New poetry chapbook! Poets against War & Racism | Poetas contra la guerra y el racismo

Order your copies of Poets against War & Racism here.

Here's the first in a series of chapbooks that we will be publishing to read and work together to raise our voices and ink (real & virtual) against the calamaties of capitalism: war and racism.

At the core of our words is the belief that we can create the world, small and big, horizontal and communal, where we are safe to be ourselves, free and self-determined.

To get there we have to create and practice the new language.

So here is a small offering by five poets who are against war & racism and for deep community and justice.

Get one for yourself and get two or more for your friends and families.

Click here to get copies of Poets against War & Racism.

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 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

*

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.