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Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Searching... Author: HERRERA, JUAN FELIPE Matches Found: 547 Herrera, Juan Felipe Poet's Biography 547 poems available by this author 10:00 PM First Line: Hot stripes down Last Line: What happened? Arrests, they say 10:13 PM First Line: The phone sucks Last Line: Down the avenues to the clinic 11:00 PM First Line: (again) a nun talks about Last Line: The careening asphalt swerves into science 11:07 PM First Line: Kiss her. Marga will leave shortly Last Line: A report is being hustled away %under the tripod 12:01 AM First Line: Marga is here now Last Line: This was a long time ago 12:02 First Line: They call her mariana carnacion Last Line: How long will you be staying in rome 12:04 First Line: Another vested cop %welcomes me Last Line: On the phone, behind quarters 1:03 AM/FRIDAY First Line: Marga speaks of ingredients. Do you really Last Line: Through the fire engines 1:04 AM First Line: I am out of film. Where has she gone Last Line: An upturned mercedes below her, below me, o florence %o los angeles 1:06 AM First Line: Marga's hat blows away with the smoke Last Line: With her boa, whitish -- pinal %behind her 1:08 AM First Line: I must see you alone Last Line: Sax man save me, save me sax max 1:15 AM First Line: It must be the evil of my eyes Last Line: Thick microphones from the fifties 1:33 AM First Line: Cuban shirts and slick blueness Last Line: But beautiful madame, the waiter says 2:00 AM First Line: That's fine, I say Last Line: Where is she going now 2:05 AM First Line: Next stop, rivets sizzle Last Line: Swivel to the rap-beats 2:09 AM First Line: Marga, yes? %her eyes, a smile again Last Line: A cigarette. The night slips through my thighs. %a helicopter whirls 2:11 AM First Line: At the tiny restaurant: %fior escavatrice Last Line: A jagged tree appears outside. %stings me 2:13 AM First Line: Marga picks up a kitten Last Line: Sweat, juice, and broken pianos 2:37 AM First Line: Bathing, I sit back foolish & Last Line: Of sax, tumbao & sex 2:40 AM First Line: The bath water stops & fades Last Line: A camera flashes across %south-central l.A 2:47 AM First Line: Pinal, %I am wearing a striped dress Last Line: Turn it up so you can read it, she says 2:59 AM First Line: Marga has dissolved Last Line: Electric holes of popped bread 2PAC BLOOD First Line: Be right in the pool cue shot Last Line: Be right in the word light 3:03 AM First Line: The tr-3 spins at 75 kilometers Last Line: Marga whispers into my tiny ear 3:07 AM First Line: Seven black children are being held hostage Last Line: That's it, the reporter shouts %and sings ave maria 3:09 AM First Line: Marga's axiom Last Line: To make the world turn one centimeter 3:11 AM First Line: I am wearing a sleeveless Last Line: An army sign lights up 3:45 AM First Line: She asks them what are you doing Last Line: Crushed bed posts, open night-cream jars Subject(s): Politics 3:58 AM First Line: Marga is down there somewhere Last Line: Through the rubber canopies, the plastic caps. %so we run 3:59 AM First Line: There is no church here, there will not be one Last Line: In zig-zag routes, buses and more umbrellas 3:97 AM First Line: A huge crowd has gathered curious Last Line: Long steps by a foreign ambulance truck 4:15 AM First Line: The man that came for a cure has died Last Line: No one speaks american 4:21 AM First Line: Just love yourself, she says Last Line: Something that can't make love 4:44 AM First Line: I tell him, all colors Last Line: The matron with the parasol on the burning couch says 4:48 AM First Line: I've read this poetry before. Unlike me Last Line: Something more stimulating than jazz, he says 5:00 AM First Line: Poetry. On charcoals Last Line: Combinations of words, expressions %fascinate her 5:03 AM First Line: I agree. %another phrase from the rich Last Line: Ask the devil-dog, marga tells them. Ask. %exmaine my dna 5:07 AM First Line: Just realize this & look away. Look up Last Line: The new spirit 5:14 AM First Line: Caught again without a cigarette Last Line: Roaring in the background 5:17 AM First Line: I want to see fellinni Last Line: Where is gradiska? %where is nino 5:18 AM First Line: Standing alone in the fullness Last Line: Swallowed back by the umber soul 5:30 AM First Line: We've nothing to do. Even with the wars Last Line: Of the military caps and tilted blouses 5:37 AM First Line: This is all I have. A bottle of ink Last Line: Tropical dizziness down the breastbone 5:53 AM First Line: They don't dance like this anymore Last Line: I dreamed of volvos & stormy windows, %she whispers 5:57 AM First Line: Marga runs. I walk Last Line: Anything besides the hotel, besides the gibberish 6:01 First Line: Write to me. Marga Last Line: A sports car with fog lights, the wet streets 7:30 PM/THURSDAY First Line: Below the helicopter, running from the system Last Line: Chalkdust & eighteen wheelers on fire 7:35 PM First Line: Marga marylin: a mexican blonde, pasted Last Line: Into the running-blade shadow. Escape? Yes 8:00 PM First Line: M&m %wears the green shirt of the golden che Last Line: On my bellybutton, %my tropical tongue 8:35 PM First Line: We examine the motion of cops Last Line: She says -- her ex-husband, his nose, %his affairs 8:37 PM First Line: The facts are as follows: marga steps down Last Line: Plays something by miles; %venus di milo 8:45 PM First Line: Alone now, in the garage with bricks Last Line: Her hands behind herself 9:15 PM First Line: When can we make love Last Line: Maracas, skull workers %in the background 9:20 PM First Line: Back up. Marga talks Last Line: A stone, tiny in her boot heel 9:40 PM First Line: Hear the footsteps. The flower shriek in my hand Last Line: Flashes through the curtain, it flashes %across my forehead 9:40 PM First Line: Hear the footsteps. The flower shriek in my hand Last Line: Flashes through the curtain, flashes %across my forehead Subject(s): Politics A CAPELLA Poem Text First Line: Ms. Steiger said, write about who you are. Last Line: I am singing out Subject(s): Chicanos; Identity; Self; Mexican Americans A CERTAIN MAN Poem Text Recitation by Author First Line: The man over there Last Line: . . . Like his prayer Subject(s): Conduct Of Life A FIESTA IN THE MOUNTAINS WAS A RARE TREAT Poem Text Subject(s): Mexico ABANDONED BLOOD First Line: Gone to the drooler dungeon, the mother's buried kitchen, that is Last Line: Gone to the great emptiness, inside the ring, your last death, of course, that is ABUELITA SOFI SMOKES UP LA COCINA First Line: La reina del aire, %that's what they call me, she tells me, porque se caminar Last Line: En el sofa - yo no, yo me se mover AFTER ALL First Line: After all the hard noise Last Line: We tremble together in white Subject(s): Nature AFTER DINNER AND AFTER OUR FEW TRAVELING CHICKENS Last Line: That my spit turned to ice when it hit the ground Subject(s): Children Of Migrant Workers; Mexican American Families AIDS HEARING IN THE METROPOLIS First Line: A carafe of white wine glistens. Onyx table Last Line: In the veined mask -- speak. Or point. Point ALLIGATOR First Line: On the alligator's back Last Line: Apples, raisins %cinnamon, %lightening - an embarkation, spice. %rest a little, rest now, you %rise ANGEL WRESTLER (WITH BLOND WIG) Poem Text First Line: They come and offer maize Last Line: Rain, thee serenity of lack mountains Subject(s): Mountains ANGEL WRESTLER (WITH BLOND WIG) First Line: They come & offer maize, %oat gruel Last Line: Rain, the serenity of black nountains, in strange motion, an infinite tear ANTHROPOMORPHIC CABINET First Line: They killed the tlaxcalans. They slaughtered their daughters Last Line: These are yours APHRODISIACAL DINNER JACKET First Line: In veracruz, they know how to drink coffee Last Line: Ascensions and healing stones AT THE MISSISSIPI DELTA BLUES FESTIVAL First Line: In my house, camaradas. Even if I am 2,300 miles from the best taquerias in Last Line: Swinging my hips to the tragic bass & the sex water of the saxophone ATAVISTIC: TRACES AFTER THE RAIN First Line: My hand is up. It goes up to my father's dark coat Last Line: Step toward the sculpted cities of civola AUBURN First Line: Your auburn hair Last Line: With a raging spiral heart AVENIDA CONSTITUCION, TIJUANA First Line: My tio ferni's idea - wanted me casual. Welfare chavalo south of san diego Last Line: Capital. Years before he earned his position as a laundry mexican, smiling %king of starched cotton AVIARY First Line: You were on a square, moving toward a bus Last Line: The avenue waving, the lovers high up, %about to embrace AZTEC BLOOD SAMPLE First Line: Where is the goddess, tara, now crack open my chest? Last Line: Where is the obsidian point, mexico - the road to the abyss? AZTEC ROSES First Line: After %che guevara was riddled with shrapnel in the pure oxygen of bolivia Last Line: Without names, waving up, in the water winds BANJO YOU LEFT UNBRIDLED WITH RAGE First Line: As always, I carry your star, embroidered. Over Last Line: Recognize me, now. Recognize me, now? BEE HEAD RESTS ON MY SHOULDER First Line: A silver tourniquet for a tie, two eggs of slaughter Last Line: My longish hair, my honeycombs BENEATH YOUR SKIN First Line: A strange sharp whitish black - you whisper to me Last Line: Since it is so evident divine me BLOOD FOURTEEN First Line: Stranger come to meet you in the shade, in full regalia Last Line: Spit going down effortlessly, this mock love on 14th street BLOOD FROM THE NATIVE SON First Line: Remember me? Tijuana boy gone sour Last Line: Black chalk, the solar winds BLOOD GANG CALL First Line: Calling all tomato pickers, the ones wearing death frowns instead of jackets Last Line: Calling all tomato pickers, the old ones, wearing frayed radiator masks BLOOD MOUSE MANIFESTO First Line: So, we come a full circle. Wait, I am first Last Line: Tiny shivers. Ourselves %& others BLOOD NIGHT CAFE First Line: Burials. %they come, they go Last Line: A licorice cane, a baptist ghost on fire BLOOD ON THE WHEEL Poem Text First Line: Blood on the night soil man en route to the country prison Last Line: Bronze dead gold & diamond deep. Blood be fast Subject(s): Blood; Social Commentary; City & Town Life BLOOD ON THE WHEEL First Line: Blood on the night soil man en route to the country prison Last Line: Bronze dead gold & diamond deep. Blood be fast BLOOD SOCKETS First Line: From my forebone to your name in pimp letters Last Line: Digital in its global suture ticktock of our existence BLOOD SUITES First Line: Chocolate ran to the store to fetch a quart of mild Last Line: Strolls to the stove to kiss la navaja BLOOD TYSONS First Line: Black fist will come burning & you will contemplate the oceans Last Line: Against the window, inside %your night BLUE COAT, WHITE SHIRT First Line: You had come back from the chalk blue hospital Last Line: Spins -- your white shirt BLUE-EYED MAMBO THAT UNVEILS MY LOVER'S BELLY First Line: Come down to the violin-colored table Last Line: You say, you - the one under the phosphor BLUES PACK LAST MILE First Line: And they want me to believe. Give me Last Line: So, I give it to them - this wavy blood spirit BORDER WIRE / SPINA First Line: Border wire %more pesticides Last Line: The one where you were born BORDER-CROSSER WITH A LAMBORGHINI DREAM First Line: A temptation limo? Here Last Line: Keep on hummin' BORDER-LOVIN' & SINISTER First Line: Aside from the sawed can through the face Last Line: With bitter notes & wild with our lonely knives CALLING THE DOVES, SELS First Line: At noon time, %on a lunch break from driving the tractor Last Line: And perch itself on a nearby tree Subject(s): Children Of Migrant Workers; Fathers; Mexican American Families CANADA IN ENGLISH Poem Text First Line: Mrs. Tinko says canada Last Line: Skulls – are for us Subject(s): Language; Chicanos; Words; Vocabulary; Mexican Americans CAT MY MOTHER CRADLED First Line: At sixteen, at midnight they came knocking. Said my father had died of Last Line: That wild shadow, she smoked and kissed a stray that crossed our window CHERRY BOWL WITH BLUE REVOLVER First Line: A cherry bowl with a blue revolver for a heart Last Line: It will follow you wherever you go CHICAN@ LITERATURE 100 First Line: First of all, you are not going to find this stuff at the mall, in one of those Last Line: With your red-green spirit, the ancient songs way deep inside CHICKEN BLOOD TOWNSHIPS First Line: Say, fool. Cut the shit, all right. Your fancy as lingo Last Line: Your gizzard neck - boy, that what I call the knowledge CHILDREN OF SPACE First Line: On valencia street the playground aches. Children float through parking lots Last Line: Into an infinite system of undecipherable signs CITY PAINT First Line: Reddish flared patches cover our soft houses, our streets Last Line: Over my wedge-table, tap royal faces under the filtered ligh CONCEWRT OR RED PIANO OR RED ORCHESTRA (FR GIRAFFE/FIRE) First Line: Who are you? Bending at the jazz kitchen where they play thelonius Last Line: From the vented and grilled steel CRACK INSIDE MY BREAST First Line: A crack inside my breast split through bone Last Line: A needle rises, every circle I walk out in the open, so %this in how I write juices, nerves and Subject(s): Nature CRESCENT MOON ON A CAT?ÇÖS COLLAR Poem Text First Line: I come from a family of madmen and extravagant women. Last Line: Of the opal triumph of my voice Subject(s): Ancestors & Ancestry; Heritage; Heredity CRY LIKE A MAN First Line: Days after my mother died, margarita said, 'she was all you had.' no Last Line: I began to cry. This was my beginning CUNADA YOLI, EN EL JALE First Line: Her real name is frances, I call her yoli, margarita calls her yolanda Last Line: Beaten with hours, with pencils DANGEROUS PHRASES IN AMOROUS ENCOUNTERS First Line: Tiger over the mountain %I love your peaches Last Line: This is what a molcajete is all about, %sweetheart DIASPORA NIGHT First Line: The bass voice of the neon worm Last Line: Wedges & venetian blinds open DON'T WORRY, BABY First Line: I worry about comedians who call me to back up their old communisms Last Line: I worry about people who say 'don't worry, baby.' DREAM OF CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS First Line: They carried her above us. As we walked Last Line: With the uncertain ghosts stalking the territories EDWARD HOPPER VISITS MY EL PASO SOUL First Line: Say, hopper, stick around. Paint my nipples Last Line: Barbershop stool, hang it EJOTES CON MAYONESA First Line: Rolling down the grapevine. Highway 5 from rialto to san pancho - past Last Line: Mayonesa slam it on a plato of cooked ejotes EL ADAN First Line: From the shadow of the lizards Last Line: Stop singer. Call him, he's waiting with your ticket, too Subject(s): Chicanos; Loteria (game) EL AGUILA First Line: Come all ye warriors, all ye poets of el norte Last Line: Will you be the eagle, the cacti or the hiss? Subject(s): Chicanos; Loteria (game) EL ALACRAN First Line: Woke up this morning, had my fried mangos Last Line: With his shelled back reminiscent of my punk childhood %my tender disintegrations Subject(s): Chicanos; Loteria (game) EL ANGEL DE LA GUARDA Poem Text First Line: I should have visited more often Subject(s): Chicanos; Loteria (game) EL ANGEL DE LA GUARDA Poem Text First Line: I should have visited more often Subject(s): Chicanos; Loteria (game); Mexican Americans EL ANGEL DE LA GUARDA First Line: I should have visited more often Last Line: I should have touched them Subject(s): Chicanos; Loteria (game) EL ARBOL First Line: I was your aged apprentice -- many years Last Line: Drilling up to my ten thousand kisses Subject(s): Chicanos; Loteria (game) EL ARCANGEL First Line: So I arrived -- you called Last Line: You just spittin' beans Subject(s): Chicanos; Loteria (game) EL ARMADILLO First Line: I am the blues-master, mathematician Last Line: My art, my sad-song suit of centuries Subject(s): Chicanos; Loteria (game) EL AUSENTE First Line: They say I've been under the weather. Yeah Last Line: For the rhythms, the solar razor winds Subject(s): Chicanos; Loteria (game) EL AVESTRUZ First Line: Take me to the taj -- there I will roam Last Line: The ones about our happiness, our long-necked %dances. Go now, little one. Go Subject(s): Chicanos; Loteria (game) EL AVION First Line: Ladies & gentlemen. You, in the altar Last Line: We shall land there in that meager swallow-pool Subject(s): Chicanos; Loteria (game) EL BANO First Line: Alone. Inside the steel cage Last Line: All the songs live, all the lives Subject(s): Chicanos; Loteria (game) EL BRUJO Poem Text First Line: Every morning, I ring the corn, sing Subject(s): Chicanos; Loteria (game); Mexican Americans EL BRUJO First Line: Every morning, I ring the corn, sing Last Line: Who thirsts? Here is the water %the crown-spirit you called for Subject(s): Chicanos; Loteria (game) EL CABALLERO First Line: Please, sir below, did you know Last Line: Thinking about rising up, about speaking? Subject(s): Chicanos; Loteria (game) EL CABALLITO First Line: The idea falters. No idea. Falters Last Line: No idea. Drink, ride, strip your shirt Subject(s): Chicanos; Loteria (game) EL CAMELLO First Line: Hey you, hey %travel hump, time-fur thinker Last Line: To take it by foot or by hoof Subject(s): Chicanos; Loteria (game) EL CANGREJO First Line: Shoo-bop, sweetheart! Last Line: Play these violins to the green jazz piers Subject(s): Chicanos; Loteria (game) EL CAZADOR First Line: Once upon a time, there was an elephant Last Line: Which way? Which direction, which? %lawyer said, stop Subject(s): Chicanos; Loteria (game) EL CIELO First Line: In the dome of triangles and slaughtered warriors Last Line: All this opens as I taste patchouli on your knees Subject(s): Chicanos; Loteria (game) EL CIRCO First Line: From yin to fullness, a guffaw at the pit Last Line: Call it joy, call it she-hair %this negative of all negatives Subject(s): Chicanos; Loteria (game) EL COLGADO First Line: Let me tell you about it Last Line: It was the light, say it was the dawn Subject(s): Chicanos; Loteria (game) EL COMETA Poem Text First Line: It is said, when the star of rumi burns azul Last Line: All our eyes will explode all the eyes – in praise Subject(s): Mexico; Liberty; Mexican Americans EL COMETA First Line: It is said, when the star of rumi burns azul Last Line: All our eyes will explode all the eyes -- in praise Subject(s): Chicanos; Loteria (game) EL CORAZON First Line: In veracruz, where the light is colonial Last Line: These romantic nails, arrowmatic expectations Subject(s): Chicanos; Loteria (game) EL CUCHILLO First Line: In my midnight erotica. When Last Line: Give it the last word, wrap it in steel Subject(s): Chicanos; Loteria (game) EL DANZANTE First Line: Ate my frijoles after the night-stomp, in chalma Last Line: This coiled & flat devoured love Subject(s): Chicanos; Loteria (game) EL DIABLO First Line: Fear was expected to wash down by the rivers Last Line: You? So, it grew up, on its own, this brooding %orphan in our garden Subject(s): Chicanos; Loteria (game) EL DIOS First Line: Hey corazonsito %I am back from the races. Been a long time, huh? Last Line: I am short on change, put it that way, okay? Subject(s): Chicanos; Loteria (game) EL ERMITANO First Line: Under the arch of capitalism, or rather Last Line: My heart is accustomed. The song is different %the song is rebellious Subject(s): Chicanos; Loteria (game) EL FERROCARRIL First Line: After the revolution, we waited by the ceiba tree Last Line: The mountains of the south in despair Subject(s): Chicanos; Loteria (game) EL FRUTO Poem Text First Line: The apple wasn't our true origin Last Line: It was king-executive, demi-god of the new business Subject(s): Social Commentaries; Creation EL FRUTO First Line: The apple wasn't our true origin Last Line: It was king executive, demi-god of the new business Subject(s): Chicanos; Loteria (game) EL FUEGO Poem Text First Line: I've prayed to her so many times Last Line: Form blows out of her belly,. My true night Subject(s): Chicanos; Loteria (game); Mexican Americans EL FUEGO First Line: I've prayed to her so many times Last Line: From blows out of her belly. My true night Subject(s): Chicanos; Loteria (game) EL GALLO First Line: In my dream again Last Line: All along in this seamless wicked night Subject(s): Chicanos; Loteria (game) EL GATO First Line: Don't think this is the way it is Last Line: Behind the curtains, the way the dream falls %from the owner's head -- to my plate Subject(s): Chicanos; Loteria (game) EL GIGANTE First Line: So he's listened to you for centuries, yes Last Line: This hatchwork of reddish men and bluish dogs Subject(s): Chicanos; Loteria (game) EL GLOTON First Line: Meet el gloton, mr. Eat-it-now-fried Last Line: He wants sugar-milk now -- as the worlds dissipate %shoot eons into the void Subject(s): Chicanos; Loteria (game) EL HERIDO First Line: Mighty antonio went to the usual nite-spot Last Line: Of the void, the nebula denying itself %the wound, yes, the wound Subject(s): Chicanos; Loteria (game) EL HIJO PRODIGO First Line: I was lost. I was cast as an exile Last Line: I returned to a stranger. I was that stranger Subject(s): Chicanos; Loteria (game) EL INFIERNO First Line: I am boppin' at the under-club Last Line: Entrails, erotic, concentric, electric Subject(s): Chicanos; Loteria (game) EL INSPIRADO First Line: For light years, in green-bulb bedrooms Last Line: My hands so busy with emptiness & blur Subject(s): Chicanos; Loteria (game) EL JOROBADO First Line: Been living on the outskirts Last Line: This is the hunger I bury, I said Subject(s): Chicanos; Loteria (game) EL LEON First Line: The king is dead %the children sing Last Line: My clawing feet, on their heads Subject(s): Chicanos; Loteria (game) EL LUCHADOR First Line: Let us call him weeping, mr. Llanto Last Line: Now will you crawl %out of the mouse hole? Subject(s): Chicanos; Loteria (game) EL MAGO First Line: You take the sword, the poblano of oaxaca Last Line: You sweat out the sweetness, the all -- yours Subject(s): Chicanos; Loteria (game) EL MAIZ Poem Text First Line: I am the speaker Last Line: And voice your bones in my infinity light Subject(s): Chicanos; Loteria (game); Mexican Americans EL MAIZ First Line: I am the speaker Last Line: And voice your bones in my infinity light Subject(s): Chicanos; Loteria (game) EL MAL GOBIERNO First Line: Mr. Pulpo, dr. Blue goya of tank sauce and fury Last Line: Comes alive in the teeth that smile and burn Subject(s): Chicanos; Loteria (game) EL MOJADO First Line: The sour races, the time-quilted feet Last Line: You want to run with me, esta noche? Subject(s): Chicanos; Loteria (game) EL MONO First Line: Guitarra. Guitarra. Six strings Last Line: My gaze through mountains or flesh Subject(s): Chicanos; Loteria (game) EL MUNDO First Line: Say sweetheart %wazzup wit the world on your cranky back? Last Line: Without you there is no path, no place to live it out? Subject(s): Chicanos; Loteria (game) EL MURCIELAGO First Line: Upside down heaven-kid, be the blood Last Line: In between, the register of sparkles Subject(s): Chicanos; Loteria (game) EL NOPAL First Line: My head swims in the aftertaste Last Line: My dad jacket applauds your kisses %your runaway flowers Subject(s): Chicanos; Loteria (game) EL OBRERO First Line: Dream number one: chiapas goes free in the green Last Line: Dream number ten: a las cinco de la tarde Subject(s): Chicanos; Loteria (game) EL PAYASO First Line: In my sixties album face, in my paisley Last Line: Pluck my bones and receive my smiles in neon Subject(s): Chicanos; Loteria (game) EL PECESITO First Line: High above the levels of the crown Last Line: Above, see its headlong collapse Subject(s): Chicanos; Loteria (game) EL PERRO First Line: In my dreams %I smooch the basilica Last Line: This road, its venom Subject(s): Chicanos; Loteria (game) EL SOL First Line: So dance with me Last Line: So many destructions left alone without light Subject(s): Chicanos; Loteria (game) EL SOLDADO First Line: Never been so hongry. So many bodies in Last Line: The lost fires. My hunger without a mouth Subject(s): Chicanos; Loteria (game) EL TEATRO REFORMA (CON CLAVILLAZO & QUESO DE PUERCO TORTAS ON THE SIDE First Line: El reforma, the new teatro in tijuas Last Line: When you turn around to slip in the torta everyone does the same EL VENADO First Line: In the mountains of nayarit, I am the advisor Last Line: Sing of petroleum and skins hanging Subject(s): Chicanos; Loteria (game) EL VIEJO First Line: I survive, that is all. Tobacco, copper lips Last Line: That is all, a nasty shift of upside-down %pianos, faces and eyes Subject(s): Chicanos; Loteria (game) EL VUELO Poem Text First Line: Close your eyes, now -- we go Last Line: To a silvery hand ahead, / the feminine dome Subject(s): Conduct Of Life EL VUELO First Line: Close your eyes, now -- we go Last Line: To a silvery hand ahead %the feminine dome Subject(s): Chicanos; Loteria (game) EL ZAPATISTA First Line: Oh, the zapatista, this lacandon Last Line: Of ammo, your halo made with our mud Subject(s): Chicanos; Loteria (game) EVENTS & FOUND OBJECTS AFTER THE BLAST First Line: Ivana trump's wedding band Last Line: Brazil in the shape of santana's guitar EVER SPLIT YOUR PANTALONES WHILE TRYING TO LOOK CHINGON? First Line: Like when I was coming back from a santana blues band concert at the Last Line: Back rows, especially dona aguado, la catolica, looked at it. Like that EVERYDAY WE GET MORE ILLEGAL Recitation by Author Subject(s): Immigrants; Emigrant; Emigration; Immigration EXILES First Line: At the greyhound bus stations, at airports, at silent wharfs Last Line: Where is our exile? Who has taken it? EXPLODE THIS LETTER W/THIS First Line: X is for fancy taxcos sold w/mayan rebellion Last Line: Square off & blow your cigar nose. Move, baby %move move EZEKIEL'S BLOOD First Line: As I was sayingg. Before you startled me with your perfume Last Line: No loving. Until the eye left its burning accents FIESTA IN THE MOUNTAINS WAS A RARE TREAT Last Line: With smiles and music Subject(s): Children Of Migrant Workers; Mexican American Families FIVE DIRECTIONS TO MY HOUSE First Line: 1. Go back to the grain yellow hills where the broken speak of elegance Last Line: 6. I said five, said five like a guitar says six FOLLOW ROZEWICZ Poem Text First Line: . . . At twenty-four / led to slaughter, Last Line: Stained letters curkled into roses Subject(s): Rozewicz, Tadeuz (b. 1921}; Poetry & Poets FOODSTUFFS THEY NEVER TOLD US ABOUT First Line: Burnt tortillas %gizzard pie Last Line: Yo' bones on the rocks FOREIGN INHABITANT First Line: I have lived here, in exile, for seven years FROM AN EXTINCT UKRAINE, I SING First Line: Jab da jute bag haaa! In my revolution re-verb Last Line: Me some smoke, make me; I giggle again, in my carcass boots FUSELAGE INSTALLATION Poem Text First Line: My loved ones drift into nothingness Subject(s): Scotland FUSELAGE INSTALLATION First Line: (my loved ones drift into nothingness Last Line: They too float above your hand, eerie; %their purple smoke mouths, triumphant FUTURE MARTYR OF SUPERSONIC WAVES First Line: Kerouac & %an american president's wife fuck in frenzy Last Line: We sang to him in jewish phrases, where we gave him oxygen FUZZY EQUATIONS First Line: Humility + oppression + a virgin - territory = latin america Last Line: Hard-core chicana writer + hard-core latino writer = fried race GESTAPO BOWLS ON THE PLANK First Line: He pours his soul, his Last Line: Clean the bowl, mark the trash, honor your rebellion GIRAFFE ON FIRE: 1 First Line: I sit on a gold vestibule. It isn't me Last Line: Lost in the deserts of california. Many years ago GIRAFFE ON FIRE: 10 First Line: They killed the tlaxcalanx. They slaughtered their daughters Last Line: Sperm and seashells, yellow lines across my cheeks. %these are yours GIRAFFE ON FIRE: 11 First Line: Of the sixty-two Last Line: For the new revolution GIRAFFE ON FIRE: 12 First Line: First of all: cinnamon Last Line: Tarnished by minstrel water GIRAFFE ON FIRE: 13 First Line: The equator is close Last Line: Inserted into every pore GIRAFFE ON FIRE: 14 First Line: I have contributed my forty-five days of labor. Blacks for sugar. Browns for Last Line: Will go back. The god ocelotl will grant you one wish for having mimicked kindness GIRAFFE ON FIRE: 15 First Line: The music comes from the obraje Last Line: Me. I poke him with my cane. I push against his solid self, his little brothers that oppress us GIRAFFE ON FIRE: 16 First Line: Who are you? Bending at the jazz kitchen where they play thelonius Last Line: Vented and grilled steel GIRAFFE ON FIRE: 17 First Line: From the mad hills Last Line: Asphalt wings. Pink powder, a lost boy with a holy wheel. Ezekiel, joshua GIRAFFE ON FIRE: 18 First Line: They want to root out the conversos, these jews at my left. The consulado Last Line: Columns. For the angels that caress your oval-shaped ghosts GIRAFFE ON FIRE: 19 First Line: In the sea with two miniature men. One on a rock, the other behind me Last Line: Crystalline like sugar. Chavez appears dilligent, armed with thorns GIRAFFE ON FIRE: 2 First Line: I always dreamt of holding u a champagne bottle, etched and intricate as Last Line: Cloth, the smock of my childhood GIRAFFE ON FIRE: 20 First Line: Chavez has hurled me forward. The sky to the top left breaks and falls Last Line: Chapel to open or to fall, the chapel that looks upon me from afar GIRAFFE ON FIRE: 21 First Line: Ocelotl, the red-haired god, has appeared. With the pelt of a sea lion Last Line: A syrup cry against sand and years of silence GIRAFFE ON FIRE: 22 First Line: Sarajevo has been hit. Her limp hand has gone back, flipped into darkness Last Line: Sarajevo's toast to the heavens GIRAFFE ON FIRE: 23 First Line: The mortar shells rise up from cochineal, from vanilla, from the stolen Last Line: Women await your arrival GIRAFFE ON FIRE: 24 First Line: The anus. The apple Last Line: I want to call the trinity. Call thelonius - this, I want to tell them, %this is ours GIRAFFE ON FIRE: 25 First Line: The consulado. After decades of names and quills, notaries and quipus Last Line: An inverted tree with its ghost across my bed, to speak GIRAFFE ON FIRE: 26 First Line: My childhood haunts me. It haunts me Last Line: Dosing, thinking he has me captive. I drink and slobber his name GIRAFFE ON FIRE: 27 First Line: The little boy breathes inside the mother. You can see through him too. His Last Line: Open her hands and siwanava to blow through his rectangular lungs. The %child's name is zapata GIRAFFE ON FIRE: 28 First Line: The story comes apart near gala's eyebrows. This is where the plot shreds Last Line: Woman, velazquez said. The lips, the tresses GIRAFFE ON FIRE: 3 First Line: Hold up the right corner of the sea, pleated. Lift it and find pleasure Last Line: Man was raising her hair GIRAFFE ON FIRE: 4 First Line: In veracruz, young men roll naked on their backs. On cement. On the Last Line: Breasts into pearls, ascensions, and healing stones GIRAFFE ON FIRE: 5 First Line: The gold triangle is my enemy Last Line: Fleshiness. Only the bust in the cave remains peaceful GIRAFFE ON FIRE: 6 First Line: When I entered the cave I found velazquez. Was he dying? Was he asking Last Line: Mounds and how they used dung and sang to the ash spirits GIRAFFE ON FIRE: 7 First Line: My leg stiffens. The crutch that holds me has become my aromatic rosary Last Line: That smells of apples and duck feathers GIRAFFE ON FIRE: 8 First Line: She listened to tjader on 22nd and faced fifty abstract pictures in her Last Line: Erupts a shadow of a wild egg GIRAFFE ON FIRE: 9 First Line: My daughter rests on the ledge to my left. In phoenix. She says Last Line: Dances to the red-haired god, ocelotl GLAMOROUS TREACHERIES First Line: A tiny jet %plows into the field and there, all we can distinguish Last Line: The years, we say. Flights to another kingdom GRAFIK Poem Text First Line: I cut / / / / / I multiply everyday images. I apply an aluminum point Last Line: C/////////////r/////////////I////////////m//////////////e//////////////s Subject(s): Social Commentary; Grief; Language GREYHOUND DEPOT CHAVALO, SAN DIEGO, '57 First Line: Me & gaby arteaga and his brother tony from phoenix. Gabby has a Last Line: Them over tony & tony over me HALLUCINOGENIC BULLFIGHTER (FROM GIRAFFE ON FIRE) First Line: The story comes apart near gala's eyebrows Last Line: The lips the tresses HARD CURAS ON 'C'STREET First Line: Show mama my right big toe infected and swollen. Ven acqui, she says Last Line: S ok, the hot water and the salt will burn the germs. %you ready, juan? HISPAVISION PRESENTS: HISPANOPOLY: THE UPWARDLY MOBILE IDENTITY GAME First Line: Sancho: orale, meh yamoh sancho on sunday. Bean venidos to the only Last Line: Announcer: all prizes are sponsered by migra-187-209-277 studios. %(mucho interesante grab-you right HOUSE IS EMPTY NOW First Line: House is empty now with my hand Last Line: Never closing. Who is there, now? %a teaspoon, yellow flower-mirror Subject(s): Nature HOW TO BE A WARRIOR FOR THE AZTLAN LIBERATION ARMY: ALA First Line: Didn't have the eight track Last Line: Knows what I'll do next HOW TO DO THE MERENGUE IN THE END ZONE First Line: I am on fire and there is a glassy coolness inside -- a black light comes all Last Line: Faces -- above the left gold eye, a silent priestess with the kiss of a jaguar mouth HOW TO ENROLL IN A CHICANO STUDIES CLASS First Line: You don't know how good I felt when I saw a whole grupo of raza at Last Line: You need. Breathe in, breathe out, this green wind, makes you strong HOW TO MAKE A CHILE VERDE SMUGGLER: LAST CALL First Line: I confess, I buried the chiles from food city Last Line: So fast, so alive - it disappeared. Then, %I appeared HOW TO MAKE WORLD UNITY SALSA First Line: Mash the pulp %mash the pulp Last Line: Your bones on the soul HUERTA STREET TELENOVELAS First Line: Where my suegro beto le esta mochando la nuka al cokono for the weekend Last Line: Triliado, cuz he just got a cheke from the divorcio I AM MERELY POSING FOR A PHOTOGRAPH Poem Text Last Line: The propellers churn Subject(s): Ancestors & Ancestry; Heritage; Heredity I FOUND MYSELF IN THE STUDIO OF A TABLA MASTER First Line: In varanasi, the spirit waters of the ganges burn death at my feet Last Line: Flute & serpent leads, charred leaves, my lives into lines on the waters I LOVED THE NIGHT Last Line: I would cup my hands to my mouth %and join them Subject(s): Children Of Migrant Workers; Mexican American Families I WAS BORN IN THE TINY TOWN OF FOWLER Last Line: There can be kindness Subject(s): Children Of Migrant Workers; Mexican American Families I, CITLALLI 'LA LOCA' CIENFUEGOS: SUTRA ON THE ADDITIONAL COUNTS OF First Line: Late night: %don't lissen to him and his rants Last Line: Write it, who can trace its moist pubis? I, CITLALLI 'LA LOCA' CIENFUEGOS: SUTRA ON THE AUDIENCE First Line: Yuou must help me. I can only sing. I can only speak from this golden sea Last Line: Or write or act or be I, CITLALLI 'LA LOCA' CIENFUEGOS: SUTRA ON THE CATEGORY MAKERS First Line: Don't look at me for the answers, do not lift your feeble fuzz pens, your Last Line: Your glassy palace at this very second I, CITLALLI 'LA LOCA' CIENFUEGOS: SUTRA ON THE MACHINE HOLE First Line: Do you understand without so much understanding, without so much, you Last Line: The easy dreamers tapping your shoulders, come now, do not lose your way I, CITLALLI 'LA LOCA' CIENFUEGOS: SUTRA ON THE NINTH SUN First Line: They - the category babies, know my name. Call me citlalli 'la loca,' in Last Line: Ready to please and swing one more delirium in - you I, CITLALLI 'LA LOCA' CIENFUEGOS: SUTRA ON THE NOTEBOOK First Line: I stand alone, I hold a thousand lights in my teeth, my throat is sacred, my Last Line: Through my city, this umbral specter of sleeping moth figures IMMIGRANT FORTUNE TELLER MACHINE First Line: Lissen, %bobo chango - yeah Last Line: Thass your existence, bobo chango boy, %thass it IN CASE YOU'RE STILL WONDERING ABOUT RACISM First Line: Consider the whip marks on your television set Last Line: Consider the spanish-like pronunciation of your automobile IN THE CANNERY THE PORPOISE SOUL Poem Text Last Line: Before the porpoise sea was born Subject(s): Canneries; Social Commentary; Canners IN THE MOUNTAIN VALLEYS AROUND LAKE WOLFER Poem Text First Line: In the mountain valleys around lake wolfer Last Line: And flapped their peppery feathers and ran after me Subject(s): Fathers IN THE MOUNTAIN VALLEYS AROUND LAKE WOLFER Last Line: And flapped their peppery feathers and ran after me Subject(s): Children Of Migrant Workers; Mexican American Families INSIDE THE JACKET First Line: I remember, many years ago INTERVIEW AT THE TOTAL LIBERATION CAFE First Line: Goddess: so, what did you say you do? Last Line: Goddess: your hand touching my knee - how shall I say? - you. %bobo: ah IOWA BLUES BAR SPIRITUAL Poem Text First Line: Little tokyo bar -- / ladies night, smoky gauze balcony, whispering tommy becker Subject(s): Bars & Bartenders; Popular Culture - United States; Pubs; Taverns; Saloons IOWA BLUES BAR SPIRITUAL First Line: Little tokyo bar -- %ladies night, smoky gauze balcony, whispering tommy becker Last Line: Opal-eyed suzie in a flannel shirt; we beckon the spark, the body to live Subject(s): Bars And Bartenders; Popular Culture - United States IT IS SAID First Line: If you eat watermelon at night, you'll grow horns Last Line: If you paste the virgin on your dashboard, you'll make it to tijuana IT'S TIME TO SETTLE DOWN. IT'S TIME JUANITO GOES TO SCHOOL Last Line: The way my father called the doves Subject(s): Children Of Migrant Workers; Mexican American Families JADE MOTHER GODDESS Poem Text First Line: Frida came back and kicked away the features Last Line: The small inventory is simple – this sweaty speakerly master Subject(s): Sculpture & Sculptors JUNE JOURNALS 6-1-88 First Line: As chicano artists, we have always pulled out our images, landscapes and Last Line: I love sculpture, the art of breaking space. %writing, the quarry JUNE JOURNALS 6-13-88 First Line: I am looking across the table. Margarita luna has just finished organizing Last Line: Men in line signing books JUNE JOURNALS 6-16-88 First Line: Fifteen years later at another institution in a much smaller room at zapata Last Line: Decapitations. But, who listens? JUNE JOURNALS 6-2-88 First Line: Thursday: apparitions in flesh Last Line: I wonder how much those congas are JUNE JOURNALS 6-23-88 First Line: I am turning right at santa clara blvd at 10th street. My lawyer, s.Z Last Line: Enchi-taco paradise. Imagine? JUNE JOURNALS 6-25-88 First Line: The chick I bounced was for $208. My buddy, alfonso s., did the design Last Line: By his bank. I wish my bank would do that once in a while JUNE JOURNALS 6-27-88 First Line: A writer must deal with big questions, big deepness, big heart, big fist Last Line: Some sweaty-assed two-bit newsletter on this? Is this the extent of our voice %in 1988? In june? JUNE JOURNALS 6-29-88 First Line: I am looking at a tree and the tv wires above. My backyard hummingbird Last Line: Bulovas and chinese dragons and okinawa black jersey jackets. And fire JUNE JOURNALS 6-29-88 First Line: What is mexico? Another fast stop for quasi-beat u.S. Middle-class poets to Last Line: Ruben martinez, and friends. I'll be looking hard. Everyone will be looking hard - I hope JUNE JOURNALS 6-3-88 First Line: Yesterday I picked up an issue of la regla rota, a tough mex-punk magazine Last Line: Ham and cheese. A writer with a maid that makes burritas? JUNE JOURNALS 6-4-88 First Line: There are too many iron grids in california Last Line: As acid. The question is, who speaks at all? JUNE JOURNALS 6-5-88 First Line: Sunday: %there is an empty foto-mat store on 11th street and san fernando, next Last Line: To turn its head in any direction, day or night and scream and breathe and live JUNE JOURNALS 6-5-88 First Line: I was invited to give a commencement rap a few weeks ago for the english Last Line: Partner margarita luna robles JUNE JOURNALS 6-6-88 First Line: When my mother died I discovered a small address book. I was going Last Line: About deep nurturance and about deep loving. How can there be real %relationships without these? JUNE JOURNALS 6-7-88 First Line: Been thinking about buffalo an inmate at soledad prison where I teach a Last Line: Places? Trade places with a city supervisor? JUNE JOURNALS 6/25/88 Poem Text First Line: The check I bounced was for $208. My buddy, alfonso s., did the design Last Line: By his bank. I wish my bank would do that once in a while Subject(s): Poetry & Poets; Chicano JUTE-BOY AT THE NATURALIZATION DERBY First Line: In the chevy-sack, mottled & sharp: lean boy, to the ride Last Line: Before you. Can you identify? Let's leave the question %open KALIWEY First Line: In the kaliwey Last Line: From ladino %town fright KAUYUMARI, I SING TO YOU First Line: Kauyumari, I sing to you, sacred deer advisor, to you alone, besides my father Last Line: Awareness into a new form of capitalism LA BANDERA First Line: So %they fight over you Last Line: This aroma of storms Subject(s): Chicanos; Loteria (game) LA BICICLETA First Line: We were going to the park Last Line: Losing us, in one rocking second Subject(s): Chicanos; Loteria (game) LA BOTELLA First Line: 100 proof mata perro, street-kill dog Last Line: With its deep-cupped crazy tongue Subject(s): Chicanos; Loteria (game) LA CABRA First Line: The goat is my favorite. In jive beard Last Line: Ripping its heart out. For the moment %chew on some of this Subject(s): Chicanos; Loteria (game) LA CAIDA First Line: A man is just beginning. He is at the tip Last Line: Where I am going, he says. At last I know Subject(s): Chicanos; Loteria (game) LA CAMPINA First Line: Say bay, so I got a job. Yeah Last Line: The grimace inside this building. Listen up Subject(s): Chicanos; Loteria (game) LA CANOA First Line: It is late, time to leave. To let go Last Line: I am not who I am either. It is time %to leave. It is late Subject(s): Chicanos; Loteria (game) LA ESCALERA First Line: We are hobbling up, as usual, up the dome Last Line: What happens in the oven %will happen to us Subject(s): Chicanos; Loteria (game) LA ESPADA First Line: Ladies & gentlemen %call me senorita spear ii Last Line: Birth, cross your legs, aspire, aim Subject(s): Chicanos; Loteria (game) LA ESTRELLA First Line: I will tell you. My five-pointed heart Last Line: Dissipate in each other's arms. Cut souls %above chimney stacks Subject(s): Chicanos; Loteria (game) LA EVA First Line: Remember that man with a little cheese Last Line: Gestapo breastplate fashion, my anger-deadening naked strut Subject(s): Chicanos; Loteria (game) LA GALLINA First Line: One eye sees all Last Line: What matters is the eye, its fury-seed %the total exit Subject(s): Chicanos; Loteria (game) LA GUITARRA First Line: Mi guitarra conoce todo. My guitar Last Line: Herself as a guitar, the omnivorous eater %of this nine-headed universe Subject(s): Chicanos; Loteria (game) LA LAGARTIJA First Line: Ese loco, say dude %you are growing on me, sabes? Last Line: Swerve your doors, tilt the wheel Subject(s): Chicanos; Loteria (game) LA LOTERIA Poem Text First Line: In my sleep, in this hurricane fiasco Last Line: Without remorse or regret, with relish Subject(s): Chicanos; Loteria (game); Mexican Americans LA LOTERIA First Line: In my sleep, in this hurricane fiasco Last Line: Without remorse or regret, with relish Subject(s): Chicanos; Loteria (game) LA MANO First Line: The left-handed angel was punished Last Line: She draws the sun, the dead-eyed orb, the shining %one that leads us Subject(s): Chicanos; Loteria (game) LA MARLENE GREW UP IN THE MOVIMIENTO First Line: Cuando era chiquita Last Line: Esa marlene, %grew up in el movimiento LA MIGRA First Line: This is your twin without the other-half Last Line: His borderlands so infinite Subject(s): Chicanos; Loteria (game) LA MOMIA AZTECA ALWAYS FOLLOWED ME ACROSS THE BORDER WHILE I HID First Line: Pontela en las botas. Put it in your boots Last Line: Tiny pool-shaped mirror LA MOSCA First Line: There is an enigma at your feet, a few Last Line: Its slender, bodies, how could we speak of all this? Subject(s): Chicanos; Loteria (game) LA MUERTE Poem Text First Line: My word against theirs, my sickle humor Subject(s): Chicanos; Loteria (game); Mexican Americans LA MUERTE First Line: My word against theirs, my sickle humor Last Line: A cash & carry star of exits and entrances Subject(s): Chicanos; Loteria (game) LA PALMA Poem Text First Line: In my last love letter -- you know Last Line: Disappearing before me, yes, it was me without you Subject(s): Love – Unrequited LA PALMA First Line: In my last love letter -- you know Last Line: Disappearing before me yes, it was me without you Subject(s): Chicanos; Loteria (game) LA PERA First Line: Say baby, yeah you again, in that Last Line: You don't dare me. Do you? Subject(s): Chicanos; Loteria (game) LA PESTE First Line: La peste arrived before we did Last Line: To one another, the idea of love, voice, time Subject(s): Chicanos; Loteria (game) LA POETA First Line: Examine closely, comrade Last Line: After fire, ignite the tips of your red %breasts, suckle this mirror I carry Subject(s): Chicanos; Loteria (game) LA PRENSA First Line: In '68, all the flowers fell. In tlatelolco Last Line: This shrunken room stained with paper & emptiness? Subject(s): Chicanos; Loteria (game) LA PUERCA First Line: I lived in a condo underneath an apple tree Last Line: Who entered me, who took me, who eats me now? Subject(s): Chicanos; Loteria (game) LA ROSA First Line: You called my name Last Line: New silences & new loves. I use the word silences %for sky Subject(s): Chicanos; Loteria (game) LA SANTA NINA First Line: Go to her %from the mercado, your knees dipped Last Line: Your glass case, your reflected face Subject(s): Chicanos; Loteria (game) LA SERPIENTE Poem Text First Line: No one's got me right. That's all I can tell you Last Line: They forget how I laugh. I laugheith perfection LA SERPIENTE First Line: No one's got me right. That's all I can tell you Last Line: They forget how I laugh. I laugh with perfection Subject(s): Chicanos; Loteria (game) LA SILLA First Line: Fashioned from wwii chest skin Last Line: Your name in its flowery design, its downturned flourishes Subject(s): Chicanos; Loteria (game) LA SIRENA First Line: I stalked her, for centuries Last Line: Your black tresses inside my eyes, infinite %dying, blossoming Subject(s): Chicanos; Loteria (game) LA TORTURA First Line: Don't kid yourself. I am easy. See this vato Last Line: With so much language about love Subject(s): Chicanos; Loteria (game) LA TRAMPA First Line: Lissen baby, so you got me cornered, so, my back's Last Line: Give me black world, take me Subject(s): Chicanos; Loteria (game) LA TRISTEZA First Line: Don't pity me %don't grind ablutions Last Line: Slash into all the eyes Subject(s): Chicanos; Loteria (game) LA VACA First Line: Hamburger said to the bread Last Line: And the freezing child %below the she-belly? Subject(s): Chicanos; Loteria (game) LA VENGANZA First Line: Say baby %do me a favor Last Line: Oh, the a tattoo is for absolute-cut Subject(s): Chicanos; Loteria (game) LA VICTIMA Poem Text First Line: Don't believe anything I've said. Everything Last Line: How I lean to one side disappear into the haze Subject(s): Truth LA VICTIMA First Line: Don't believe anything I've said. Everything Last Line: How I lean to one side and disappear into the haze Subject(s): Chicanos; Loteria (game) LA VIRGEN First Line: We lift her above our shoe-shine kit Last Line: The sickle moon. Listen to your blood Subject(s): Chicanos; Loteria (game) LAS TIJERAS First Line: Got this itch in my pants. Can't tell if it's Last Line: Clip you, let me shave you down to my size Subject(s): Chicanos; Loteria (game) LAST BLOOD WORDS First Line: In the mind, %in the mind pig, we say - world Last Line: (or the moon separating itself from the clouds? LET ME TELL YOU WHAT A POEM BRINGS Poem Text Recitation by Author First Line: Before you go further Last Line: The mist becomes central to your existence Subject(s): Poetry & Poets LET US GATHER IN A FLOURISHING WAY Poem Text Last Line: En las manos de nuestro amor Subject(s): Nature LET US GATHER IN A FLOURISHING WAY Poem Text Recitation by Author Last Line: En las manos de nuestro amor Subject(s): Farm Life; Social Commentary; Relationships LET YOURSELF BE SIDETRACKED BY YOUR GUIRO First Line: Never took anyone's advice Last Line: Avenue with a continuous blare in the head LETTER TO THE HUNGRY STUDENTS OF BERLIN First Line: Big sky, above us. %yes, above us Last Line: With each other. Old light %and new light LIMPIA FOR WALKING INTO CLEAR CAMPOS First Line: Step ahead be careful - the ice, you can slip Last Line: As I walk, I melt with the snow LITERARY ASYLUMS First Line: R-writrs live in immense warehouses. There they write at ease Last Line: Outside beasts and jagged strokes of color blur Subject(s): Writing And Writers LORD JIM First Line: They never found her Last Line: He knew the husband. Carmen. She knew. Both did LOS AMIGOS First Line: His mustard suits, his pizza head Last Line: For your late-night accordion ear Subject(s): Chicanos; Loteria (game) LOS BORRACHOS First Line: You -- murrieta! You got the winer? Last Line: Say, murrieta, we're in deep, baby Subject(s): Chicanos; Loteria (game) LOS FUMADORES First Line: Tibet, tangiers, hyde street riffs, come Last Line: Through the love-swamp, suck & shake, baby Subject(s): Chicanos; Loteria (game) LOS GUARACHES First Line: You are steppin' up Last Line: More days than nights. More scars than sighs Subject(s): Chicanos; Loteria (game) LOS MUSICOS First Line: As the glaciers undo their fondue Last Line: Salty guillotines rated x, the g strings, busted Subject(s): Chicanos; Loteria (game) LOS PIES First Line: Step, break, slip %and speak at the foot Last Line: Unraveling, at your fanciful door Subject(s): Chicanos; Loteria (game) LOS SUPLICANTES First Line: Empanizado, breaded one, frito Last Line: Listen to every drop of the new fire Subject(s): Chicanos; Loteria (game) LOSS, REVIVAL, AND RETRIBUTIONS (NEON DESERT COLLAGE) First Line: I've been bad-mouthing love too much Last Line: Stands there, with orchids. I can see it all, now. Above %ms LOVE THE VICTIM HARDER THAN YOU LOVE HIS KILLER First Line: Margarita prays %for her 22-year-old brother, ricky Last Line: The night is wet with victims, %year in year out LUZ Poem Text Recitation by Author First Line: Brick beds toilet lines the mexican road on fire 1917 Last Line: A child speaks with a man a man among the trees Subject(s): Chicanos; Mexican Americans M.O.C.O.S. (MEXICANS OR CHICANOS OR SOMETHING) First Line: I could never figure it out Last Line: It hold. Why was it burning so fast -- %red, yellow, red, r MACHOFILIA First Line: Tobacco socks %leather forks %redwood boxers Last Line: Rib eye face cream %distance-o-matic enhancer machine Variant Title(s): Machofilia(s MAKAL: DAUGHTER OF THE DRUMS: 1 First Line: The sun rises %over the distant sands of my pueblo, acteal Last Line: That dreams in my womb, the military storm MAKAL: DAUGHTER OF THE DRUMS: 10 First Line: Morning opens like the grasses Last Line: The act of being reborn MAKAL: DAUGHTER OF THE DRUMS: 11 First Line: Wind from chenalho %broken cornfield, weeping bone Last Line: You sleep in my hair and awake in my footsteps MAKAL: DAUGHTER OF THE DRUMS: 12 First Line: It makes me laugh to think Last Line: Cry, sweat-caress my hard belly MAKAL: DAUGHTER OF THE DRUMS: 13 First Line: The soldiers scratch themselves and smoke Last Line: Like a plantation perfumed, dried sausages MAKAL: DAUGHTER OF THE DRUMS: 14 First Line: I walk and go in circles Last Line: In pieces and fires-goose bumps MAKAL: DAUGHTER OF THE DRUMS: 15 First Line: Totil meil, %I finished my weavings Last Line: Rebel corn over a mountain of sun MAKAL: DAUGHTER OF THE DRUMS: 2 First Line: Yesterday an ambulance arrived Last Line: Lost among other clouds and thin rain MAKAL: DAUGHTER OF THE DRUMS: 3 First Line: I hear a distant drum, I hear flutes Last Line: Over the domes of the city %and the beheaded skies MAKAL: DAUGHTER OF THE DRUMS: 4 First Line: The press arrives, officials arrive Last Line: Except this cold wind that does not bear fruit MAKAL: DAUGHTER OF THE DRUMS: 5 First Line: I am makal, %the child woman of chenalho Last Line: I am makal, the child woman of the willows MAKAL: DAUGHTER OF THE DRUMS: 6 First Line: They ran out the governor of chiapas Last Line: Of their innocent women with their liquid hair MAKAL: DAUGHTER OF THE DRUMS: 8 First Line: Child, rise, %they come to see you. Yes Last Line: But I can feel you MAKAL: DAUGHTER OF THE DRUMS: 9 First Line: Makal, my walking stick, %my father moans Last Line: My mother says, almost in silence MAKAL: DAUGTHER OF THE DRUMS: 7 First Line: The crosses of tzontehuitz shield me Last Line: So far from me, rise and fall in the night MAN GOES WOMAN First Line: When he orders a falafel and calls it a phil Last Line: When he comes home & kisses the one he loves MARGARITA WALKS THE FIELDS IN FRESNO First Line: Margarita, stays in fresno. I am out in carbondale, writing, listening to Last Line: Or alone as I am, sometimes, when we walk through ourselves, when we are apart MARIACHI DRAG STAR First Line: Air guitar on lincoln blvd. Last Line: Wrapped in a rum-colored scarf before she dies. Now, he rub reads it like a novel MARUCH: GRANDMOTHER OF THE ROADS: 1 First Line: When the soldiers broke through, I thought of you, pascuala Last Line: Ash, iron-where are you? MARUCH: GRANDMOTHER OF THE ROADS: 10 First Line: The earth mask explodes Last Line: So heavy and pauses so eternal? MARUCH: GRANDMOTHER OF THE ROADS: 11 First Line: More youth arrive, they carry kindling Last Line: The children play in the rubble MARUCH: GRANDMOTHER OF THE ROADS: 12 First Line: Pascuala, the graygreen men continue with their parade Last Line: This infinite movement, this quake of night against night MARUCH: GRANDMOTHER OF THE ROADS: 13 First Line: Am I talking to myself? Last Line: It is the little and hunched light of the blood %that flows outside MARUCH: GRANDMOTHER OF THE ROADS: 14 First Line: The sun freezes, %lights up the cold and damp streets Last Line: Blows naked and eats up our tresses and vapors MARUCH: GRANDMOTHER OF THE ROADS: 15 First Line: Makal! %xunka, let's go Last Line: That still searches for a path, a voice MARUCH: GRANDMOTHER OF THE ROADS: 2 First Line: I smile at my destiny, the war, the few things left Last Line: Their wolf eyes, voices without souls MARUCH: GRANDMOTHER OF THE ROADS: 3 First Line: A military tank brushes me, but I escape Last Line: This walking stick of black wood MARUCH: GRANDMOTHER OF THE ROADS: 4 First Line: I used to cook in a thatched-roof house Last Line: Bodies without faces, vessels without destinies MARUCH: GRANDMOTHER OF THE ROADS: 5 First Line: I go down the mountain, a gurney from the red cross Last Line: Tumbling down from the highlands MARUCH: GRANDMOTHER OF THE ROADS: 6 First Line: Blood travels through the streets Last Line: An x in the center of its heart MARUCH: GRANDMOTHER OF THE ROADS: 7 First Line: Why am I tzotzil? Last Line: I am from chenalho, that's what I say %and I break MARUCH: GRANDMOTHER OF THE ROADS: 8 First Line: Rifles and blue stones %loosened eyelashes and red corn nectars Last Line: Furious machetes, explosion %of knives MARUCH: GRANDMOTHER OF THE ROADS: 9 First Line: I touch you across the morning, pascuala Last Line: Pascuala, come this instant, come flying MEMORIA(S) FROM AN EXILE'S NOTEBOOK OF THE FUTURE First Line: It took me long to walk Last Line: Full of burnished beings, the ones I was given METAMORPHOSIS OF AUSCHWITZ (FR GIRAFFE ON FIRE) First Line: She listened to tjader on 22nd Last Line: A dog eats a crab and a cala lily erupts a shadow of a wild egg MEXICAN WORLD MURAL 5 X 25 First Line: In august he boarded the bus %the a.D.O. %for southern mexico and saw Last Line: And the infinite flame in the bones of your/children Variant Title(s): Mexican World Mural / 5 X 2 MILAGROS & ANCIENT ANGELS First Line: At an early age my mother warned me, you have a star on your forehead Last Line: With their pointed faces and flint noses, swiveling their eyes from undercover vans MILLENNIUM OMENS First Line: Van gogh's self-portrait on tylenol bottles Last Line: Davidian carrot cake bake sale %silicon breast boddhisattva MISSION STREET MANIFESTO First Line: Blow out the jiving smoke the plastik mix the huddling straw of the MONDAY: I AM Last Line: Crazy tin shrapnel sky shred MONDAY: NO Last Line: In the house of the foreman - you want her bricklayer MONDAY: PRI JET Last Line: In the stone rubble volcanic ash MONDAY: STILL Last Line: Take you apart on your very own shore MONDAY: I First Line: I judge you here I Last Line: And this floor inundated with horns and flames breaks your face MONDAY: NOTHING First Line: Nothing only nothing and fists - full of veins Last Line: Amerinothing of your great lobster hands like this %you want us MONDAY: YOU First Line: #name? Last Line: I judge you - like the orphan and poet (that I am MY MOTHER WAS A HEALER Last Line: Out of bed in their squeaky paper boots Subject(s): Children Of Migrant Workers; Mexican American Families MY MOTHER WOULD COOK BREAKFAST OUTSIDE, IN THE OPEN Last Line: The wavy clay of the land was my plate Subject(s): Children Of Migrant Workers; Mexican American Families MY PLUTOMOBILE First Line: Runs on ham hawks & bird grease Last Line: Runs on free on free on free on free MY RICE QUEENS First Line: You drag it across tijuana, drag it hard from tecate Last Line: You took me yesterday. Take me today NEW YORK CITY ANGELIC: I HAVE AN APPOINTMENT Last Line: & sew, carry to market! Who owns the market? That is the old .75 question. %bag it, baby NEW YORK CITY ANGELIC: BACK ON SCHEDULE First Line: Back on schedule. Eatin' beans & receivin' e-mail. Makin' love & teachin' Last Line: Back to me in a coupla weeks. This is good. Johnny small fry moves on to %the center grill NEW YORK CITY ANGELIC: I SIT AT GATE #9 First Line: I sit at gate #9 fresno wednesday a.M. Mechanics 'fix' the late engines of Last Line: Blows & tears another pattern through the dome NEW YORK CITY ANGELIC: I WAS DOING A POETRY READING THING First Line: I was doing a poetry reading thing, a tour with amiri baraka. We kicked it Last Line: Roller blades w/bread rolls & flowers NEW YORK CITY ANGELIC: JOSH, MY SON, SAID First Line: Josh, my son, said he'd probably show up with champagne and fire poems Last Line: No chain %no shame %no name NEW YORK CITY ANGELIC: LISTEN CLOSELY First Line: Listen closely to the united pilot's statement about fixing Last Line: A wooden spoon speaks louder than a metal fork. %gracias, gracias, gracias NEW YORK CITY ANGELIC: NEED A ZEN QUOTE First Line: Need a zen quote. A zen quote that will join this plane to nyc with the Last Line: Pretzels. Poems with the frontal image stepping & stuttering away from the mind NEW YORK CITY ANGELIC: PS 94 First Line: 4/17: %just hustled back from ps 94 - largest elementary in brooklyn. Between Last Line: The clear virgin oil of olives NEW YORK CITY ANGELIC: READING GINSBERG'S First Line: Reading ginsberg's mid-fifties journals. Dreams, smokes, travels to sacto Last Line: Kerosene. This ink lamp wicker. Illusions. The poetry biz subverts me. So NIGHT TRAIN TO TUXTLA First Line: Downslope, sleek concrete Last Line: And the indian soldiers stand with their automatics. Uprigh entrance to every boutique NINTH ELEGY First Line: Why, if this interval of being can be spent serenely Last Line: Wells up in my heart NORTEAMERICA, I AM YOUR SCAR First Line: My friends grab at their shoulders Last Line: When we shall walk with two legs once again %and when our hands shall burst from your hands NOTES FOR 'BROADWAY INDIAN' First Line: This canto is dedicated to my huichol, cora, tepehuano, and mexicanero Last Line: And hospitality - and in memory of the late ramon medina silva, friend and guide NOTES ON OTHER CHICANA & CHICANO INVENTIONS First Line: Like I said, %cilantro aftershave Last Line: The size of a calabaza, you hear, %escuincla? NOTHING IS TAKEN THAT IS NOT GIVEN First Line: The rap beat of arrested development flared through the red Last Line: Nothing was taken that was not given Subject(s): Anthropology; Ethnic Identity; Explorers; Native Americans - History; Native Americans - Reservations; Tourists; Travel NOW SHALL I PRAISE THE CITIES, THOSE LONG-SURVIVING Last Line: Will leap upon him and force him to %fight for his life OFELIA IN MANHATTAN, CIRCA 1943 First Line: Girl, you couldn't sports a finer gabardine jacket Last Line: Look sharp forever. It was our island, girl ON THE DAY OF THE DEAD, MR. EMPTINESS SINGS OF LOVE First Line: Maga plays at the blue tarp -- the tavern spilling its melancholy letters Last Line: And all the hired hands, especially the hands will rise ON THE OTHER SIDE OF PUCCINI'S: NORTH BEACH, SAN FRANCISCO, 1994 First Line: Spark the red lowriders of espanola, at the bottom rung of la estafeta Last Line: About to say a few more words as the sharp flame lights up his kind still face ONE DAY MY FATHER DECIDED Last Line: From a box radio on the wall Subject(s): Children Of Migrant Workers; Mexican American Families ONE IS FOR MAAX, ONE IS FOR JABALI Poem Text First Line: This unknown fountain, fifteen mayas Last Line: Waveless, half of the world in light Subject(s): Mexico ONE IS FOR MAAX, ONE IS FOR JABALI First Line: This unknown fountain. Fifteen mayas Last Line: Waveless, half of the world in light ONE THOUSAND STRINGS OF OBLIVION & A BUCKET OF GRAVE DIRT First Line: Kasakhstan rises from the communist rubble Last Line: Go singing. Go standing, against me ONE TIME WE VISITED FRIENDS IN FOWLER Last Line: Where I learned to sing Subject(s): Children Of Migrant Workers; Mexican American Families ORANGE STOP ON 99 First Line: Ain't nothing better, than pulling over - after the pizca in fresno, on the Last Line: Off a half dozen of the grower's naranjas for the sweet road ahead, que no? OYEME, MAMITA: ANOTHER CROSSING First Line: This is what I am sensing. Tortilla flats is the barometer, the long wooden Last Line: Words, you. Not me. Look at yourself put words on paper - you OYEME, MAMITA: I AM THAT PAPER First Line: I am that paper, I am those words now, the ink burns pyres in every cell Last Line: Luminous fallen side of the night. Oyeme OYEME, MAMITA: LA REINA IS GONE. BEKINS IS OUT First Line: The brewery has been replaced by shrewd developers, a school, a condo, a Last Line: Royal jelly hearts - mamita, oyeme OYEME, MAMITA: LETTERS ON ASPHALT, LETTERS ON COFFEE, LETTERS ON RAGS First Line: Are we are the letters, mamita? Oyeme, are we are the ones inside the Last Line: Lose it when I get romantic OYEME, MAMITA: STANDING ON 20TH & HARRISON First Line: Tortilla flats, where railroad tracks still cut across the street, bekins Last Line: Cold ink on a yellow legal pad OYEME, MAMITA: TORTILLA FLATS IS THE PLACE TO BE First Line: There is hope. Yes, no? Last Line: My hands talking empty OYEME, MAMITA: WELFARE DAYS & WELFARE NIGHTS First Line: That should be a song for freddy fender, our song. All that is over too Last Line: Us, punishing us for giving them form and voice and exposure OYEME, MAMITA: WHAT IS THIS 'LOOKING,' THIS 'SEEING' YOU MENTION? First Line: Were you talking about my intentions, my self-made pulp office, a feeble Last Line: Water. Tortilla flats moves like fire. What about words on paper? PASCUALA: MOTHER AMONG THUNDER: 1 First Line: My daughter, xunka, you search for me Last Line: Of fire and tender frenzy in the wind PASCUALA: MOTHER AMONG THUNDER: 10 First Line: I sing upon sponges of ruins Last Line: Made of yarn and wool, of pollen to tree bouquet %of war to freedom PASCUALA: MOTHER AMONG THUNDER: 11 First Line: Your father's guitar Last Line: But they do not know he is made of wool, %earth and song PASCUALA: MOTHER AMONG THUNDER: 12 First Line: The pueblo's triumph will rise from a torn branch Last Line: Into birds and serpents and women and hard thunder PASCUALA: MOTHER AMONG THUNDER: 13 First Line: Like this, liberty arrives, xunka Last Line: For everything, for every one PASCUALA: MOTHER AMONG THUNDER: 14 First Line: Xunka, you plant, dream, you weave Last Line: Each color, each pattern, xunka, %is a new star PASCUALA: MOTHER AMONG THUNDER: 2 First Line: You do not look at me when I caress you Last Line: Only the damp floors, the brilliant corners PASCUALA: MOTHER AMONG THUNDER: 3 First Line: They left me, half-buried, among the fields of coffee Last Line: They left me, half-buried, among the fields of coffee PASCUALA: MOTHER AMONG THUNDER: 4 First Line: Remember, xunka? Last Line: Where there is more light, I search PASCUALA: MOTHER AMONG THUNDER: 5 First Line: Your grandmother escaped, they say. She left without a spoon Last Line: An ocean of oils arrives, the waves that you always dreamed PASCUALA: MOTHER AMONG THUNDER: 6 First Line: Here we suffer, here we find ecstasy, in this salt fist Last Line: Now you are left and this hungry flame of suns %in your bones PASCUALA: MOTHER AMONG THUNDER: 7 First Line: I crossed through the anguish Last Line: Let us go rising over the dark night edges of this nation PASCUALA: MOTHER AMONG THUNDER: 8 First Line: Bishop garcia prepares the wake Last Line: This smoke-whirled sepulchre PASCUALA: MOTHER AMONG THUNDER: 9 First Line: They are dragging the women by the braids Last Line: Emits your rare and awakened heat PATRICK HENRY ELEMENTARY, SAN FRANCISCO SIXTH-GRADE CLASS PHOTO First Line: That's em in the middle row, looking goofy Last Line: Pony tail, she was the one PHOTO-POEM OF THE CHICANO MORATORIUM 1980 - L.A., SELS. First Line: The march is holy. We are bleeding. The paper crosses unfold PICK UP YOUR SEVERED HEAD & LET ME GET ON, BABY First Line: Been standing - since '56. In the shame light Last Line: Pick up your severed head & %I'll pick up mine POET'S 2027 ODYSSEY BACKPACK INSTRUCTIONS First Line: Do it on the road, red Last Line: Be it on the honey, honey POETRY OF AMERICA First Line: Of the sixty two Last Line: And northern luzon where the ilongot seek the words %for the new revolution PORTRAIT OF WOMAN IN LONG BLACK DRESS/AURELIA First Line: That morning you took the wind %in your hands Last Line: Were searching for you in the stars PUNK HALF PANTHER Poem Text Last Line: Sliding’, always: for black journeys, always in holiness Subject(s): Conduct Of Life; Social Commentary; Relationships PUNK HALF PANTHER First Line: Lissen %to the whistle of night bats Last Line: Sliding', always: for black journeys, always in holiness QUEN BLOOD AMERICA First Line: Took her to the basement did you, fool? Last Line: The doubled-up shape of this fixed body RED-STRIPED ACCORDION I NEVER PLAYED First Line: Was on the black & white tv box Last Line: And burned. And my hands, so fast. You wouldn't notice RESURRECTION OF THE FLESH First Line: The gold triangle is my enemy Last Line: Only the bust in the cave remains peaceful ROAD CHANGED WITH THE SEASONS Last Line: And shrink into dark raisins Subject(s): Children Of Migrant Workers; Mexican American Families RODNEY KING, THE BLACK CHRIST OF LOS ANGELES AND ALL OUR WHI First Line: Listening to santana, again Last Line: The black and brown wand of inspiration ROLLING TO TAOS ON AN AZTEC MUSTANG First Line: 17 miles %south of san diego, in tijuana Last Line: Blue mountains, blessing circles %above blue mountains SAY BLOOD MAN First Line: You telling me everything is all right Last Line: In regalia, bluegras anthems, the crime %sublime, dandy SEA DURING SPRINGTIME First Line: Come down to this stony day Last Line: Where the sea begins SELENA IN CORPUS CHRISTI LACQUER RED First Line: In my own tex-mex breakdown, suffix Last Line: W/your vocal & bruised accordion breast SENORITA BLACK VELVET LATINA: ON THE CORONATION OF THE QUEEN First Line: Christ is a bottle of whiskey Last Line: Nor are we liable for any party that may %take place in heaven and damages resulting thereof SHAWASHTE First Line: I am coming back to the fiery humor of mexican towns. I've been dragging Last Line: With my left than my right, like my father. There is much work to be done, %he would say. So many ru SHAWASHTE First Line: I am coming back to the fiery humor of mexican towns, I've been dragging Last Line: To sweep, so much blue dust to settle SHE WANTS THE RING LIKE Poem Text First Line: She wants the ring like he wants the suit of scars / but Last Line: One thousand lucios with honeycomb eyebrows topaz bulletstraps? Subject(s): Marriage SIMON SAYS First Line: No bible in the tribe Last Line: One hand clapping happens all the time SIMPLE POET CONSTRUCTS HUNGER First Line: Give me bulgaria Last Line: Weary - the smell of oil & potatoes SLASHED EPISTEMOLOGY & WIRE CUTTERS First Line: Fry my eggs green. Cure the insanity in my shoes Last Line: No doors no screws SOLDIER'S BLUISH MANE First Line: I want to ask you. Can you touch Last Line: Water, please. Water, then SOMETIMES MY MOTHER WOULD SURPRISE US AT DINNER Last Line: And for a moment the world would stop spinning Subject(s): Children Of Migrant Workers; Mexican American Families SONNY, RUDY, RENE, & ME First Line: At the park. %with levis thick as tree bark and white t-shirts tucked in for Last Line: Clown face. The fence behind us crosses its x's. One hundred x's for each one of us SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA NOCTURNE (CIRCA 1964) First Line: He used to come pick me up in a baby blue tr-3 triumph Last Line: What do you remember, tommy? SPECKLED W/ RAZOR First Line: Open. Now -- I say: %twist the bare knuckles. Speckled with razor Last Line: Radish tarps sway me, a makeshift sky lifts me STEPPIN' INTO POWER IN THE AGE OF PLUTONIUM, THE SUPER-RIGHT, & OTHER First Line: What does it mean to step into power? Last Line: Power in the first place? Power from where? Made from what? STORY & KING BLVD: TEEN-AGE TOTEMS First Line: Skirt fenders on a two-tone plymouth like the one my uncle ferni drove to STRIP / FROM CHINATOWN First Line: Walk the arid strip Last Line: Scrape your music off my shoes & be free STROKE THIS LOCKET SCAR First Line: Now, by the river - I raise my hand to my ear Last Line: Where you %are at? SUBCOMANDANTE CHIHUAHUA SPEAKS TO THE WORLD FINANCE MINISTERS & THE First Line: Queridos senyores: %before I begin Last Line: Clear all third world debts. Remember the chihuahua motto: if you wanna %dog us, you gotta love us SUBTLETIES First Line: Guys with clip-on ties that want to pin you down Last Line: Woman at the bank with violin case SUBZERO First Line: What did I know? Last Line: They keep saying -to change SUGARMAN'S BLOOD (YEAH, YOU) First Line: Say, sugarman - yeah, you, behind the filling station Last Line: To this wicker throne, come on sugarman blue, the prize SWISH GUITAR FOR THE ABUSED FREDERATIONS First Line: Hey, kid - wadda I say? Say, sit, boy fool. You sit Last Line: Lips so full, so much in love. Better be you TAKING A BATH IN AZTLAN First Line: Fast for three days on arroz and sweet tortillas, water & prayers, round Last Line: Basket of steam, in friendship, love, clarity & peace TATAREMA First Line: The bones curve out from the soldiers Last Line: Abandoning the village, the highest regions across the horizeful, cameralike TATEL First Line: Upside my arms, the shadow of my dream crawls toward the sky Last Line: Down the city mountain - the santiago river appears TEN STILL LIVES First Line: Man flying over bridge with orange sunset on shirt Last Line: Husband in cheap hotel with mini-truck smoking %two breasts touching with two breasts touching TENTH ELEGY First Line: Someday, emerging at last from the violent insight Last Line: Whenever a happy thing falls THE GAME OF COLOR Poem Text First Line: In the master-palace Last Line: Linked to the ideas of 'shining' Subject(s): Blacks; Household Employees THE MIRROR IN THE CANOPY Poem Text First Line: There is something else to remember Last Line: Maybe with the radio on, he considers all this again THESE WORDS ARE SYNONYMOUS, NOW First Line: On the way to school I tell my son Last Line: Take your time, take your time THINGS RELIGION MAKES ME DO First Line: Get horny with the wrong images Last Line: Sit back, cross my legs, and cry THIS IS THE Z First Line: Z for elongated suffering cheese wheel Last Line: Hunger & enlightenment THIS SEMI-SKULL WORKER First Line: To rotate away from the guard, to flee Last Line: Speckled & negative THREE SUREFIRE ETHNIC SITCOMS: 1. THE LOST PICASSO ENCHILADA First Line: When picasso arrived in noba yor (he pronounced new york this way being Last Line: And opened up the 'harpo gonzalez galeria' next to the kitchen. It reads %'welcome to noba yor.' THREE SUREFIRE ETHNIC SITCOMS: 2. JUANTOOMANY First Line: Say, hullo there. %forget it Last Line: Travels at the speed of juan. Here today, juan tomorrow.' THREE SUREFIRE ETHNIC SITCOMS: 3. LA LLORONA POWER-WOMAN CONFIDENTIAL First Line: Classified sheet: la llorona meets dr. Espanto Last Line: Her old sidekick from jefferson high and save the day?' TIO CHENTE BRINGS ANCIENT COINS FROM CHINA First Line: That's your tio chente, mama would tell me paging through this old album Last Line: Me, juan, what are you doing now? TIO FERNANDO & THE CHAMUCO OF ATIZAPAN DE ZARAGOZA First Line: Eighty years plus now, lives in apartment #10, four tvs, seven radios Last Line: De paja stuck to your zapatos TOMORROW I LEAVE TO EL PASO, TEXAS Poem Text First Line: See my brother-in-law with a styled shirt Last Line: It is the same one but I am hopeful Subject(s): Homecoming; Dogs TROPICAL PARROTS Poem Text First Line: For us / there are no macro-worlds. No footing where we can Last Line: An eagle to descend long ago Subject(s): Parrots TWO TACOS AL PASTORAL: 1. HOW TO COMB YOUR HAIR HIGH UP LIKE A TIPI First Line: Albina closed her eyes Last Line: You must remember, it wasn't that long ago we stopped cooking with crisco TWO TACOS AL PASTORAL: 2. MY CHICKENS SAY, 'POR FAVOR, SI SENOR, SI First Line: Of course chickens don't talk - this was the first piece of common Last Line: Sundry squad of hens and raven-colored roosters in saluting the new sun UNDELIVERED LETTERS TO VICTOR: 1 First Line: You point your finger at me and say that if one chicano or latina makes it Last Line: Originals. Maybe this is the key - invention. Is it possible? %original? UNDELIVERED LETTERS TO VICTOR: 10 First Line: 1996 looms over me. I still think of jose antonio burciaga, whose funeral Last Line: Pious again, a bad chicano habit UNDELIVERED LETTERS TO VICTOR: 11 First Line: Just want to congratulate you in some way that makes sense although Last Line: Thing is, what will you say? UNDELIVERED LETTERS TO VICTOR: 17 First Line: I'm livin' in fresno, now, you know, like you used to; I ask my friends, how Last Line: With love and nothingness tearing through its palm-shaped heart UNDELIVERED LETTERS TO VICTOR: 30 First Line: Have you seen the young ones, the generations of raza poets and writers Last Line: Make sure I say what I mean UNDELIVERED LETTERS TO VICTOR: 31 First Line: American originals, I repeat, then I think of time. Maybe time more than Last Line: The old lochman furniture store clock on mission street ticks again, then falls apart UNDELIVERED LETTERS TO VICTOR: 38 First Line: Perhaps the notion of being american is off center - there is no center Last Line: Around us, the mission is on, vic - I am wandering off, again, I know UNDELIVERED LETTERS TO VICTOR: 4 First Line: I've been away for a while. But I never leave this tropical cement speckled Last Line: Bushes and branches epileptic and hardened by trash and the boom-crash of wild neglect UNDELIVERED LETTERS TO VICTOR: 7 First Line: Burciaga's death marks the end of an era, let me use these terms just once Last Line: Some runaway dude lost between iowa and canada, in between there, see? UNDELIVERED LETTERS TO VICTOR: 8 First Line: What are we renewing? Last Line: Light, rain, more rain UNDELIVERED LETTERS TO VICTOR: 9 First Line: I want to rock in tede matthew's america and his hula palace - remember Last Line: Metaphors or even about quality and craft; you know what I mean? VELVET BAROQUE / ACT First Line: I have never felt so rococo VIETNAM VETERANO SPECIAL: WITH ASPIRINS & WHITE POWDERED DONUTS First Line: Charley picks me up in his off-white '79 celica. (margarita needs our '74 Last Line: Charley teaches chicano literature, I teach cross-cultural communication WAR VOYEURS Poem Text First Line: I don't understand why men make war Last Line: And gaze at the calibrated murder as lovers of beauty? Subject(s): War; Social Commentary WAR VOYEURS First Line: I do not understand why men make war Last Line: To snap open a favorite window %and gaze at the calibrated murder as lovers of beauty? WATER WATER WATER WIND WATER Poem Text Last Line: You are alive still Subject(s): Katrina, Hurricane WATERING CEBOLLA WHILE MY FATHER BURNS LENA First Line: Step down from the traila early morning, 6 a.M. Last Line: Sways, small offerings come to me, gentle winds WE ARE ALL SAYING THE SAME THING First Line: Yeti come down. The escape is over - the earthquake Last Line: Wonder about our ends, then , our beginnings WE ARE MADE First Line: We are made - pure by power Last Line: I lift my hands - marker of fists, honorary %all that is left simple - runs down my veins Subject(s): Nature WEANING OF FURNITURE-NUTRITION (FRM GIRAFFE ON FIRE) First Line: My leg stiffens. The crotch that holds me has become my aromatic Last Line: That smells of apples and duck feathers WHEN HE BELIEVED HIMSELF TO BE YOUNG GIRL (FR GIRAFFE/FIRE) First Line: Hold up the right corner of the sea Last Line: And another man was raising her hair Variant Title(s): When He Believed Himself To Be A Young Girl Lifting The Skin Of Th WHEREVER WE STOPPED, WE SET UP A CARPA -- A TENT Last Line: The tiny holes of the canvas Subject(s): Children Of Migrant Workers; Mexican American Families WIXARIKA First Line: What %did I know? Last Line: In neon flesh, in fresh wetness WRITING BY THE HAND First Line: According to the pen, the writer was sitting Last Line: Will be yours. Myth and coffee, jasmine or milk XUNKA: THE LOST DAUGHTER: 1 First Line: Chenalho-who? Last Line: In tiny girl explosions that no one see XUNKA: THE LOST DAUGHTER: 10 First Line: Tombs and martydom Last Line: Dead from thirst? XUNKA: THE LOST DAUGHTER: 11 First Line: The beasts fled among the canyons Last Line: At the foot of tzontehuitz mountain XUNKA: THE LOST DAUGHTER: 12 First Line: A smile glides over the water Last Line: In surrender over my shoulders XUNKA: THE LOST DAUGHTER: 13 First Line: Here, rain comes down %burning leaves Last Line: Purple, abandoned in bitterness and hope XUNKA: THE LOST DAUGHTER: 14 First Line: I want to eat a bit of tortilla Last Line: Today I am twelve years of age XUNKA: THE LOST DAUGHTER: 2 First Line: Tin roofs, slips in flame Last Line: Some violet smoke that crosses itself as it falls? XUNKA: THE LOST DAUGHTER: 3 First Line: San cristobal de las casas, the smoke Last Line: And the warehouse adorned with sad soldiers XUNKA: THE LOST DAUGHTER: 4 First Line: Gardens and tombs of mineral and vengeance Last Line: Observes us, tolerates us and forgets us XUNKA: THE LOST DAUGHTER: 5 First Line: Do you remember grandmother maruch who sold paper flowers Last Line: Will it be my father who calls me with his machete? XUNKA: THE LOST DAUGHTER: 6 First Line: Furnaces burst out of the trails with their banderillas Last Line: What's your name? They ask me. Where does your mother hide? XUNKA: THE LOST DAUGHTER: 7 First Line: The street falls apart Last Line: My small fists rise up %from a simple bag of sugar and coffee XUNKA: THE LOST DAUGHTER: 8 First Line: I call out to my mother-pascuala Last Line: This night of storms and deep waters XUNKA: THE LOST DAUGHTER: 9 First Line: The zapatistas are in mourning Last Line: And these feet that tremble when they touch the rainy earth YELLOW ROOM First Line: The table gleams %the easel contains an ochre/liquid/you'll return to that Last Line: It's only a picture/monochrome/jaune the dead body circling %watching your cage YOU & I BELONG IN THIS KITCHEN Poem Text First Line: Longtime hermano bob tells me Last Line: The view with no one in front or in back Subject(s): Friendship YOU WERE BORN ON THE ROAD, LIKE YOUR FATHER Last Line: The land like tropical birds Subject(s): Children Of Migrant Workers; Mexican American Families YOUNG KURAMOTO First Line: He was a sad angel, kuramoto - a family man of eight, on welfare subsidies Last Line: The suffering place, this kuramoto can do, a permissible move YOUR THROAT BURNS, RED Last Line: And you cry, sucker. %you cry %for her ZETA First Line: Zeta mendoza is dead. I left him doubled up in a small cornfield in panama Last Line: Shimmering bronze suits on their walls. Now, it was all abots. Squares. %upside-down eyes ZOOT SUIT ON A BED OF SPANISH RICE First Line: When one of us dies you can tell Last Line: Stone bowl. The one that rocks on three legs |
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