Excerpts from/Extractos de
La revolucion emplumada
the revolution to be human

Arnoldo Garcia

my ancestors

have not yet

invented the wheel

they will never run over

innocent animals

possum

deer

buffalo

wolves

raccoon

birds

butterflies

insects

they will never pave over

acquifers

dam or divert water

never stop the flow

of rivers, creeks, streams

to the cosmic ocean of the natural world

my ancestors

will never invent

the wheel

the bomb

will never fiddle with DNA

will never fertilize in vitro anything

they will walk

where humans can walk

they will love

where humans can love

they will pray

where humans can pray

they will be human

where humans can be human

they will never be gabachos

that step on plants and other ancestors

recklessly

they will never

defecate or urinate

in the soul of the earth

in the water

[2]

Our revolution

has no martyrs

our martyrs

have no revolution.

we have no revolution

yet we have martyrs

young men and boys

who kill each other

because we have no revolution

police who shoot black young men in the back or in the front

The border brothers

make north and south

the north is nothing without the south

the south cannot exist without the north

yet young men and boys

kill each other

for lack of the four directions

the border brothers are both

north and south

North is a border

South of the border

North borders South

they are lost in their venganza

we are lost without a plumed revolution

[...]

Oakland Has Disappeared: Record Deportations

On September 30, 2010, Oakland, California closed its doors; the elections were canceled; property tax notices stopped being served, street sweepers stayed motionless, teachers and students, families all gone.

The power was turned off and what remains of the city government, elected officials are claiming that Oakland crime is no more. Gentrification is now the good word, the savior. But there's a problem, Houston.

Oakland is off the grid.

Oakland decimated by deportations! A total of 392,862 residents were deported during the last twelve months.

Through an assortment of immigration-police programs, employer sanctions and E-verify programs that allow the employers and the government to check if a worker is authorized to work in the United States, through ICE carrying out illegal street sweeps targeting day laborers, mothers with children in tow on their way to school; at community health clinics, at church services, at funerals, in houses and apartment homes, at "DUI" check-points where anyone without a license was arrested, ICE picked up an average of 1076 residents per day. hauling them away to Mexico, Haiti, El Salvador, Guatemala, the Philippines, China, South Korea, Ecuador, Burma, Nigeria, Poland, and at least one family from Bosnia.

Oakland Now Belongs to the "Secure Communities" Family

Former Oakland Mayor, now California Attorney General and gubernatorial candidate, Jerry Brown was a big player in Oakland's demise.

As Attorney General, Brown signed an agreement with the Department of Homeland Security that allowed the Oakland police to send the fingerprints of all persons they arrested directly to DHS to check their immigration status. This turned out to be a gold mine.

Called "Secure Communities," Oakland police was able to get tens of thousands of Oakland residents who are legal permanent residents fingerprinted. Because of the 1996 immigration and welfare reform laws, the police were able to entrap many residents because they had committed an "aggravated felony" some time in their lives and got them automatically deported.

This is a nightmare.

The Fruitvale District, once a thriving neighborhood struggling with crime, first saw street vendors and their customers disappear.

Then ICE and Oakland police agents starting going into grocery and clothes stores: clerks, customers, owners feet first.

When the Fruitvale went kaput, ICE and local police began picking up anybody who looked like an "immigrant" somebody: passer-bys including hipsters claiming to be from the Hills, transit village voyeurs, wanna-be artists living in warehouses from West Oakland to Jingle Town, late night taco truck and Meso-American vegan burrito connoisseurs all rounded up indiscriminately.

A policeman was overheard telling one of the persons being handcuffed, "If you're in Oakland, you must be illegal," -- this according to one lucky hipster who happened to be carrying his passport and spoke impeccable English.

ICE and Oakland Police also scoured quineceñeras, weddings, funerals and rosary services, and Buddhist temples. ICE found a mother-lode at St. Elizabeth Church that has three Spanish Masses on Saturdays and nine masses on Sunday, starting at 6:00 a.m. and ending with the last Spanish mass at 7:30 p.m.

The Evangelicals went flying into the DHS buses; norteños, border-brothers and sureños shared aisles.

Refugees were easy targets. After ICE deported their fellow churchmembers, legal services providers, neighborhood health clinic workers, refugees stood out like a sore-ass thumb.

ICE and company hit high schools, the charter schools, elementary schools, childcare centers and arrested anyone remotely suspected of being a gang-member or didn't look white.

Chinatown is a ghost town, too. Korea-town, Little Saigon, Old Oakland, even Piedmont restaurants, where all the food and service workers were immigrants, are closed down.

A few U.S. citizens and quite a few legal permanent residents were picked up and deported. No more morning lattes, no more cheap Vietnamese sandwiches, no more Oakland the most diverse city in the universe. Even former California Governor and immigrant Arnold Schwarzennegger was stopped at the Oakland Airport. Lucky for him that Jerry Brown vouched for him.

Oakland Police Department is largely intact; the overwhelming majority of Oakland police do not live in Oakland. They were right. It's not safe to live in Oakland, unless you're a cop with a gun patrolling the 'hood.

There are only 4,205 residents left, wandering the streets like nuclear war or zombie virus survivors.

They are not lucky; all of them do not know how to plant seeds, wouldn't know a planting season if it hit them in the stomach. None have ever tended or grown a vegetable or even a flower garden.

Most have not cooked in years -- and there's no children among them. The youngest one is almost 40. Their maids and other domestic workers were all rounded up.

They will die off one by one.

Does anyone think we can get some French or British to migrate to Oakland?

Che means the people | Che significa el pueblo

Liberation poems, theater, music, art, hip hop

Friday, October 8, 2010
Doors open at 7:30 pm
Program starts at 8:00 pm

This is a benefit to support Zapatista communities.

$10 donation requested at the door!

Show your support in many ways, just give, speak out, get together!

Sponsored by the East Side Arts Alliance Cultural Center with the Chiapas Support Committee

http://www.eastsideartsalliance.com/

At 2277 International Blvd * Oakland, CA 94606-5003
Call (510) 533-6629

Liberation poems, theater, music, art, hip hop with:

|

Poemas, teatro, música, arte, hip hop liberación con

Avotcja
Francisco X. Alarcón
Gina Madrid
Muteado
MamaCoátl
headRush
Nina Serrano
Lisa Gray-Garcia
Howard Wiley
Andrew Kong Knight
Arnoldo García
Daniel Camacho
Pancho Pescador
"El tractorista" video poem by Rubén Rangel
Alejandro Murguía

Son Jarocho Music Group and Fandango Jam sessions to close!
& others!

*

What does Che mean in 2010 and beyond?

Recently the semi-retired elder Cuban revolutionary and leader Fidel Castro said that the Cuban model does not even work for Cuba anymore. What does liberation mean in the era of neoliberal capitalism, the international "war on terror," global climatic change, Indigenous peoples' liberation movements and governments, and small islands and movements of difference?

In this time, what does Che mean, if anything at all?

Tonight we will try to imagine and re-imagine not only Che's significance, but the meaning of our lives dedicated to progressive social change for racial justice, immigrant rights, human rights, poetry, cultural, music, clean air, water, soil, and what we can do to ensure that the revolution is to be human, like Che.

The world economic crisis has meant a re-evaluation of everything sacred and mundane in the capitalist worlds and the remaining socialist utopias amidst the harsh conditions reigning in South countries and the Third World. How does the working class survive, how are Indigenous people organizing their communities and defending the natural world, what is happening to our countries with the migrant upheavals marking the developed world? What do our words mean to do?

In this contradictory time and threatening developments, Zapatista communities and Che still remaining shining figures and examples of human dignity and struggle for a better deal and a better world for all. Tonight we will celebrate with our own words and actions Che Guevara and collectively raise some solidarity for the Zapatistas in Chiapas.

Come celebrate Che & the Zapatistas!

CHE

Ernesto Che Guevara was born in Argentina, became a revolutionary on several motorcycle road-trips across Latin America, where he saw first hand the problems of impoverished and landless Indigenous peoples, exploited workers and the devastation resulting from hundreds of years of colonialism and empire. After being expelled from Guatemala, when the CIA overthrew the democratically elected government of Jacobo Arbenz, Che met up with leaders of the Cuban July 26 national liberation movement led by the Castro brothers in Mexico and joined their cause. He rode aboard the famed Granma (yacht) to Cuba as the nascent Rebel Army launched its war of liberation, which culminated in victory on New Years Day 1961.

In the revolutionary war to overthrow the U.S.-backed Bautista dictatorship, Che eventually reached the rank of Comandante in Cuba's Rebel Army. He led a column of guerrilla fighters across Cuba in the final march and assault that caused the final defeat and overthrow of the dictatorship.

Che became a leader and creator of revolutionary guerrilla theory and practice, Although he was a medical doctor by training, Che was also a talented writer by vocation and became a noted chronicler of his youthful escapades and of the Cuban revolution, becoming an internationalist practitioner of what he preached.

Ernesto Che Guevara was a multifaceted and selfless individual in the revolutionary world movements. In Cuba, Che became an economist, helping lead a socialist re-organization of the Cuban economy, participated and lead in the development of volunteer workers the sugarcane fields and other sectors to become and shape, as part of a shared vision, the "new man and woman." As a representative of the Cuban revolution, he traveled to Third World countries developing both economic and political relationships to ensure the success of the Cuban revolution and national liberation movements worldwide.

In these new travels, Che reinvigorated his commitment to international solidarity and revolutionary movement-building. he helped organize Cuban internationalist support and eventually spent almost one year leading a guerrilla war with an African liberation movement in the Congo.

In Africa, he continued developing the vision and the members of what would become Che's most well-known and final initiative of creating an internationalist liberation army and movement in Bolivia in 1966. Che lead a small column of guerrillas in the mountains of Bolivia, engaged in several skirmishes and battles but eventually would be surrounded and captured one October 8, 1967. He was executed shortly after capture and the rest is Che history.

Si Che viviera, con los Zapatistas estuviera

*

If Che were alive, he'd be at the Zapatistas side.

Unveil Me!

On October 10, Arnoldo García, el FEO, will be reading at:

THE MUSIC OF THE WORD

(LA PALABRA MUSICAL)

still in English, Spanish, Spanglish y Lo Que Sea

3:30 – 5:30PM No Cover

hosted by Avotcja

(Donations for flyers accepted & don’t forget to bring your Congas, Guiros, Maracas, Panderetas etc.)

Always the word festival to remember!

@ THE OTHER CHANGE OF HOBBIT

(a Science Fiction & Fantasy bookstore)

3264 Adeline Street

wheel chair accessible

(½ block North of Alcatraz & 2 short blocks South of Ashby BART)

Berkeley, CA 94703 (510)848-0413

or (510) OK HOBBIT

Sunday October 10th

ARNOLDO GARCIA (Poeta del Pueblo) & “TINY” LISA GRAY-GARCIA/TONY ROBLES (of Poor Magazine)

ochobbit@oytherchangeofhobbit.com or www.otherchangeofhobbit.com

www.Avotcja.com or LaVerdadMusical@yahoo.com

Come on Baby, Let Me Light Your Fire!

In August, Matchbook Story published my short story "Day Laborer Love." The catch? My short story had to be 300 characters long. So, literally, your story has to fit on the inside of a matchbook.

Now, creating, writing and then editing are always tough.

As a writer you do not want to cut up your baby; but when editing becomes akin to flesh offerings, spiritual gateways to deeper understanding and transformations of consciousness, then editing is easy, not necessarily painless, an art-form. And even more so when I am talking about a short story that is 300 characters long, including spaces; yes, 300 characters!

Kyle Peterson, who publishes Matchbook Story, provided wonderful, insightful feedback and editing suggestions helping me craft a neutron-like compact story with many layers and meanings. He has struck a different kind of matchbook and has created a permanent, eternal-like, bonfire out of my story.

OK, try this at home or at a cafe, or at a laundrymat, or on the bus. write your matchbook story. Then check out Kyle Peterson's blog, where he posts a "pick of the week" matchbook short stories. Then send him your 300 character blast and keep the fires burning -- or as KP states, Matchbook Story (is on fire)!

Record Year of Repression

For those claiming that the immigration system is "broken" and needs "CIR," comprehensive immigration reform, think again and ask someone who has had a loved one, a co-worker or a family member taken away by the police, jailed and deported. Short of any reform, relief can be provided by taking a few commonsense and humanitarian steps. For example, the U.S. must fully restore civil rights and due process for all persons, regardless of their immigration or citizenship status. The abuses immigrants are subjected to in detention and deportation have to be investigated and prosecute those accountable.

This has been a signature year for the U.S. government, notable for the runaway repression of immigrant families, workers and communities. This is nothing to brag about:

• The U.S. is reporting that the number of people coming in without authorization, or who may have overstayed a visa and have also become "undocumented," has decreased.

• At the same time the U.S. is deporting record numbers of immigrants,; expected to surpass 400,000 by the end of the fiscal year ending in September.

• And, worse for immigrant families, workers and communities, a record number of migrant dead have been recovered on the U.S. side of the Mexico border.

These are the results of U.S. laws, practices, measures and policies that have criminalized immigration status, militarized immigration control and border communities, and that do not address the root causes of migration that forces a person to risk their life to survive. On top of all this, immigrant workers face additional hurdles to employment with living wages -- and immigrant workers are scapegoated for the other record, record unemployment. Nothing or little is said about protecting labor rights, ensuring an income or a job and other remedies. U.S. immigration laws and policies fuel the banner year of scapegoating and anti-immigrant hate violence, another record this year.

Are more coming with authorization? Nope. The U.S. could drastically reduce the number of unauthorized entrants by decriminalizing status, issuing sufficient visas for family reunification and ending the backlog. And by regularizing the status of those already here.

Is repression the hallmark of "21st century law enforcement," as the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) touts itself? The U.S. continues investing billions in expanding immigration controls, extending immigration-police collaboration programs, building jail bed space exclusively for immigrants and continuing the deadly strategy of militarizing the U.S.-Mexico border. The U.S. border security deliberately funnels migrants into the desert and mountains of Arizona and parts of New Mexico and Texas where thousands have perished or disappeared since this strategy, called "prevention through deterrence," was implemented in 1994.

System of Repression

The U.S. economy is still in a tailspin; unemployment is deep and jobs are shriveling up. Instead of protecting the labor rights of ALL workers, native and foreign-born, the U.S. has increased immigration policing in the workplace by creating a new generation of employer sanctions using E-verify. The GAO studied and found that employer sanctions cause new forms of racial discrimination in employment, housing and services. While this is old news, employer sanctions continues being expanded and in all its forms gives almost warlord status and power to employers. With E-verify and employer sanction in hand workers, employers believe they can and fire workers who assert their rights or organize unions. Employers violate wage laws and safety protections with impunity because they believe that the immigration status of an employee determines if they have to obey labor and other laws.

The old adage of "When the U.S. gets a cold, Mexico gets pneumonia" is more true than ever. When U.S. workers, especially white workers, face such dire times, immigrant workers, whether Mexican, South Asian, African, Haitian or of any nationality that does not pass as white, are literally thrown onto the street corners and are at the mercy of the the wolves of exploitation.

The U.S. government's treatment of immigrants is nothing to be proud about. Official policies have unleashed waves of scapegoating along with a proliferation of repressive legislation by state, county and local officials targeting immigrants -- or anyone perceived to be born outside the country. SB1070, the controversial Arizona law that gives local law enforcement additional powers to check a person's immigration status, is the tip of the iceberg of anti-immigrant repression.

Over twenty states are considering SB1070 copycat laws. The Obama Administration has implemented "Secure Communities" and other federal immigration-police collaboration programs in over 500 jurisdictions; final the goal is to extend Secure Communities to every county by 2012.

Get ready for more record years of repression.

We will need to all "Dream, Rise, Organize" with fierce human determination to rollback and reverse the climate, much less get socially just immigration reforms any time soon.

>
música humana

música humana
música de polvo
música de tierra
música esqueletal
música de piel
música de huesos
música flota en olas
de tus labios a mis ojos
tu lengua transforma sílabas
en luz, partículas que danza
a tu alrededor
música soverna
echa raíces en el espacio
florece en el viento
no desparaece
es indesaparecible
espera el oído cósmico para escucharse
espero el ojo de las diosas para ser visto
música humana

El hogar/la casa o las estructuras donde residen las relaciones sociales

Una casa, un hogar, un edificio, un rasca-cielo, una oficina, un apartamento, una fábrica, una calle, un callejón, una carpa son las estructuras donde residen y reflejan las relaciones sociales, económicas, raciales, de clase, de género.

Son marcadores de tiempos y espacios pasados de relaciones humanas antiguas y que ahora son hospedaje de lo que vivimos y lo que soñamos, como un campamento de campesinos migrantes que antes era un alcazar o fuerte o una misión y ahora en lugar de encarcelar indios, alojan migrantes que también son indios.

Quizás una hetero-mujer sueñe con casarse con un hombre, tener una casa, un hogar y criar familia. Y esto es una fotografía del pasado. ¿Qué sueñan los desempleados, las prostitutas (trabajadoras del sexo), los jornaleros, los poetas? Con un lugar, cuando no tienen lugar, con estabilidad, cuando no tienen estabilidad, con abrazos cuando no hay ternura, con un cuarto limpio y con calefacción cuando están tirados en la calle desahuciados, con un futuro optimista cuando el presente es opresivo, pesimista. ¿Podremos retomar espacios viejos, abandonados por la fuga de inversiones capitalistas y las de-estructuraciones gubernamentales y del Estado? Sin capital?

Renunciamos y denunciamos las estructuras explotadoras y las queremos retomar con nuevas relaciones sociales, solidarias, abrigadoras, comunitarias, familiares, íntimas, diferentes pero de todos modos ligadas a lo caduco o tratando de rebasar y deshacerse de la caducidad. Remover, destruir, superar lo caduco que pesa contra nuestras resistencias y sobre nuestros ideales. Convierte nuestro solidario servicio para cubrir los agujeros de su falta de responsabilidad social, su extracción económica, su poder político que nos descuenta, nos deshace, nos agota, nos agacha.

Philosophical Materialism

I have gone mad, lost my mind in a mall.

I have gone from nothingness to everythingism:

I need to buy everything

CDs, shoes, blouses, shirts, underwear, designer jeans

earrings, perfumes, lotions, vacation homes, maids

I have gone from idealism to materialism

turned the world into a store

turned my ideas into a thrift shop

turned my heart into an auction

turned my body into an wishful-thinking six-figure salary

I am what I own

I am worth something because I own, I buy, I shop for the very best

What is primary?

My idea of a sale; can I buy it; can I own it; can I take it home; can I make it mine

What is secondary?

Whether I can beat out the other shopper.

What is tertiary?

whether i need it or not, i have it.

The thing determines my being

my being is a reflection of the things I can buy

the thing has become a thing-for-my-self

What is primary?

Materialism, own, own, own, property, things, people in my service

Matter determines ideas

Ideas are in the stores, I look for sales, I shop therefore I am.

Update on community mural in east Oakland

Desi along with Leo, Pancho Pescador, Jane and others are creating a new work of community art almost in my backyard. Part of a citywide initiative called, "Community Rejuvenation Project," which includes neighborhood participation in the mural design and painting and growing community gardens, Desi explained that they went to the store owner and asked permission to paint this historical mural on the outside wall of the store facing Seminary, close to MacArthur Boulevard.

From left to right on the mural, the artists depict ancient history starting with African and Mesoamerican roots. The you have two historical figures a black woman who led a slave revolt and Cuauhtemoc, the last leader of the Aztecs who fought the first Indigenous battles against the incipient European invasion of the Americas.

In the background is the "Black Eagle" of the farmworker movement. Cesar E. Chavez, founder and leader of the United Farm Workers union, designed the logo associated with the UFW. He explained that the "Balck Eagle" was a reminder of the long and deep history of farmworkers and agriculture in the Americas, dating back to the Aztecs and beyond.

On each wing of the farmworker eagle you have Elaine Brown, Black Panther leader, and Inez Garcia, who was raped and in her cause celebre was represented by a Black Panther lawyer in Oakland. Desi explained that the Black Panthers had a historic meeting at Mills College back in their hey-day, which is a few blocks around the corner from the actual mural.

In the center of the mural you have a pre-Colombian Mesoamerican symbol for movement right above the Black Panther party symbol. Then you have images expressing voices being raised for justice and community members expressing their power.

A large image of a woman, acting with fist raised high and exclaiming words, comes from

another photograph that turns out to be that of a Iranian in protest. Behind her you can see images from Alcatraz and Angel Islands, where Asian immigrants were jailed awaiting entry or deportation.

New Mural Rising in east Oakland

I drove right by it and did a double take. I turned around, taking some photos with my

cellphone camera and then decided to return later with my camera.

Here's a few photographs of a new mural in progress. I will go visit the painters when I see them out there and find out more about this exciting mural and community garden project they are developing.

arnoldo garcía

Eye Contact | Contacto Visual

Mis palabras

hacen

el amor

con

tus ojos

|

My words

make

love

with

your eyes

Next stop for the Earth and what are you gonna do about it?

The world doesn't stop for humans. She keeps spinning, wobbling around the sixth sun.

Lately, she's hobbling after being badly hurt once again by human activity that humans, some of us, call corporate greed for oil, profits, accumulation for private consumption.

BP was drilling into the crust of the earth, to suck up oil to process into fuel for our cars, trains, and other energy and forms.

We are now living under one of the worst oil spills in human history after an explosion ripped open a gash in her belly allowing crude to swoosh up in hundreds of thousands of gallons per day, poisoning everything in its wake.

Humans, specifically corporate humans, are responsible for the spill; it was not an accident; the spill is a warning and a sign that our relationship to the natural world doesn't work.

The human corporate polluter, ravager of the earth, has a name, British Petroleum, BP. And he has accomplices, every day sitting in gridlock on their way to shop, work or home.

The Big Bang Strikes Again at the Belly-Button of the Moon

Six millions years ago, give or take a few millennia, an asteroid ripped into earth, gashing a crescent wound into the continent where the Yucatán peninsula now sits. The impact was of such an intensity that part of the earth was lopped off and drifted into space, eventually becoming our moon.

Humans in the Mesoamerican region venerated the almost perfect arc after arc of cenotes, wells (that were created by the backfire of the asteroid's impact on the earth), that covered the Yucatán peninsula. The cenotes were treated as sacred portals or places that were given human and plant sacrifices or offerings.

Mesoamerican naturalists thousands of years ago made the connection between the moon and Mesoamerica and began calling the entire region Mexico. Mexico is the Spanish-ized version of Mexica (pronounced: meh shee kah), formed by the fusion of two Nahuatl language words, metztli (moon) [pronounced: mets-tuhlee] and xictli [sheek-tuhlee] (belly-button) "Belly-button of the Moon."

The asteroid's destruction of animal and plant life created the sediment that eventually over millions of years was compressed and transformed into crude. Coal, oil, in other words, fossil fuel, are the remnants of animal and plant life, which humans have learned badly to use as fuel for extremely short-sighted needs. Human dominant industrial social formations, mainly Europe and the U.S. are using up the past faster than we can create the future, any future that might be sustainable or survivable for humans.

The Wétiko Disease: Gulf of Mexico Oil Disasters

This is the second oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico. In the 1980s another oil rig accident caused a tremendous oil spill. I lived in south Texas, close to Padre Island, at the time and I remember the oil clumping into fist-sized balls of crude. The beaches, the sea-life, the water suffered tremendously; other than sitting on the beach sands, the gulf waters were deadly to all life forms.

But no one should worry.

Humans, especially those of us who have lived under and through the the dominant industrial society cannot destroy the earth. We can only destroy the habitat, the eco-systems of air, water and soil, that support human life.

What is destroying us is what Jack Forbes, renown Native American scholar and poet, calls the "wétiko" disease. Jack Forbes writes, the wétiko disease is "... the consuming of another's life for one's own private purpose or profit."

The wétiko disease is the disease of possession, that anyone of us can own land or build, drill, shovel it around -- or in the case of BP, oil that is over five thousand feet below the surface of the Gulf waters -- without consequences.

The U'wa a few years ago reminded humans, especially those of us from the dominant industrial societies, that the oil in the land and under the crust of the earth is there for its own reasons.

The oil is part of the balance and once you pilfer it, suck it up into ocean carriers and transport it to refineries, we will pay a heavy price, said the U'wa. The whole process of unbalancing comes to the fore. The result? The current and most deadly spill ever of crude gushing from the bottom of the Gulf.

arnoldo garcía

[Scribblings for Poems 29 and 30 April Poetry Month]

these are poetic deviations

doctrinal disasters

for power

for individualism

for my heart

to beat the crooked

root into the sky

waggle our legs

in the sea

swim in the wind

*

1. una llamarada

(habla

una ternura de camarada)

2. tu voz entra a la electricidad alámbrica e inalámbrica

para llegar completa

a mis oídos

(y entre la electricidad

de los kilómetros y

kilómetros que se estiran

sobre montañas, llanos

y ciudades

corriendo por los alambres tendidos sobre los postes

que desfilan al lado

de las carreteras solitarias

tu voz delgada llega tras

las olas eléctricas ondas traspasadoras

3.esto te puede matar, sí

esto sí te puede matar.

poesía y amor

gasolina y fuego

una bomba molotov

es lo que cargo en mi pecho

que ustedes le llaman corazón

una bomba molotov

para las luchas callejeras contigo

traigo sangre combustible

y palabras eléctricas

para ponerle fuego a tus sentidos

4. que se acaben las mentiras

que se ahoguen

en mi garganta ronca

que se mueran todas

y que triunfe la ternura...

*

sovereignty

is the self-inflicted wound

of lovers

who make themselves free

*

tu cuerpo

le habla

a mi cuerpo

químico

una arma biológica

un terremoto de ondas y olas

que me estremecen

no aguanto mi propio sexo

me transformo en agua, lluvia

truenos

tu cuerpo un relámpago

de huesos, senos, labios, electricidad

luz en el techo

tu cuerpo

la habla

al mío

y me transformas en silencio

que gime en los pulmones

que gira en mis irises

que se libera con tus manos

tu cuerpo cerca del mío

y ni las sombras

ni las opiniones

importan

el mundo desaparece

en tu risa

y el sol explota entre mis

piernas o mi lengua trabada

por las vibras

de tu cuerpo

*

for my grandfather purépecha

When you are the Cloud people

the clouds are the most powerful

(my grandfather's words)

When you are the Mud people

mixtery, fusion, convergence, gestation

muddy waters' mongrelity is the most

powerful

(my heart mestizaje of lands' words, mixtery of cloud, rain, dust)

When memory is an infinite

fragmentation bomb

then we are everywhere

(the chorus)

*

Seismic skin

your hands transform me

turn me into a tremor

your skin against mine

(the earth quakes

our jaws unlock)

I am buried in the rubble of my existence

*

I am

a glutton

for words

It's not just

that I want you

your body,

it's that your mind

is strapped

to your body

and I cannot

get to your

mind

except

through

your

body.

*

los deberes del che

El deber de cada

revolucionario

es hacer revoluciones

El deber de cada

poeta

es hacer poesía

El deber de cada

activista

es hacer actividades en la calle

El deber de cada

movimiento

es hacer movidas movimientos

El deber de cada

pensador

es hacer pensamientos

El deber de cada

caminante

es hacer caminos

El deber de cada

barbudo

es hacernos las barbas

El deber de cada

rebelde

es hacer rebeliones

El deber de cada

mártir

es hacer martirios a martillazos

El deber de cada

muerto

es deshacer a la muerte

El deber de cada

vivo

es rehacer la vida

El deber de cada

espíritu

es cantar espirituales

El deber de cada

lengua

es hacer lenguajes

El deber de cada

triste

es hacer tristezas

El deber de cada

mesero

es hacer mesas

El deber de cada

endeudado

es deshacer deudas

El deber de cada

pobre

es deshacer la pobreza

El deber de cada

rico

es deshacerse de sus riquezas

El deber de cada

cubano

es hacer Cuba

El deber de cada

color

es hacer arcoirises

El deber de cada

ruido

es hacer oídos

El deber de cada

loco

es hacer locuras

El deber de cada

enfermo

es hacer enfermedades

El deber de cada

sucio

es hacer suciedades

El deber de cada

socio

es hacer sociologías

El deber de cada

obrera

es hacer obras

El deber de cada

mujer

es deshacer mujeriegos

El deber de cada

hombre

es deshacerse de ser hombre

El deber de cada

anciano

es deshacer ansiedades

El deber de cada

ansioso

es hacerse anciano

El deber de cada

terremoto

es hacer temblores

El deber de cada

moco

es hacer estornudos gordianos

El deber de cada

che

es hacer guevaristas

El deber de cada

helado

es redetirse

El deber de cada

religión

es hacer religiosos

El deber de cada

liberado

es hacer liberaciones

El deber de cada

encarcelado

es deshacer cárceles

El deber de cada

sonrisa

es hacer sonrientes

El deber de cada

zapatero

es hacer zapatistas

El deber de cada

erección

es hacer insurrecciones

El deber de cada

orgasmo

es desdoblar los origamis del ombligo

El deber de cada

nalga

es hacer nalgadas

El deber de cada

garrapata

es hacer garabateos

El deber de cada

cucaracha

es hacer cucharadas

El deber de cada

diccionario

es hacer adicciones

El deber de cada

nervioso

es hacer nervios

El deber de cada

semáforo

es hacer señales

El deber de cada

montaña

es hacer guerrillas

El deber de cada

guerrilla

es cuidar montañas

El deber de cada

lluvia

es hacer charcos e inundaciones

El deber de cada

sequía

es hacer asequias

El deber de cada

dios

es hacer pordioseros

El deber de cada

pordiosero

es hacerse dios

El deber de cada

puerco

es hacer porquerías

El deber de cada

palabra

es hacer palaobreros

El deber de cada

hechicero

es hacerse hechos

El deber de cada

calavera

es calar de veras

El deber de cada

desnudo

es hacer nudos

El deber de cada

nudo

es desnudarse

El deber de cada

explotado

es hacer explosiones

El deber de cada

oprimido

es hacer opresiones

El deber de cada

deprimido

es hacer depresiones

El deber de cada

largo

es alargarse

El deber de cada

crucificado

es hacer resurrecciones insurreccionales

El deber de cada

cana

es hacer canosos

El deber de cada

embarazada

es desembarazar a los imbarazables

El deber de cada

callejón sin salida

es abrirse a la poesía y a los carros abandonados

El deber de cada

sombra

es asombrarnos por ser fiel al sol

El deber de cada

ahogado

es desahogarse

El deber de cada

llanto

es hacer livianos los pesares

El deber de cada

deber

es hacernos soveranos

arnoldo garcía

Manos incómodas / Uncomfortable hands

Ella con sus manos incómodas

teclando sueños sin electricidad

cabeceando sí sí, ignorando al público

Qué diría la tierra sin nosotros

qué haría la naturaleza sin tantos

carros y chimeneas qué haría

yo sin ella?

Las cáscaras del tiempo

la migajas de las carcajadas

las urnas de tu piel y amor

La dictadura de tus ojos

tu cintura, espacio cósmico para mis manos

El ruido de la periódicos en guerras

la ventana de tu lengua

el lenguaje de tu envidia

la verdura de tu vientre

las costillas de tus palabras

los campos de concentración

donde el ajedrez es un horno

para sublevar soles y antepasados

el deseo de no tener deseo

el deseo de aburrirme ante tus desastres

para que veas que todo está bien

El diálogo de bayonetas y trincheras

Los bemoles de las llantas

los blues de las carreteras a las

tres de la mañana

Tus labios come-lunas, luna de crema

y pecados con vela llena de mojados

clandestinos sin papeles sin cosmos

sin estrellas sin nada pero con tierra

y camposantos donde viven para morir

en una fábrica en Chicago o de

autonomía en el sudeste mesoamericano

qué sería de los horizontes sin tus

cadáveres, sin tus pecados falsificados,

fraudes electorales y monturas

silvestres? Qué será de mí sin

tinta y ternura, las ametralladoras

de mis sentidos, qué será

si nunca tengo el tiempo para

escucharte, para tocar la infinidad

de tu cuerpo y su cosmos, curvas y caricias?

*

She with her uncomfortable hands

clicking dreams on a keyboard without electricity

moving her head back and forth, yes, yes, ignoring the public

What would the earth say without us

what would the natural world do without so many

cars and smokestacks what would

I do without her?

The peels of time

the scraps of belly laughs

the urns of you skin and love

The dictatorship of your eyes

Your cosmic waist, space for my hands

the noise of newspapers in wars

the window of your tongue

the language of your envy

the verdure the fresh greens of your womb

the ribs of your words

the concentration camps

where chess is an oven

to organize uprisings of suns and ancestors

The desire of not having desires

the desire of boring myself with your disasters

so that you see that everything is ok.

The dialogue of bayonets and trenches

the b-flats of tires

the blues of the highway at

three in the morning

Your moon-eating lips, moon of foamy cream

and sins with a wind-filled sail full of clandestine

wetbacks without papers without a cosmos

without stars without nothing except land

and holy ground where they live to die

in a factory in Chicago or from

autonomy in the Mesoamerican Southeast

What would become of the horizons without your

cadavers, without your forged sins,

electoral frauds and wild

saddles? What will become of me without

ink and tenderness, the machine-guns

of my five senses, what will of me

if I never have the time to

listen to you, touch the infinity

of your body and your cosmos, curved spaces and caresses?

NOTE: Poem 28 for April Poetry Month 2010.

Arnoldo García

curanderas dignidad

The curanderas put their hands on

my body, rubbed my skin with

plants and the palms of their

penetrating hands. My body

becomes one body as their

hands shape and pull at

every contour and curve of my

body. The curandera is the

body of bodies, who embrace

themselves, who absorb all

my sorrows, ghosts and

pain massaging me into

myself: I have a curandera,

therefore my body exists.

I am reassured of the

existence of the world, the

cosmos and my body where

her hands reside, live,

struggle, dream, become and

make my body real. My grandmother,

who healed with her thoughts, prayers

eyes and hands, had three bodies:

her body as mother, lover and

grandmother.

Her body as a woman who loved

other women equally and in

some cases more than she loved

her husband and her family and

even herself.

Her body as a healer, a curandera,

who negated her own body

who leapt out of her body

to make your body bodily, a

maternal temple, existence. This

was the only body capable of holding

all her bodies together. She could

cuddle and nurture babies, even

baptize them when she didn't

believe in the baptizer.

Because she was a bodily-healer, she

died but her body continued living

not only in my body and in those

she healed and cared for

but in her own body. She rescued

us even after death, took care

of us after we buried her and

then came back to visit me

twice before saying farewell

to this place, this part, this dimension

of the world

she built, healed, smiled at,

cultivated flowers, plants and

fruits. The curandera is a

seed, floating, holding on,

taken care of, planted, cultivated,

watered, sprouting people and

flowering for the next

generations.

She wanted to be wanted and

she would dress as a man

to go to the dances and

dance with women, she would

charm and seduce and make

them whole, make each one

two women in one and she, three

women in one body forever

gestating herself, self-gestating

the community, her family, her

lovers. Her hands, her stretched

body stretched by having given

birth to six girsl and six boys,

were, are her dignity, not mute

out loud gentle tenderness from

her lips. She counseled:

if you are in a tight situation,

violence or humiliation aimed at

you, do not answer in-kind.

If you don't know what to do,

what to say, how to react:

respond with your dignity,

react with your dignity,

answer with your dignity

and nothing can stop you,

no one can get away from you

no one will raise their voice

against you because dignity

and nothing else will matter

Your dignity will shut down ignorance.

her dignity was the cure,

la curandera la dignidad

Arnoldo García

Toppenish

Toppenish

was

my home

the rolling hills belonged to no one

yet drunk Indians and Mexicans thought they were theirs

(that is drunk Indians all).

Three syllables

three roots

dirt roads

cold seasons every winter

putting us in our place

My grandmother and grandfather

thought this place better than Texas

where whites lynched Mexicans

Here they strangled us with

hard labor in the fields

Even the Indians had to

change the spelling of their

names, their homeland

so that no one would confuse

Mexicans with Yakamas

that is whites only,

whites

who took their land

and made us work it

made fertile volcanic soil and dust

mesh with our sweats, our

dream of return

only to die paupers

without land, work or home

except in the cemetery.

Toppenish, rolling hills, makes

me dizzy

swallows me up

my soul is tumbleweed

dried up at the emrcy

of northern winds

Toppenish is my hose

my horizon my word

my roots also

buried there.

My hands lie fallow

I hibernate in dreams

of toxic-free seeds

and uneven rows

meant for walking

and not tractors

we grew up walking

migrant comet trails

blazing, cornstalks,

greenbeans, hops,

orchards across the

brown sky of the land

In Toppenish you see everything

and you see what you need to see

You cannot ignore me

or forget me in Toppenish.

I did not choose this land

This land did not choose me

or my people

Now she is mine and I hers

Toppenish is the wind become

mountains, hills, valley,

volcanic paths, migrant tomb,

laughter and bully.

arnoldo garcía

Poem/poema 25 de abril 2010

i don't want you

to read my thoughts

but here you are...

*

manos abiertas

ríos salvajes

territorios libres

*

que vuelva la tierra

que vuela la tierra

qué lengua la tierra

qué tierra la lengua

un lenguaje terrenal

un territorio lengual

tu y yo

lenguas-pueblos

comunidades-lenguas

*

eres de la noche

eres mi manifiesto nocturno

viento gira

alrededor

relámpago corta

al sufridor

polvo en mis pensamientos

surge el beso

más antiguo

en las armas

de tus brazos

por el reino

de tu amor

arno!do garcía

Your colonialism did this to me

Your skin did this to me

Your 99.9% dropless blood

Your redlining

Your redneck

Your monotone monolingual Christianity

Your tone-deaf tongue

Your flat-ass flat world

did this to me.

*

Notes for my Palestine war

Anwar Balousha

mourns his five daughters

killed by an Israeli Apache [sic]

helicopter that fired mssiles

at a mosque in Jabaliya

Anwar's house was destroyed

by the blasts

Four of his children escaped

Samar, six years old

Dina, seven years old

Jawaker, eight years ofld

Abram, 14

Tahnir, 17

were all crushed to death

where they slept

Five missiles

one for each daughter

Five daughters

one for each missile

five centuries

five Malinches

in the refugee camps

in the migrant camps

Israeli drones in the dark night

looking for their targets

using infrared television cameras

found the five sleeping beauties

five dreaming peace or love

or family or fast asleep resting

getting ready for the next day

But how do you get reay

for the next day of bombardments

of atrocities of F-16 jet fighter pilots

who destroy mosques,

homes, school, universities,

markets, killing and maiming

Palestinians?

Even the ruins are Palestinian.

*

Gaza,

all the missiles

all the bayonets

all the tanks

all the soldiers

all the armies

are hunting you

All they can do is give us time

to prepare for our turn at war

at the fountains of blood

where Israel is quenching

Palestine is rubble under the bombardments

crushed children crushed women

crushed men

who will continue resiting

as dust as ruins as slogans as martyrs

at our marches

as the ultimate dream of freedom

that can only be crushed

by an ignorant enemy

Nowhere to run or hide

what kind of satellite is needed

to hunt down a people

the tables are turned

Israel is driving Palestine

into the sea

and Palestine will become

the largest country in the world

Palestine Palestinian ocean

and you will have to be beg, ask permission on the knees of your ancestors and soul

for at least 500 years

to cross

to bathe

to swim

in our liquid nation

to enter into the realm of our catastrophic borders

the U.S. submarines will snk

the gunboats, the warships

the corporate petroleum pirates the nukes

will be grounded

Israel buries Palestin

and the Palestinians

grow roots an underground

seed that flowers

without dynamite strapped

to her waist

that furrows under and causes the occupation to cave in to sink

in the aquifers of our loud tender mouths

Israel makes Palestinians mourn, twists and maims

their bodies, blasts apart

children and measly armed men,

Israel believes he is winning

76% of the Israelies support the war

they lie, hate cannot be

measured by wars.

*

Oscar Gaza

Broken windows

over a man shot in the back

over a man unarmed

laying face down

with four cops on top of him

shot in the back

a case of a mistaken bullet?

But what color was this Gazan in East Oakland?

who breaks windows, burns cars

who shoots us in the back

who is guilty

who is free

where is Gaza

where is Oakland

where is your sea our ocean our country of open arms and caresses?

Note: these are poems 23 and 24 for April Poetry Month. I was unable to post the 23rd poem on April 23 because I was busy working with communities responding to the rising apartheid and Jim Crow segregation in Arizona, after AZ Governor Janet Brewer signed into law SB1070, which makes racial profiling and discrimination legal. SB1070 give police the power to question anyone they suspect of being undocumented and to investigate private and public agencies, employers if they are serving or hiring undocumented people. Take four actions for justice in Arizona and to denounce SB1070 here.]

arnoldo garcía

Migrant Incantations

échame tierra

sobre la cabeza y la cara

brota mi pecho con polvo

enloda mi lengua

échame tierra

porque me voy muy lejos de aquí

*

throw some dirt

over my head, let it run over my face

rub some dust on my breasts and chest

muddy my tongue

throw some dirt over me

because I am going far far away from here

*

To discuss

words with words

is the height

of consciousness

consciousness

of consciousness

the infinite molting

of consciousness

a head full of serpents

a chaos of

molecular currents pushing herself slithering making time and space

exploding at

the touch of air

blood the altitude of tenderness

tenderness the attitude of my blood

Arnoldo García

Burma

can a few men with guns
rule
dominate
multitudes
of
peaceful
unarmed
nonviolent
monks
students
youth
day workers
who's in the army
who obeys orders to shoot the people
who commands the soldier to shoot the people
monks
students
youth
day workers
tear gas
scatters monks and pigeons
skyful of blood in the airwaves
can the thugs rule us
can the generals crush all the cameras
can the chief of police, the sheriff, the governor, the state senator, the racist
a few good haters
rule
dominate
ignore
the multitudes
of students
day laborers
Indians
immigrants
farmworkers
domestic workers
women with children
can a few men with guns rule the world
make the multitudes cower
destroy the earth
destroy our spirit our lands our communities
can they?
will we
the unarmed the peaceful the drunk on poetry & horizons
the ones who all we want to do is learn, laugh with the elders
can they really sentence us to life in prison in poverty
is a bayonette really more powerful than a pen a pencil solidarity love
can the army make us kneel ask for forgiveness ask for better jails more laws to obey
why do they believe in the possible when we are the impossible

*
buddha plays soccer

be present
not on what you don't have
not on what you had
not on what you lost
not on past grievances failures or successes
not on what you want
not on your desires
be present
on who surrounds you who accompanies you who holds you
on who makes your heart beat loud suns
on the riches of your life that can't be put in a bank account that can't be invested in an IRA
on who fills your lungs with the big bang
who vibrates & plucks the strings of your pigmented guitar
be present
to listen
to breath
to give
to rest
to be

*
campesino

I don't want to bother you
I am no one
I am not important
I hardly exist
I exist in your shadow
I live to be lived and loved by you
without you I am no one
without you I have no shadow
I am a shadow-in-waiting
I will self-destruct without you
I will crumble into a pile of dust
at the mercy of the wind

*
canción

casi te abracé
casi te bese
casi te tuve por una vida entera
casi fuimos uno
casi humanos
casi locos
casi dulzura con cara pecada
y tu corazón de curandera
casi te quise
casi exploto
casi me pierdo en tu sonrisa y cuerpo
casi fue todo
casi fue nada
casi te he querido
casi me deseas
casi duermes commigo
casi no me quito de tu lado
casi apareces en horizontes con filos azules
casi me emborracho con tu cuerpo
casi te apreto en la isla barbuda
casi me pasa todo contigo
casi me enamoro de tí
casi nazco nuevo en tus brazos
casi me olvidas
casi me trastorna y me hace sombra del polvo
casi tengo una vida, una ofrenda
casi entro a la eternidad
casi el amor infinito

*
buddha laughs

end all worries
let them wait
forget them
live now
fight now
free now
free forever
no running
no stopping
no jump starting
no runnning away
no violence
no peace
no hate
no love
nothing
except breathing and horizons

*
war plans

war plans
for killing
bombing
maiming
destroying
coercing
refugees
displaces
widows
orphans
trauma
wrecked
dreams
empire
colony
nukes
generals
bayonettes
prisoners
destruction
oncentration
camps
hopelessness
sociopathy
rape
war plans
for profits and contracts
domination
contractors
weapons R&D
soldiers
hierarchies
patriots
sales
medals
heroes
presidential
world leader
Nobel Peace Prize
re-election now!
home by x-mas
family & country
blood for oil
no homeland
no nation
nowhere
war there
peaceful war here
drive-by's
drones
assassins
state
of
the
uniuon
coffins
flags
burials
21-gun salutes
armies of headstones
sargent pepper's lonely purple hearts band of bros
PTSS
homelessness
safe suburbs
migrants
profits
prayers
anguish
indifference
parasites
cancers
cocktail parties
cockroach revolution

*
Sail

my
words
my tongue
my lungs fill with wind
my consciousness implodes into space
I vibrate beat against the waves lungs flap
wind above water below and stream over the solar skin
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