tato Laviera/Miguel Piñero
Julia de Burgos/José de Diego /Lolita Lebron
Just some of the Boricuas who paved the way/
for some of my faves today/
Caridad de La Luz/Flaco and Lemon Anderson
Years have passed/I am a mother of four boys/
who will become four men/
And I am determined to teach them/what I didn’t know then/
It’s a shame/ how these kids nowadays/ know more/
about pop culture than our culture
And the history of our people/ whom have opened the doors/
I have a personal mission/ myself/for my sons/
And when I am done/ they will know where they’re at/
but also, where they’re from
RAINBOWS
by María Rodríguez-Morales
My mother taught me that rainbows are beautiful.
They signify COURAGE in the eye of aversion
She in her Teflon exterior
Impenetrable
Stalwart
Yet ever so graceful
And I worry that courage does not equal strength
Strength is what you need when you are being attacked
Fear is what I felt thinking of that
My mother taught me that rainbows are beautiful
They signify tolerance in a world of narrow mindedness
Narrow Minded Mess
And I wonder how WE tolerate their blindness
Indifference
When bruises are not exposed on bare fleshy skin
When hurt is etched in memories within
When you are made to believe you are living in sin
When the one place we hold sacred
Is molesting our kin
But you are made to believe you are living in sin.
And I worry, that maybe my patience has run thin.
And I worry if change doesn’t come
It may never happen
My mother taught me that rainbows are beautiful
That Stone Walls were created as building blocks
That those blocks built a bridge
A bridge to UNITE
A community enriched with veracity and PRIDE
And I worry
That many have died ‘cause they had too much pride
Yet their souls have reincarnated into a Warriors CRY
They tell us Stone Wall was the beginning
A battle not fought is one worth not winning
And so I STAND
My mother taught me that rainbows are beautiful
Her flag is my own.
BABY BLUES
by María Rodríguez-Morales
Statistics concluded
by ChildHelp.Org
-Almost five children die everyday because of
child abuse. More than three out of four are under the age of
four.
-It is estimated that between 60-85% of child fatalities due
to maltreatment are not recorded as such on death certificates.
-A
report of child abuse is made every ten seconds.
-Child abuse
occurs at every socio-economic level, across ethnic and cultural
lines, within all religions and at all levels of education.
-About
30% of abused and neglected children will later abuse their own
children, continuing the horrible cycle of abuse.
I am a miracle
A
gift of life
Brought into this world to fulfill dreams
I’ve yet to have.
I
am the future
If I can make it past the present.
Other
innocents like me, remain remnants of the past
Victims of
ANGER/RESENTMENT/IGNORANCE.
We make the front pages of your Daily
News
Another baby found LIFELESS/NEGLECTED/ABUSED.
We don’t
have a voice
but our cries can be heard through
project
courtyards/ stairwells in buildings/ manicured lawns on picket fenced
suburbs.
I do not know RACE
I do not know PLACE
I do not
know CLASS
I have become the face of CIRCUMSTANCE
Born to the
young mother who yearns for lost adolescent years
Born to the
teenage father/born to the streets
Born to the mother, who like
me,
always gets beat
born
to the fatherless father
born to the
uneducated/underpaid/overwhelmed/underprivileged mother
born to
the impatient father
born to the mother who has everything,
but I wasn’t in the
cards mother
born to the father who doesn’t want to be tied down
. . .
who wants to be
free
born to the mother who regrets having me.
I am the mistake
that nobody wants
so a cry/spilled milk/soiled diaper
leads to
me getting stomped
cracked ribs
broken limbs
black and
blues
emaciated bodies from too little food.
Screams for Mercy
fall on deaf ears
getting involved is everyone’s fear
So I am
left to pay for society’s excuse,
as I become the headline
generated for tomorrow’s news
MY NEIGHBORHOOD
by María Rodríguez-Morales
Outside, pants and
shirts dance
in the gentle breeze
hung to a
clothesline
connecting tenement windows.
A labyrinth of
sorts
on display for all to see
Tar on the pavement glistens
under the ardent heat
BOUNCE. DRIBBLE. SLAM
goes the
basketball
through a milk crate
nailed
to the trunk of a
tree
POP. SMACK. SLAP
goes the handball against the brick
wall
of an adjacent building
SCRAPE. SCRAPE. SCRAPE
goes
the piragua man
as he sings his daily jingle
CHERRY.
TAMARINDO. COCO. CREMA
He competes with Doña Lola
who sells
her own concoction of
coconut ices
the real deal
for a mere
.25 cents
Life is sweet
cars drive by with the boomin’
systems
boys ride bikes with precious cargo on their pegs
Girls
strut to the bodega
for blow pops
jolly ranchers
salt and
vinegar chips
quarter waters
an all day excursion
hoping to
catch the eye of a potential suitor
king pine y cloro
waft out
of apartment windows
strong enough to burn nose hairs
but I am
used to it by now
Salsa y merengue blast from speakers
the
streets are a musical
inviting me to dance
Woman in rolos
gather on the stoop
a bonchinchar con los vecinos
Old men
jovially slap dominoes
on a homemade table of Formica and
wood
brown paper bagging
CHUCHAZO!
There is LAUGHTER
There
is LIFE
There is LOVE
There is PRIDE
in my neighborhood
by Erik “Advocate of Wordz” Maldonado
I HATE . . . when you stare at me
Without Emotion
Without a WORD
Your quiet silence
would irritate the most conservative of librarians
SPEAK!!!
Dwell on the silliest of things,
walk me through run on sentences
make me the direct cause of why they cut your cell phone off
and repeat it all tomorrow.
Just,
Lull me to sleep.
I don’t wanna see it coming,
Lie up until the end.
Tell me our relationship was sent to a farm upstate
so it could have more room to grow.
Wait until time and maturity give me distance between
the illusion and reality
bliss and truth
us and death
till we part,
lie with me.
Fight for the covers
but let go of the clothes
and the armor.
Lie with me,
Tell me the dog ate the rings,
aliens kidnapped your heart,
and convince me that you kissed him
because you were momentarily blind and he wears the same cologne as me.
Lie with me
In my bed,
share the experience of a drive-in dream,
park in my arms during nightmares
and sleep in a space with a headrest that won’t brake.
Lie with me,
because you can’t hear the bird’s chirping in the morning
until I brush the hair off the side of your head,
and you hate when people hear or read poems I write about you
so to avoid all that you should just,
LIE WITH ME
on top of pillows and below cherry trees
LIE WITH ME
stay near me and ease me with
lies . . . with me
for better or worse
vow to forever lie
your unwanted clothes in my house
so I can assume you will be back.
Don’t brush me away,
keep your comb on my bathroom sink,
leave your lipstick in my dresser drawer
and promise me we’ll have make-up sex tomorrow
Lie with me,
because I can’t stand the truth,
if you’re leaving.
MARCH 4th, 1992
by Erik “Advocate of Wordz” Maldonado
March 4th, 1992
feels like everyday to me.
Last night I was a 12 year old too consumed
with his video games
to spend time with his grandmother.
A bedridden woman
whom just 6 months prior
was making me stuffed shells and brownies.
The old soul whose conservative ways
kept me in line but whose liberal love
fed my spirit. I’ve always wondered
what I would’ve said
or done, if I knew you weren’t going to wake up the next morning.
I play out in my head
that I’d share one last dream with you,
I’d explain how the boogie man and the monsters in my closet
left me alone because they knew
you were protecting me
and how the doorway to your house
filtered out my insecurities.
But,
I probably would’ve just cried.
You were the first piece of my heart I had to bury.
I’d like to believe you can hear me.
I wish you the power of x-ray vision
so you can see how my DNA strands
twist and turn
the way your cursive writing did.
I’m just waiting for a sign,
a text message or voicemail
letting me know that you knew
how much I appreciated everything
you’ve ever done
I need you to know that oxygen doesn’t smell the same
and the colors of the world have faded in the wash of my tears.
Memories of you have yet to dry
though I tumble through them like a dryer.
Yeah, they’re warm,
always warm.
I can make it in this world without Nintendo,
I can wake up tomorrow morning
without the Sun but, if I’m ever to open my eyes again,
if I’m ever to instill and trust love again,
I need to know you’re there.
My smile is in foreclosure,
because I can never pay you back.
You’re my first and last poem.
One step behind you,
a million miles away from everything else.
March 4th, 1992 feels like everyday to me.
The day you passed away
and someone hit
the reset button