El camino a la utopía es la utopía | the path to utopia is utopia [poema cero de abril/Zero poem for April]

1

El camino
a la utopía
es la utopía

2

hoy celebraban
a césar e. chávez
y los campesinos seguían trabajando
bajo un sol de machetes
nadie los celebró a ellos

3
hoy dos campesinos
cercas de riverbank
con azadones
estaban limpiando
una labor de fresas
un hombre
y una mujer
dos campesin@s
caminando, cabeza agachada
en un mar verde
que se mecía
con olas de viento empolvado

4
los zurcos
son las tumbas
más suaves
del mundo
allí enterramos semillas y sudor
y luego cuando
germinan
crecen
brotan
y se estiran hacia el cielo
con nuestras manos
las piscamos
y nos comemos
nuestros muertos hechos de
fresas
cebollas
chiles
chícharo
tomates
frijoles
sandía
calabacita
maíz
tierra
agua
sol

5
el camino
a la utopía
es la utopía...

*

The road to utopia is utopia

1

The road
to utopia
is utopia

2

Today they are celebrating
César E. Chávez
and the farmworkers do not stop working
underneath a sun of machetes
no one is celebrating them

3
today two farmworkers
close to Riverbank
swinging hoes with their hands
were cleaning
a field of strawberries
a man
and a woman
two farmworkers
walking, their heads bent down
in a sea of green
that swayed
under waves of dusty wind

4
the rows
were the softest
graves
of the world
there we bury seeds and sweat
and then when
they germinate
crecen
bloom
and reach for the sky
with our hands
we harvest them
and we eat
our dead made of
strawberries
onions
chiles
peas
tomates
beans
watermelon
squash
maize
soil
water
sun

5
the road
to utopia
is utopia ...

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

The human story that turns against herself

The human story that turns against herself: forced migrations. Humanity became humanity when she rose up and started walking, following the rhythms and flows of the natural world.

The first migrations were forced by the changes that occurred in the relationship between humans and the natural world. These changes in turn affected and transformed the relationships between humans and humans and those relationships in turn affected the natural world. Our skin, our pigment, tells the story of longer and shorter stays along the longitudes and latitudes of the world. Movement was indispensable till someone, a woman or women, more than likely, among the humans took note of the seeds and caught them at the headwaters of the natural world.

My ancestors walked toward the horizons cut by the rising and falling of the sun. The earth tilted for its seasonal bows to the sun, creating longer and shorter days, shifting the human settlements.

Human movement has been an indicator of social, economic and cultural development. The only borders the earliest human migrations knew were bio-regional, geophysical and followed the movements and migrations of other earthly species more in tune with the gravity of the world. Migration is a shared story among all two-legged, four-legged and other species who like humans were connected to the magnetic fields of life herself.

Along with movement and migrations, all species share the water to live and procreate life and her cycles and her plants and offerings among species to share the energy of the constellations of earthly life in all her shapes and forces. Movement, water and plants are now subjugated to the dominant industrial modes of human settlements.

To be human is to be a nomad.

The most human of humanity today are migrants, who have been forced to leave or flee for their lives, to survive, a cosmic spiral of sorts that links migrants to her first ancestors, who changed their relationships and became more human by walking together.

--arnoldo garcía

Migrant ghost heart | day eight poetry month

She is now just an idea,
a deep memory
an ancestor
a sister
a woman
a ghost heart
in my mind in my veins in my half life

Her body was her own utopia
she gave herself over to one man only
gave birth to sons
who married and had daughters and one son
who she then raised
because her sons became trapped in the delirium of their bodies
-- and nothing else.

Her body was overthrown
by an uprising of cells
brigades and divisions
armies invading overrunning her body
all organized by her beautiful blackened curly hair
the uprising occupied her adulthood
burned her body into all her sisterhoods
occupied her five senses
punctured her voice into silent curses
deep pain, nails under the eyeballs, skinned alive pain
The onslaught of cellular troops
forced her to retreat to childhood
where her father and mother
where her sisters and brothers
waited for her
they were the fortress walls
of tenderness
of sweets and toys
of being held in arms
of being breast-fed
of being rocked into cozy sleep under hand-made quilts and lullabies
where the warm breath of her mother's wisdom
pushed back the scrimmages, the ambushes and cleared the battlefields
so she could live another day to live...

She became all her sisters
Her skin an impeccable wave
her lips a crimson dance
Her bones turned into glass
She became the young woman again
Until she became the girl of her own utopia.

She would laugh at our jokes because it made her happy
She would cook all the meals and served coffee because she knew hunger
She attended to herself with the love she made
because she knew what being loved did for her
She offered herself without conditions...

This music
she hums and sits upright
even though her bones
have lacerated her flesh,
gnawing away her laughter
the shards of her bones
skinning her eyes with barbed-wired tears
Her body an incision of endless weight
splitting apart the atomic meditation
of the pain-killers
into particles of song
pushing her down into a bayonet of solitude
shattering the vertebrae of her embrace

She did not want to leave alone
She refused.
The invading armies shriveled
Our mourning became her ally
She would not leave alone.
So her father came for her
brought her a girly dress that she adored
And then she left with resolve and unfinished love...

[Poema 14] Estas manos

Estas manos
nacieron
entre las huertas
haciendo las manzanas más rojas
haciendo los duraznos más jugosos
haciendo a los árboles más macizos
Las cerezas sudando entre mis manos
su dulzura
para tus labios
que se besan por mis manos

Las ramas son espadas
que punzan al sol
Las hojas las pestañas verdes
de la sombra
el campesino
hace
la primavera nuestra
la campesina
desdobla de su cintura
la verdura de tu mirada
entre los tres
la tierra nace
otra vez
despertando semillas
entre los zurcos
de nuestras manos.
Empezamos el largo camino
para acostarnos juntos,
tapándonos con las colchas blancas
del invierno
soñando lo que la primavera hace
con nosotros
después del trabajo
después de todo.

Migrant graves

arnoldo garcia

Migrant graves 

The big bang is the grave of the earth.
The earth is the grave of the moon.
The moon is the grave of the oceans.
The oceans are the grave of the beginning.
The beginning is the grave of the word.
The word is the grave of the all our ancestors, including the dinosaurs.
The dinosaurs are the grave of our plumed desires.
Our plumed desires are the grave of our paradise.
Our paradise is the grave of capitalism.
Capitalism is the grave of our imaginations.
Our imaginations are the grave of prisons.
Prisons are the grave of all people.
All people are the grave of our descendants.
Our descendants are the grave of all horizons.
The horizons are the graves of all migrants.
Migrants are the grave of the first gods.
The first gods are the graves of all goddesses.
The goddesses are the graves of all divisions.
All divisions are the graves of stars.
The stars are the graves of all death.
Death is the grave of all illusions.
Illusions are the grave of those who refuse my desires.
My desires are the grave of all martyrs.
Martyrs are the grave of those have stolen our lands.
Our lands are the grave of all invaders, empires, armies and power....
The invaders smile over us
The empires stalk our lands
The armies piss on our dead
And power?
No one has power except the earth, grave of the big bang

*

Rolling hills

Arnoldo García

Rolling hills

Rolling hills
ondulating around the sun
shredding the light
Toppenish became my home
drunk Indians and Mexicans
(that is, drunk Indians all)
Three syllables
three roots
dirt roads
hop fields
cornfields
sugar beet
mustard
asparagus
green beans
watermelon
the ranchers
drained the Yakama's river
to irrigate cash crops
White Swan stranded in the desert
three seasons and every winter
putting us in our place
My grandmother and my grandfather who took her lead
thought this better than Texas
where whites lynched Mexicans.
Here they strangled us
with hard field labor
Even the Indians had to changez
the spelling of their names, their homeland
so no one would confuse
Mexicans from Yakamas
Yakamas land forever from Yakima lands for sale
That is whites only
took their lands
and made us work it
made fertile volcanic dust
mesh with our sweat,
our dream of return
only to die paupers
without land, work or home
except in the cemetary.
Toppenish, rolling hills, makes
me dizzy
swallows me up
my soul is a tumbleweed
dried up at the mercy
of lost northern winds
Toppenish is my home
my horizon my word
my roots are 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,
green beans, 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, vallety,
volcanic path, migrant tomb,
laughter and bully.
the hills ondulate
cutting the horizon into my eyes....

Tiempo verde | ofrenda 29

Arnoldo García

Tiempo verde | ofrenda 29
(Improvisations | de repente)

How many worlds were destroyed
to get to this point
Zócalo de nuestros sones
Indians in the museums
Indians in the malls
we gather humanity
ants carrying a kernel of maize
texting wirelessly
my antennae are up
curling around your body
how did we get this way
I wasn't born this way
1492 is not just a number
the great catastrophe
the great cosmic cultural bang

the eagle is still
descending
crash landing

A more pleasurable war is possible
with Coke!
What is worst than war?
What is worst than death?

Piedras blancas
sobre
Pieles negras

On the way to the zócalo
this is no palimsest
this is reality:
The plaque on the corner building declares
Marques de Prado Alegra lived here starting 1725
Now the Marques is displaced
McDonald's 2012 and counting
McDonald's in lodged their, they do home deliveries too
Then right at the curved corner with two doorways
you can enter on the right
you can enter on the left
The plaque declares:
"Aquí estuvo el popular Café del Cazador, 1835-1900"
Ahora está "Go Mart" vendiendo
agua en botellas de plástico, chicle estadounidense
y café sin cafeína, sandwishes, all style of fast food


The union of harmonium players work in pairs
One working the passer-bys
the other keeping the crank going
Both with their uniform-hats asking for donations:
The harmonium yelps

"Me cansé de rogarte
Que yo sin ella ...."

Made in Berlin,
Played in the streets of Tenochtitlán-Mexico City

We are living in different time periods
the green time dominates
calls our our names
Maicitos!
Xilonen!
The Sirens that no one hears

Everyone is lost
We wear Levis pants
Abercombie t's
AE
Addidas
Nike,
the swoosh that once used to open chests,
pluck beating hearts

Everyone one is selling
Something for everyobe
Aztec danzantes charge $10 pesos
to be cleansed with copal and brushings with caxochtli
Innovators!
Their ahuehuetl is made
From a 25-gallon steel drum
The ahuehuetl is also lost, evolving adapting
peak oil, peak sacrifice and war

About 1,000 people later
their is a woman wearing
a deep crimson blouse that's skirt-length
She's also selling trinkets
She is not lost
She tells everyone where she's from
Resisting the sentence Mexicans, mexicas, nahuas, purépechas
are refusing.
Five mexicanos
are playing the Fab 4
A Beatles cover band
"And I love her ...."

More Indians
begging for money,
food, care, recognition,
humanity
You have to look down
to avoid running them over,
walking on their skin
on the goddess hands
for the 520th year.
I break down
I plop $20 pesos
in the hat of a viejito with his wife
He quickly slips
the bill in his armpit
underneath the shawl
that's draped across
his and his wife's shoulders.
I couldn't take it
He looked like my viejito
My abuelito
who was cast out Michoacán
when he was still purépecha
He was deported, repatriated back to Mexico
as a Mexican migrant farmworker
Viejitos creaking voices
in the din of thousands
of cars, pedestrians, tourists, unemployed youth,
students, housewives, clerks in ties,
couples making out
oblivious to the oblivion that surrounds us

The Metropolitan Cathedral is crooked
made of indigenous blood, gold, sacrifices
The metropolitan cathedral
is set to implode
The Aztec tyemples
will not allow all the Christians
to reach or touch
the 500 stars
The thirteenth and counting paradise
Where cihuatanteo women are defended by eagle warriors
A kid walks by his girlfiends doesn't like that I am looking at them
that they will end up in this world
He's wearing a DRGN Skateshop T
She's wearing a tanktop
She calls out to me: payaso!
A group of mexican boys wearing black hoodies all with the logo:
Hard Busters
One of them carries a boombox
slung over his shoulder
blasting techno

More condemned to step up
A mexican
dressed in all in black as a hybrid monster
Wearing a Hannibal Lector mask
With a Darth Vader hood and cape
stares at passer-bys
He only moves his eyes
A new mestizo menace
atop a milk carton
playing the role
so we enter the fantasies of the master race

Another mexican
in full Predator regalia
is posing for photos with moms and their children
The Penguin
a bit taller than the original
but a mexican nonetheless
with a variety of umbrellas in different shapes and sizes

An Indian boy
with a squeeze-box almost as big as him
slowing pushes the buttons
playing a corrido
No one notices him
You have to look down
Everyone is standing in a semi-circle
back to back with the accordeonist boy
Watching a big screen
Where the Fania All-Stars jam on salsa

A man
about as old or young as me
puts up his open hand
holding what looks like two ten-peso coins
I say sorry, no thanks
He replies: Up yours!
He keeps going in the opposite direction
I keep going with the flow,
waiting for the green light
to let thousands of pedestrians
leave this reality
and enter the next one.

*

Tiempo verde
tiempo de maíz
tiempo de los pueblos de maíz

I am lost in the greening of my eyes
My verdant heart bursting in tasty kernels
I offer myself
Coyoxauhlqui purses her lips
hugs herself
tells me to wait my turn

She tells me how embarrassing
(she actually said: how fucked up it was)
That the first official visit she received
was President Jose López Portillo, in 1978
La diosa no recibe visitas oficiales since then!
She organizes underground
Her sisters and daughters are being slayed again
Femicidio sin fronteras!

*

Ofrenda 29

Un punzón de hueso
bellamente esgrafiado
una cuenta de piedra verdísima,
carbón
y un cráneo de águila real
That's all that was found in this offering stone box
An eagle warrior
who pierced his soul
offering blood, sacrifices
to become a defender of the juarez cihuatateo women
who are being disappeared, murdered
at the border indi
in the interior
an unholy war on women
He is there now on the border
flesh offereings
for a new peace
to restore coyolxauhqui
mend her into one
bring back the green time

El tiempo verde...

Día nuevo | Policía blanco sobre piedra negra | poema 8

 Arnoldo García

Es un día nuevo

Es un nuevo día
girando y desgirando hacia el sol
la tierra circula
por las venas del espacio
el sol circula
por las venas de mi cuerpo
el viento el vientre
el aire el desaire
en mis pulmones
nidos para las estrellas moribundas
mi cuerpo un camposanto
de soles y cósmos disueltos
en el polvo purépecha y
proletario.

Es un día nuevo
con su noche espectacular
El día se cansa con el sol
la noche se acuesta con las estrellas
y todos despiertos y soñando
el nuevo amanecer
el mejor más humano
el más nuevo para cumplir con la palabra
Y abajo
debajo
de la tierra
del polvo
la polvorosa lucha...

*
un policía
blanco
dispara
sobre
un hombre
negro


un hombre
negro
reclama
contra
un hombre
blanco


un policía
blanco
dispara
en
la espalda
de un jóven
negro
que está
bocabajo
con
las manos
torcidas
sobre
su espalda
negra


un hombre
blanco
dispara
mata
muchos
hombres
negros


hombres blancos
sobre
piedras negras
sangrando


Dos
migrantes
desaparecen
cada día
en la frontera
reaparecen
muertos
negros
esqueletos
blancos
sobre
piedras
negras


Los desaparecidos
negros
migrantes
el nuevo día negro
contra la noche blanca


mi palabra
negra
sobre
el papel
la pantalla
blanca


palabra
negra
sobre
papel
blanco


palabras
contra
el color
del desastre
blanco


la noche
es
la infinidad
la infinidad
es negra
es tinta
infinitamente
negra
mi lengua
mis pulmones
mis huesos
mis dedos
mis plumas
mis pieles
mi calavera
mi amante
mi orgasmo
mis sentidos
mis manos
sobre tus pechos
en tu boca
soy
negro
soy
piedra
negra
sobre
papel
sobre
piel
sobre
hombres
blancos

El nuevo día
es negro
el día viejo
es blanco
escribo
toda
la humanidad
negra
oscura
bronce
roja
azul
amarilla
verde
púrpura
negra negra
sobre
todo blanco

borro
la blancura
con
la negreza
de mi alma cósmica
mi cuerpo terrenal
polvorosamente negro
horizontalmente
un cuchillo
que corta rebanadas
del sol
para
ensartarselas
en las gargantas
que todavía
rezan en blanco
su pureza
cuando
la pureza
la purísima
es negra
como
mi lengua
como mi corazón
como el calor que tengo
el deseo que nada lo detiene
cuando siento tu cuerpo
acercándose
a mí
aunque virtualmente
mi mirada negra
no la detiene
la pantalla blanca
mi tinta
mi conciencia
mis palabras
mis gritos
mi rabia
mi ternura
explota en todos los colores
de tu piel
negra
de tu amor
negro
es un día nuevo....

Utopías

Arnoldo García

Utopías

Tenemos utopías porque nos quitaron la tierra, nuestras raíces desplazadas, desmovilizadas y nos forzaron a movernos. ¿Quién nos forzó a movernos, a abandonar nuestros pueblos, nuestras comunidades antiguas? La avaricia de otros hombres, que para acaparar más necesitaban de nuestra fuerza de mano, necesitaban nuestra sabiduría de la agricultura, las semillas y sus suelos.

Somos utópicos porque donde quiera que estemos estamos en nuestra tierra. No tenemos ningún lugar porque todos los lugares son nuestros -- por más incómodos que los terratenientes actuales tengan, por más incómodos que nos sentimos como extranjeros en nuestra propia utopía, nuestra propia tierra.

Nuestros muertos están enterrados en los estados de Washington, Michigan, Ohio, Indiana, Tejas, Oregon, Arizona, y pronto Nueva York y otras regiones del norte grande. Nuestros huesos se han convertido en el andamio de la tierra, ligándonos a raíces mexicanas. Y todas estas tierras son tierras de pueblos indígenas que fueron desterrados empezando en 1492.

*

Nuestras palabras, trenzadas y destrenzadas del lenguaje, tienen múltiples raíces y voces.

Nuestra alegría parece ajena, que no nos pertenece y quizás siempre es fugaz. La falta de utopías nos convierte en fieles seguidores de un dios sin milagros, flagelándonos, auto-inmolándonos para un paraíso que se viste los domingos y nada más. Otras nos convierten en consumidores de alcoholes, drogas y sustancias que nos llenan la panza pero nunca el alma.

Nosotras y nosotros los más utópicos sin vergüenzas tratamos de cambiar este mundo donde las adicciones son comunes y los grupos de anónimos tratan de convencernos de que no somos normales los que como nosotras y nosotros quieren vivir al filo del viento, pensando hoy como hacer el mundo nuevo, retomar nuestro lugar en el orden de la naturaleza?

Y quién son los anónimos de cada día? Las y los migrantes, los indocumentados, la sombra que trabaja para mantener los ricos ricos.

*

Todo es posible con la esperanza de amar hasta la muerte.
La muerte es una barrera más que hay que brincar o demoler;
no es impenetrable porque nuestras muertes no mueren sino pasan
a otra realidad fecunda, polvorosa, nebulosa,
que nos cuesta aceptar y reconocer a nosotras y nosotros los vivos
para su muerte,
nosotras y nosotros dependemos de nuestra vida de nuestros muertos.