I am tumbling | day five poetry month

I am tumbling
in the debris of space
going backwards, lunging forward
paralyzed by the electric sun.
my ancestors
for generations
studied the sky's movements
to determine
our place
in the cosmos,
they were not lost or seeking gold and power.
what sun is it
they would ask

how did we end up with the moon's bellybutton
they asked
what lands do our hands traverse
where is
the root of our songs
a journey in community
to find the place
where the sun had been born
to become undivided again
to become the breath of gods and goddesses
ants each carrying a grain of maize on their backs
going into the darkness of the soil
to gestate
to sew
to inhale
to ingest
to uphold
the sun's dust
at this time
when autumn begins stroking my hair
when the rivulets of cries have hewn my face
when suffering is ordinary
and laughter extraordinary
i ask:
is that the same sun of our ancestors
is the belly-button of the moon infected
where do I belong
how can i stand when I am against myself
the pollen makes me sick
i am alone under the sky of wars
where is my place
filled with sea-shells and the old man's ceremonies
I have become a molecule
on the edge of a knife
in a crazed hand
stabbing at the longest night
The scientists peer through cosmic telescopes
photograph the dancing explosions
the incandescent snails spinning out of our control
the Hubble telescope dangles between microwaves and quartz
and what are their conclusions
are we in place
are we where we belong
does the moon have the final say of the sea
can we return to rub, massage, mingle once again
in the belly-button of our mother
how do we turn back
the turbines' threshing of water, salmon, tribes, wind, migrants,
the human deformation of the rivers' spinal cord
who can have enough with just the other's love
who has had enough

[Poema 4] solidaridad humana: mi querer, our words, my world

Mi querer

Yo no quiero
que a mi
pueblo
lo hagan
dios.
Yo no queiero
que a mi
pueblo
lo hagan heroico.
Yo no quiero
que a mi pueblo
la vayan a hacer
el único, el escogido
sabiduría sin fondo.
Yo no quiero
que a mi pueblo
sepa más su historia,
lo hagan
reino incesante
de liberaciones
y libertadores.
Yo no quiero
que a mi
pueblo
lo quieran ni más
ni menos
que a su propio pueblo.
Yo no quiero
que a mi
pueblo
le quiten sus canciones
ni sus lenguajes polvorosos.
En mi corazón hace
nido, en mi lengua sus alas
en mis manos sus antepasados
en mis ojos todos sus soles
en mi sonrisa su luna llena,
luna nueva,
en mi rabia su canto
en mi amor todos los pueblos.

Yo no quiero
que a mi
pueblo
un día desaparezca de
en tus sueños
y el tuyo esté abandonado.
Yo no quero
más pueblos
que el mío.
Yo no quiero
más pueblos,
que los nuestros.
Yo no quiero
que a mis
pueblos
le quiten
su humanidad
pueblo
humano
imperfecto.
Yo quiero
a mi
pueblo
en la esperanza de la tierra misma....

*
Our Words

Our words are changing
the borders and boundaries
between colors
between tongues
between sounds
between tastes
among realms
among waters
among lands
Our words are changing
their pigmentation
their stratospheres
their memory
their time
their space
ecology of of skin
lanterns of smile
a commnity of thirst
dusting off our ancestoral skills
using their ribs
to till the kand
to cultivate stanzas
of maize milpas
green machetes
verdant bombs.

*
My World

My world
sunders Engels
My world is the specter haunting
the other world, the copyrighted,
the xeroxed into oblivion-contrast world
My world is born
every five hundred years
of resistances
which does not use the world
other than to be born
to become human again
My world is more than words
more than cosmos
more than my skin.

[...]

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...

Poetica snapshot | danzantes on Ohlone lands

 

Arnoldo García

Poetica snapshot | danzantes on Ohlone lands

 

I do not want
to trade
The noise of one empire
For another.
The danzantes are lost
In space
My fists pound
We are in Ohlone lands
Now and forever
The four directions
Are meaningless
Without recognizing
Where we are
Without organizing
Where we belong
Without finding our place
In the cosmos of this land
Ohlone
Oh lone shell
Placed against my lips and spittle
I blast the sun into her own darkness
I scatter the ashes of your lie
The ahuehuetl vibrates
Setting off the car alarms
The danzantes bring in stars, suns, ghosts
They cannot hear anything except the ahuehuetl
The car alarm wails
Cries for the police to arrest
The terrestially cosmic movement
The ahuehuetl beats hearts into one
Serpent ondulating whirling dusty fire
The ahuethuetl stops the siren
The ahuehuetl abuelito flor crumbles the waves
Two students, one Mexican, one Black
Grumble
The Spanish are taking over everything
(They are not happy with the danzantes.)
And I do not want to trade
The noise
Of one empire
For another....

arnoldo garcía

Serpiente ennubada

I am a ghost’s word

Not a post-colonial people or poet

I am pre-Colombian apparition

A skeleton dreaming her flesh, her songs her land

Her hurricane where I sleep

A jaguar carrying the cosmos on his back

My mouth drinks mud, imbibing the ancestor I am to be.