Ransom for Six Sky

On the day

8 Ben 16 Kayab

Six Sky of Río Azul

was buried.

Most likely during the year 450

Then in the late 20th Century

Looters took

the vessel

from her grave

Now Six Sky sits under a glass display

(anxiously awaiting liberation)

at the Detroit Institute of the Arts.

The looters kept no record,

but the people will always remember

In December 1985

140 small pieces of

gold

jade

obsidian

and

turquoise

were taken from

the National Museum of Anthropology

in Mexico City | Tenochtitlán

the thieves

sent

a message:

these priceless precious stones

are being held for ransom

Now, the Maya Zapatistas are paying the ransom

freeing Indigenous past and present

from the neo-liberal kidnappers, the grave-baron-land-robbers,

the military industrial complex of generals, soldiers, paramilitaries,

police, battalions, secret police, political parties, non-profits, politicians

and toastmasters of capital.

Six Sky

has been

resurrected,

scattered

between Detroit and Tenochtitlán

Seattle, Oakland, Matamoros,

Chicago, Toledo, New York

Organized into a community army

armed with the colors of the earth

their weapons are our ancestors

who have secretly taken over the underworld

putting ski-masks on the sun and moon

Gestating flesh and blood onto the skeletons of our dreamers

.

In the butterfly of our women

flutter two banners, two flags, their lips chanting

we shall dream

we shall win

we shall birth

we shall love

we shall shatter

we shall clench our hearts

we shall cry in community

we shall sing off the face of the enemy

we shall batter the helmeted soldier,

laugh at his bayonet

we shall stop the bullets, the bombs, the fires

And the new people

that Six Sky dreamt

in her deep sleep

in the year 450

emerge, rise, fly, speak with an earthen tongue

when we will swallow the sky

to become pregnant with clouds, rain, butterflies, milpas, babies,

chidlren-ancestors, who slept in our arms

and made thunder rise

from the maize, the frijol, the women, the men,

the elders, the still-born, the invaders, the raptors,

who remembered then:

Six Sky was resurrected in the sixth sun….

[1984-2012, unfinished words of mariposas | c.s]

Five Questions

What were the best five lives,

the best five big bangs

the best five galaxies

the best five universes

the best five suns

the best five worlds

the best five centuries

the best five decades,

the best five years,

the best five months,

the best five days,

the best five hours,

the best five minutes,

the best five seconds

of a moment

of your family?

If you hear creaking mattresses

in the night of your home

is it ghosts or the orgasms

of unrequited lovers?

How many mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, grandma’s, grandpa’s, aunts, uncles

have given their lives

so that you may have a shot at happiness?

What happens to you

when you see old photographs

of your ancestors,

do you fall in love with them

or do you wish they could tell you their stories?

Do you know

your grandmother’s favorite colors,

her birthdate,

the name of her first boyfriend,

if she loved someone other than your grandfather

and never left?

Will you be like her,

give birth to twelve children

with a man she may not love?

Will your love be that strong to survive anguish and wars?

My grandmother taught me

that my success was the offspring

of 1000 relatives and ancestors

who failed,

who struggled,

who suffered

and only knew happiness

as a legacy she, he, they gave to me.

I carry the anguish of thousands in my bones,

I get to smile, laugh, be nourished, be hopeful,

because they had no happiness,

only disease, deaths, harsh work

and tender lovemaking that birthed dead or dying children.

All my ancestors are light as an orgasm,

as deep as my belly laughs,

as clear as my tears.

When my grandmother tried to choke to death her husband

she was trying to kill the woman she never became.

She was a woman who loved women,

who loved me,

who loved plants and seeds,

who took care of all children

– because no child could be illegitimate –

who only believed in horizons

and where the waterfalls were her prayer beads.

She said:

You will become a revolutionary of love,

a revolutionary to destroy solitudes,

to resurrect all the old ones who didn’t make it

because they harvested someone else’s crops,

tilled their lands for other people,

who were killed by work and hate,

whose love was never honored,

whose lives mattered because they, she, created more life and lives.

My grandmother said she did not have children so that they would be slaves.

She had children so that they would have lives, not hers, their own.

And she would live in us, in me,

in whatever life we chose

and she would be free, lazy, drinking coffee,

have more free time to debate Protestants

and make her body the theology of the future.

My grandmother made love, made children, made a new god of her body…

[September 2013 | Oakland, Califaztlán, Ohlone Territory]

Soy del otro lado | I am from the other side

Soy del otro lado
del lado bravo
del lado tuyo
del lado izquierdo
donde tengo el nido
para tus abrazos
Soy del otro lado
donde los muros
son las sombras
que persiguen
a los policías
que defienden
a los tiranos del mercado
Y el sol está
a nuestro lado
el lado de la tierra
el lado de las lágrimas con sus sonrisas
el lado de la luna llena y vacía
el lado que es combustible para las estrellas
el lado donde somos íntegros
el lado que divide a las bestias
adomándolas con nuestra luz
el lado que nos abriga
contra la rabia del dinero
Soy de ese lado
con sus seis direcciones y sus siete espacios
donde los abrazos abren cielos y puertas
donde los llantos espantan a las fronteras
y las mujeres nos dan su espalda
para cargarnos y sobrevivir
Del lado donde nuestros desaparecidos
reaparecen
Soy del otro lado
del lado tuyo...

[Abril 2016]

| * |

I am from the other side

I am from the other side
from the side of the Bravo
from your side
from the left side
where I have a nest
for your arms
I am from the other side
where the walls
are shadows
that chase down
the police
that defend
the tyrants of the markers
And the sun is
on our side
on the side of the earth
on the side of tears with smiles
on the side of the of the full and empty moon
on the side that is fuel for the stars
on the side where we are whole
on the side that divides the beasts
taming them with our light
on the side that holds us
against the rage of money
I am from that side=
with its six directions and seven spaces
where our embrace open up skies and doors
where our cries threaten borders
and the women give us their backs
to carry us and to survive
From the side where our disappeared
reappear
I am from the other side
from your side ...

[April 2016]

Soy del otro lado | i am from the other side

Soy del otro lado
del lado bravo
del lado tuyo
del lado izquierdo
donde tengo el nido
para tus abrazos
Soy del otro lado
donde los muros
son las sombras
que persiguen
a los policías
que defienden
a los tiranos del mercado
Y el sol está
a nuestro lado
el lado de la tierra
el lado de las lágrimas con sus sonrisas
el lado de la luna llena y vacía
el lado que es combustible para las estrellas
el lado donde somos íntegros
el lado que divide a las bestias
adomándolas con nuestra luz
el lado que nos abriga
contra la rabia del dinero
Soy de ese lado
con sus seis direcciones y sus siete espacios
donde los abrazos abren cielos y puertas
donde los llantos espantan a las fronteras
y las mujeres nos dan su espalda
para cargarnos y sobrevivir
Del lado donde nuestros desaparecidos
reaparecen
Soy del otro lado
del lado tuyo...

*

I am from the other side
from the side of the Bravo
from your side
from the left side
where there is a nest
for your embraces & love
I am from the other side
where the walls
are shadows
that persecute
the police
who defend
the tyrants of the market
And the sun is
at our side
on the side of the earth
on the side of the tears with her smiles
on the side of the full and the empty moon
the side that is fuel for the stars
the side where we are whole
the side that divides the beasts
taming them with our light
the side that protects us
against the rage of money
I am from that side
with her six directions and seven spaces
where our embraces open skies and doors
where our crying intimidates borders
and the women give us their backs
to carry us and survive
From the side where our disappeared
reappear
I am from the other side
from your side...

*

poem & art: arnoldo garcía

Si Rafael Alberti hubiera sido campesino...

Si Rafael Alberti hubiera sido campesino

Yo soy campesino

marinero en la tierra,
migrante de las olas y las ondas semilleras,
navegante sin papeles y fronteras

Refugiado en los zurcos de nuestra América
poesía de pala, azadón y tractores
marinero en las labores de la verdura y la ternura...

human status for all | viva la tierra/earth lives

human status for all:
birds,
oceans,
mountains,
uranium,
rivers,
deserts,
jaguares,
bears,
fish,
whales,
worms,
wind,
soil,
waters,
migrants,
hummingbirds,
butterflies,
snakes,
insects,
bacteria,
germs,
shells,
mammals,
amphibians,
bipeds,
quadripeds,
all animals,
cold-blooded,
warm-blooded,
dust,
seeds,
pollen,
dogs,
wolves,
cats...

Animal status for all:
whites,
blacks,
browns,
yellows,
greens,
teas,
republicans,
democrats,
communists,
anarchists,
utopians,
men,
women,
children,
ancestors,
elders,
queers,
transspiriteds,
the blind,
the deaf,
the mute,
the undocumented,
homeless,
the rich,
the technocrats,
the evil bankers,
the neoliberalists,
the corporativists...


On earth day,
all power to the animal people,
the web of life,
the natural world without us...

*

Non-utopias | arnoldo garcía

The options
for
our journey
are narrowing/
capitalism
has
become
a super storm
a deep drought
an arctic quarry
an ocean drowning nations
a war of narco-utopians

Indians
have become
Indians
again
following the gravitational fields of their soul
alongside
ghost buffalo bringing back the humans
aztec dancers joining the swirling galaxies
disappeared women chanting away the desert graves
The transition has become forlorn
no socialist, communist, anarchist realm
awaits on the other side of the barricades or the borders
Your body
has become
the most feared weapon
the only organism capable of self-destruction
destroying the habitat of our ancestors' womb
or restoring our place in the geo-cosmic formation of planters | gatherers
The capitalist realm
The one percent of the one percent
The country of those
who take
the fat of the unborn
have broken the circle,
their circle with humanity
No space ship
No virtual reality
No acid trips
No latter day saints
can transport them out of this christian mess
They crucify the new Jesus on drones
They bomb the new Mohammed at weddings
They grovel at the lungs of our last new Buddhists breath
The holy story has never referred to us the immigrant-indian landless shadow
The holy story is emptiness, erasing our names with zeros, ones and police guns
Nobody understands that our story is in the soil
Nobody realizes that our voices roar, hum and weave the rivers and ocean waves
Nobody who is white or gullible of their shadows understands.
There is no industrial solution
There is no socialist revolution
There is no European pagan sun
Einstein's theorems
Marx's das kapital
My grandmother's plants and prayers
are no match for this problem born in 1492...

The revolution is to be human:
Leave the natural world alone
Turn off
Tune in
Go off-line?
Only the wind, the dust, the waters, the moon, the sun, our smiles are wireless
The rest is either a fiction or a faction of our imagination.
We fight for the right to be in our black and brown skins without fear
We fight for the right to live in community with the natural light
We fight for the right to sing our song in any key in any tone in any frequency
so that bees and butterflies are not molested
so that maize and pollen are free to make love with humans and insects
We have arrived
at the shores
of a broken world
beatened men
impaled women
unlucky new borns
who have inherited a war of worlds
payable through an electronic debit plan
You cannot download utopia or useless ancestors
Your laptop will never have enough memory to install the new old world...

what is lost | arnoldo garcía

I cannot take back
what I lost
what I lost
now belongs to another
If I take back
what I lost
I will have to take it away
from another I
I cannot take back
what I lost
what I lost
is only found in my memory
a body that needs another
to be found
to be whole
to be un-lost
without having to take back
from another
who is just
another I
Another I
who is lost
And cannot take me back
without taking away from me
what is lost...

arnoldo garcía: soledades

I cannot possess you
anymore than you can possess
the wind, the water, the land
And I will never possess you or the land
Yet all I want is to be buried in you
So that you can possess me
Turning me into
a flurry of wind
dust across your watery back
a muddy caress of your feet...

arnoldo garcia: I want to share the moon with you...

I want to share the moon with you...
holy bread
pale burnt tortilla
pock-marked face
rotting mirror
antarctic slip
wounded smile
loudspeaker of suns
disposable tambourine
frying cymbal
griddled plane
ingestable hands

I want to cut my wrists with the moon...
so all the oceans will come gushing out
becoming impotent crayons and a scar of dark matter
on either tear ducts of your sex

I want to become the moon
transplanet
translucent serpent
transitive kiss
fugitive son
the library of all memories
a bed of erotic servitude
a coyote of sadness
a minstrellated lung
the cyclical war
of time and menses

I give you the moon
a pact of dusks to hold you
an endless unforgetting
shells, caracoles, topographies of soul
my effigy-tongue
to burn as an offering to castigate the men

I make you the moon
a quilt of contradictions
a multilingual kiss
where the sun snipped
the umbilical chord of swallows
drowning your grief with her laughter
strumming the curves of the water
the clan of your eclipse
putting down the rabid sun
the reader of my calloused palms

Rebellions | 7 mayo | may 7

it's right to rebel. -- mao

my eyes are rebelling
they're tired of seeing for me
they want to see for themselves
they want to see the sun, become the sun unblinding explosions
my eyes say let your brain see in the night without us
you'll appreciate your knees more as a penitent for light.
My ears are joining the rebellion, too.
they're tired of hearing the blues
they're tired of hearing your scratchy voice beat on my drums
they're tired of listening for the ecstasy of your shadow
so my ears just hiss and hiss
Singing a static song out of a B natural note
they scrape the note over and over until the their hissing drives me crazy
and all i can hear is what you said to me the other night
the hissing becomes a womb
gestating the noisiest web of musics, embraces, cries...
my eyes will impose their dictatorship of darkness
my ears their military junta of airlessness
my soul retreats to organize a guerrilla, a little war, in the mountains of my heart and lungs...

Golondrinagrafía * 2 de mayo | may 2 | *

La golondrina bebe
las lágrimas de la mujer herida
La curandera la piensa,
la sueña,
la frota de plantitas y oraciones, llantos y colores
Ella ahoga su plumaje
en la menstruación inalámbrica
de la ternura

Su cuerpo bramido
parte soles
para destruir a los soldados
que hicieron guerras contra su horizonte

Golondrina labios acurrucados
vuela a los míos
Tu boca sobre la mia, golondrina
Tus labios, golondrina,
desdoblandose sobre los míos
Se mezclan, se entretejen y haces el nido de nuestra salvación

Golondrina ya bebe de mis lágrimas
Para qué ella descanse
en tu vuelo
sobre tu espalda negrita …

Primero de Mayo | May 1 | the international movement

The working class
That international beast of capitalist burden
Used to count the light, the wrinkled skin of stars and cosmos
Now we’re trapped in the industrial smokestack's web of disaster
We used to be Indians, most of us at least.
We donned silk-screened t-shirts with the crocodile trademark over our huipiles
We interspersed the language of money in the crust of our souls,
Banning the sun from the count of human time.

We are in trouble:
Are we workers or are we humans
Are we sons and daughters of the land or is the land dispossessed of the dispossessed
Are we on street-corners waiting for work or are we on the cosmic pilgrimage
to honor Lucy, our first mother, returning the first kiss with the first humanity to be

Dos



Veinte girasoles
Veinte fuerzas
Veinte vientos, polvos, criaturas. aguas, animalitos, hormiguitas, abrazos, veinte maneras de amarte y hacerte el amor
Hoy es el primer día
Nace de mi bravura verde
Con su hocico se traga el dolor, dejando un arcoiris de cicatriz
Después de él nos barre el viento
Nos autogestamos en nuestras casas
Los sueños emergen de nuestro plumaje
La muerte nos arrulla
El venadito vuela
El lunar del conejito cuelga de tus oidos, arêtes astrales
El agua siempre nos bendice ancestros y recien nacidos
Los chiquillos correnm nos aman incondicionalmente, ladran sus corazones
Luego se trepan en la copa del cielo y mis changuitos cantan con las estrellas
Luego la mujer de la tierra, del lodo, de las raíces humanas nos mece entre sus brazos acuáticos
Ella construye una flauta de carrillo que hostiga a los sentidos de los conquistadores.
El ocelote carga los astros de la noche sobre su piel, su ofrenda humana a la naturaleza
que es arrebatada por el águila de la luz.
Luego mi abuelito me recuerda que el aura volará siete veces traspasando el cadaver de los explotadores.

Todas las vida y las luchas empiezan y terminan en el movimiento:
La materia visible e invisible
baila, gira, se tuerce y retuerce en el ombligo del pozo negro,
la cúmbia cósmica del big bang.
Llegando a esta aurora, la tierra exige un ofrenda
Tienes que decidir que parte de tu cuerpo sacrificarás para que la luz no muera.
La lluvia explota con su rabia pura, nos baña con su cristalina voz
De ella brotan nuestros cantos, el éxtasis de estar a tu lado…

Tres

Cipactli
Ehecatl
Calli
Cuetzpalli
Coatl
Miquiztli
Mazatl
Tochtli
Atl
Itzcuintli
Ozomatli
Malinalli
Acatl
Ocelotl
Cuauhtli
Cozcacuauhtli
Ollin
Tecpatl
Quiahuitl
Xochitl
así
es la cuenta
de nuestras derrotas
así
es el tiempo
de nuestras esperanzas
son los días donde nos estremecíamos en las fogatas de la luna
y en los brazos del sol negro.
Todos las noches y los días son sagrados
Hay noches cuando nuestros sacrificios son impuestos
Hay días cuando la explotación cava tumbas en nuestros pechos
Han habido ya más de siete generaciones aguantando, resistiendo
y sacrificándose para parir al nuevo sol…

I am a ghost

there are days
when i believe
i am a ghost
haunting stairwells
and abandoned migrant camps
sleeping with Billie Holiday
and getting drunk with drunk Indians 
Being pulled into seance sessions with bolshevik clouds
Having to possess her body to become real

Ghosts do not cry. Ghosts do not die. Ghosts have unfinished revolutions.
I cry so maybe I exist.
I will die so maybe I still have a shot at space travel

My revolution has not started so I continue offering sage
to the ancestors and to the babies whose future I hold in mine.
When night comes I become a ghost in other planes of existence
I am an apparition in another dimension of her heart
Even the noted dialectical materialist, Frederick Engels, believed the world and her double were being recreated simultaneously in another realm of space at the same time.
I have visited that world, actually worlds, several times.
She is different, beautiful, you can choose to be yourself or another, because she is free of the restraints of our skins:
There you can walk barefoot,
drink the water from the ground, from the streams and rivers,
no danger there except of not wanting to return.
There the rain is made of crystals that bend the sun into a creaking womb of life.
There i can fall through the sky and enter my house through the roof of my bedroom.
There it is always morning.
Then an arm pulls me through the walls and I cry out, gasp as I land once again on the floor of my reality, my ghost hood.
Come talk with me, tell me how you're doing -- that will be enough assurance that I am alive and well -- and if you want to know the future come visit me in your sleep
I will show you how a ghost dances cubist cúmbias and gets electrified at the neighborhood pachanga.
You turn out to be a ghost and I turn out to be your body
You turn out to come from those other worlds and I turn out to return the visit
You turn out to heal your wounds and I turn out carrying them all so that I can say I am human because of your gentle laughter.
So tell me, who do you see?
Am I man or ghost
Am I human or shadow
Am I real or just someone you conspired with at another meeting to exorcize the ghosts who rule through war and illusion
I will be a ghost until the world I need becomes real...