human status for all

human status for all:

birds,

oceans,

mountains,

uranium, 

rivers,

deserts,

worms,

jaguares,

bears,

fish,

whales,

wind,

soil,

waters,

migrants,

hummingbirds,

butterflies,

snakes,

insects,

bacteria,

germs,

shells,

mammals,

amphibians,

bipeds,

quadripeds,

all animals,

insects,

dogs,

coyotes,

wolves,

plants,

cats...

Animal status for all:

humans,

whites,

blacks,

browns,

yellows,

greens,

teas, republicans, democrats,

communists,

anarchists,

our languages

transmen, transwomen, queers, straights, curved,

the border patrol

the police

the homeless,

the rich,

the technocrats,

the evil bankers,

the corporativists...

On earth day,

all power to the animal people,

the web of life,

All power to the natural world without us...

poem & photograph: arnoldogarcía
Detail of mural on MacArthur Boulevard (near Mills College) in Oakland, California.

I wake up in a new body

Arnoldo García (bowing to the spontaneity of the dreaming movement):

I wake up with a new body.

My tattoos are gone, not even a scratch from my horrendous bicycle racing accident. Freddie and I were racing around the house. He decided to change directions because I was beating him. His laughter betrayed his loss in a simple kid’s race. Then around the corner, boom! Head on collision. He went flying and I went flying over our locked handlebars. A spoke from his rear wheel that sprung out in the crash gashed my left cheekbone.

My eye went black. The red was a sign that something was broken or at least ripped.

In one night, my violent past became past. No fingerprints, no chains, handcuffs, no prison depressing solitudes. I almost cried. I looked at my body, tender again.

I could fly again. I could walk into a store and not be followed. I could say hello and smile at the white girls. I could smile with the black and brown girls. And they would turn their bodies toward me, beckoning, lifting their skirts or lowering their blouses in a secret signal.

My lips were no longer blue. My stomach a plains, flatlands, inviting touch, inviting endless embrace.

I was monolingual. Spoke English only. Thoughts were almost a hissing radio, whose antenna was bent, broken, lost in a digital world. The tongue was plainer, rejected the old spices, the old needs to sing and blow kisses at the delight of strange foods. Chocolate sauces, dripping over chicken? Not anymore. Chocolate shakes, yes. Green chiles cut and diced into the beans? Neither was in my monolingual vocabulary or pastas, salads and burgers. My body rejected thoughts that bad tildes and double l’s, double RR’s and vowels that were stoic, unchanging.

In jeans or in a business suit, I was the man that rejected me, put false gods and obstacles in my way. I was the man that said I was mediocre and too ambitious and should be satisfied with my station in the valley.

I became the man who had cheated my grandfathers out of their lands. I became the man who harassed my sisters, my mothers, my aunts. Yes, my body was lustworthy and even these women I despised were attracted to me. But I only did what I did to them to keep them in their place and insult their men. I had their men under my boots and their women in my pants, my slim waist, taunt, taunting.

In my new body, I was what I never wished to be and now had no choice.

I fit in. I passed because I didn’t have to pass any more. I could apply for jobs that before had always been off limits. I could enter the neighborhoods and no one would call the police on me. I could do with my new body what my old body would have landed me in police custody just for entering the wrong, read white, part of town.

White is white. Brown is brown. Skin is not kin. White man over all. If I doubted myself, I was doing them a favor. If I didn’t push hard, I would be falling all over their twisted shadows, mistaking holes for steps, stumbling for achieving heights, smiles for smirks. My new body was both freedom and imprisonment. I was free to do to others as I felt free to do. I knew what would happen to this body, open to drugs, suburbs, long commutes, failed marriages, childless, growing old and being taken care of by my old body. Would they, the old me’s, really take care of me when all this time I made sure to take every advantage of them to put them down, to make them pay thrice over for something that had no value?

My new body was my new fear of decay. My new body was my horizon filled with the sunset glow of carbon monoxide. My new body was no better than my old body. I was possessed by the anxiety of becoming a victim of robbery or homicide. My new body had access to more guns than a terrorist threat. My new body had access to vacations, getaways, women, food, cars, desserts, services, trust funds, cash, credit, assets, land, houses.

You name it. My new body was the old one that in my previous body I had organized against, had protested, had carried hunger strikes, picket lines — anything to embarrass the new body. Even some of my older bodies had organized guerrilla armies, little wars of liberation, bodies barely able to put down their words and feelings into manifestos. But they were old bodies that knew that the new body would only emerge from their old bodies through a big struggle. Many would die, many of the old bodies. And if I was able to, many of the new bodies of the new type.

I emerged from the old body a new mummy. I emerged rotting already. I only knew this because I still had the DNA memory of the old body, the body that was old because of the those bodies that were parasites with PhDs and nukes, prisons and police at their disposal.

My new body was naked, red under the sun, pink under the artificial light of photoshop. My new body was new only to those who were stuck in the same body as the new me. My new body was an old decrepit German that stole my grandfather’s land and knowledge of seeds to become rich and impoverished us. My old body spoke the language of the moist, fertile soil. My new body spoke the language of the banks and debtor’s prisons. My old body spoke the language of bees, seasons and guttural winds that carried ancestral dusts and rivers to the edge of glaciers and sunken cities. My new body spoke of progress and prostitutes. My new body could buy anything except its dignity. Everything had a price in the new body. Everyone had a name, a story and love in the old body.

My new body beat my old body not just into shape. My new body pistol-whipped, enslaved, branded, forced labor, stole even the sweetness of my perspiration to sell it back to me as the aroma of peasant memories. My new body was my old master, my old slave-driver, my old tormentor that drive me off my lands and out of my mind. My new body was only new to those who were not like my old body. My old body, hunchbacked, honeyed, bronzed, was the topography of tenderness after a 18 hour workday. My old body was the rush of the harvest season and the slow cooking pot of winter beans and steaming coffee. My new body was 24/7 neon lights, two weeks here, two weeks there, coitus on the clock, routines, 2000 hour work years. My new body was the precise mathematics of interest rates and retirement funds, sex and disposable laughter, good only for the buck and the bang of the moment. Nothing lasts in the new body as long as the wallet doesn’t get fat.

The new body killed the old body in a war for possession. The new body was born sick with the sickness of private property in land, in men and women, in children for a childless future, in housing, in health, in air, water and soil. The new body owns or wants to own everyone and everything. Everything and everyone is for sale or else worthless.

The new body makes people fail. The new body is the only human that exists. Everyone else is on a shelf at the mall, waiting to be purchased or leased to be owned.

The new body — everyone wants one. Everyone wants to touch me. I am the holy water of the faithful who have no vision, no will, no ideas and parrot even my mistakes. My new body makes the old body believe that God has failed them or that they need to bow even further down into the deepest and raunchiest of prayer. The new body owns the holy words; they are available for rent by soul.

My new body is already embalmed, laid out in designer suits and with aged champagnes waiting to be uncorked in the bubble of delight. The new body is already DOA. Kept alive by the old bodies, the people who still smell of roots and manured soils, whose ancestors were carried by ants out of our mass grave and the ruins of our temples.

My new body is split in three:
The man who has nothing except threats and bank accounts
The man who loves no one and confuses the lover with an armored truck
The man who behaves as if the old bodies and the women must bathe and adore him so that each night aging results in casting off more old bodies.

The new body sleeps in the old me. The old body suffocates and convulses at the sight of the new skin. The new body has no pores, glistening in the air conditioned limelight that only money makes believe. The new body flays the old body, prays through my skull, screeches into my throat, masturbates over the pigment of the old body.

The new body is trembles at the darkness at the ends of his fists. No rage here. Politicians, philosophers, physicists, police, senators, soldiers, generals, warships, submarines, drones, voters, do his bidding. The new body sleeps soundly; someone else gets to worry for him someone else loses their job and future if he fails. The new body is perfect for destroying civilizations and rendering the natural world inhabitable. Not for him but for the old bodies. The new body has a slim nose, oxygen tanks, swimming pools and DNA patents to stay fresh.

I woke up this morning in this new body that craves silk and fresh milk. I woke up crazy.

#iwakeupinanewbody

All photographs by Arnoldo García, from the Katrina series, 2005.

c|s

[Poema 30] the last demand | la última consigna

1.
I didn't come here
the land came to me.
I swung the hoe
and the sugarbeet raised
her green vagina through
the moist ground
I twirled
the green honeycomb
hop vines
into their flight their climb
toward the blue sky
Green beans
and the spontaneous
snakes
of lightning flashing from the strawberries
made me crawl
on my stomach
as I plucked the plants red nipples
I came here and the land
was bare for us
until I tilled the sweat
made the valleys
into quilts of labor
rows that swayed with the wind
I didn't smuggle in no legends
I carried her
a seed
and hope
I stand at the head of
my labor
I leave as always
my offspring, my fruit
is in someone else's arms
in someone else's mouth.

I don't remember the names
of all the places I've worked
They erase me from
the scrolls
They give strange names
to the miracles of my hands
no one knows me
except as a stranger
a foreigner, unwanted
unrecognized
yet they cherish the sweetness
of my sweat,
they long for the pleasure
of my broken back
sprouting wings in the fields of maize
and I die, buried by
my children, who will be
buried by my grandchildren
who will be buried
by the same hands
which I used to bury my father's
father
sunk beneath the roots
dispersed with the wilted leaves
of a tree to be cut
for the path of their greed.

2.
My grandfather had
an earthen strategy to get us up:
wake them with the wings of doves
step on the accelerator
and wait for us to awaken
get dressed, put on the workboots
step into the cold 3:30 a.m.
No one would oversleep
this way or over-party
we would always be awake
as my grandfather boiled water in a small pot
threw in the coffee grounds
that frothed and that he stayed
by pouring a dash of cold water.
The grounds would sink
and we would rise from the floor
where we slept.
Then my grandfather would speed
through the morning darkness
to greet the pregnant light
honoring himself
getting to the edge of fields in the dark
on time for the sun to see us readied
with hoes in our hands
and laughter in our stories
with my grandfather
working fields, lands, cultivating fruits
not his, not ours,
He never wanting to own anything
that could not be owned
earning his living, working with no end

*
the last demand

This is a commitment
that everyone demands:
blood, nothing less
and nothing more
than blood
on the paper and the screen, here!
Blood
the only way
to trust
what's said out loud
freedom drowned.
It's not about blood alone
It's about putting one's blood on the line
exposing the soul
to the threats and dangers
of being free
to speak up
through truth
that makes these words blood

I was born submerged in this blood
and it was through the blood
that I was exposed to
that made me carry her on
I have become callused
in order to endure
and resist
the temptation
of a free imagination
unattached
to the blood that runs
through the veins of my pen and keyboard
I plunge my hands
in the blood-words
and I raise them up
dripping with light.

*

Me comprometo
al poner
tinta
sobre
papel,
palabras
en
la pantalla
a los que quieren sangre
y nada menos
que sangre
sobre
papel.
Solo así
se puede confiar,
expresarse libre y a voz alta
No es
la sangre misma
sino el poner la sangre
y a la vez
exponer el alma
a los desafíos y peligros
de pronunciarse
por y a través de la verdad
que hace sangre
de esta tinta virtual

Yo nací sumergido
en esta sangre,
por esta vía
fui expuesto a desarrollar las venas
las vías y los canales
para poder aguantar
y resistir
la tentación de la libre imaginación
desvinculada de la sangre
que sangra
de las venas de mis plumas.

Hundo mis manos
en estas palabras-sangres
y las saco y las alzo al aire
llenas de luz

[Poema 23.5] Imperfections

Spontaneous writings like the previous twenty-three poems written on the screen have their own internal beauty and perfection, a life of their own apart from mine. My own words are in the shape of a caracol, a shell with labios, that kiss and hiss at your eyes. My words are written with the ink of squids, sprayed to intoxicate, to entrance you into the utopia of the deep blue of my mouth, where the words congeal.

You cannot scribble on the screen. The screen is flat, black and white, sin chiste. The screen is very demanding of your imagination, unlike the way a typewriter clacks letter by letter and the way paper absorbs ink and my handwriting is unmistakable.

However, between the paper and the screen lies my own consciousness, unchanging and indisputable. Language, spoken word, is practical consciousness. Writing here, my consciousness is scratching against your eyes, a virtual graffiti bombing of your mind.

The flat screen takes all the fun out of my scribblings. Here you will never notice how a left-handed writer writes very weird cursive as a result of writing with her right hand. Cursive becomes cursing, becoming calligraphy. Left becomes right; lost in the ink of my skin to be reborn in the bytes of your memory chip.

c/s

[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.

[Poema 9] La red infinita: todos somos Quetzalcoátl | Quién sueña a la tierra?

Mi corazón
es una diosa emplumada
que guía al quintísimo sol
a su aurora infinita.
Mi corazón
es la tierra misma
en el cosmos de mi cuerpo
es la red infinita
de venas pescadoras
de estrellas
que de cercas son soles
y de lejos son las pupilas
de mis pueblos
a quién ofrezco mi corazón.
Mi corazón
es una diosa
emplumada de vientos terrenales
un remolino de luz líquida
un tambor incansable
buum-buum tocando sin miedo
a través de los sueños, las guerras, los desastres
los terremotos, los amores perdidos
buum-buum tocando sin perder
el ritmo de los tiempos
sin perder la vista y no olvidarse de la muerte
Mi corazón renace
en los pulmones del sol.

Todos somos Quetzalcoátl

Every one
every people
has
their own Quetzalcoátl
their own North Star
their own Nokhwezi
their own Morning Star
that guides them to the next day
where liberation
is the welcomed surprise
is the welcomed sunrise.
Quetzalcoátl
Kulkulcán
estrella del norte
viento emplumado
liberación emplumada
pueblos emplumados
cada pueblo tiene
su guía
su tiera
su cielo
su palabra

Every time I look ahead
I follow in my ancestors'
footsteps.
Every time I look behind
I see my ancestors
following me.

Guadalupe | Coatlicue
(la mujer que llamo amor y paz)



1.
¿Qué poética es esa
que deja hombres y mujeres hambrientos
buscar comida en los basureros?
¿De quién es esa poética
que deja familias vivir en la calle
mendigar su existencia
humillarse antes las miradas de los hartos?
¿Qué poesía necesita
tanto sufrimiento
para purificar palabras e ideas
estrategias literarias
de tan pinche liberación?

2.
Mi mejor camarada es el color café
como la tierra
como el polvo
Mi mejor camarada se creía rojo
como la tierra
como el polvo
Mi mejor camarada es colorado
de toda la tiera
de todos los polvos.



3.
She wants to be an artist
yet she is one.
She dresses in the whirlwind of colors
Her lips weave culture
Her laughter is the nervous inspiration
She speaks about a new future
and only an artist of colors, weavings,
words and struggles could feed
the future light from her wide hips.
Art is a community thing. No artist
can exist outside the human community.
Art is life or it is not art.
Yet unbelieveably
a sterile art grows and flourishes
while the fruitful, the faithful
community struggles to survive.
She wants to be an artist
she has all the time she needs.
Art is not separate
Art is not special time
Art is not privileged poverty
Art is knowing when to turn on the lights
or strike a match to light a fuse or a candle
Art is learning to say all the odd things
in new ways
Art is meetings where poetry has a chance
and discussion are bled dry by hope.
She is an artist releasing souls while keeping the bodies alive.

4.
Rojo y negro
Amarillo y blanco
los cuatro colores
de sus
cuerpos
solsticios
pueblos
y pieles.
Colores de la tierra
Amores de los soles
Danzamos juntos, solos,
enlazados,
diferentes iguales
sonrientes
serias
las cuatro direcciones
rojos
negros
amarillos
blancos
todos descendientes
de pueblos libres
de tierras soveranas
de maizales, milpas y machetes verdes
que cosechan la luz.

5.
arcoirises venas
terrones vientre
vientos lágrimas
lluvias migrantes
nubes banderas
huracanes encarcelados
cuevas gargantas
murciélagos lenguajes
plumas pieles
océanos barrigosos
lodo de la belleza
pueblos naturales
colores humanos
lenguas polvorientas
girando
todas
todos
en las cuatro direcciones

Manos espejos coates
nos quitaron la tierra
nos despojaron
nos desesperamos
pueblos naturales
nos van a quitar
hasta las vibras
de nuestras voces
palabras profundas

el beso de la tierra
en todos los besos
en todos los labios

6.
Colores
ámbar

quiero
morir
para que mi corazón
se trastorne en ámbar
y allí yazga tu imagen
y en mil o un millón de años
alguien descubrirá mi corazón
y lo levante hacia la luz
para verte entera
dentro de mi corazón
ámbar.

7.
I think, therefore I love.
-- n.p.

Yo existo en la tierra de tus ideas
un figmento de tu fuerza
migrante tendedor de sazones y semillas
sembrador de ideas
cultivador y cosechador
donde muestro cuerpo sangre y sudor
para clarificar conceptos y estrategias
ideas con piel humana
mi tierra sin privilegios ni privilegiados
mi tierra donde nadie ni nada es ajeno
mi tierra donde descansan mis muertos
con sonrisas que el sol envidia
mi tierra donde caben seis soles (a última cuenta)
mi tierra que hereda corazones verdes

Los zurcos sensuales de mi cuerpo
cama para tus semillas
los zurcos de mi tierra
camposantos frescos
para que nuestros muertos
florezcan.

La tierra duerme
y nos sueña
y nos germina
en plantas nuevas.
La tierra duerme
y nos sueña
verdes
polvorientos
suaves
sobre
sus vientres cataclísmicos.
Nosotros dormimos
y quién sueña
a la tierra?

[Poema 8] Descolorido

Los colores son más diferentes, más brillantes, en las fronteras. Necesitan toparse, autodefinirse, clarificarse, para ser color. En su mezcla los colores se oscurecen y se aclaran mutuamente.

En su lodo, los colores híbridos dominan.

En su reino, los colores singulares apuntan hacia la mezcla.

Aprender colores es aprender nuevos lenguajes.

Amarillo lenguajes de soles vivos.
Rojo, lenguaje de pueblos ancestros.
Negro, lenguaje puro.
Blanco, lenguaje mezclado de lenguajes, mestizo.
Guindo, lenguaje de pieles.

La lengua brota de colores, es una paleta de audio-colores, colores-olas, colores-ondas, colores gargantales.

Ser bi-lingüe en colores es ser arcoiris-machete,
doble filo con venas.

Mi lenguaje es verde,
mis venas azules,
mi piel vidrio,
mi caminar café,
mi corazón azul celeste,
mis ojos torbellinos de polvo,
mis oidos el color de montañas que sueñan ser
semillas en los picos de pájaros o de un colibrí libertador.

Los colores mortales,
los colores infinitos,
topan en mi piel
y algún día quebrarán todos mis huesos.

Los colores de mi lengua prueba todo..

Mi cuerpo es una bomba de colores,
un cuerpo de incesantes explosiones de fragmentación de arcoirises;
un cuerpo que pregunta y cuestiona y no acepta
e insiste en el trueno de mi corazón descolorido,
para barrer ojos y paredes,
pieles y sepultados,
soles y lunares.

La guitarra tiene una sombra cristalina, donde
reposan los colores cimarrones,
los esclavos fugitivos se esconden en su boca.

Mis colores son descendientes de
purépechas,
palestinos,
yemenis,
mexicanas,
mestizajes,
chicanos,
xicanas,
hombres, hijos, padres,
abuelitos, tátarabuelitos, vecinos ancestrales,
sepultura venerada, polvo,
callos, tintas, pinturas, voz,
la piel es una envoltura de
frágiles huesos, tierras, cielos,
cinco o más soles,
una explosión cultivada por mis manos,
un deseo hondo con piernas fósiles,
un migrante viento, fronteras, hamburuñas,
sueños astrales, amores, montañas, plantas, palabras y poderes.

Los colores digitales, electrónicos y venales
y una mujer llamada Guadalupe/Coatlicue
(que en este mundo le llamo la mujer de la paz y el amor)

Dentro de mi mueren más soles, colores, explosiones constelares oceánicos,
que escurren de tus ojos y mis nubes futuras, tierras-en-gestión,
explosiones potables.

Dentro de mi nacen semillas coloridas, explosivas,
que pulverizan soles y plantas,
la germinación de colores.

Tu cuerpo es color que hace preguntas infinitas,
cuestiona entre lo negro y lo blanco,
alza polvorientas banderas, huipiles en los irises.

Vamos acumulando colores que surgen de los dolores,
colores gestados en vientres de dolor
gestando y pariendo colores hasta que una noche
todos los colores tienen su propio arcoiris, su propia piel,
su propia insurrección,
la revolución de ser humano
una cadena rota de colores libertadores.

Hasta que los colores mismos estén libres de su color:
Los negros liberan el negro
Los blancos el banco
los mexicanos liberan la mezcla
Los palestinos liberan a Palestina
Los migrantes liberan a la tierra
Las mujeres liberan a todos los colores
Los colores liberan a los colores
y el dolor cesa de ser color.

Nadie teme el gris.
Todos tememos el blanco, la blancura, la blancanada, la blancaloca, la blancabanco,
la blancura perfecta de los dientes que comen todo
y nunca sufren caríes.

Nadie teme la pureza.
Todos temen el mestizo,
La mestizaje que duerme con todos y sueña con sí misma,
La mestizaje que pare negros, blancos, indios y toda clase de sorpresas
con pigmentación clara:

El color perro.
El color carcajada.
El color sonrisa.
El color cintura.
El color basura.
El color pechos.
El color luto.
El color espacio.
El color zapatos tirados.
El color piernas cruzadas.
El color reunión.

Las reservas de nuestros colores, el color
explosivo, el catálisis de mis írises-redes visuales,
transmiten la energía y la carne de mi pigmentación.

Sólo quería ser alegre.
Me tupía de sus colores sin saber
que cada uno, cada infinito color,
era la raíz cósmica
de la tristeza.
Sólo los colores
llenan, sucumben
mi deseo
mis deseos
colorados
*
asi
me haces
sentir.
quiero ser
inundado
abrumado
invadido
por los colores
de tu voz

Soy todos los colores
Mi piel, una arcoiris poroso
Mi lengua, una paleta vibrosa
ojos de acrílicos despellejados
témpera sobre mis labios.
Tu sobre todo.

[Poema 5] East Oakland

Oakland is my small, tender Beirut

Oakland is my bullet-pocked Baghdad shelter

Oakland is my imaginary Paris with French café and Vietnamese sandwiches

Oakland is the beautiful streetwalkers

Selling their sex

to men who don’t know

how to make love,

satisfying their humanness.

Oakland is the carnival of street vendors,

The dreamwalkers

Selling everything you need

To make life comfortable, tasty,

Convenient:

Tacos, chapurreada, coffee,

tamales, colchas, duritos con chile

y limón, paletas to cool down on hot afternoons at home or at the park

Oakland, where young black men, young brown

men, shoot each other

drive-bys and families broken

life cut down in a violent explosion.

I used to believe I’d never make it past 20

And I am shocked to learn

that young people everywhere

believe they will not make it to 30.

Thirty springs, thirty summers, thirty autumns

do not need to end in thirty winters

The cold of Oakland streets bloodied warm

in youthful blood, old and dead

before my time

Oakland is hope for those who see

a way in.

My city is no more violent than yours

Only Beirut, only Baghdad, only Gaza

Only Los Angeles, only Mexico City, only Kabul

Where ancient civilizations thrive

Where the death of young men and women

Erase the memory of a deep community

Afghanistan, Iraq, Mexico and anywhere else there is U.S. war:

You are welcome to relive, to be reborn, in east Oakland

Oakland will become the city of youth eternal

Where becoming old

will be a pleasure among generations

My Oakland is not violent every day

But desperation & pettiness

Become explosion

When armed

When humanity grows out of a barrel

of a gun

of a pipe.

My Oakland is schools, children with adult hope

Families in mourning from deportations

In grief from lost expectations

My city is long avenues, deep boulevards,

Green water, broad spaces to walk

To be, to stride futures

Where everyone lives, works and dies of old age

No more elders at 18

No more deaths at 13

No more hopelessness

Darkness & rings under the eyes banished from my city

my Oakland.

No more guns in hands

meant to

write stories

paint masterpieces

and caress grandchildren,

no more fists

no more grimaces

no more shock

no more grandparents burying grandchildren

no more dropouts in coffins

no more students becoming soldiers

as the only way out:

No more out through death

Only in with life

Only in with life.

[Poema 1] Six Sky Resurrection [ancient ransom note]

On the day
8 Ben 16 Kayab
Six Sky
of Río Azul
was
buried.

Most likely
during the year
450


Then in the late 20th Century
Looters took
the vessel
from
her grave.

Now Six Sky sits
under a glass display
(anxiously awaiting liberation)
in the Detroit Institute of the Arts.
The looters kept no record,
but the people will always remember

In December 1985
140 small pieces of
gold
jade
obsidian
and
turquoise
were taken from
the National Museum of Anthropology
in Mexico City | Tenochtitlán
the thieves
sent
a message:
these priceless precious stones
are being held for ransom

Now, the Maya Zapatistas are paying the ransom
freeing Indigenous past and present
from the neo-liberal kidnappers, the grave-baron-land-robbers,
the military industrial complex of generals, soldiers, paramilitaries,
police, battalions, secret police, political parties, non-profits, politicians
and toastmasters of capital.

Six Sky
has been
resurrected,
scattered
between Detroit and Tenochtitlán
Seattle, Oakland, Matamoros,
Chicago, Toledo, New York
Organized into a community army
armed with the colors of the earth
their weapons are our ancestors
who have secretly taken over the underworld
putting ski-masks on the sun and moon

Gestating flesh and blood onto the skeletons of our dreamers
.
In the butterfly of our women
flutter two banners, two flags, their lips chanting
we shall dream
we shall win
we shall birth
we shall love
we shall shatter
we shall clench our hearts
we shall cry in community
we shall sing off the face of the enemy
we shall batter the helmeted soldier,
laugh at his bayonet
we shall stop the bullets, the bombs, the fires
And the new people
that Six Sky dreamt
in her deep sleep
in the year 450
emerge, rise, fly, speak with an earthen tongue
when we will swallow the sky
to become pregnant with clouds, rain, butterflies, milpas, babies,
chidlren-ancestors, who slept in our arms
and made thunder rise
from the maize, the frijol, the women, the men,
the elders, the still-born, the invaders, the raptors,
who remembered then:
Six Sky was resurrected in the sixth sun….

[1984-2012, unfinished words of mariposas | c.s]