Tuesday, April 05, 2011

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April 5

arnoldo garcía

[excerpt from drafts of guerra poemas in La revolución emplumada]

the comfort zone

where are
the comfort women?
where are the comfort artists?
where are the comfort words
so that soldiers can forget their brutality
to take it out on women
ridicule art
and mangle human tongues
for at least one night
or even just for a few hours?
where is the comfort President tonight?
Where is the comfort Senator and the comfort Congressman?
will they sleep
with the mutilated widow,
with the traumatized soldier,
wit the wounded in a deep coma,
with the human remains of the soldier?
where is the comfort citizen,
the comfort peace,
so we can vote one more time?
where is the comfort march
so that we can protest one more time
the comfort war
so that we can bring democracy and freedom
wherever our bombs explode
wherever our armies occupy?
where is
my comfort woman
my comfort man
my comfortable war?
Send them comfort-bombs
comfort-occupation
comfort mercenaries
U.S. kills day and night
and you expect comfort in the end

*

The U.S. War:
World War I
World War II
the Cold War
the Korean
the Vietnam
the Dominican
the Cuban
the Panamá
the Grenada
the Haitian
the Nicaraguan
the El Salvador
the Narco
the Bosnian
the Afghanistan
the Sudanese
the Israeli
the Palestinian
the Iraq
the Iranian
the Afghanistan
the Mexico border
the Libya
the U.S. war....

*

when will I live
in an ordinary
country
no wars
no invasion
no fly-zone
not even a threat
no drive-bys
no hunger
no greed
to drive us
to coercion
to veiled
and unveiled
violence
no armed men
no hating men
no sexual harassment
no demonstrations
or marches
other than to show poetry
display art and affection
when will I wake up
this ordinary
my ordinary
country
disarmed
not disabled by violence
differently placed
in the kingdom of laughter
an ordinary country?

Monday, April 04, 2011

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arnoldo garcía

broadcasting scribbles from my notebooks

April 4

freedom sounds

my music
is noise
was satanic
to the wooden crossed ears of the conquistadores

One people's language is another's
cultural maelstorm
a tempest of terrorisms
Our gods incomprehensible
worthy of being toppled
yet they still built their religions,
their highways, their vacation spots
on ours.

One people's music is
noise to the oppressor.

Our freedom sounds
are an upside down world
to those who hold the keys to the chains

Our freedom sounds
are an offering to the ears and tongues
to hear each other voices
to sing, to holler, to cry
to live for a cause or a song

Noise, our noise, deafens the greedy one's counting games
Our voices, my voice, our words, our music
cannot be erased, cannot be silenced, cannot be dubbed over,
cannot will not be left on the cutting room floor.
Someone hears us, we memorize our sounds of freedom, of land

On paper I leave an ink trail
a path of scribbles for others
to think and go forward
beyond where my bones will finally
rest as scaffolding
In the wind, my voice is a trail
of particles and waves which ride on the moon's machete
or course down crooked migrant smiles.
The voices of our ancestors
as well as our destroyers
still fight it out in the cosmic waves
the quarks of liberation
continue pounding on our skin, our eyes, our sweat,
our voices.
Eventually we'll all get it right. Harmonic convergence
harmony & sickle, harmonic dissent, harmonic uprisings,
harmonic organizations, harmonic community, harmonic equality,
harmonic democracy, harmonic borders,
harmonic languages
where everything means the same in any language, almost anywhere,
harmonic conservation (leave the rainforest and the rainpeople alone)
don't leave home until you're free
Harmonic bones, harmonic DNA, harmonic genome project,
harmonic jimi hendrixes,
the harmonic restoration of
guadalupe|coatlicue
crazy horse
manuela
paha sapa (leave the earth's power alone!)
ana mae aquash
7,000 migrants' bones
five million braceros
50 million russians
two million rwandans, bosnians
all the disappeared indians of the world,
every ecosystem, every species, every man woman child elders youth worked to death, slaughtered by progress and economic development
harmonic liberation convergence...

*

Funny how I can write that
memory does not reside
in machines, computers, bytes, bits,
or even history books. Memory
resides, lives in
memory herself
on flesh, on skin, on bones, on skulls, in the dust, in the water, in the air, in the soil,
in the vibrations of my throat, tongue, lungs, in the way we create the sounds of words,
on how we generate waves across the air to vibrate against your ears or eyes or finger-tips, on our fingernails and hands
just as our ancestors reside growing all the time in our hair...

*

transmusic
transmission
transgender
translingual
transpose
trancegnder
trancemusis
trancelate
trancepose
trancenational
trancehuman
trancefusion
tranceplant
trancejazz
trancelucid
transsmile
trancemission
trancesister
trancerevolutions
translands
trancegress
trancegressor
trancelocated
tanceplanted
transperm
trancegestate
transtongue
trancelung
transdance
trancerhythm
tranceborder
tranceblood
trancecultural
translocura
transtorno
transgest
transgod
transword
transtongue
translanguage
transborders
trancecolors
transcribbles
transeyes
transvision
translaughter
transbound
tranceband
tranceport
transkin
transspace
transblues
transgods
tranceshell
trancesex
tranceorgasm
transart
transulpture
trancepoetry
trancehuman
trans-
trance
trancescribbles
transas
transgarabateos
trancegenic
trancestorms
transhuracán
transehumano
trancenature
transnaturaleza

*

En el reino
de tus abrazos
la utopía
de tus labios, tus besos
una dictadura
de la ternura
la comuna
de tu sonrisa
tus palabras
anidándose en mis oídos
la liberación
tu voz
una cobija
para mis sentidos
todo
en
el reino
de
tus abrazos

*

from time to time
remember the wounds
remember the agony
of being abandoned
when you smile
laugh
or
roll around
in pleasure
remember
it was not always
like this.

*

my memory
is
a small creature
tiny hands
playing
with a collective toy
of cousins
a small meeting
to study
revolution
a piece of paper
with a few lines of poetry
an endless field
we have to clean of weeds,
my grandmother cooking.
making tortillas
my memory
has
no history
no chronicle
unknown by all
except me my family
laughter
food
work
dreams
burials
weddings
baptisms
laughter
crying
mourning
food
remembering everything everyone
migrant camps
indian reservations
canals
fields
planting
thinning
harvesting
winters
no theories
just drumming,
music,
dances spinning in communal circles.
Someone dies we come together
Someone is born we come together
Someone falls in love we come together
Someone falls out of love we come together
Someone reaches a birthday we come together
Someone cooks food we come together
Someone dreams we come together
My memory
is
a small creature
a baby
we breast feed all our lives...

Sunday, April 03, 2011

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arnoldo garcía

April 3 [transmitiendo desde mis cuadernos de garabateos]

I have stopped
fighting my English
garbling my Spanish
denouncing the Aztecs
ignoring my Purépecha tongue
on which war rages
and rage cries unbroken.

I am a polygamist
faithful to all my languages
married to all my words
in any language in any land
on any body
on every trembling tongue

My people invented french kissing
we stuck our tongue in your mouths
so that you could taste and desire every dictionary
lust after translators
interpreters
of the same dream
in so many dusts
in so many mouths
our lips the shock troops
our desire to subjugate your tongues, verbs unsheathed bayonets
and your body will follow
and your imagination hobbled
speak in liberation tongues but don't mumble
vomit doves and poison syllables

I speak out, denounce and debate against myself
I am split in three and my tongue binds my wounds
my tongue heals my bones and laps up the water from your body
my tongue drills endlessly into your ears
wawanko on the shell of your being
a human vibe to turn you against yourself that garbles our ways
mimics and makes a mockery
of the root of a different world sound

*

Yo hablo a través de cuerpos
mi lenguaje es un cuerpo
que anda, maronea, sufre
y padece
enfermedades y visiones
que la envejecen y la rejuvenecen

Tu cuerpo es mi ventana
Tu cuerpo es mi lenguaje
cristalino de sudores
Tu cuerpo odisea y utopía

La guerra es el cuerpo de mis
lágrimas y rabia, el puño
que florece contra ráfagas
que gruñen sus colmillas
canta y minimiza el vocabulario
de la paz y la cultura del no.

*

no necesito guardaespaldas
necesito guardalenguajes
necesito guardavoces
necesito tu cuerpo
para que me cargues
a donde vayas o estés
quiero gestar en ti
nacer nuevo entre tu cuerpo
ser un nido de palabras
ametralladoras
que con sus ráfagas
hacen los cuerpos correr
lenguaje sobre la historia
gacelas ligeras silvestres
quiero más
tengo muchos temas
como cuerpos multitudes
de garabateos que tienen miedo
no puedo decirlo ni escribirlo todo
por eso necesito tu cuerpo
convertirnos en móviles
bibliotecas y espectáculos
donde bailan los que somos
los que decimos y hacemos
todo porque somos obreras
campesinas trabajadoras
pueblos indios
es decir multitud
que no tiene nada que decirle
a este mundo
porque en este mundo
somos invisibles
somos la creación
que nos habita

*

[1992]

Poética sin policías

What would culture, poetry become
if we didn't have to worry about the police?
What would you and I be like
if we never had to worry or think about the police, La migra,
unemployment, homelessness, poverty, illness,
any of the other problems
that only exist
on this side of the planet
on this side of the line
on this side of the language, the skin, the tracks, the pollution
the politics? without corporate
power, corporate jails, corporate copyright, corporate control of the airwaves, digital bandwidth, original colors and paper?
To not worry about the police
might be an art all its own.

*

Our freedom has been hibernating long.
Their winter is long
They confuse the seasons with our hope.
Five-hundred years of patience
of wintering hibernation
will overcome hypernation
DNA will topple DSL
Our languages scramble their signals
Unscramble their prisons
open doors and closed hearts

*

qué es la historia de mi poesía?
hablo español
invento inglés
vivo en el campao
trabajo en las labores
pisco algodón, hago bultitos de algodón
pisco fesas, manazanas, uvas, peras
albericoques, cerezas, durazno
frambuesas, papas, frijol verde, mucho
descuate, espárrago, menta, mucha menta
mostaza, zanahorias, tomates
lo hago todo
al lado de mi abuelito y abuelita
aprendo a trabajar sain quejarme
escucho sus palabras, su ejemplo
vivo a sus lados
crezco a sus ladso
entre toda la música:
hay tríos, coros de iglesia, mariachis,
corridos, canciones revolucionarias y del movimiento chicano, hay calmecac
hay bailes, conjuntos, orquestras, rock n roll,
blues, jazz y todos los tríos
invento sueños y sueño descalzo
donde las plantas son olas verdes de mares verdes
donde los zurcos son montañas polvorientas
y mi lengua florece en
palabras descalzas
lengua pelada
ojos pelones
corazón remolino de polvo
la naturaleza se viste de humana
y nos viste de naturaleza

*

cada
palabra
es
un acto
una acción
un pensar
un pensa-
miento
con piernas
con vida
en movi-
miento
préactica
y practicable:
Ah palabra
bendita
que no es bomba
ni guerra
abre senderos
en las venas
de tu sonrisa
el horizonte
los zurcos
semilla maciza
viento suave
agua dulce
sobre la tierra
de mi lengua
lanzadora de reinos y utopías

...

Saturday, April 02, 2011

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arnoldo garcía

April 2

manifesto ternura

tomorrow soon I will wake up
in your arms, homeland.
I will go towards you
You become a shadow of water
and here I am searching for a well,
a cenote, a fountain, dust, words,
hugs, conversation,
unconditional tenderness
to renew
to restore
to be reborn
with tiny, imperceptible wings
scars like borders
to show that I've loved
to show that I have lived
struggled to the fullest extent
to make us free

Time is different now
so I have to be different
I go to sleep to be with you
even if there is this pain
I live to love you
even if I need more courage
to be brave
to be complete
to be at your side
spinning through space
tumbling without no other purpose
than to gestate, flower, seed, sprout, unfurl
the tender roots of an explosion
in your earth, my land, my love, my darkness

Friday, April 01, 2011

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Arnoldo García

April poem journal (a draft poem every day this month)
|
Abril cuaderno de poesía (un poema en borrador cada día de este mes)

1.
¿qué es la causa hoy?
organizar las palabras en una insurrección
sembrarlas. cosecharlas como esperanza, canto y justicias
compartirlas, saborearlas juntos
germinarlas como madres rebeldes

Cada quien sueña solo
Hoy tenemos que aprender a soñar juntos
Navegar la vida despierta y dormida en su otra vida
donde todo es posible
Si juntos podemos soñar lo imposible
juntos podemos arrullar al mundo y ponerlo a soñar a otro mundo

La pesadilla es estar despierto sin
un sueño,
una causa,
una visión,
un horizonte de tu abrazo

Algunos despiertan de sus peores pesadillas y están entre dos espacios indeseables llenos de cansancio
Es ese cansancio que tenemos que deshacer soñando juntos

La vida es un relámpago en su despertar

Los sueños son eternos, plasman al cósmos con su suave estructura molecular
su desgreñada manera de ordenar la ternura a su causa favorita

La locura necesita juntar
camas y caminos
soñar colores y banderas ancestrales

La noche es la mejor forma, el espacio necesario,
para soñar
En el sueño todo es posible
Soñar despiertos
Soñar juntos
y soñar el mismo sueño
cada quien de su lado
podremos hacer un mundo diferente
donde todo lo bueno (el amor, el amar, el hacer el amor, el ser amado, el amante...)
es la realidad concreta (con su dolor, trabajo, preocupaciones, desvelos, mortificaciones, su grito cotidiano que todo acaba en la ternura de la noche)
donde
todo el mal
es imposible
porque soñamos juntos

*

Estas palabras desdoblando lenguajes, gruñidos, llantos, ritmos
Lenguajes de mis manos sobre tu cuerpo
lenguajes de tus manos sobre mi cuerpo
La topografía de la ternura
Lenguajes de ojos que parten hijas e hijos la profunda raíz del futuro

Mis ojos son cebollas transparentes

Lenguajes
los colores de nuestras pieles
que nuestras pieles hablan
y nuestras lenguas enmudecen
lenguajes de ternura ahorcando rabias
lenguajes sólo para escuchar
lenguajes para borrar el tiempo
y quedar con vida para vivir con la amada y la familia
lenguajes sólo para la despedida eterna
para nunca separarnos
lenguajes para conocer el viento
lenguajes para aliarse con el sol
lenguajes para liberarnos de la inhumanidad
toda.
Lenguajes para trenzar cabellos y caballos galopados por el viento

*

De qué color es César Vallejo?
indio?
comunista?
deslenguajista
bronce
rohjo
piedra sobre piedra
ángulo de ondas
y vibraciones?
un color del futuro
germinando telarañas
desde su tumba al Perú?
un silvestre pulmón
una tristeza tiburónica
que retraga a Vallejo
por dentro
hasta fallecer en la lluvia gris de mi sonrisa
donde el sí de repente es no
el blanco negro
al verbo mudo
los ojos ;inros
los tatuajes verdes
y el tartamudo poeta?

*

De quién es el sol
a quién le toca sus colores
quién merece ver todas las atardeceres
donde el sol hunde su hacha roja
en la panza de la tierra?
Por qué no morimos cada noche
por qué no despertamos cansados
Será porque la sangre circula en mí
es la que ha circulado
en las venas de mi mamá
y mi abuelita y las mamás de mi abuelita?

*

Mis palabras se hacen palabras
al tocar tu piel
al montar tus labios
al anidarse en tus sentudos
al germinarse en tu lengua con mis besos

Mis palabras se hacen palabras
cuando pronuncias
viento
sobre mi cuerpo

Mis palabras se hacen palabras
en tu saliva, en tu sudor
en los cinco sentidos del sol
que gestas cada nueve meses
hinchándonos de sonidos caóticos
la anarquía de nuestra ternura
de pujidas palabras
que saltan y bailan cada vez que chocamos
en el cosmos de nuestra cama
nuestras lenguas y lenguajes se frotan de lluvia

*

Our language can be anywhere
and be at home. Our feet
touch the ground and you
instantaneously become the earth
Our land our language our
place is
everywhere and nowhere
We are only strangers to those
who are strangers to our lands.
In our language
we are all perfect
only in our imperfections.

In my language my grandfather
refuses his death, walks out of
his fancy coffin (which cost more
than all of his belongings and house
together). My grandmother never
even allowed anyone to put her
in a coffin. She just walked away
to complete her life over and
over till she finally was happy.

In my language there is no
death, no end, no words for
separation, oblivion. There are
shadows under my words
because there are suns in
every direction, full moons
in all my senses, in all my seasons
in which spring is
the mother and guide
and winter dream-
time, seed time, fires and stories,
chocolate and ancestors, when
everyone, every time and space
converge for a pow-wow, a
pachanga, a gathering of maizes
and mystics.

In my language
we live
not forever
but for each other.

*

Raíces desdobladas
raíces subyugadas
raíces olvidadas
raíces negadas
raíces abandonadas
raíces distorsionadas

a pesar de todo
siguen siendo raíces
nuestras raíces
morotonadas, sentidas,
vergonzantes, orgullosas
claras indias nuestras
No nos da pena ser raíces
raíces en tierra
raíces en oceános
raíces en vientos
No importa donde, siempre son raíces
en mis manos
en mi boca
en los cinco sentidos
en las borracheras
en el amor
en el dolor
en la traición
en la tradición
raíces.
raíces azules
raíces verdes
raíces cielo
raíces tierra
raíces polvo de las voces ancestrales
raíces roncas
raíces portátiles
raíces escarvadoras
raíces regeneración
raíces armas del viento
raíces tu cabellera de mis visiones
raíces cabellos trenzados con antepasados
y puente a los del porvenir
raíces mapa de mi corazón
mi corazón el planeta clandestino
del sexto sol
raíces relámpagos
raíces terremotos
raíces embarazadas
raíces abrazadoras
raíces tenues semillas
raíces torcidas alrededor de mis pueblos
raíces infinitas
raíces desafinadas
raíces las lenguas de la tierra
que se tragan al lodo para florecer en maizales
raíces la vía láctea de tu cuerpo negro...
azules
verdes
caféces
raíces del arcoiris indomable....

Wednesday, March 02, 2011

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Tiempo (la revolución humana)

tochtli

luna
rasguñada
raza nada
la tierra
anda sangrando
por nuestro
ombligo
luna
maya
lluvienta
luna
mestiza
india
olvidada
peregrina
astral
migrante
terrenal
en la gira
más larga
de los indios
tocamos
tu tambor
sagrado

atl

me emborracho
con tus sílabas
pulque
me transformo
con tus labios
agua
me convierto en dios
contigo pulque
me convierto en polvo
contigo agua
pulque más agua
suman humano
trastornan soles
ombligan pueblos
rasguñan lunas
destapan coyotes
en mi lengua
en mis ojos
en mí

itzcuintli

Escuincle
mordilón
se pasa las tardes
soñando en el sol
las noches
las llena de ladridos
avisándonos
de las sombras
aún ambulantes
hormiguitas

ozomatli

mis hijos
mis hijas
son moléculos
rebotando
bailando
saltando
corriendo
dentro
su propio paraíso
el jugar
es destino
colgamos los columpios
en el árbol
en los soles
escuincles

malinalli

pusimos
todas
nuestras
lenguas
en
fila
haciendo
un
sendero
torcido
alrededor
de
nuestro
corazón
protegiéndolo
de
las espadas
crueles
de sus palabras
incendiarias
tumbando
templos
diosas
desastre
que
acabaremos
o
nos acabarán

acatl

mi abuelito
mi abuelita
eran verdes
plantaban
semillas
cosechaban
comunidades
cultivaban
pueblos
verdes
zacates
yerbas
sanadoras
sobando
tierras
espaldas
adoloridas
vientres
explotando
sazones

ocelotl

mi abuelito
mi abuelita
me enseñaron
a cargar
soles y estrellas
sobre mi espalda
sobre mis hombros
pueblos y amores
sobre mi cabeza
años nuevos
llenos
de
primaveras
veranos
otoños
inviernos
diosas
dioses
sacrificios
serpientes
ternura...

sobre mi espalda
nacen soles
espacios
tus abrazos
tus semillas
el movimiento

cuauhtli

águila
hechicera
descansa
sueña
coma
mi corazón
nopalero
deshilacha
mis venas
que de tu boca
nazca
otra
Aztlán
nuevo
no-gabacho
donde
somos
hijas
e
hijos
obedecientes
de la tormenta
del mundo natural

cozcacuauhtli

aprendo
a bailar
en el cielo
en la tierra
el viento de pies
el polvo de ritmo
bailar
danzante
descabellar
al tiempo
desbaratar
al espacio
compacto
auroras
con
levantamientos
y
mi única
arma
será
el sol
que llevo sobre mi espalda
(nadie me lo quitará)

ollin

para llegar al tiempo
para nacer al espacio
para entrar de nuevo
retorno
en comuna
retorno
al mundo
natural
a sus polvos
a sus cenotes
a sus ombligos obligatorios...

En la distancia
la tierra
tiembla
no son temblores
no son terremotos
no son movimientos
hacia el sol
son
tanques
de guerra
son
bombardeos
hacen crujir
a los desiertos
de Kuwait
hunden un cuchillo
sucio
gurgujea el petroleo
sangre de antepasados
en llamaradas
que son señales
que
el tiempo
viejo
se acaba
que
el tiempo
nuevo
espacios
vientres
pujan...

quiahuitl

mi abuelito
era
del
pueblo
de las nubes

decía que
las nubes
eran la fuerza
más potente
en la tierra
cargaban agua
serpientes de viento
acobijaban
campesinos e indios
impregnaban
semillas
germinaban
pueblos de maíz
pueblos de polvo
pueblos anublados

xochitl

mi abuelita
sembraba
jardines
en
todos
los campamentos
migrantes:
chiles
tomates
cebollas
cilantro
orégano
frijol
y
flores
y
flores
dalias
tulipanes
rosas
bugambílias
alcatraces
zempansuchil
en donde quiera
que vivíamos
inviernos
primaveras
ella
cargaba
su jardín

cipactli

sus ojos
sus mentes
sus cuerpos
se vieron
y me vieron
a mí
se enamoraron
porque amaban
a un niño
un soldado
un poeta
que nació
de sus cuerpos
y sólo ella
me amamantó
de sus pechos
leche terrenal
amor mortal,
materno

tecpatl

los prisioneros
de guerra
los desaparecidos
los caídos
los despedazados
son un cuchillo
en
nuestras lágrimas
nuestras bocas
escupen humo
lleno de sangre
los soldados
entran a nuestras casas
a punta de bayometa
caen bombas
la tierra se estremece
el miedo anda suelto
dominando pulmones
y sueños
buscan armas
hallan familias

quiahuitl

la lluvia llueve
contra el diluvio
guerrerista
la ocupación
la conquista
la destrucción
nubla a la tierra
soldados
camuflagados
de verde
esconden el desierto
el pueblo
se esconde
de las bombas
los tanques
aplastan casas
y cultivos
la lluvia
caerá
lodo de sangre.

coatl

la sabiduría
está en el polvo
las bombas
aplastan
los palacios del dictador
la sabiduría
parte de los escombros
un coronel Bill Bennett
declara: Tengo 30
cañones, los disparo
todos. Nunca he
disparado tantos
en toda mi vida.
Necesito más
proyectiles
Habían asesinado al
dictador?
La sabiduría
está en las semillas
en el vuelo de pájaros
en camino al paraíso
de la primavera
la sabiduría
no comparte
polvos ni escombros
con presidentes ni dictadores.

miquiztli

el ciclo de guerras nuevas
hace la muerte muerte
cuándo será
la muerte
una siembra
una cosecha
irregada
con lágrimas
y esperanza
cuándo será la muerte
un altar a la vida
no los escombros
ofrecidos al sol
no la basura
ofrecida a las bocas
no el miedo
encajado en los pulmones
cuándo será la muerte
clausura que abre
primaveras
en las casas
ahora
llenas
de humo
de polvo
de muerte
guerrerista?

cuetzpallin

es el nombre de horizontes
es la palabra de óleo
es el arcoiris
encajado en miseria
si Cuauhtemoc y
Motecuhzoma
la hubieran
pronunciado
hoy estuviéramos
hablando
en náhuatl
en purépecha
en maya
y no
español
e
inglés
ella es el terremoto
único
que derroca
a mi corazón

Thursday, January 27, 2011

Photographic memory

I was in Mississippi
meeting
with
my ancestors.

the most recent middle passage
called katrina
the beautiful woman
who drowned us in her sleep

katrina, marina's sister
malinalli
who loved us so
who spoke in tongues
and has been gestating a new dream
giving us birth for the last five hundred years. katrina

we are ghosts, hardly a breath in cosmic time, space

here we are stepping into space, expanding without end
collapsing in on all the evil,
all the maladies,
all the suffering we took
poof, everything, everyone, gone,
disappeared,
not even dust to show for our pain.

My eyes are a bridge of DNA
genetic code for the sixth sun
so no one will be forgotten
so no one will become
a tear of oblivion
either we are all living
or we are all walking into the light
the dark matter of our resistance.


The headlights blind the police,
thinking,
believing
they have power.

What is power?
The State,
his armies,
his dungeons,
his death sentences,
his working class,
his nuclear weaponry,
nuclear energy?


A tsunami
will make us forget
everything.

The sun bats her eyelashes
in a flash
only she remains
staring into the space

an earthquake, a seaquake, a moon stops over swallows the sun?














[All photographs copyrights: arnoldo garcía; taken during a community solidarity delegation meetings with their counterparts in Louisiana and Mississippi, November 2005, in the aftermath of the Katrina hurricane.]

Monday, December 06, 2010

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Excerpts from/Extractos de
La revolucion emplumada
the revolution to be human


Arnoldo Garcia

my ancestors

have not yet

invented the wheel


they will never run over

innocent animals

possum

deer

buffalo

wolves

raccoon

birds

butterflies

insects


they will never pave over

acquifers

dam or divert water

never stop the flow

of rivers, creeks, streams

to the cosmic ocean of the natural world


my ancestors

will never invent

the wheel

the bomb

will never fiddle with DNA

will never fertilize in vitro anything

they will walk

where humans can walk

they will love

where humans can love

they will pray

where humans can pray

they will be human

where humans can be human

they will never be gabachos

that step on plants and other ancestors

recklessly

they will never

defecate or urinate

in the soul of the earth

in the water


[2]

Our revolution

has no martyrs

our martyrs

have no revolution.


we have no revolution

yet we have martyrs

young men and boys

who kill each other

because we have no revolution

police who shoot black young men in the back or in the front


The border brothers

make north and south

the north is nothing without the south

the south cannot exist without the north

yet young men and boys

kill each other

for lack of the four directions

the border brothers are both

north and south

North is a border

South of the border

North borders South

they are lost in their venganza

we are lost without a plumed revolution

[...]

Sunday, October 24, 2010

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Oakland Has Disappeared: Record Deportations

On September 30, 2010, Oakland, California closed its doors; the elections were canceled; property tax notices stopped being served, street sweepers stayed motionless, teachers and students, families all gone.

The power was turned off and what remains of the city government, elected officials are claiming that Oakland crime is no more. Gentrification is now the good word, the savior. But there's a problem, Houston.

Oakland is off the grid.

Oakland decimated by deportations! A total of 392,862 residents were deported during the last twelve months.

Through an assortment of immigration-police programs, employer sanctions and E-verify programs that allow the employers and the government to check if a worker is authorized to work in the United States, through ICE carrying out illegal street sweeps targeting day laborers, mothers with children in tow on their way to school; at community health clinics, at church services, at funerals, in houses and apartment homes, at "DUI" check-points where anyone without a license was arrested, ICE picked up an average of 1076 residents per day. hauling them away to Mexico, Haiti, El Salvador, Guatemala, the Philippines, China, South Korea, Ecuador, Burma, Nigeria, Poland, and at least one family from Bosnia.

Oakland Now Belongs to the "Secure Communities" Family

Former Oakland Mayor, now California Attorney General and gubernatorial candidate, Jerry Brown was a big player in Oakland's demise.

As Attorney General, Brown signed an agreement with the Department of Homeland Security that allowed the Oakland police to send the fingerprints of all persons they arrested directly to DHS to check their immigration status. This turned out to be a gold mine.

Called "Secure Communities," Oakland police was able to get tens of thousands of Oakland residents who are legal permanent residents fingerprinted. Because of the 1996 immigration and welfare reform laws, the police were able to entrap many residents because they had committed an "aggravated felony" some time in their lives and got them automatically deported.

This is a nightmare.

The Fruitvale District, once a thriving neighborhood struggling with crime, first saw street vendors and their customers disappear.

Then ICE and Oakland police agents starting going into grocery and clothes stores: clerks, customers, owners feet first.

When the Fruitvale went kaput, ICE and local police began picking up anybody who looked like an "immigrant" somebody: passer-bys including hipsters claiming to be from the Hills, transit village voyeurs, wanna-be artists living in warehouses from West Oakland to Jingle Town, late night taco truck and Meso-American vegan burrito connoisseurs all rounded up indiscriminately.

A policeman was overheard telling one of the persons being handcuffed, "If you're in Oakland, you must be illegal," -- this according to one lucky hipster who happened to be carrying his passport and spoke impeccable English.

ICE and Oakland Police also scoured quineceñeras, weddings, funerals and rosary services, and Buddhist temples. ICE found a mother-lode at St. Elizabeth Church that has three Spanish Masses on Saturdays and nine masses on Sunday, starting at 6:00 a.m. and ending with the last Spanish mass at 7:30 p.m.

The Evangelicals went flying into the DHS buses; norteños, border-brothers and sureños shared aisles.

Refugees were easy targets. After ICE deported their fellow churchmembers, legal services providers, neighborhood health clinic workers, refugees stood out like a sore-ass thumb.

ICE and company hit high schools, the charter schools, elementary schools, childcare centers and arrested anyone remotely suspected of being a gang-member or didn't look white.

Chinatown is a ghost town, too. Korea-town, Little Saigon, Old Oakland, even Piedmont restaurants, where all the food and service workers were immigrants, are closed down.

A few U.S. citizens and quite a few legal permanent residents were picked up and deported. No more morning lattes, no more cheap Vietnamese sandwiches, no more Oakland the most diverse city in the universe. Even former California Governor and immigrant Arnold Schwarzennegger was stopped at the Oakland Airport. Lucky for him that Jerry Brown vouched for him.

Oakland Police Department is largely intact; the overwhelming majority of Oakland police do not live in Oakland. They were right. It's not safe to live in Oakland, unless you're a cop with a gun patrolling the 'hood.

There are only 4,205 residents left, wandering the streets like nuclear war or zombie virus survivors.

They are not lucky; all of them do not know how to plant seeds, wouldn't know a planting season if it hit them in the stomach. None have ever tended or grown a vegetable or even a flower garden.

Most have not cooked in years -- and there's no children among them. The youngest one is almost 40. Their maids and other domestic workers were all rounded up.

They will die off one by one.

Does anyone think we can get some French or British to migrate to Oakland?

Saturday, October 02, 2010

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Che means the people | Che significa el pueblo

Liberation poems, theater, music, art, hip hop

Friday, October 8, 2010
Doors open at 7:30 pm
Program starts at 8:00 pm

This is a benefit to support Zapatista communities.

$10 donation requested at the door!
Show your support in many ways, just give, speak out, get together!

Sponsored by the East Side Arts Alliance Cultural Center with the Chiapas Support Committee

http://www.eastsideartsalliance.com/

At 2277 International Blvd * Oakland, CA 94606-5003
Call (510) 533-6629

Liberation poems, theater, music, art, hip hop with:

|

Poemas, teatro, música, arte, hip hop liberación con

Avotcja
Francisco X. Alarcón
Gina Madrid
Muteado
MamaCoátl
headRush
Nina Serrano
Lisa Gray-Garcia
Howard Wiley
Andrew Kong Knight
Arnoldo García
Daniel Camacho
Pancho Pescador
"El tractorista" video poem by Rubén Rangel
Alejandro Murguía
Son Jarocho Music Group and Fandango Jam sessions to close!
& others!

*

What does Che mean in 2010 and beyond?

Recently the semi-retired elder Cuban revolutionary and leader Fidel Castro said that the Cuban model does not even work for Cuba anymore. What does liberation mean in the era of neoliberal capitalism, the international "war on terror," global climatic change, Indigenous peoples' liberation movements and governments, and small islands and movements of difference?

In this time, what does Che mean, if anything at all?

Tonight we will try to imagine and re-imagine not only Che's significance, but the meaning of our lives dedicated to progressive social change for racial justice, immigrant rights, human rights, poetry, cultural, music, clean air, water, soil, and what we can do to ensure that the revolution is to be human, like Che.

The world economic crisis has meant a re-evaluation of everything sacred and mundane in the capitalist worlds and the remaining socialist utopias amidst the harsh conditions reigning in South countries and the Third World. How does the working class survive, how are Indigenous people organizing their communities and defending the natural world, what is happening to our countries with the migrant upheavals marking the developed world? What do our words mean to do?

In this contradictory time and threatening developments, Zapatista communities and Che still remaining shining figures and examples of human dignity and struggle for a better deal and a better world for all. Tonight we will celebrate with our own words and actions Che Guevara and collectively raise some solidarity for the Zapatistas in Chiapas.

Come celebrate Che & the Zapatistas!

CHE

Ernesto Che Guevara was born in Argentina, became a revolutionary on several motorcycle road-trips across Latin America, where he saw first hand the problems of impoverished and landless Indigenous peoples, exploited workers and the devastation resulting from hundreds of years of colonialism and empire. After being expelled from Guatemala, when the CIA overthrew the democratically elected government of Jacobo Arbenz, Che met up with leaders of the Cuban July 26 national liberation movement led by the Castro brothers in Mexico and joined their cause. He rode aboard the famed Granma (yacht) to Cuba as the nascent Rebel Army launched its war of liberation, which culminated in victory on New Years Day 1961.

In the revolutionary war to overthrow the U.S.-backed Bautista dictatorship, Che eventually reached the rank of Comandante in Cuba's Rebel Army. He led a column of guerrilla fighters across Cuba in the final march and assault that caused the final defeat and overthrow of the dictatorship.

Che became a leader and creator of revolutionary guerrilla theory and practice, Although he was a medical doctor by training, Che was also a talented writer by vocation and became a noted chronicler of his youthful escapades and of the Cuban revolution, becoming an internationalist practitioner of what he preached.

Ernesto Che Guevara was a multifaceted and selfless individual in the revolutionary world movements. In Cuba, Che became an economist, helping lead a socialist re-organization of the Cuban economy, participated and lead in the development of volunteer workers the sugarcane fields and other sectors to become and shape, as part of a shared vision, the "new man and woman." As a representative of the Cuban revolution, he traveled to Third World countries developing both economic and political relationships to ensure the success of the Cuban revolution and national liberation movements worldwide.

In these new travels, Che reinvigorated his commitment to international solidarity and revolutionary movement-building. he helped organize Cuban internationalist support and eventually spent almost one year leading a guerrilla war with an African liberation movement in the Congo.

In Africa, he continued developing the vision and the members of what would become Che's most well-known and final initiative of creating an internationalist liberation army and movement in Bolivia in 1966. Che lead a small column of guerrillas in the mountains of Bolivia, engaged in several skirmishes and battles but eventually would be surrounded and captured one October 8, 1967. He was executed shortly after capture and the rest is Che history.

Si Che viviera, con los Zapatistas estuviera

*

If Che were alive, he'd be at the Zapatistas side.

Thursday, September 30, 2010

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Unveil Me!

On October 10, Arnoldo García, el FEO, will be reading at:

THE MUSIC OF THE WORD

(LA PALABRA MUSICAL)

still in English, Spanish, Spanglish y Lo Que Sea

3:30 – 5:30PM No Cover

hosted by Avotcja

(Donations for flyers accepted & don’t forget to bring your Congas, Guiros, Maracas, Panderetas etc.)

Always the word festival to remember!

@ THE OTHER CHANGE OF HOBBIT

(a Science Fiction & Fantasy bookstore)

3264 Adeline Street

wheel chair accessible

(½ block North of Alcatraz & 2 short blocks South of Ashby BART)

Berkeley, CA 94703 (510)848-0413

or (510) OK HOBBIT

Sunday October 10th

ARNOLDO GARCIA (Poeta del Pueblo) & “TINY” LISA GRAY-GARCIA/TONY ROBLES (of Poor Magazine)

ochobbit@oytherchangeofhobbit.com or www.otherchangeofhobbit.com

www.Avotcja.com or LaVerdadMusical@yahoo.com


Friday, September 24, 2010

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Come on Baby, Let Me Light Your Fire!

In August, Matchbook Story published my short story "Day Laborer Love." The catch? My short story had to be 300 characters long. So, literally, your story has to fit on the inside of a matchbook.

Now, creating, writing and then editing are always tough.

As a writer you do not want to cut up your baby; but when editing becomes akin to flesh offerings, spiritual gateways to deeper understanding and transformations of consciousness, then editing is easy, not necessarily painless, an art-form. And even more so when I am talking about a short story that is 300 characters long, including spaces; yes, 300 characters!

Kyle Peterson, who publishes Matchbook Story, provided wonderful, insightful feedback and editing suggestions helping me craft a neutron-like compact story with many layers and meanings. He has struck a different kind of matchbook and has created a permanent, eternal-like, bonfire out of my story.

OK, try this at home or at a cafe, or at a laundrymat, or on the bus. write your matchbook story. Then check out Kyle Peterson's blog, where he posts a "pick of the week" matchbook short stories. Then send him your 300 character blast and keep the fires burning -- or as KP states, Matchbook Story (is on fire)!

Thursday, September 02, 2010

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Record Year of Repression

For those claiming that the immigration system is "broken" and needs "CIR," comprehensive immigration reform, think again and ask someone who has had a loved one, a co-worker or a family member taken away by the police, jailed and deported. Short of any reform, relief can be provided by taking a few commonsense and humanitarian steps. For example, the U.S. must fully restore civil rights and due process for all persons, regardless of their immigration or citizenship status. The abuses immigrants are subjected to in detention and deportation have to be investigated and prosecute those accountable.

This has been a signature year for the U.S. government, notable for the runaway repression of immigrant families, workers and communities. This is nothing to brag about:
  • The U.S. is reporting that the number of people coming in without authorization, or who may have overstayed a visa and have also become "undocumented," has decreased.
  • At the same time the U.S. is deporting record numbers of immigrants,; expected to surpass 400,000 by the end of the fiscal year ending in September.
  • And, worse for immigrant families, workers and communities, a record number of migrant dead have been recovered on the U.S. side of the Mexico border.
These are the results of U.S. laws, practices, measures and policies that have criminalized immigration status, militarized immigration control and border communities, and that do not address the root causes of migration that forces a person to risk their life to survive. On top of all this, immigrant workers face additional hurdles to employment with living wages -- and immigrant workers are scapegoated for the other record, record unemployment. Nothing or little is said about protecting labor rights, ensuring an income or a job and other remedies. U.S. immigration laws and policies fuel the banner year of scapegoating and anti-immigrant hate violence, another record this year.

Are more coming with authorization? Nope. The U.S. could drastically reduce the number of unauthorized entrants by decriminalizing status, issuing sufficient visas for family reunification and ending the backlog. And by regularizing the status of those already here.
    Is repression the hallmark of "21st century law enforcement," as the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) touts itself? The U.S. continues investing billions in expanding immigration controls, extending immigration-police collaboration programs, building jail bed space exclusively for immigrants and continuing the deadly strategy of militarizing the U.S.-Mexico border. The U.S. border security deliberately funnels migrants into the desert and mountains of Arizona and parts of New Mexico and Texas where thousands have perished or disappeared since this strategy, called "prevention through deterrence," was implemented in 1994.

    System of Repression

    The U.S. economy is still in a tailspin; unemployment is deep and jobs are shriveling up. Instead of protecting the labor rights of ALL workers, native and foreign-born, the U.S. has increased immigration policing in the workplace by creating a new generation of employer sanctions using E-verify. The GAO studied and found that employer sanctions cause new forms of racial discrimination in employment, housing and services. While this is old news, employer sanctions continues being expanded and in all its forms gives almost warlord status and power to employers. With E-verify and employer sanction in hand workers, employers believe they can and fire workers who assert their rights or organize unions. Employers violate wage laws and safety protections with impunity because they believe that the immigration status of an employee determines if they have to obey labor and other laws.

    The old adage of "When the U.S. gets a cold, Mexico gets pneumonia" is more true than ever. When U.S. workers, especially white workers, face such dire times, immigrant workers, whether Mexican, South Asian, African, Haitian or of any nationality that does not pass as white, are literally thrown onto the street corners and are at the mercy of the the wolves of exploitation.

    The U.S. government's treatment of immigrants is nothing to be proud about. Official policies have unleashed waves of scapegoating along with a proliferation of repressive legislation by state, county and local officials targeting immigrants -- or anyone perceived to be born outside the country. SB1070, the controversial Arizona law that gives local law enforcement additional powers to check a person's immigration status, is the tip of the iceberg of anti-immigrant repression.

    Over twenty states are considering SB1070 copycat laws. The Obama Administration has implemented "Secure Communities" and other federal immigration-police collaboration programs in over 500 jurisdictions; final the goal is to extend Secure Communities to every county by 2012.

    Get ready for more record years of repression.

    We will need to all "Dream, Rise, Organize" with fierce human determination to rollback and reverse the climate, much less get socially just immigration reforms any time soon.

    Thursday, August 12, 2010

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    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.

    Sunday, August 08, 2010

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    Philosophical Materialism

    I have gone mad, lost my mind in a mall.

    I have gone from nothingness to everythingism:
    I need to buy everything
    CDs, shoes, blouses, shirts, underwear, designer jeans
    earrings, perfumes, lotions, vacation homes, maids

    I have gone from idealism to materialism
    turned the world into a store
    turned my ideas into a thrift shop
    turned my heart into an auction
    turned my body into an wishful-thinking six-figure salary
    I am what I own
    I am worth something because I own, I buy, I shop for the very best

    What is primary?
    My idea of a sale; can I buy it; can I own it; can I take it home; can I make it mine
    What is secondary?
    Whether I can beat out the other shopper.
    What is tertiary?
    whether i need it or not, i have it.

    The thing determines my being
    my being is a reflection of the things I can buy
    the thing has become a thing-for-my-self

    What is primary?
    Materialism, own, own, own, property, things, people in my service
    Matter determines ideas
    Ideas are in the stores, I look for sales, I shop therefore I am.

    Wednesday, June 09, 2010

    Update on community mural in east Oakland

    Desi along with Leo, Pancho Pescador, Jane and others are creating a new work of community art almost in my backyard. Part of a citywide initiative called, "Community Rejuvenation Project," which includes neighborhood participation in the mural design and painting and growing community gardens, Desi explained that they went to the store owner and asked permission to paint this historical mural on the outside wall of the store facing Seminary, close to MacArthur Boulevard.

    From left to right on the mural, the artists depict ancient history starting with African and Mesoamerican roots. The you have two historical figures a black woman who led a slave revolt and Cuauhtemoc, the last leader of the Aztecs who fought the first Indigenous battles against the incipient European invasion of the Americas.

    In the background is the "Black Eagle" of the farmworker movement. Cesar E. Chavez, founder and leader of the United Farm Workers union, designed the logo associated with the UFW. He explained that the "Balck Eagle" was a reminder of the long and deep history of farmworkers and agriculture in the Americas, dating back to the Aztecs and beyond.
    On each wing of the farmworker eagle you have Elaine Brown, Black Panther leader, and Inez Garcia, who was raped and in her cause celebre was represented by a Black Panther lawyer in Oakland. Desi explained that the Black Panthers had a historic meeting at Mills College back in their hey-day, which is a few blocks around the corner from the actual mural.

    In the center of the mural you have a pre-Colombian Mesoamerican symbol for movement right above the Black Panther party symbol. Then you have images expressing voices being raised for justice and community members expressing their power.

    A large image of a woman, acting with fist raised high and exclaiming words, comes from
    another photograph that turns out to be that of a Iranian in protest. Behind her you can see images from Alcatraz and Angel Islands, where Asian immigrants were jailed awaiting entry or deportation.