Tuesday, April 05, 2011
Monday, April 04, 2011
Sunday, April 03, 2011
arnoldo garcía
April 3
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
Friday, April 01, 2011
Wednesday, March 02, 2011
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
I was in Mississippimeeting
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 endMy eyes are a bridge of DNA
What is power?
A tsunami
The sun bats her eyelashes
[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
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
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
Liberation poems, theater, music, art, hip hop
Friday, October 8, 2010
Doors open at 7:30 pm
Program starts at 8:00 pm
Sponsored by the East Side Arts Alliance Cultural Center with the Chiapas Support Committee
http://www.eastsideartsall
At 2277 International Blvd * Oakland, CA 94606-5003
Call (510) 533-6629
Liberation poems, theater, music, art, hip hop with:
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
& others!
*
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.
Si Che viviera, con los Zapatistas estuviera
Thursday, September 30, 2010
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
Thursday, September 02, 2010
- 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.
Monday, August 30, 2010
música humana
música humana
música de polvo
música de tierra
música esqueletal
música de piel
música de huesos
música flota en olas
de tus labios a mis ojos
tu lengua transforma sílabas
en luz, partículas que danza
a tu alrededor
música soverna
echa raíces en el espacio
florece en el viento
no desparaece
es indesaparecible
espera el oído cósmico para escucharse
espero el ojo de las diosas para ser visto
música humana

