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MARTIN ESPADA
was characterized by Sandra Cisneros as “the Pablo Neruda
of North American authors.” Born in
The God
of the Weather-Beaten Face
-- For Camilo Mejia, conscientious objector
The gods
gathered:
the crusader god took off his helmet, the desert warrior god stood his
shield in the corner,
the sword-maker god sat between them sharpening blades,
the bombardier god spread his maps on the table,
the god who collects infidel heads traded trophies
with the god who collects heathen scalps,
the god of gold opened his handkerchief
for the god of oil to wipe his dripping chin,
the god who punishes sin with boils scratched his boils
and called the meeting to order.
And the
gods said: War.
Sergeant
Mejia heard t he prisoner moan under the hood
as the guards shoved him into a steel closet, then pounded
with a sledgehammer on the door until
the moaning stopped;
heard machine-gun fire slicing heads from necks
with a roar that would be the envy of swords;
heard a soldier sobbing in the toilet for the headless boy
who would open his eyes every time the soldier closed his own.
Sometimes
a song drifts up
through the moaning and the sledgehammers,
machine guns and sobbing.
Sometimes
a voice floats above the pandemonium
the way a seagull floats above burning ships.
Sergeant
Mejia heard his father’s song,
the peasant mass of
Vos sos el Dios de los pobres,
el Dios humano
y sencillo,
el dios suda
en la calle,
el /dios de rostro
curtido.
You are
the God of the poor,
the human and simple God,
the God who seats in the street,
the god of the weather-beaten face.
They
watched as Sergeant Mejia said no to
the other gods,
miniscule word, a pebble, a grain of rice,
but the word flipped the table at the war council,
where the bombardier god had just dealt the last hand to the god of oil,
and cards with the dates of birth and death,
like tiny tombstones, fluttered away.
Sergeant
no more, Camilo Mejia walked to jail.
Commanders
fed the word coward
to the sniffing microphones of reporters
who obediently repeated: coward.
The cell
crowded with faces too, unseen travelers
Wandering
in from a century in jails:
union organizer, hunger striker, freedom rider,
street corner agitator, conscientious objector.
The God
of the weather-beaten face
dressed as an inmate steering a mop,
smuggled in the key one day, and Camilo
Mejia
walked with him through epiphany’s gate.
§
Between the Rockets
and the Songs
New Years Eve 2003
The fireworks begin at
golden sparks, and rockets hissing
through the confusion of trees above our
house.
I would prove to my son, now twelve,
that there was no war in the sky, not
here,
so we walked down the road
to find the place where the fireworks
began.
We swatted branches from our eyes,
peering at a house where the golden blaze
dissolved in smoke. There was silence,
a world of ice, then voices rose up
with the last of the sparks, singing,
and when the song shattered down on us
through the leaves we leaned closer, like
trees.
Rockets and singing
from the same house,
said my son.
We turned back down the road,
at the end of the year, at the
beginning of the year,
somewhere between the rockets and the songs.
And Admirer of General
Pinochet Writes to the Website of General Pinochet
to Wish General Pinochet a Happy
Birthday
To our leader, Captain General Don Augusto
Pinochet Ugarte:
It is my high honor to send you birthday greetings.
On this most special of days, turn a deaf ear to the
traitors
And enjoy the festivities with a clean consci3ence.
I don’t know how long the undesirables of the left
Will keep on harassing the LIBERATOR
OF CHILE.
They are everywhere, television, books,
Magazines, newspapers, as if they could
Change history, but no, my Great General!
They are beasts who scavenge by night
And turn into white doves by day.
Many little kisses…
§
ELIZABETH PIETRZAK of
First Winter Rain
Was it thirst or desperation?
A dry screaming lakebed
or diuretic spasm
which insisted the vigorous
a furious untamed river,
into the
The crisp brown
the hundred and ten degree August sun
that baked her dry
while deaf and blind irrigation taunted
the whine of her plates and fissures.
Into the furnace: brazen,
self-assured
of his imminent success.
As she crumpled under dry heaves or
evaporated his breath with her moan,
as she sank beneath the windswept,
chapped and barren surface
that sheltered child within her womb,
like a hidden geode,
would he ever believe his eyes
if she died right in front of him?
§
Remnants
1. A
deflated balloon
gashed open
where the sea burst
inevitable collapse
tricked into expulsion
a splinter of shiny steel
tiny teeth slipped inside
sub-aqueous membrane
slowly nowhere.
2. A
slice of warm apple pie
alone on a plate
without a fork.
3. Once upon a time the rain
was not water but
sweat of clouds, no more
mad skies, no more
crying clown tedium
krump feed ricochet
down to the bone marrow
cave troll dragon
learn no more
suckle the virus no more.
It barely moves.
It goes on.
4. An
abandoned red sweater
mangled in the blue chair
just sitting there
not sitting, aching
to be stretched, pressed
crisp and firm stand tall
arms prefer to hug instead
a deformed half bitten pretzel
two animal crackers melted
together in the oven to become
the double-assed rhinociraffe
a wild and rare beast
more vehemently taunted
than the web-footed platypus.
Red flannel blue lining
red zipper white tags
beaten bruised and left for dead
sunburnt puddle in this junk
yard of chairs, tables, vending machines
alone to drip red tears on the ground.
§
The following is by Boston Poet Sir Gawaine
Ross, a longtime friend of and contributor to the Chickasaw
Disassociation
Gawaine Caldwater Ross
Some people dash through fire,
Others plunge through ice.
Is Reality the only thing
If Chaos is the king?
Ring all your golden Christmas bells,
The sewer rats still dance.
Then the ice they buy and sell
Will wind up in your drinking glass,
All muddied and black,
That iridescent toxicity
In which the ship is lost.
The mutineers choose weapons
And toss the captain overboard
To feed her to the barracuda
By the reefs of broken glass –
Each mirrored fragment seizes nightlight
And cast werelit visions
Of her home bleeding, collapsing
As the boulders fall dead center.
She goes into her heart and mind
Which remind her of departing kin
Who told her of the doom that wheezes
Down the orchard’s razor walks.
-Too cold?—We’ll
leave this
Television frame behind
To go and seek the whip instead.
The radio commander never stops,
Hilarity dances with dank despair,
Barefoot through the
Mudslides block the view.
She seeks a serpent that doesn’t bite
And settles for a badger’s den
With herself as Joan of Arc,
Cinderella, and the Virgin Mary
Or a raven squawking over food.
She has to shout in a crowded train
“Rubber plantation workers
Beat seedless grapes!
Venus is being invaded by dogs!”
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