April Fools Day/Día de los inocentes sin fronteras -- 2010

Note: Every day in April a new poem will be posted here.

NOTA: Cada día de Abril pondré un poema nuevo en aquí

My daily prayer to the gods of violence & coercion

Make this day go away.

Make the night stay

Make her body emerge (always at her side)

Shield me with ink

Tattoo my lungs with tenderness

Forgive me my daily coffee made by anonymous scalded campesinos

*

The Arizona desert is blooming

with bloated migrant bodies

the sacred human cactus

thorns in our eyes

sunlight in our veins

dust on our tongues

evaporating the shadows

that survive

the journey

to the oblivion of sweatshops, jails

& families reunited

the disappeared don't count

the survivors sometimes are jealous of their dead

who die slowly in the cross-

ing

who die slowly on the street-

corner

who die slowly in the class-

room

erased

erasing

rasing

rased

humanity

that refuses

to cower

*

Men with guns

can solve

any problem

any where

any time

in east Oakland

norteños

sureños

border brothers

OPD

the underground blues

for fallen martyrs without a cause

money & power

private property & walls

grow out of the barrel of a gun

not a pen

respect is the cost of a bullet

we

bury

our sons

and daughters

say goodbye

adiós

revenge

becomes

a life

lived

in prison

on the streets

in the schools

in the ruins

we call home

tears the size of hacksaws

shredding ribs

disturbing the ancestors

cleaving the day in two

one for sorrow

one for whatever's left of you

after the burial

men with guns

can solve anything

except this.