[Poema 17] Openings

One
I am open for poetry
I am closed for business
I am open for the sun
I am closed to the coldest shoulder.
I am open for life
I am closed for death
I am open for listening
I am closed to yelling, screaming
I am open for passion
I am closed for fists
I am open for tenderness
I am closed for forgetfulness
I am open to all the realms
of words, tongues, languages,
dreams
I am closed for silencing.
I am open for furrows,
explosive seeds, migrant hands
I am closed to pesticides,
chemical fertilizers, tractor
weapons.
I am open for horizons
I am closed for mass graves
I am open for all of my ancestors,
all my relations, all the plants and animals
I am closed for genocides.

Two
I am not the center
of the world
though I go there
every night
The center of the world
does not hold dinosaurs
and climate utopias
like in the movies
No, the center of the world
does not hold the past
or will love just anything
to do with it
The center of the world
is always the future.

Three
Human
consciousness
human
practices
and
experiences
human
relationships
with humans
and the natural world
are not
the highest
the most complex
form
of matter.
You don't see
the lowly insect
shitting in the water
You don't see
the crow or the sparrow
avoiding flight
to get in a car
that contaminates
the air,
pollutes the silence and
paves over the trees
You don't see the bears
the buffalo, the deer
divide themselves
as superior or inferior
based on the variation of colors
the pigment
of their fur,
the accents
of their bellows
or their migration story
There is yet to be a case, a story,
an abuse, an affront
among the elders of the natural world
showing insects,
birds,
ocelot
and other creatures
enslaving another insect, bird, ocelot and other creatures
working them to death
or selling them
like chattel cattle.

Four
Don't praise me
when I am dead
Don't bring flowers
to my grave
Don't sing songs
in honor of my spirit
or poems to keep my memory alive
Praise me now
I am still alive
bring me flowers
say you love me
and don't want me to die!
(I will tell you every chance I get
how important you are to me
my life depends on you
I love you now and in the afterlife)
Serenade me morning noon & night
Massage my body
smile into my eyes
it is not my spirit that will die
Without your hugs
without your arms around me
my body will give up sooner
Pass my words through your soul
I will live and stay alive
when you live
and love
with me.

Guitarra armada | Song vs war

 

Arnoldo García

 Guitarra armada | Song against war

The vatos always laughed at me in disbelief because I’d always show up with a guitar.

They would always show up, their backseats loaded with bats, knives, chains, steel knuckles, rocks, the car jack or the occasional gun for the brawl, the rumble, the showdown with the other gang, who you didn’t really want to kill; maim maybe, hurt yes, intimidate away if possible so that you too wouldn’t get hurt.

“Whose ass are you going to kick with the guitar, ese,” someone would mockingly ask.

They didn’t know my guitar was the main weapon. I could strike down anyone with it; but it’s too valuable for one smash.

My guitar was a womb, a movie camera, a grand canyon to record and sing out the next corrido of the street wars.

You can’t really impress the girls with a knife or a gun. Maybe with a bruised face or a blackened, swollen eye.

But pull out a guitar before her, during or after the chingazos, and the girls will come to listen.

You sing a short corrido of the blows and then switch to a bolero to tell them how you really felt, why you fought – to protect her or the barrio’s honor. And no one in their right mind would think that the guitar is a weapon, much less the most powerful weapon.

The bullies scoff at it – you can’t be a romantic when you’re always threatening someone. The vato locos appreciate it cuz someone with a guitar will always sing their great deeds of valor. The armed dudes, well they know who has power and that it don’t grow from the barrel of a gun but from the fists of the man with a gun for added protection.

And you can’t hide a guitar like a 9mm.

You carry the most dangerous weapon in full sight. You carry it through the crowds, you stand at the front and wail away, getting in hits and licks on where it hurts most – in their hearts and souls.

After the fight, the guitar would heal us, soothe the hurt away with a beer or two and the rucas waiting for their song, their turn at my heart.

Chunks | Trozos


I went to the border where
women assemble the world
I saw my cousins laugh
through the poison, bring
home suiches, Magda said.
I make suiches all day. She
brought home the poison
in her veins and passed on
to her husband, his semen
was poisoned too, her womb
poisoned the fetus assembled
at the maquila, born deformed
flowing into the Río Bravo twisting
dumped into her waters
drowning herself. Madga places
her newborn in a barrel cut in
half and sets it afloat on the Rio Bravo disappearing
into the Gulf of Mexico: will this
deformed distorted baby return as
the new Moses

*

The sea
does not
tire
of being
the sea
yet I am tired
of being
me

She dances with
the moon
I dance with her
the moon objects
sends an earthquake
to tap me on the shoulder
cuts in on us
separates us with
a little tsunami.

*

There are tiny apparitions
on my tongue:
Guadalupe | Coatlicue,
soles,
whirlwinds of dust,
tongue-twisting huracanitos,
tempest
shells,
my body
its molecules
dispersed
in equal portions
for every nation
now
and in the future,
my semen,
swimming toward
the impatient sun,
maíz, bultos of
human rights movements,
orchards, her ruby
veins,
the explosion of volcanoes and earthquakes
the DNA of her thoughts and
curvatures,
the hum of bones,
the vibrato of desire

*

We are dilemma:
no one
is
without
ancestors.
You may have lost them
because you lost their way.
When you don't know
where you're from
who your ancestors are
where your bones are buried
where your seed explodes
what season
what time
what color
your past is
it is because you
are both descendant
and ancestor
an elder before your time
you pluck yourself from your ribs
you engender new dust
your bones are sperm for the future.

*
Palabras descalzas
lengua pelada
ojos pelones
corazón zurco abierto
la naturaleza se viste de humana.

*
cada
palabra
es
un acto
una acción
un pensar
un pensa-
miento
con piernas
con sangre
con vida
en movi-
miento
práctica
y practicable:
Ah palabras
benditas
que no son bombas
ni guerras
Abren senderos
en las venas
de tu sonrisa
el horizonte
los zurcos
semilla maciza
viento suave
lluvia madre
agua dulce
sobre la tierra
de mi lengua
lanzadora de reinos

*
Quién me despierta?
Quién me hace soñar?
Tu ternura
tu cuerpo
tus sonidos
(que no hacen ruido)
tus palabras
que derrocan reinos
y lenguajes duros.

*
Ella
estudia
enfermería
medicina
Yo escribo
curandería
hierbas, hojas, semillas
Ella cuida enfermos
Yo infecto imaginaciones

*
Castilla
nos
envió
tres
galetas
llenas de
avaricios
sus velas
esclavizando al viento
para llegar
a nuestro mundo
Yo envío
tres
palabras
a
Europa:
revolución
humana
naturaleza

*
I will make
love
to you
in Baghdad
when the U.S. flees
stops the bombing
ends the occupation
Baghdad will once again
be the cradle of a new
world civilization
with no WMDs
with no occupation
with no torture prisons
with no enemies and no
combatants
The Euphrates will flow free, clean
we will drink form her waters
baptize our love
From Ho CHi Minh City
to New York City
no more America holocaust
will threaten Indians or
immigrants
Tortillas de maíz will be globalized
everyone will aspire to be a
land worker, a tiller of fields
a keeper of seeds
with dirt underneath the fingernails
a mark of humanity
Aztlán will finally accept the sun's sperm
and gestate
the sixth grandfather
the seventh grandmother
when we can become a people again
with a place in the cosmos
in your arms or in mine
all the space we'll ever need.

*
I don't want to leave
any space open to
interpretation
I want
overlapping
mixtures
shared
memories
intersections
conflated
words
collapsing
into
each other
exhaustion
renders
dreams
freedom
we unleash
what
we do not
want to keep to ourselves...