Sunday, January 19, 2014

Entre La realidad y Oakland





Guadalapue Tepeyac, Aguascalientes
Selva Lacandona
Julio 1994*

Mariposas indocumentadas
Insectos insurrectos
Lluvia sin fronteras
Nuestra patria es una bioesfera
Humanidad-naturaleza
Una eco-nación
Naciente india
Con los abanicos de nuestros lenguaje y sus fronteras
Las sombras y sus movimientos
Con las manos y el sudor de nuestro corazón
Vamos formándonos
pueblos juntos
Bajo las llantas del polvo
En los torbellinos del viento
Entre nuestros pulmones
La historia
sin
fin
y
contradicciones

Todos somos la mascara de los olvidados
El lodo,
El barro,
La lluvia mezclada
Es el polvo de nuestros antepasados
Con su sangre fertil
Y sus ríos de huesos incesantes, cristalinos
Nos bautizaron
cada paso
cada diente
cada cabello
cada pálpito
cada sueño
cada consigna-cliché
cada cansancio,
todos
todas

Que se junten
viejos y ancianos
jóvenes y recien nacidos
los inválidos y campeones
Que se vistan de hombre las mujeres
Que se vistan de mujer los hombres
Que los más lentos caminen con los más veloces
Que los feos se casen con las más bellas
Las indocumentadas con los ciudadanos
Los indios con las gabachas
Las negros con los blancos
Los mestizos con las puras
Que se unan mayas con chicanos
Norteños con sureños
Drogadictos con republicanos
Peregrinos con prostitutas
Activistas con organizadores
Desorganizadores con proletarios
Las fronteras con la luna
Los niños con el agua
Las embarazadas con las vírgenes
Coatlicue con minifalda de serpientes

Que se junten ya todas y todos los indios
Desde Chiapas a Matamoros y Valle Hermoso
Desde Ensenada, Tijuana, a Oakland, los Angeles y la Ciudad de México
Desde Toppenish hasta Flint, Nueva York y Brownsville
O la realidad

Las y los indios
ocupan
el mismo lugar
el mismo espacio
sea en el sol o la luna
en Seattle borracho o en Zinacatán perdidos
que se junten todas y todos
que se junten
los homeless
los hambrientos
los pordioseros
indios
las artesanas de la explotación
que se junten todas y todos
los que no tienen nada o que tienen mucho
y que han trabajado para llegar
a la pobreza infinita del espacio
que se junten
las y los que no son nadie
con los que no son nada
antes de que la tierra dé su ultimo gira…

*

Ofrenda de caracoles

1. [1993]
Pasamos
un poco
de hambre
para que el sol
pudiera llover sobre nosotras
conchas, caracoles
las lenguas dulces de las nubes
los soles verdes de la insurrección
para
derrocar
y
desterrar
el orden humano
borrarlo de la tierra
para
tomar
nuestro lugar
entre el lodo
trenzar
nuestras
venas
huesos
cabellos
en infinitas raíces

Emergen
soles
tenues
de
entre
nuestras
bocas
tenues
caracoles
que se desdoblan
en serpientes
abriendo
senderos
en las hojas
senderos
transparentes
los pasos rodados
de mujeres olvidadas
de hombres olvidados
diminutos
tenues
soles
para
manos con callo
y corazones sin techo

2. [1995]

Ella
paró
de
comer
terca compañera
de la paciencia y la lucha,
la lucha
de las hermanas

Tenía hambre
hambre verdadadera
hambre libre
recuerdo de la montaña maya

En sus venas
el bosque de lluvia conspiraba
ella hablaba en caracoles
de un océano blanquísimo
de vientos blanquísimos
caracoles de papilas
sobre su lengua
caracoles que explotaban
en verde

En ella un mestizaje de caracoles

3. [1994]
El bosque de lluvia murmurea
Los océanos murmurean
Las montañas murmurean
en la piel de su panza
en la funda de sus palabras
en la vibra
de un caracol
levantado
a nuestros labios

Nuestros labios
son la causa
de los caracoles
que todavía no han detonado
nuestros pechos
sus sonidos
sus palabras
a nuestros labios
las palmas de tus manos
valles verde sin fin
donde brotan
tenues soles
diminutos caracoles

Ponte las manos sobre tus oídos
Escucharás
el mar
sus vientos
los arados contra el polvo
las semillas gimiendo
los caracoles embarazados…

*

La nueva intergaláctica (1996)

Lluvia!
Indios enmascarados
europeos
descalzos,
despeinados,
greñudos.
Indios y vientres de neblina
partiendo raíces
sembrando con nuestras voces

Botas
Pantalones
Camisas
Calzones
enlodados
Hamacas arcoirises volteados
frijoles
café tibio
sodas calientes
chile verde
líneas de estómagos terrestres
esperando la comida
Informes tras informes
Diálogo por diálogo
Conciencias inundadas de conciencias
La esperanza tendida bajo el sol
El cerco de la selva
El as alto de la lluvia
El asalto nocturno de
chicharras
arañas
pájaros
ceibas con sus ramas
de explosiones nucleares
verdure verdesísima
bronce
lodo
universal

2

Un festival de soles
con su
lluvia
y pueblos
un meztizaje
un encuentro
de raíces
mutiladas
lenguajes trenzados
sexualidades sin fronteras
nacionalidades e idealismos amenazantes
utopias terrestres terroristas
bomba de poesías
brazos
manos
caras
negras
color de la tierra
blancas
tiesas
flacos
gordos
esbeltos
embarazaos

3

Estamos cercados
por lo verde
por la tierra
por el lodo
y su vientre espacio
por gestaciones rebeldes

4

La realidad
delirante
verde
democracia
raíces
morenas
indias
ancestrales

5

Aquí en la selva de la lluvia
me estoy transformando
en quetzal
en guacamaya
en loro
verdísimo
plumaje verde
canto verde
por estoy cagando
un verde negro
una mierda verde
como rama de tronco Viejo

6

La clausura
es una batalla
entre voces
por allá Carabina 30-30
por acá La marsellaise
los italianos
y otros europeos
tararean La internacional

Este es la red de Babel
Todos asaltmos el cielo
Porque la tierra es nuestra

7

Abuelito sol
Abuelita luna
estamos rodeados
de nuestros antepasados
entramos al vientre colectivo
de las lluvias,
estrella y espacio
Por eso sonríen los huesos
de mis abuelitos
Duermo
en el polvo
de sus visions
abuelito sol
abuelita luna

madre tierras…

* NOTA: Estos poemas fueron escritos en 1993 y en 1994-1996 durante estancias breves en Chiapas a participar en las reuniones y conferencias en Guadalupe Tepeyac y La realidad convocadas por las/los zapatistas.

C:5

Sunday, January 12, 2014

Recipe for a new humanity

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How to cook a Mexican-American [1994]

First, pre-heat oven at slightly over five-hundred years.

Second, destroy languages, monolingualize, monoculturize, monocropize,
harangue the people who speak them,
erase the lands they named,
give them names from other lands,
force them to flee,
make them forget their history my any means necessary,
make them speak languages which don't respect the lands,
make them die surviving,
make them believe they are ugly, everything they stand for,
every syllable, consonant,
every gesture,
the rough-hewn hands, their wrinkled hearts,
their ancient lungs,
the wind they create,
every iota of their ugly being,
steal their foods, seeds and soil and call them yours,
steal their finest words and call them yours,
steal their dances that stamp the dust into the sun and call them yours,
steal their music and call it heinous, heathen, devil-inspired,
burn their corn, their flowers and songs,
make them
forget how to treat their dead,
forget how to treat their elders,
forget how to treat the young,
forget how to treat the lovers,
make their sacred profane, their profane sacred,
the flight and wind of birds go north instead of south,
divide up life into hours, hours into money, money into life.
(If you cannot get fresh, unspoiled peoples, you can use the colonized as a substitute. Taste will be a little more historically stale than original recipe.)

Third, bring some dirt from the valley.
Pour into the water you erin.
Walk many miles to work.
Be too tired to rest, dream or be passionate.
Now you are ready to begin mixing the ingredients:

Gather:
1 Palestinian worker
1 Indigenous woman (origin unknown)
1 Yemini woman
1 Purépecha family
1 mestizo, like yourself, but one who is a fervent Catholic (they are called by various names: half-breed, mixed blood, mongrel, mud people, greaser, indio, wetback, illegal alien, immigrant).
They must all be landless and in some state of statelessness, homelandlessness, but not lost.

Tenderize by deliberately dragging them across oceans, suffering wars, disease, death of families, villages razed, make them work miserably in the fields and deny who they are to avoid problems.

Set aside for at least five generations.

You will also need:
English
Spanish
Arabic
Stunted purépecha sprinkled with swahili, nahuatl, pocho and German
No more than two years of formal education
Alcoholism, perfect pitch, ability to work long hours and withstand lynchings
Awe for nature, migrant campus, being stopped constantly by bosses, police and other state agents, harassed by landlords or anyone else who thinks they have more power than you or actually have more power or they're of lighter skin.

Make sure at least half, if not more, of the ingredients are women folk or else the taste will not be as bitter.

NOTE For a delicious variation of this recipe also add any of the following:
The Texas Rangers
borders and border patrols
greedy contratistas
greedier landowners
"No dogs or Mexicans allowed" signs
Teachers who beat anything that moves like a Mexican
Offspring that are kicked out of schools between the third and sixth grade and are made to work in the fields and aspire to nothing else.

Now, bring back the main ingredients when they have two children, name them Manuela and José.

Manuela is the perfect blend of mestiza. She is a curandera, a priestess who baptizes illegitimate children, knows the Bible backward and forward, knows plants, herbs, seeds, knows how to cook at least fifty dishes without measuring anything once, can hear tomatoes, chiles, frijoles, green beans, avocados, onions (any plant she cooks) sing on her comal (griddle), cooked all meals, worked full-time in the fields, took care of her own children, grandchildren, neighbors' children, would use our innocence to fight evil, ward off storms, nuclear holocausts, hurricanes and lightning storms with her chants, prayers and knives while we kneeled in prayer, cure newborn'smoyeras, massaged away any pain stomach ache, fever; she would absorb all the dangers her sons and daughters faced on any night out at work or at play meditating for hours on end. She hardly slept; would go outside very night to pray in the still of star-filled skies; she would always remind us not to be afraid of ghosts, the dead, spirits when she was outside in the dark but be very afraid of living persons who could harm us. No one could lie to her; her eyes would make you stutter, weaken your knees. She always forgave, always loved; was a master of discipline. she had twelve children (six girls/six boys); took care of animals, constantly nursed birds, gave water and planted nectar for hummingbirds. In the fields, snakes would always appear in her row. She would shriek then laugh at her own surprise while the rest opus would jump up and away in fear. She has a man's name because her mother lost all her female children except the last five when she gave them men's name to fool death. From this she learned to name things by their names. She knew that one's name was the heart of culture and life, the blood of gods and goddesses and without your real name you would die before your time. When she dies she promises to come back, appear and give us guidance only in the dreariest of times; and she keeps her word.

José is an indio, an Indian, who has lost everything except being an Indio: A purépecha, cultured, cuadri-lingual (spoke purépecha, Spanish, later English; and then created a language with a landowner who only spoke what we believe was German -- because we knew it was not Engish -- and because he taught the landowner how to take care of the land he was rewarded a job).

José begins working in the the fields at five years old, he has the duty of burying the dead of his community during one of the many epidemics that hit his people in the mountains. His family is decimated; with his father he becomes part of the displaced indigenous communities forced into indentured servitude becoming farmworkers or like the Chinese in the U.S., forced into mining and building the railroad lines that run north into the U.S.

With his father, they reach the border and work in the U.S. several years. José is undocumented, illegal, Indio, witnesses wars and revolutions, lynchings, works every single day of his life, helps build churches wherever he lived in communities, knows how the plants grow, how the land is alive, how much tilling, how much walking among the plants is needed before the harvest is ready, knows how to live anywhere, find work anywhere, knows how to find any field in the middle of nowhere at four o'clock in the morning darkness, never complained abut anything only about not having enough time to be with us and he always lets us sleep as long as possible even though he gets up hours ahead to prepare the meals, the tools and pray for the day light. Patience, tranquility, meditation with a rosary every night counting the stars as his beads; he works every day until he dies in a field in the Lomas Coloradas, dies a painful death caused by pesticide poisoning.

NOW MIX these together while traditions and their peoples are being ravaged:
He's almost 25, she's 14. They are married for mutual life: everyone around them is dying from famines, war posing as revolution, pestilence. There is no one his age; she's married off to him so that her mother and sisters can hope to survive.

Bring to a boil and simmer for fifty years. Make sure the offspring number twelve before turning off the heat.

Serves to feed at least five constellations of families living in two different countries, five different regions, speaking in tongues, with varying degrees of recognition and monolingualism: U.S. citizens, Mexicans, Hispanics, indio coffee with varying mixtures of milk, sugar, cinnamon and fatigue, undocumented, pasaporteadossouthern accents, tejanos, dispersed North and South, midwest, northwest, southwest, migrants all...

[1994 | El Presidio, San Francisco]