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My intent was to hook the preponderantly raza employees on reading, so I stocked lunchrooms with sci-fi, detective novels, a classic or two, and Michele Serros' Chicana Falsa. The most disappeared title was Michele Serros' Chicana Falsa.

One day while walking through an office I heard loud guffaws and poked my head in. One of the executives had picked up Chicana Falsa and couldn't put it down. He was reading instead of working. Michele's chicharrón story had him in tears. Better still, the vato had been one of the company's English-only crowd, and the book softened his heart. Orale, Michele.

Michele Serros had that effect on everyone whom she touched with her rapier wit, cultural insight, and elegant prose. Ave atque vale, Michele.

Que en paz descanses.



In lieu of flowers/gifts, Michele humbly requests you please contribute to her Give Forward campaign. Donations can be made online or sent via mail to:
Michele Serros
c/o Flacos
3031 Adeline St.
Berkeley, CA 94703


Art and Floricanto at Rock Rose
Michael Sedano

The phone caller told me she was looking at new-to-her lyrics to Quirino Mendoza y Cortés' Cielito Lindo and had I heard these? Vibiana Aparicio-Chamberlin planned to sing the song, along with Las Mañanitas, at the artists' reception for Images of La Virgen de Guadalupe through the eyes of Aparicio de Guatemala, Vibiana Aparicio-Chamberlin, Pola Lopez, Julie Soto, and Antonio Rael at Highland Park's Rock Rose Gallery.

Coincidence? That is my grandmother's and mother's favorite song. I'd been playing Cielito Lindo daily during the holidays, remembering my gramma and my mom. Vibiana invited me to be the accompanist on Rock Rose's baby grand.


I arrived tempranito so Vibi and I could rehearse. Gallerist Rosamaria Marquez had the piano in tune. We sounded good, though we needed a bit of work. As with many highly popular songs, gente tend to alter the tempo and shift the tied notes to different measures from the score. "De la sie..rra" becomes "De la sierra..." A lifetime of singing it that way is tough to unlearn.

Few experiences match a pianist's joy at hearing voices singing along with one's fingers. Cielito Lindo is a waltz, so I emphasized the 1-2-3 bass and endeavored to keep the melody consistent with the singers' habitual styling. The singing was totally beautiful and together we found our rhythm. Everyone knew the words and the entire audience joined in with broad smiles and sentimental warmth. We did three choruses and I know my gramma and mom enjoyed it. For me, it was puro magic.

Chamberlin--one of the veteranas from the 1973 Festival de Flor y Canto, emceed with excellent improvisation. We skipped Las Mañanitas, a good thing because my plan to segue into Happy Birthday to You depended on my fingers remembering a chord change I invariably mess up.


Vibiana Aparicio-Chamberlin reads and performs "La Llorona." Aparicio-Chamberlin opened her reading honoring her mother Isabel Luna Aparicio (b. 1917).

Luna De Leche
by Vibiana Aparicio-Chamberlin

Dedicated to my mother, Isabel Carrasco Luna Aparicio

Sacrificial scent of a bursting moon.
Violet and taut are the veins
on your forehead.
Abundant and clear is the liquid
released down your thighs.

From you,
I am expelled
in spasms of heat and ice,
a bruised slippery body.

I am alone.
Torn from your velvet womb.
My desperate mouth,
my tongue, my throat cry out.
Searching for you.
Mamá. Madre.
Luna de leche.

You give me comfort,
you give me courage.
Your gift is your milk.
Warm healing honey.

Each breast, a promise of a
brown wooden bowl of flour,
 shortening, un poquito de agua
and a pinch of salt,
for an endless meal
of warm round tortillas.

Mamá.
Mi luz.
Source of endless leche,
de su ser
Persimmons
Your blood
Mi sangre
Cada gota
Cada pulso

Suckle.
Sup.
Pleasure sweeps between us.
Sleep.
Stomach satiated.
Soul sanctified.


Miriam Quesada follows with a Spanish language piece as sculptor Aparicio de Guatemala looks on.



Abel Salas, publisher of Boyle Heights' community newspaper, Brooklyn & Boyle, shares a reading from his telephone screen.


John Martinez stepped out of his comfort zone and read his work in Spanish translation. His is a beautiful effort to expand the role of language in poetry for monolingual Chicanos like him. Ajua! John--Juan--for a magnificent strategy.




Poets with sculptor Aparicio de Guatemala stand in front of Aparicio's Guadalupe sculpture, one of two. The second, a standing piece not pictured, he fashioned from red heart wood, acquired locally from a tree-trimmer.
Images of La Virgen de Guadalupe through the eyes of... runs through January at Rock Rose Gallery, 4108 N Figueroa St, Los Angeles, California, (323) 635-9125.
Spanish Novels in English Translation


Hispabooks seeks deeper penetration into the United States' Spanish-Literature-in-Translation movimiento. Editorial Director Gregorio Doval writes, "Ya distribuimos desde hace más de un año a través de Ingram / Lightning Source (en librerías y online, paperback & ebook). Pero el próximo 1 de junio de 2015, nos comenzará a distribuir "on a larger scale" Consortium. Desde entonces nuestros libros estarán ya en todas las librerías que los deseen."

If you're Spanish-challenged, or faltando el Castellano, but enjoy excellent writing from an Iberian imagination, you'll be pleased learning Hispabooks has been distributed in the US by Ingram / Lightning Source. In June, distribution steps up to una escala más grande via Consortium.

From Hispabooks' Facebook About:
"Hispabooks is a publishing house focusing on contemporary Spanish fiction in English-language translation, both in eBook and trade paperback format, targeting readers around the world who want to explore the best of today’s Spanish literature."

Already released titles include:
"THE FAINT-HEARTED BOLSHEVIK", by Lorenzo Silva
"NOTHING EVER HAPPENS", by José Ovejero
"THE HAPPY CITY", by Elvira Navarro
"UPPSALA WOODS", by Álvaro Colomer
"THE HOTEL LIFE", by Javier Montes
"THE BIRTHDAY BUYER", by Adolfo García Ortega
"THE STEIN REPORT", by José Carlos Llop
"ANTÓN MALLICK WANTS TO BE HAPPY", by Nicolás Casariego
"PARIS", by Marcos Giralt Torrente
"RAIN OVER MADRID", by Andrés Barba
"A MAN ON HIS WORD", by Imma Monsó
"WOMAN IN DARKNESS", by Luisgé Martín
"THE HISTORY OF SILENCE", by Pedro Zarraluki

Forthcoming titles:
"THE PLIMSOL LINE", by Juan Gracia Armendáriz
"UNPAID DEBTS", by Antonio Jiménez Barca
"THE SAME CITY" by Luisgé Martín
"LA MALA MUERTE", by Fernando Royuela
"OJOS QUE NO VEN", by José Ángel González Sainz
"VENÍAN A BUSCARLO A ÉL", by Berta Vías Mahou
"LA HORA VIOLETA", by Sergio del Molino
"LA MALA LUZ", by Carlos Castán
"PADRES, HIJOS Y PRIMATES", by Jon Bilbao
"LANDEN", by Laia Fàbregas
"INTENTO DE ESCAPADA", by Miguel Ángel Hernández


On-line Floricanto: First in 2015
Kai Coggin, upfromsumdirt, Mario Angel Escobar, Odilia Galván Rodríguez, Xico González

La Bloga On-line Floricanto is a monthly feature at La Bloga-Tuesday. On-line Floricanto, now in its fifth year, features poetry nominated by the Moderators of the Facebook group Poets Responding to SB1070: Poetry of Resistance. Founded by Francisco X. Alarcón as a poet's response to the hate legislation spewed by Arizona's legislators in 2010, Poets Responding to SB1070 is a living resource for contemporary poetry from a diverse community of like-minded gente.

A second On-line Floricanto in January will feature the Best Poems of 2014.

February's On-line Floricanto celebrates St. Valentine's / Love and Friendship Day. Visit Poetry of Resistance on Facebook for guidelines on submitting for February.


“⌘ Planting An Acorn After A Massacre” by Kai Coggin
“An Open Letter To My Daddy Anem” by upfromsumdirt
"I can't breathe"by Mario Angel Escobar
“We Can't Breathe” by Odilia Galván Rodríguez
"Free Birds" by Xico González


⌘ Planting An Acorn After A Massacre
by Kai Coggin

When I heard the news
of the 132 school children massacred,
the taliban suicide bombers in
explosive-lined vests
blowing up the lights of brightened futures,
emptying thousands
of shell casings into the heads of innocents,
I went outside with my grief,
couldn’t hold it indoors,
I walked in circles
and wondered
how the sun
could continue this charade,
how the breeze could decorate
the almost barren trees
with dancing dried skirts,
quivering leaves.
I held the hands of the sky
and whispered unknown names
into the afternoon silence,
as two turkey vultures
cut the blue by
flying infinities overhead.

I walked.
Each step accompanied
by the sound of dried leaves
crunching underfoot,
and fallen acorns shone slick
in the light of the sun,
some dusted with grains of sand
that reflected prismatically
into the tiniest rainbows,
almost invisible.

I picked one up.
It had cracked open,
its red root arm reaching out for earth,
seed sprout seeing possibility,
the process of growth
inherent in its nature.

Without question and without fail
scores of acorns around me
had split open
in these cold months,
split open and started the process of
digging themselves down into the dirt,
the brilliant design that unlocks
wooden hinges and breaks free.

I thought of the children,
their arms reaching toward futures
that they could not see
but could feel,
their brilliant design,
their chubby reddened cheeks,
their laughter,
their learning becoming
scattered schoolbooks
and bomb-blasted classrooms,

they will not become trees,

they will not get past the point
of just barely breaking through,
red blood arms shielding faces
that wonder how this could be the end,
then it is,
was,
blackness,
ending.

The innocents should not die
for a God that does not live by the moral code
that innocents should not die.

I get lost in all this,
the soft breeze,
the blood,
the peaceful valley of my home,
the massacre that touches the same earth floor
dirt on which I stand and gather bursting-open acorns,
juxtaposition of death and life,
my red root fingers dig for the meaning,
for the karmic and cosmic balance,
and all I can do is find a patch of softened moist soil,
a spot that gets good sunlight,
and I shovel a small hole with a jagged flat rock
and lay the
acorn
inside
the hole
with the red root
pointing toward the planet’s core.

“Something small must have a chance,”

I say to myself,
and I cover the acorn with the supple
ground.

I encircle the life burial plot
with a mandala of 11 acorn caps,
(you know the little hats that acorns wear)
I make a circle,
because circles are unbroken,
because life should be unbroken,
because something small must have a chance.

I close my eyes,
and let the sun kiss me
until I am warmed inside
with the red of late afternoon,
until I see the mightiest oak tree in my mind,
132 sprawling green limbs
reaching up, up, up,
for
Heaven.


An Open Letter To My Daddy Anem
(a non-poem)
by upfromsumdirt

maaaan, i really wish yall'da made
a world for yall then and not one
for us today, because
all of our tomorrows are borrowed.
i really wish yall'da fought for land
(mississippi, georgia, florida, 'bama)
places to farm and fort and export...
placing Black America on an actual map,
an african american Writ Of Existence.
maaaaan, with a land your own
yall coulda built a car company,
"university" universities
without the need for culturally
enabling signifiers. coulda built
museums and rockets
and slums as low-end shelter
and not slums as black-face-hiders.
yall coulda built a wall
to stall the racists. a gall divider.
green parks and industrial dumps
all ours... maaaaan, but naawww...
oppression turnt us into pacifists
and dream-merchants with new
access to pension plans... but
no places for us to go in a pinch
when those with the most rights
are unruly.
point blank:
i wanna die a surprise
and not die the price
for equality
insufficiently funded.
maaaan, i recognize yall did yall's best
teaching us to trust a system
not built to embrace us. but
that was wrong.
and i dont want my own son
singing this samosong
in his letters to me.


I can't breathe
by Mario Angel Escobar

In memory of Eric Garner

Officer, officer,
My family is waiting for me.
Please listen to me.

I can't breathe!

Officer, officer,
I don't want to be another anonymous death
in the holocaust of indifference.

I can't breathe!

Officer, officer,
Don't let me fall on the sidewalk.
Dirty pavement where I've been since the days of slave patrol.
Ancestral language
stripped naked
in chains.

I can't breathe!

Officer, officer,
people will missed me at the dinner table.
I am lifeworthy.
Please listen to me.

I can't breathe!

Officer, officer,
The soul bleeds.
Please don't let darkness open its jaw.
Earthquake in my lungs.

I can't breathe!

Officer, officer,
Don't deny me of that precious oxygen.
This drum still beats strong.

I can't breathe!

Officer, officer,
don't dismiss my plight.
Don't erase my name.
You and I travel together
in this floating asteroid.
Please let me be.

I can't breathe!

Officer, officer,
Every time you see me,
you try to mess with me.
Please listen to me!

I can't breathe!


We Can't Breathe
(no justice, no peace)
by Odilia Galván Rodríguez

we witness

that without justice

there can be no peace

without justice

there can be no peace

no justice     no peace

when we must raise our children

to be murdered at anytime

on these mean streets

by those whom we pay to protect us --

there is no justice

no justice      no

PEACE


Free Birds
by Xico González C/S

Black birds
And
Brown birds
And
White birds
And
Yellow birds
And
Red birds
And
Multi colored birds
And
Rainbow colored birds
Fly together in rhythm
Yearning to be free

Pajaritos y pajaritas
Preparan nidos
Para protegerse de los elementos
Y de los golpes duros de la vida

Little birds
prepare nests
to protect themselves from the elements
and the hard knocks of life

Perseverancia
hace fuertes las plumas débiles
de nuestras alas y de nuestras almas
Volar es nuestro destino
Duro es el camino
pero se tiene que atravesar

Perseverance
transforms feathers of wings and souls
from weak to strong
Flying is our destiny
The trail is rough,
but it must be crossed

Pájaros de todos colores
No reconocen fronteras
Se mueven de aquí pa’allá y de allá pa’ aca

Birds of all colors
Do not recognize celestial borders
and move freely in the immense sky

Pájaros de todos colores
Piden libertad, respeto,
Igualdad y justicia social

Birds of all colors
Demand freedom, respect,
social justice, and equality.

Black birds
And
Brown birds
And
White birds
And
Yellow birds
And
Red birds
And
Multi colored birds
And
Rainbow colored birds
Fly together in rhythm
United and free.


• Meet the Poets • 
Kai Coggin, upfromsumdirt, Mario Angel Escobar, Odilia Galván Rodríguez, Xico González

Kai Coggin is a full-time poet and author born in Bangkok, Thailand, raised in Southwest Houston, and currently a blip in the three million acre Ouachita National Forest in Hot Springs, AR. She holds a Bachelor of Arts in Poetry and Creative Writing from Texas A&M University. She writes poems of feminism, love, spirituality, injustice, metaphysics, and beauty. Kai has been published in Elephant Journal, Cliterature, The Manila Envelope, [empath], Catching Calliope and an anthology released summer 2014 called Journey of the Heart.

She released her first chapbook, In Other Words, in August 2013. Her first full-length book of poetry PERISCOPE HEART was published by Swimming with Elephants Publications in September 2014. She is also a Teaching Artist with the Arkansas Arts Council, specializing in bringing poetry and creative writing to classrooms around the state.

Kai knows that words hold the potential to create monumental and global change, and she uses her words like a sword of Beauty. She can be found most Wednesdays at Maxine’s, reading her poems into an open mic, hoping the wind carries her words out to the world. Find more about her at her website.


upfromsumdirt is a visual artist and poet who operates under the grand delusion that he is the spiritual lovechild of singer Nina Simone and artist Pedro Bell. he shares his work and life with author and professor, Crystal Wilkinson. he lives in Lexington, Ky where he is currently running their bookstore, The Wild Fig, into the ground.
Eshu help him!


Mario A. Escobar (January 19, 1978-) is a US-Salvadoran writer and poet born in 1978. Although he considers himself first and foremost a poet, he is known as the founder and editor of Izote Press. Escobar is a faculty member in the Department of Foreign Languages at LA Mission College. Some of Escobar’s works include Al correr de la horas (Editorial Patria Perdida, 1999) Gritos Interiores (Cuzcatlan Press, 2005), La Nueva Tendencia (Cuzcatlan Press, 2005), Paciente 1980 (Orbis Press, 2012). His bilingual poetry appears in Theatre Under My Skin: Contemporary Salvadoran Poetry by Kalina Press.




Odilia Galván Rodríguez, eco-poet, writer, editor, and activist, is the author of four volumes of poetry, her latest, Red Earth Calling: ~cantos for the 21st Century~. She’s worked as an editor for Matrix Women's News Magazine, Community Mural's Magazine, and most recently at Tricontinental Magazine in Havana, Cuba. She facilitates creative writing workshops nationally and is a moderator of Poets Responding to SB 1070, and Love and Prayers for Fukushima, both Facebook pages dedicated to bringing attention to social justice issues that affect the lives and wellbeing of many people. Her poetry has appeared in numerous anthologies, and literary journals on and offline.



Xico González is an educator, artist, poet, and a political and cultural activista based in Sacramento, California. He received a MA in Spanish from Sacramento State, and a MFA in Art Studio from the University of California at Davis.  González currently teaches Spanish and Art Studio at the Met Sacramento High School.

The work of Xico González seeks to empower people uniting in common cause against a common oppressor disguised in different máscaras.  Gonzalez’s silkscreen posters address and support numerous political causes, such as the struggle for immigrants’ rights, the Palestinian and Zapatista struggles, and the right for Chicana/o self determination.  González is not only an artist, but is also an activist/organizer that puts his artistic skills to the benefit of his community.  Xico’s work contributes to the long dialogue of art, activism and the legacy of the Chicano Art Movement.  González has been influenced primarily by his mentors, Chicano artists Ricardo Favela (RIP), and Malaquías Montoya, and by early Chicano art collectives like the Mexican American Liberation Art Front (MALA-F), and the Rebel Chicano Art Front also known as the Royal Chicano Air Force (RCAF).

Add a Comment

Michael Sedano

On November 24 La Bloga-Tuesday published an advance review of “Skin In The Game” without acknowledging the previous day’s announcement in Ferguson, despite jarringly ugly disconnects between reality and fiction.

Sabrina Vourvoulias remarks in her blog, Following the lede, how she feared a pro-cop sci-fi story she wrote might do harm since it would be published a day after the cop who murdered Michael Brown exited stage right, unindicted.

“Skin In The Game” features chicana detective Jimena Villagran, who strides into the heart of Philadelphia’s most dangerous neighborhoods where something is killing people, ripping them open and eating their organs. “Skin’s” dystopic Philadelphia uncomfortably mirrors the city's neighborhoods. Vourvoulias' journalistic eye further enhances the verisimilitude, the kind that gives good sci-fi its unnerving metaphors.

Both author Vourvoulias and publisher Tor worried that glorifying a monster-fightiing cop hero could damage people already tortured by the failure of process. “Skin In The Game” was to be published on December 2, a week following the November 24th announcement in Ferguson.

Vourvoulias believes words take on a life of their own, that people invest stories with meaning beyond the writer’s influence. She didn’t want her story of a good cop fearlessly fighting for Order and the Good to give a punch in the face to a reader working to make sense of systemic perversions of Justice.

“Skin In The Game” published on schedule, December 2, 2014, because, the editor reasoned, there might never be a week free from news of “hideous injustice”. Was that prescience, or experience?

The day following Tor.com’s publication of "Skin In The Game", New York found no reason to indict the cop in the choke hold murder of Eric Garner. But then, that’s a standard Unitedstatesian value: one hundred fifty years ago, Congress declared the November 29 Sand Creek Massacre an atrocity but allowed the commander to walk away unindicted.

Vourvoulias and her publisher resolved their concerns and published despite the clear contradictions between the fiction and the world as we have it. Similarly, La Bloga’s critical response to this work of art limited itself to the self-contained universe of the fiction.

The open issue screams out loud. Cops are not heroes, why does literature glorify them? Is it harmful to a reader to be rooting for the “good” detective to win when every day news abounds with one dead reason after another to distrust cops?

Persuasion research shows that people are drawn toward favorability of dissonant messages when an admired person advocates for the other side. The latitudes of attitude move away from favorability to the source, but toward favoring the issue. That’s in ordinary persuasion, like politics. Fiction can be perniciously influential. Could it be detective fiction is poisoning the common sense and survivability of a person confronted by a trembling cop with a Glock?

Leave a Comment to share your views. You’ll find the Comments link at the bottom of today’s column.

The Gluten-free Chicano
What’s a Good Mexican Girl To Do?

The Gluten-free Chicano has a sweet tooth. Cookies, pies, birthday cakes, conchas, helotes, marranos, polvorones, are all off-limits to Celiacs and others afflicted by gluten intolerance.

Analogs look like edible food but only in one's imagination they're good. Now, poet reina alejandra prado has found what appears to be a productive way to indulge a  Celiac's sweet tooth. Prado is the Good Mexican Girl in the eponymous bakery.

Click the link to visit the Good Mexican Girl, an artisanal bakery specializing in unique flavor profiles, says the website.

GMG's website observes, "The cornerstone of our business is a cookie - the one I call 'throw me a wedding shower' cookie, most popularly known as the Mexican wedding cookie or Russian teacake. It's buttery, nutty and just scrumptious with a hint of lemon and sweetness from the powder sugar. We made the original Gluten Free Mexican Wedding Cookie."

Here's the origins of the GMG's commitment to the Gluten-free community:

"�
Several years ago, I learned about a gluten-free diet first from my friend Maya. She had to change her diet after under going a series of tests. After I underwent a food cleanse where I could not eat any foods prepared with enriched flour or wheat bread, I became more conscious of what is gluten-free. My awareness of the need for gluten-free products became more pronounced with my business. Clients would ask if I had gluten-free options. In November, with the pan de muerto (Day of Dead Bread), I baked our first gluten-free product.

We continued to produce gluten-free treats with the traditional Mexican sweet bread La Rosca de Reyes and with Mexican Wedding Cookies.


It’s been a joy to meet virtually and in person other Latinas who haven’t been able to eat their favorite sweet breads and now can happily enjoy them again in gluten-free form."

The Gluten-free Chicano isn't uncritical about GMG products, especially the claim "We can make any baked good with gluten-free flour. We make our flour blend that includes Rice Flour or Brown Rice Flour, (whichever one is available), Potato Starch, Tapioca Flour, and Xanthum Gum."

"Any" certainly is possible. But as noted, analogs suck, so the Gluten-free Chicano is not ever again buying "bread" or "cake" or "pie crust" made to be gluten-free. The cookies, now that's a different matter.

Full disclosure: The Gluten-free Chicano enjoys Prado's poetry but has yet to taste her cooking. When he finally has the opportunity to scarf down some GF galletas, La Bloga will report the Good Mexican Girl's success. If it's sweet and dunkable, I'm sure I'll like it. I hope I like it. Oh please.


Faltamos 43! On-line Floricanto
Frank Acosta, Ivonne Gordon Carrera, Tara Evonne, Victor Avila, Xico González

“Warrior Poets Rise (Sovereignty, Justice, Peace)” by Frank Acosta
“AYOTZINAPA” Por Ivonne Gordon Carrera
“Mezcla,” by Tara Evonne
"El Pañuelo Negro" por Victor Avila
"Semillas de Ayotzinapa" by Xico González


Warrior Poets Rise (Sovereignty, Justice, Peace)
by Frank Acosta

The stories are blood flowing thru you
Our people’s truth, worthy to be told
In solidarity, set us free to awaken
The strumming of dormant heart-chords
Searching for sacred songs of purpose
Your words are those of the ancestor’s
Spirit voice returning in wisdom
Your offerings of soulful flor y canto
The silenced stanza of a departed child’s poem
Verses of the lost, to violence, ignorance, greed
Tyrannical avarice would still humanity for gold
Shackled deep inside the belly of the beast
Songs, poems, & prayers of the warrior poet
A confluence of hearts, minds, and souls
Flesh & spirit, present & past, one great circle
Let word and deeds flow in transformative love
Sentinels of sovereignty and sanctity of all creation


Frank de Jesus Acosta is principal of Acosta & Associates, a California-based consulting group that specializes in professional support services to public and private social change ventures in the areas of children, youth and family services, violence prevention, community development, and cultural fluency. In 2007, he authored, The History of Barrios Unidos, Cultura Es Cura, Healing Community Violence, published by Arte Publico Press, University of Houston. Acosta is a graduate of University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). His professional experience includes serving in executive leadership positions with The California Wellness Foundation, the Coalition for Humane Immigration Rights of Los Angeles (CHIRLA), Downtown Immigrant Advocates (DIA), the Center for Community Change, and the UCLA Community Programs Office. He is presently focused on completing the writing and publishing a two book series for Arte Publico Press focused on best practices to improve the well-being of Latino young men and boys. Acosta most recently co-authored a published “Brown Paper” with Jerry Tello of the National Latino Fatherhood and Family Institute (NLFFI) entitled, “Lifting Latinos Up by Their Rootstraps: Moving Beyond Trauma Through a Healing-Informed Framework for Latino Boys and Men.” Acosta provides writing and strategic professional support in research, planning, and development to foundations and community-focused institutions on select initiatives focused on advancing social justice, equity, and pluralism. He is also finalizing writing and editing a book of inter-cultural poetry and spiritual reflections.



AYOTZINAPA
Por Ivonne Gordon Carrera

Ayotzinapa, hace poco no podía pronunciar tu nombre.
Ahora no sólo lo pronuncio, no sólo lo repito,
sino que es una herida abierta en la tierra.
Es una violación de la tierra, 43 hijos
de vientres heridos claman, Ayotzinapa
ya no es una palabra, ya no es un lugar.
Ayotzinapa es un monumento a la violencia,
es un campamento de jardines descompuestos.
Es un grito, un aullido, es cicatriz
y carne viva. Ya basta.
Ya nos cansamos
de tanto ataúd y vitrina.

© Ivonne Gordon Carrera (2014)

AYOTZINAPA
by Ivonne Gordon Carrera

Ayotzinapa, not long ago I could not pronounce your name.
Now I pronounce it, now I repeat it,
now it is an open wound of the earth.
The ground has been raped, 43 sons
of wounded wombs cry out. Ayotzinapa,
it is no longer a word, it is no longer a place.
Ayotzinapa is a monument of violence,
It is a camp of decomposed gardens.
It is a yell, a howl, it is a scar
of live flesh. Enough, we have become tired
of caskets and showcases.

© Ivonne Gordon Carrera (2014)




Mezcla
by Tara Evonne

I became
the mix
of all those
before me
las abuelitas
enduring me
de méjico
y españa
my mix
of dark
and light
all I’ve ever
known
to be true
my red heart
beating brown
never did I
believe
mankind
this corazón
migrating
when distraught
a daughter
trusting life
somewhere else
when flying
sideways
I became torn
my parts
fluttering
the effects
of long term
generational genocide
buried under
the rubble
of mankind
all my relations
ancestors
praying alongside
determined
to protect
women and children
I became
the written
poetry
across maps
of great divides
hate created
by mankind
I became
the shooting star
tearing across
early dawn sky
a woman kind
of star dusting
trailing
for others
to follow
the collective
movement
of survival.

Tara Evonne Trudell is a recent graduate with her BFA in Media Arts from New Mexico Highlands University.  While in school she developed a passion in combining the many forms of multi media with poetry to address social issues. In this process she discovered her own purpose and commitment to using these medias to create art and movement. It has become her goal to offer work that instills and emotional impact in the viewer. Her work can be viewed at www.taraevonnetrudell.com




"El Pañuelo Negro"
por Victor Avila

para mg

Porque yo no tenía
el poder de un gobierno corrupto detrás de mí,
O la farsa de un medio cobarde
que no pudo hablar la verdad en mi nombre.
Porque me habían amenazado
a punta de pistola pensando
que sería suficiente
para garanitzar mi silencio - O porque muchos habían desaparecido ya
que iba a tener demasiado miedo a levantar la voz.
Pero hoy me di cuenta" ¿Qué otra cosa pueden hacer me a mí
que aún no lo han hecho?"
Las madres de Juárez claman por sus
Hijas asesinados
Y los fantasmas de los hombres olvidados
persigan el puente donde les colgaron.
¿Qué más pueden hacer me? Se llevaron todo de mí
y eso fue su mayor error
porque también tomaron mi miedo.
Y ahora que ya no estoy asustado…
Si yo no hable hasta ahora
sólo tengo yo la culpa
cuando la policía venga llamar a mi puerta.
¿Son esos sus mismos camiones que se aproximan? Y este simple pedazo de tela
alguna vez insignificante y que ahora significa algo más.
Saludo con la mano en la cara de esos cobardes que tomaron los 43
Enojado levanto en mi puño agitándolo, agitándolo.
Ya no voy a utilizarlo para enjugar mis lágrimas
o los de mis hermanos y hermanas.
Es mi bandera para enfrente a enormes obstáculos.
Si me voy del mundo sepan que no estoy derrotado,
que México no esta derrotado,
y que nos traerá los 43 a casa.


Victor Avila is an award-winning poet. Recent work has been included in the anthology Overthrowing Capitalism and Revolutionary Poets Brigade-Los Angeles. Victor is also the writer and illustrator of the series Hollywood Ghost Comix.  Volume Two will be available on Ghoula Press in February of 2015.  He has taught in California public schools for twenty five years.  This is his eighteenth appearance in La Bloga and would like to thank the moderators of Poets Responding to SB 1070 for that honor.





"Semillas de Ayotzinapa"
by Xico González

"Nos querían enterrar
pero no sabían que éramos semillas."

Sol, tierra, agua,
cuerpo- semilla rebelde
que enterraron
para luego brotar como rabia y rebeldía

Casas campesinas están tristes
Lágrimas corren por las milpas
porque los elotes salados
de tristeza y dolor
fueron cortados verdes
con machetes amellados
en manos bruscas y ladronas
que no perdonará Dios

Ese maíz nunca llegará a ser nixtamal,
masa o tortillas
Ni nutrirá las mentes y las almas
de jóvenes guerrerenses

Mujeres del color de la tierra
no tocarán a ese maíz
con sus delicadas manos
ni lo purificarán en el metate

Las milpas extrañarán a esas mazorcas
por el resto de sus días
Oh, frutos de vida
decansen en la madre tierra
hasta volver a brotar
y calmar el hambre de justicia de nuestro pueblo.



Educator, artist, poet, and a political/cultural activista based in Sacramento, California.

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This Is For Puro Fun - Throwback Tuesday

Michael Sedano

It’s after midnight when the phone rings. Time for a study break, she commands. I head out for a neighbor’s apartment building, gratified for the distraction from the term paper.

My knuckles tap shave-and-a-haircut on the front door then I listen for someone inside to stomp the floor twice, or call out in two-bits rhythm “come in!” Nothing.

They laugh a lot behind the green door. I hear excited shouts of “Wow!” and "Uu, groovy." People talked like that in 1966. The door's unlocked.

I push open the door to see five people bent at the waist, fingers in their ears, dancing weirdly and laughing wildly. They are swinging wire coat hangars that dangle from their necks, gyrating side to side in a manic dance, striking the wire against furniture and shouting in pleasure.

Interior Gongs

That was my introduction to Interior Gongs.

Undergraduate study breaks went like that sometimes. Wild and out of left field. There was the night we levitated the drama starlet who later ran off with a professor. And the night the swamp creature freaked us out. But those are transitory events, like the night Greco taught Bob Dylan to do the dog. You had to be there.

Nowadays, gente just push buttons on their $500 telephone and replay a movie of everything. Interior Gongs are "old tech" bordering on quintessential rasquasche. In fact, eschewing luxury you'll find few cheaper and easier ways to pass time come that brief December day when weather locks you inside--or during Dead Week and Finals study breaks--than Interior Gongs.

Fashioning Interior Gongs as a group activity gets everyone involved from the git-go, no gloomy gus sitting around watching. Once everyone is swinging their Interior Gongs, even the most curmudgeonly will jump in and do the dance.

Materials
1 ea wire coathangar.
1 ea sewing thread.

Procedure
Untwist the hook end of the wire coat hangar and pull apart the ends to form a wire U.
Hangars with cardboard tubes are ready-to-tie by removing the tube. Plus, they have half-loop ends.
Measure an arm’s length of thread and cut to length.
Tie the string to the open ends of the wire. Bend over the wire to ensure the string doesn’t slip off.
Using Your Interior Gongs
Wear the string over your head and across your ears.
Position string across a thumb or finger tip and gently press and hold the string in the ear hole.
Bend slightly at the waist to allow the Interior Gongs to hang freely.
Move your shoulders slowly side-to-side until the wire strikes a solid object.

To observers, the action is silent. Your ears are filled with mighty reverberating peals.

Interior Gongs makes a great holiday gift! Make six of them and give as a matched set.

Alhambra
Artist Sale at Ma Art Space

Yolanda Gonzalez' studio resides in a quiet industrial park. It's worth the easy drive from anywhere in Southern California. Heck, the quality of art and jewelry at the annual event makes a drive from Arizona or Texas worthwhile.

Gonzalez' paintings command major league prices because they are major league works. She also has smaller pieces and ceramics that have Yolanda Gonzalez style without the MOMA prices.

Luring me to Gonzalez' space is the rare opportunity to see Sergio Flores' silver and gold wearable sculpture. Flores brings three cases filled with pins, aretes, necklaces, bracelets, rings. He work features gems like amethyst, ruby, tourmaline, coral, onyx, fire opals of incredible brilliance. Sergio will design custom pieces. I ask him to convert pierced earrings to clips for my wife's ears.


Gonzalez' niece has a tabletop where she sells watercolors and ceramics. I am going to pick up at least one of her black ceramic skulls for my calaveras collection.



Located at 800 South Palm Ave #1 Alhambra CA 91803, Alhambra, California (626) 975-4799, Ma Art Space is just south of a large Costco so if you've driven from Texas you can gas up at Costco.


San Antonio
Aztlán Libre Celebrates Two New Collections



Los Angeles
La Palabra Lines Up Poet Laureate & Friends


La Bloga friend Karineh Mahdessian writes:

We are completing my first year of becoming the hostess with the mostest. What better way than to celebrate but to welcome black man of happiness, Peter J. Harris, poet laureate of Los Angeles Luis Javier Rodriguez and singer of Las Cafeteras Hector Flores.

Our circle will be round. Our open mic will be open. I will smile, hug and laugh.

Please bring money to purchase the new poetry Bless the Ashes publishes by Tia Chucha Press.


On-line Floricanto: ¡Faltamos 43! 
Alma Luz Villanueva, Paul Aponte, Francisco X. Alarcón, Felix García, Graciela Vega

December opens with five poets joining voices with last month's 13 for Ayotzinapa On-line Floricanto. As with last month, the poems are nominated by Moderators of the Facebook group, Poets Responding to SB1070 Poetry of Resistance.

"Forty-three Lost Sons, Each One" by Alma Luz Villanueva
"No estamos lejos de mi México" por Paul Aponte
"Ayotzinapa Haikus & Tankas" by Francisco X. Alarcón
"El corrido de los 43 estudiantes" por Felix García
"Itzpapalotl: Prayer for the Dead" by Graciela Vega


Forty-three Lost Sons, Each One
by Alma Luz Villanueva


La Llorona y Coatlique,
weeping mother,
skull mother,
dangerous, alive mothers,

magical mothers,
furious mothers,
tender mothers,
raging mothers,

mothers of life
and death
and birth
and rebirth,

give birth to our lost
43 sons, you know
their names,
each one,

sing their
names,
each one,
scream

their names,
each one,
remember their
names,

each one,
our 43 lost
sons who wait
at your womb

gate, give
them light,
give them
light,

each one.

**To the 43 so young men teachers
in training, massacred in their
Mexico lindo y querido--we will
remember each one.




Alma Luz Villanueva was raised in the Mission District, San Francisco, by her Yaqui grandmother, Jesus Villanueva- she was a curandera/healer from Sonora, Mexico. Without Jesus no poetry, no stories, no memory...
Author of eight books of poetry, most recently, 'Soft Chaos' (2009)- and a new collection, 'Gracias,' to be published in 2015. A few poetry anthologies: 'The Best American Poetry, 1996,' 'Unsettling America,' 'A Century of Women's Poetry,' 'Prayers For A Thousand Years, Inspiration from Leaders & Visionaries Around The World.' Four novels: 'The Ultraviolet Sky,' 'Naked Ladies,' 'Luna's California Poppies,' and the most recent, 'Song of the Golden Scorpion.' The short story collection, 'Weeping Woman, La Llorona and Other Stories.' Some fiction anthologies: '500 Great Books by Women, From The Thirteenth Century,' 'Caliente, The Best Erotic Writing From Latin America,' 'Coming of Age in The 21st Century,' 'Sudden Fiction Latino, and 'Prayers for a Thousand Years.' The poetry and fiction has been published in textbooks from grammar to university, and is used in the US and abroad as textbooks. Has taught in the MFA in creative writing program at Antioch University, Los Angeles, for the past sixteen years.
     Alma Luz Villanueva now lives in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico, for the past nine years, traveling the ancient trade routes to return to teach, and visit family and friends, QUE VIVA!! And taking trips throughout Mexico, working on stories and memoir, always the poetry, memory.
www.almaluzvillanueva.com




"No estamos lejos de mi México"
por Paul Aponte

Hoy quitan las vendas de sus ojos,
desvisten los susurros, sueltan su gran voz,
y su son quiebra el cristal transparente de sus gobernantes.

¡Poder a mi México!

La música de mí México es bellísima:
Amistades por doquier, fiestas por cualesquier,
vecindades entretejidas en sarapes coloridos.
Valentía de sobras, y familias de obras.
Trabajadores de gran ética,
y pueblos de gran estética.
Posibilidades económicas para cantar,
y todos listos para subir a su albar.

La música de mi México es bellísima
y el tiempo de acción es hoy!

Traigan su música a los pasillos gubernamentales,
y con su música limpien esas sillas, paredes, escalones y pisos
y sáquenle brillo – un hoy y futuro nuevo.
La revolución de renovación.
El águila devorándose a la serpiente.

Erradiquen las palabras altisonantes,
las frases elocuentes que dicen nada,
y las explicaciones exculpatorias
para que la frase de arriba desaparezca.

Si nomás “tomás” -
te vas al “arrás”!

El nuevo lema.

Los que sí quieren justicia,
los que sí quieren la paz para todo mexicano,
los que sí practican lo de Don Benito Juárez,
los que sí escuchan a los Emilianos Zapatas,
los que sí toman acciones para un mejor México,
los que sí están listos para librar la música de México,
son los que deben
dar liderazgo a México.

Porque:
México grita por justicia.
México somos todos.
México somos 43.
México mide 43x43.
México llueve 43,
un número primo,
único,
indivisible.





Paul Aponte is a Chicano poet from Sacramento, California USA. Paul, was a member of the performance poetry group "Poetas Of The Obsidian Tongue" in the 90's, and now is a member of "Escritores del Nuevo Sol". He is the author of the book of poetry "Expression Obsession" published in 1999, and has been published in "La Bloga" and in the book "Un Canto De Amor A Gabriel Garcia Márquez"

facebook website:
https://www.facebook.com/wolf.fox.54/notes






"Ayotzinapa Haikus & Tankas"
by Francisco X. Alarcón

o burning fire
o flower of words –
Ayotzinapa!

“Ayotlinapa” —
great Pregnant Turtle
weeps for her sons

* * * * * * * * * *

oh fuego vivo
oh flor de palabras —
¡Ayotzinapa!

“Ayotlinapa” —
gran Tortuga Preñada
llora por sus hijos








"El corrido de los 43 estudiantes"
por Felix García

Cuarenta y tres estudiantes,
De noche se los llevaron
Policias municipales
Al narco los entregaron
En presencia de soldados
Se hicieron que no miraron.

Amí no me queda duda
Es terrorismo de estado
Tres niveles de gobierno
Estaban involucrados
Con sus narcos militares
Y el crimen organizado.

Masacre de Ayotzinapa
No eres un caso aislado
En Acapulco copreros
Cayeron asesinados
Por pistolero a sueldo
Pagados por el estado.

Narco estado mexicano
Represivo y criminal
De Ayotzinapa, Aguas Blancas
Sin olvidarnos de Acteal
Son genocidios de estado
De lesa humanidad.

Nos han cerrado la lucha
Pacífico, electoral
Sólo nos queda un camino
Que es la guerra popular
La autodefensa del pueblo
De la bota militar.

De insensato, irrresponsable
Vas a llamar mi corrido
Si no tomamos a las armas
Nos van a quemar los niños
En Hermosillo, Sonora
La justicia nunca vino.

Guerra sucia no ha parado
En este estado costero
Desde los años 70s
No encuentran los guerrilleros
1200 camaradas
Del estado de Guerrero.

La normal de Ayotzinapa
Tiene principios muy finos
Lucio y Genaro salieron
A defender campesinos
Genaro Vázquez y Carmelo
Te vigilan el camino.

43 estudiantes
Son hijos del mundo entero
Con un diluvio de amor
Te esperamos con anhelo
Con cantos de libertad
Desde tu pueblo sincero.

Vuela, vuela palomita
Palomita de la paz
Si vivos se los llevaron
Vivos deben regresar
Tlateloco los espera
Pa’ que vengan marchar.





"Itzpapalotl: Prayer for the Dead"
by Graciela Vega

A poem for our 43 young sons
whose dreams were cut before the harvest

Tzinaka call into the night
prayers for the dead
Tzinaka call into the night
prayers for the dead
Search for our babies
until we have them again

Tzinaka flex your muscles
sparrow wing soar
Tzinaka flex your muscles
sparrow wing soar
Safe in our homes
to laugh and play

Tzinaka find our disappeared
with your night voice
Tzinaka find our disappeared
with your night voice
locate their injured bodies
to give us peace.

© Graciela Vega





Graciela Vega Cendejas born in Michoacán, Mexico and raised in the Central Coast. She earned a BA both in Film and Video Production and Gender and Feminist Studies. An artist, organizer, educator and cultural promoter Graciela Vega is raising her two children, promoting the arts with Hijos Del Sol Arts, arts non-profit and teaching in a dual-immersion program at Alianza Charter School in Watsonville, CA.
Following the example of the National Writing Project philosophy, Graciela Vega models writing in her classroom alongside her middle school students.



On-line Floricanto Bonus


On Friday last week, Manuel Ramos marked the completion of our tenth year. Xánath Caraza, who shares los Monday with Daniel Olivas, contributed a poem that has since become a You Tube hit. Click the link here to read along with the poet as she reads Aterrizando en St. Louis, Missouri 
por Xánath Caraza.

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Michael Sedano

When I was in the Army I decided I would kill anyone who faced me in war, but I found myself on a Korean mountaintop and didn't face the truth. My friend Mario Trillo, who was getting shot-up in Vietnam the same time I was in Korea, wrote the other day that each successive kill lightened the load on his conscience. Killing another person, the thought of it even, weighs on a person.

So what is it that allows people to kill forty-three fellow people in an act of pitiless deliberateness? Who gives the orders? And when mass grave after mass grave after mass grave turned out to be not the 43, hope for the missing teaching students dimmed:

43 estudiantes de la Escuela Normal Rural Raúl Isidro Burgos, de Ayotzinapa, Tixtla, en el Estado de Guerrero, México, están desaparecidos desde el 26 de septiembre de 2014. Vivos se llevaron. Vivos los queremos.

The students murdered in Iguala were locals. The narcos were locals. The cops were locals. They saw each other on the street. They'd looked into each other's eyes before. Some grew up together.

The imperial couple were cosmopolitan, de la primera clase. The students, the professor, the campesino--the 43--were los de abajo. They would have been teachers, the victims. They could have been teachers, the gunmen. Two roads diverged not long before Iguala.

Shoulda. Woulda. Coulda. I grieve. You grieve. We grieve. Today, 13 poets grieve the 43. !Faltamos 43!

On-line Floricanto: 13 for the 43
Iris De Anda, Marcela Ibarra Mateos, Betty Sánchez, Sonia Gutiérrez, Xánath Caraza, Sharon Elliott, Viva Flores, Daniel Vidal Soto, Patrick Fontes, Jan G. Otterstrom, Andrea Mauk, Nephtalí De León, Carolina Torres

"Ayotzinapa: Rojo Amanecer" Por Iris De Anda
"Mamá, si desaparezco, ¿a dónde voy? / Mother, If I Disappear, Where Do I Go?" By Marcela Ibarra Mateos (Trans. Sonia Gutírrez)
"Todos Somos Ayotzinapa" Por Betty Sánchez
"Los huesos hablan / Bones Speak" By Sonia Gutiérrez
"Espuma Sangrante" Por Xánath Caraza
"Semillas de Ayotzinapa" By Sharon Elliott
"Lucecitas, para Ayotzinapa" Por Viva Flores
"A Poster Asks to Find the Missing 43" By Daniel Vidal Soto
"La Llorona Weeps Once More" By Patrick Fontes
"Hijos perdidos" Por Jan G. Otterstrom
"Mexico, My Mirror" By Andrea Mauk
"43 Howls of the Soul" By Nephtalí De León
"Nudo" Por Carolina Torres


Ayotzinapa: Rojo Amanecer
Por Iris De Anda

tápame los ojos
que ya no puedo ver
el duelo de mi país
otro rojo amancer
el gobierno es maestro de oscuridad
los estudiantes ejercen la luz
es por eso que los de arriba
dan órdenes para apagar
el fuego del pueblo
pues les ilumina
su corrupción
pero les falla su matanza
porque por cada vela que apagan
se enciendien 43 más y más y más
cuarenta y tres semillas de luz digna rabia
se estremece el mundo entero
la humanidad está de luto
y los 43 viven en su llanto
no dejes que te llenen de miedo
la justicia es tu arma
y el sol tu aliento
porque otro rojo amanecer
no podemos aguantar
sigue luchando
mi gente presente
la luz es de quien la enciende
tu voz es un altar
recordamos a los caídos
los levantamos en nuestro gritar
Ya Basta Ayotzinapa
tu sembraste un campo de ideas
ahora la cosecha despierta
ombligo de México
nace tu revancha
el gobierno no se queda impune
porque el pueblo se levanta
levantate hermano
levántate ya
tus compañeros te apoyan
desde el desierto y la montaña
cruzamos fronteras
unimos las manos
tu duelo es el mío
y tu noche la mía
marchamos con luz de dia
exigimos justicia
- Abel García Hernández
- Abelardo Vázquez Peniten
- Adán Abrajan de la Cruz
- Alexander Mora Venancio
- Antonio Santana Maestro
- Benjamín Ascencio Bautista
- Bernardo Flores Alcaraz
- Carlos Iván Ramírez Villarreal
- Carlos Lorenzo Hernández Muñoz
- César Manuel González Hernández
- Christian Alfonso Rodríguez Telumbre
- Christian Tomás Colón Garnica
- Cutberto Ortiz Ramos
- Dorian González Parral
- Emiliano Alen Gaspar de la Cruz.
- Everardo Rodríguez Bello
- Felipe Arnulfo Rosas
- Giovanni Galindes Guerrero
- Israel Caballero Sánchez
- Israel Jacinto Lugardo
- Jesús Jovany Rodríguez Tlatempa
- Jonas Trujillo González
- Jorge Álvarez Nava
- Jorge Aníbal Cruz Mendoza
- Jorge Antonio Tizapa Legideño
- Jorge Luis González Parral
- José Ángel Campos Cantor
- José Ángel Navarrete González
-José Eduardo Bartolo Tlatempa
-José Luis Luna Torres
-Jhosivani Guerrero de la Cruz
-Julio César López Patolzin
-Leonel Castro Abarca
-Luis Ángel Abarca Carrillo
-Luis Ángel Francisco Arzola
-Magdaleno Rubén Lauro Villegas
-Marcial Pablo Baranda
-Marco Antonio Gómez Molina
-Martín Getsemany Sánchez García
-Mauricio Ortega Valerio
-Miguel Ángel Hernández Martínez
-Miguel Ángel Mendoza Zacarías
-Saúl Bruno García



Iris De Anda is a writer, activist, and practitioner of the healing arts. A womyn of color of Mexican and Salvadorean descent. A native of Los Angeles she believes in the power of spoken word, poetry, storytelling, and dreams. She has been published in Mujeres de Maiz Zine, Loudmouth Zine: Cal State LA, OCCUPY SF poems from the movement, Seeds of Resistance, In the Words of Women, Twenty: In Memoriam, Revolutionary Poets Brigade Los Angeles Anthology, and online at La Bloga. She is an active contributor to Poets Responding to SB 1070. She performs at community venues and events throughout the Los Angeles area & Southern California. She hosted The Writers Underground Open Mic 2012 at Mazatlan Theatre and 100,000 Poets for Change 2012, 2013, and 2014 at the Eastside Cafe. She currently hosts The Writers Underground Open Mic every Third Thursday of the month at Eastside Cafe. Author of CODESWITCH: Fires From Mi Corazon. www.irisdeanda.com







Mamá, si desaparezco, ¿a dónde voy?
Por Marcela Ibarra Mateos

Solo sé que si desaparecieras te buscaría
entre la tierra y debajo de ella.

Tocaría en cada puerta de cada casa.

Preguntaría a todas y a cada una de las personas
que encontrara en mi camino.

Exigiría, todos y cada uno de los días,
a cada instancia obligada a buscarte
que lo hiciera hasta encontrarte.

Y querría, hijo, que no tuvieras miedo,
porque te estoy buscando.
Y si no me escucharan, hijo;
la voz se me haría fuerte
y gritaría tu nombre por las calles.
Rompería vidrios y tiraría puertas para buscarte.

Incendiaría edificios para que todos supieran
cuánto te quiero y cuánto quiero que regreses.

Pintaría muros con tu nombre
y no querría que nadie te olvidara.

Buscaría a otros y a otras que también
buscan a sus hijos para que juntos
te encontráramos a ti y a ellos.

Y querría, hijo, que no tuvieras miedo,
porque muchos te buscamos.

Si no desaparecieras, hijo,
como así deseo y quiero.

Gritaría los nombres de todos aquellos
que sí han desaparecido.

Escribiría sus nombres en los muros.

Abrazaría en la distancia y en la cercanía
a todos aquellos padres y madres; hermanas
y hermanos que buscan a sus desaparecidos.

Caminaría del brazo de ellos por las calles.

Y no permitiría que sus nombres fueran olvidados.

Y querría, hijo, que todos ellos no tuvieran miedo,
porque todos los buscamos.


Mother, If I Disappear, Where Do I Go?
By Marcela Ibarra Mateos

I do not know, son.
I only know that if you would disappear
I would search between the earth and beneath her. 

I would knock on every house door. 

I would ask every and each person
who would cross my path.

I would demand each and everyday,
every instant obliged to search for you
until you are found.

And I would want, son, for you not to fear
because I am looking for you.

And if they would not listen to me, son;

my voice would grow strong,
and I would bellow your name through the streets. 

I would break glass and tear down doors to find you. 

I would burn down buildings
so everybody would know
how much I love you
and how much I want you to return.

I would paint murals with your name,
and I would not want anyone to forget you.

I would search for others who are also
looking for their children, so together
we would find you and them. 

And I would want son for you to not be afraid
because we are looking for you. 

If you would not have disappeared, son,
as I wish and want. 

I would bellow the names of all
those who have disappeared. 

I would write their names on walls. 

I would embrace in closeness
and in the distance all those fathers and mothers;
sisters and brothers who are looking for their disappeared.

I would walk arm in arm with them through the streets. 

And I would not allow their names to be forgotten. 

And I would want, son, for all of them
not to be afraid because we all searched.


La Dra. Marcela Ibarra Mateos es profesora e investigadora de la Universidad Iberoamericana Puebla  en el Departamentos de Ciencias Sociales con experiencia de investigación en migraciones transnacionales; jóvenes rurales, participación comunitaria, y migración.

Sus publicaciones y ponencias han sido presentadas en foros internacionales, nacionales y locales. Publicó el libro Entre Contextos Locales y Ciudades Globales. La configuración de circuitos migratorios Puebla-Nueva York, co-coordinado con Liliana Rivera Sánchez y que reúne textos sobre migración poblana. Recientemente publicó el libro Jóvenes, migración e identidad, como resultado de un proyecto de investigación financiado por INDESOL.

Desde sus inicios ha impulsado el trabajo de investigación articulado a iniciativas de desarrollo local. Particularmente en localidades de Puebla se ha desarrollado trabajo participativo transnacional con organizaciones de migrantes y con familiares en sus localidades de origen.






Todos Somos Ayotzinapa
Por Betty Sánchez

Mi nombre puede ser el tuyo
Yo soy Ayotzinapa
Estudiante normalista
Residente de Guerrero
Padre hijo hermano amigo
Culpable del crimen
De desear superarme
De enseñar en un aula
De defender mis derechos
Y oponerme a la injusticia

Pienso luego desaparezco
En un auto gubernamental
En una burocracia a favor
Del poderoso e influyente
En un sistema municipal
Federal y judicial corrupto
En un gobierno que vende
Impunidad al que puede pagarla
En manos de sicarios
Al servicio del mejor postor

Protesto luego desaparezco
Me encontrarás de rodillas
En el patio de la policía preventiva
En una fosa clandestina
Con el cuerpo calcinado
Brutalmente torturado
Desollado con las cuencas
De los ojos vacías
Símbolo del abismo sombrío
En que vive mi gente

Mis opresores no dan la cara
El Presidente municipal
Huye con permiso y gastos pagados
El Gobernador niega estar involucrado
El Presidente de la República
Se dirige a su pueblo
Diez días después de lo acontecido
Pronunciando un discurso
Con cara de aflicción
Y balbuceando promesas endebles

El silencio ya no es una opción
No soy un caso aislado
Soy un crimen de estado
Victima del terror blanco
El reflejo de una sociedad
Donde la muerte violenta
Es un asunto cotidiano
Noticia internacional
Evento del momento
Como lo fue Tlatelolco y Acteal

No somos los primeros
Pero queremos ser los últimos
Ahora somos 43 desaparecidos
Antes de nosotros
Decenas cientos miles
Todos somos Ayotzinapa
Su lucha y su dolor son los nuestros
Únete a mi grito de indignación
Y solidaridad

¡VIVOS SE LOS LLEVARON
VIVOS LOS QUEREMOS!

Betty Sánchez
En respuesta a los acontecimientos
ocurridos el 26 de Septiembre del 2014
En Iguala Guerrero

	Photo by Andres Alvarez

Betty Sánchez, madre, maestra, poeta, ciudadana indignada por lo acontecido en Iguala Guerrero en Septiembre del 2014.







Los huesos hablan 

Por Sonia Gutiérrez

“Ayotzinapa: río de las calabacitas”
Los perros se comportaban 
como si fuera el último hueso. 
Pero los dueños sabían 
que había toneladas
de huesos almacenados
en sus casas blancas, 
en Los Pinos, y en los palacios 
de gobierno. Esos patrimonios
achicaban las casitas de Ayotzinapa.

Pero los huesos no eran mudos;
hablaban. Los huesos se asomaban 
por los cimientos, y por eso los dueños
mandaron crear jardines botánicos 
para apaciguar su conciencia
y distraer a sus invitados importantísimos.

Quinientos años después,
debajo de la avaricia y del odio continuo
contra nosotros mismos,
los dueños nos dejan
máscaras rojas sin piel y con los ojos picados.
Y desde el río de las calabacitas,
los huesos se apoderaron
del sentimiento de la nación
y lo encendieron.

Pisamos fuerte por nuestros
hijos e hijas con y sin huaraches,
con tenis o zapatos,
con sandalias o botas,
este suelo sagrado
que nuestros antepasados caminaron,
dejando atrás el miedo 
haciendo temblar a los domadores
que olfatean el dinero,
el miedo y se arman
hasta los dientes.

Está claro;
los huesos sí hablan:
ustedes, los cuarenta y tres
valientes, sembraron semillas sin miedo—
existe el sueño mexicano
digno de cultivar.


Bones Speak 

By Sonia Gutiérrez

“Ayotzinapa: river of little squash”
The dogs behaved 
as if it were the last bone. 
But the owners knew 
there were tons
of stored bones
in their white houses, 
at Los Pinos, in government
palaces. Those patrimonies
dwarfed the little houses
of Ayotzinapa.
But the bones were not mute;
they talked. Bones peered through
the foundations, and for this reason the owners
created botanical gardens
to appease their conscience
and distract their very important visitors.
Five-hundred years,
underneath continues greed and hate
against ourselves,
the owners leave us
skinned red masks with minced eyes,
And from the river of little squash,
the bones took over
the sentiment of the nation
and lit it.

We step firmly for our
sons and daughters with orwithout huaraches,
with tennis shoes or shoes,
with sandals or boots,
this sacred ground
our ancestors walked,
leaving behind fear,
making the tamers,
who sniff money,
fear and arm themselves
to the teeth, tremble.

It is clear
bones do speak:
you, the valiant forty-three,
planted fearless seeds—
the Mexican dream exists
worthy of cultivating.


Sonia Gutiérrez is the daughter of two Michoacanos. She teaches English Composition and Critical Thinking and Writing at Palomar College. La Bloga is home to her Poets Responding SB 1070 poems, including “Best Poems 2011” and “Best Poems 2012.” Her vignettes have appeared in AlternaCtive PublicaCtions, Mujeres de Maíz, City Works Literary Journal, and Huizache. Her bilingual poetry collection, Spider Woman/La Mujer Araña (Olmeca Press, 2013), is her debut publication. Kissing Dreams from a Distance, a novel, is under editorial review.  To learn more about Sonia, visit SoniaGutierrez.com.







Espuma Sangrante
Por Xánath Caraza

Para los 43 estudiantes de Ayotzinapa

Este mar que lame el arena
Olas hambrientas
Testigos sonoros
Luna de agua con ojos quietos
Inmóviles palmeras mudas frente a mí
Caminan los rayos del amanecer en las calles
Marchan ante el contenido rugido del mar
Aves migratorias en el horizonte
Con ellas vuelo
Arena salmón lamida por la espuma sangrante
Mientras cuarenta y tres niños perdidos
Gritan en tus líquidas rojas entrañas
Aullidos sordos, aullidos sordos
En este mar estático que ruge
Ruge mar, ruge, ruge sus nombres
Para la eternidad


Bleeding Foam
By Xánath Caraza

For the 43 missing students from Ayotzinapa

The sea licks the sand
Hungry waves
Resounding witnesses
Moon of water with quiet eyes
Mute, immobile palm trees before me
Dawn sunrays walk through the streets
They march before the restrained roar of the sea
Migratory birds on the horizon
I fly with them
Salmon sand licked by bleeding foam
While forty-three lost children
Howl in your liquid red entrails
Silent screams, silent screams
In this static sea that roars
Roar, sea; roar, sea.  Roar their names
For eternity



Xánath Caraza’s bilingual poetry and short story collections are Sílabas de viento/Syllables of Wind (2014), Noche de Colibríes: Ekphrastic Poems (2014), Lo que trae la marea/What the Tide Brings (2013), Conjuro (2012), and Corazón Pintado: Ekphrastic Poems (2012).  She writes the column, “US Latino Poets en español”.  Caraza is a writer for La Bloga and for Revista Zona de Ocio, and teaches at the University of Missouri-Kansas City (UMKC).  She is an advisory circle member of the Con Tinta literary organization.





Semillas de Ayotzinapa
By Sharon Elliott

I hoped
I could construct a barrier
between us
like surgical gauze
or a
blanket
made of fir needles
from the forest floor
to keep the horror
at bay
pero a veces esperanza no sirve

instead
a dream
came gently
on a warm south wind
to a room with whitewashed walls
worn wooden floors
for dancing
llena de estudiantes
gozando la vida

in one corner
an argument
loud voices
arms gesticulating wildly
hands raised in clenched fists
above heads
sure of themselves
como compañeros
sure that even if
agreement was not reached
the truth would be told

in another corner
a muchacho with hands soft
tender
touches the face
of his beloved
yearning
she receives his caricias
con una sonrisa
and a delicate sigh

at a long scrubbed table
a portly guy
with a laugh
big and jovial
like his stomach
fills a plate
tamales and chicharrones
and all the joy it can hold
while his friends bring cerveza
to wet his whistle
so he will tell a joke

on the stage
a boy plays his guitar
virtuoso
notes rain from strings
like pearls and bullets
his throat forms words
nuggets of gold

those waiting
outside
go for the gold
leave their humanity behind

when I wake I know
los jovenes son nuestros
they are our children still
grown though they may be

desaparecidos
they might be dead
or unable to come back
from a different kind of death
we may not understand

my lips say “soy  Ayotzinapa”
my body growls “soy Ayotzinapa”
my brain shouts “soy Ayotzinapa”

my heart cries “los jovenes de Ayotzinapa son yo”

“they tried to bury us, they didn’t know we were seeds
trataron de enterrar , que no sabían que éramos semillas”


Born and raised in Seattle, Sharon Elliott has written since childhood. Four years in the Peace Corps in Nicaragua and Ecuador laid the foundation for her activism. As an initiated Lukumi priest, she has learned about her ancestral Scottish history, reinforcing her belief that borders are created by men, enforcing them is simply wrong.  She has a book: Jaguar Unfinished, Sharon Elliott, Prickly Pear Publishing 2012, ISBN-13:  978-1-889568-03-4, ISBN-10:  1-889568-03-1 (26 pgs); and has featured in poetry readings at Poetry Express and La Palabra Musical in Berkeley, CA.  She was awarded a Best Poem of 2012, The Day of Little Comfort, in La Bloga Online Floricanto Best Poems of 2012, 11/2013, http://labloga.blogspot.com/2013/01/best-poems-of-2012.html.







Lucecitas, para Ayotzinapa
Por Viva Flores

“Ahora que/vamos a hacer/buscando cuarenta y tres
luciérnagas/ con/
frascos de miel/
ahora que/vamos a hacer.”

Dice la alquimia que las esencias se transmutan
solo con intención-
leña a polvo,
polvo a leña
los ciclos acaban como se
empiezan y
no hay materia que se transforma
a nada.

Históricamente, el silencio del fuego nunca ha servido para
ocultar los gritos de las bocas
cerradas
y
la gasolina no fue hecha para derramar en las caras,
en una pila de cuerpos.

Hay una madre en su cama llorando como niña en su
infancia,
exigiendo justicia como alimento
pero no le dan
nada.
Una mañana guardando el silencio
esa misma mujer carga a su arma.
Cuidado con la que ha perdido todo-
ya no le pueden quitar
nada.

México, cuarenta y tres luciérnagas calcinadas
han encendido las puertas de tu casa,
dieron luz a tu palacio empolvado-
un manojo de gusanos
retorciéndose por plata.

A Cuauhtémoc le quemaron los pies los europeos
pero el Tata nunca se dio. Sus huesitos derritiendo
candentes de valor.

Los guerreros nunca mueren
solo se transmutan, cambian de
color.
Viva Flores is a regular contribute at Balck Girl Dangerous. She studied Literature at University of Texas at El Paso.











A Poster Asks to Find the Missing 43
By Daniel Vidal Soto

I

You’ll never find them
Take the posters
And wrap them in a sailboat
Headed to the moon
Across la frontera through the bridge
To America’s house

Weep even for those who cross in safety
Safe enough to begin a family
For the kids, weep again
Into the realization
The American Dream does not exist
The schools really are also a prison
If we survive even this

Do it because
Alhambra has forgotten
Nahua’s agua through the well
Take the poster into a solid dream
Write poems and death notes
Stepping stones
Drowned beyond tomorrow

II

A crushed bag
Bottle of
Bibs and bitings
Teeth inked
Beyond
Gold badge and copper wire
Silent eye
Talisman crosshair
Silentium
Silentium
beyond the fire

III

Crushed van
Bone paint
Some moan
A splint of femur
In the neck
The neck breathing
Aveoli and
An eye
beyond the fence

IV

Mayor’s wife
Cheaper than
Yesterday’s piss
Golden locks
And thinking
She’s white
Uncle Sam’s
Cock sucker
Ass bender
Money fucker
Spirit twister
Cold eyed non-sister
Hope the furnace forgive
What the earth
And all our – not your – children
Can sing again in bigger choir

V

I see
My friend
Being arrested
And I tell him
It’s no different
Jamaican, Trinidadian
Dominican, Haitian
Puerto Rican
Moreno, Indio, Mestizo
The Trinidadian Parade
Announced We Ready
Habibi has already played
Through the warm Egyptian air

VI

There’s a beat
Coming in my stomach
My fingers touch
Through the cotton
Singing incantations
What was it she said –
Sana, Sana
Taking the knife
And cutting away the cloud
An egg shell appears
Brighter and more promising
Than the eye
It is an oval and white
As is its halo




Daniel Vidal Soto is author of "Demon in Plastic", and has been published in Cloudy City Press, Brooklyn Paramount, thosethatthis, La Bloga Floricanto, and the Nerds of Color. He currently pursues an MFA in poetry at Long Island University - Brooklyn, where he teaches and is working on his second book of poetry.  He roots himself in Acuña, Coahuila, Mexico and the North Side of Fort Worth, Texas.







"La Llorona Weeps Once More"
by Patrick Fontes

Last night I heard La Llorona weeping
Echoes along the shores of Texcoco
In anguish along Chapala
The Pánuco
And Rio Grande
Her hands bloodied
Stained with the sangre of her hijos
Slain in her madness in Guerrero





Currently I am a PhD candidate in history at Stanford University. My research involves border issues, Mexican religion, the Virgin Mary, immigration into the Southwest, and the criminalization of Chicano culture.

I grew up in Fresno, in a working class Chicano home.
During the Mexican revolution my great grandfather, Jesus
 Luna, crossed the border from Chihuahua into El Paso, then on to Fresno. In 1920 Jesus built a Mexican style adobe house on the outskirts of the city, it is still our family’s home and the center of our Mexican identity today. Nine decades of memories adorn the plastered walls inside. In one corner, a photo of Bobby Kennedy hangs next to an image of La Virgen de Zapopan; in another, an imposing altar to Guadalupe.

The smells, voices, sounds, hopes and ghosts of familia who have gone before me saturate my poems.








HIJOS PERDIDOS
por Jan G. Otterstrom

Tengo siete hijos
no se encuentran entre
los desaparecidos, pero
en una pausa momentánea
comparto el dolor de padres,
madres, su carga preciosa
carne de su carne
pequeñas voces riendo
pateando sus balones
oraciones sinceras cuando
los pusieron a dormir, asegurando
el amor de una familia
ahora en peligro o para mal
Padres indefensos
solamente pueden recurrir a Dios.



Poet, Jan Otterstrom Fonnesbeck, born 1944 in San Francisco, California presently living in Costa Rica, Central America.  Retired: BA Brigham Young University (English) Hart-Larson Poetry prize 1967.  J.D. Gonzaga, University 1972, MBA INCAE Costa Rica 1992, Poetry books "Ibis Of Imaginings A poetic Diary 1965-1994" Costa Rica; "Telar" 2005 Ediciones Union UNEAC Cuba; "Suite De La Habana" 2008 Coleccion Sur UNEAC Cuba; "Gatherings Collected poems 2006-2011" 2011 Xlibris, USA: "Portal Fragments of Journal Entries 2011-2012"  Y Mountain Press BYU; "To Return Home" 2013 Y Mountain Press, BYU; "Eleven Degrees North" 2014 Y Mountain Press BYU 2014; "Often There Post-Script and Orchid" Y Mountain Press 2014. His books are available at Barnes and Noble, Amazon, BYUBookstore.com, UNEAC, La Habana Cuba and Cuban Bookstores.  “Telar” is in a second edition of 5000 copies and sold in South America. Web page: www.janotterstrom.com







Mexico, My Mirror
by Andrea Mauk

If I did not believe in divine connection
between everyone and everything
I could write this poem solamente about 43
43 from Ayotzinapa, Guerrero
43 estudiantes innocentes
43 normal teachers to be
pobres destined to teach más pobres, not unlike me,
but I can no longer see one incident
isolated
individually
There are 43,000,000,000 stars above that tell me it isn't so,
y ya me cansé.

I must peel the cataracts from my eyes,
unstitch the lips silenced by promised kisses of butterflies,
patch together my heart cut to pieces by control and lies.
I can cry for the parents, wail with los abuelos,
stand in shock con las novias, in despair with los hijos.
I feel the pain of towns full of citizens that clang together hollowed with fear,
the people that watch over their backs each day in narco states,
those that now pray for faster relief from blinged out narco saints,
I can question Our Lady as to how can she let this be,
but I cannot stop there.
Ya me cansé.

Mexico is my mirror that shines on the world.
I slide it up, turn it towards our 50 states,
examine one side of the coin in exchange for the other,
Grand white houses and bellies filled with greed reflect upon each other.
People starved of caring and meaning and faith
Silenced by a system that rules with the gun
But no longer represents,
And all of us normales fragmented like splintered stars
scrapping to fight for this cause or that,
grappling for change that's just beyond reach,
not able to unburden ourselves from history's scars.

Leaden soldiers have no hearts, puppet leader have no brains
and whoever runs the show is buried at the core of the nesting dolls
that we've yet to discover. And the drug trade that exists for whom?

(Long Pause) y ya me cansé.

My eyes no longer jaded, stitches removed from my lips,
the smoke in my mirror has vanished.
I can take it no more.
No more senseless poverty, judgment, death or war
in the name of God or glory or power or oil.
And the meek shall inherit whats left of the earth
for La Revolución 43 has begun.
Ya me cansé en Mexico.
Ya me cansé in the Middle East
Ya me cansé in Africa
Ya me cansé in the deadly American streets.

The dust of 43,000 crushed bones
and 430,000 dientes pulverizados
and uncountable fragments of hopes and dreams
float above this world of chaos,
marking the unknown graves.
The universe forms clouds of shame,
persistent memories of war.
Doesn't that truly reflect who we are...

Connect the stars. Connect the dots.
The mirror reflects back on us.



 Andrea Garcia Mauk grew up in Arizona, where both the immense beauty and harsh realities of living in the desert shaped her artistic soul. She currently calls Los Angeles home, but has also lived in Chicago, New York and Boston. She has worked in the music industry, and on various film and television productions. She writes short fiction, poetry, original screenplays and adaptations, and is currently finishing two novels. Her writing and artwork has been published and viewed in a variety of places such as on The Late, Late Show with Tom Snyder; The Journal of School Psychologists and Victorian Homes Magazine. Both her poetry and artwork have won awards. Several of her writings are included in the 2011 anthology, Our Spirit, Our Reality. She currently teaches elementary theatre for the Los Angeles Unified School District. She is producing an original musical with her 5th grade students this December in Cudahy, CA. She is also in the midst of a cookbook project in which she seeks to make recipes classic healthier. Visit her cookbook website at http://www.corazonenplatillo.com







43 Aullidos del Alma  
© by  Nephtalí  De León

sad pigeons in Iguala
wept in Juan Álvarez Street
when the government police
shot at Ayotzinapa
Aldo was hit on the head
busloads of students were dead
43 of them corralled
prisoners taken ahead

vuela vuela palomita
limpia tus lágrimas de oro
dí que’l más grande tesoro
las joyas de Ayotzinapa
las mutilaron del mapa

cerca de Cocula un río
lleno de ranas y peces
tiemblan pero no de frío
es el llanto de un hallazgo
bolsas de plástico hundidas
gente desaparecida

fue el 28 de Septiembre
del año 2014
un tiempo sin igualdad
como duele recordar
allá  por Iguala Guerrero
cuando entregan a los presos
43 normalistas
al cartel de los Priístas
que´s que Guerreros Unidos
degenerados bandidos

a  Julio Cesar lo hallaron
desollado de su cara
his eyes and his skin were missing
sin ojos ni piel en cara
y el presidente de lujo
paseando por el mundo entero
ni al propio gobernador
se le ocurrío penar luto
the national signs of mourning
were Mexico´s tears next morning

dígame gobernador
diga señor presidente
dónde los 43
si vivos se los llevaron
¡ vivos los quiero presentes !


43 Howls of the Soul
By © Nephtalí De León

tristes palomas de Iguala
por calle Juan Álvarez lloran
al ver policías del gobierno
con balas para Ayotzinapa
una en la cabeza de Aldo
muertos camiones de alumnos
43 ya redados
prisioneros del estado

take wing little dove take wing
wipe off your teardrops of gold
tell the world  of the treasure
the jewels of Ayotzinapa
massacred without measure

close to Cocula the river
trembles with fish and with frogs
it shivers but not with the cold
there´s 43 howls in the waves
plastic bags full of remains
lost in their watery graves

on the 28th day of September
in the  year 2014
it hurts me so much to remember
the things of inequity days
when in Iguala Guerrero
the 43 Normalistas
by police they were delivered
to Priístas and Cartel
Guerreros Unidos both bandits
degenerates all from hell

when Julio Cesar was found
his face was peeled back unbound
two empty holes in his sockets
where his eyes should have been found
the president in full luxury
travels around the world
not even the governor said
there´s mourning and we´re all sad
el dolor se hizo presente
de México al día siguiente

governor will you tell me
Mr. President will you tell me
where are the 43
you took them from us alive
alive do we want them back !




Nephtalí De León, is a poet, author, playwright, and muralist painter. A migrant worker, he published his first book while a senior in high school, which was the last experience with formal education that he cared to be involved with.  Some of the author´s  publications are:  Chicano Popcorn (poetry),  Chicanos: Our Background and Our Pride, (essays in prose), -- Coca Cola Dream;  Hey, Mr President Man! (both, poetry),  I will Catch the Sun (for children), and others. Translated into Chinese, Russian, Arabic, Catalan and other languages, he has been published in USA, Mexico, France and Spain. His latest activity has been collaborating with the making of movie “Vamos al Norte” in Spanish with English subtitles, awaiting theatrical release. His dream is to have Mexica Chicano Natives de-colonize themselves from misnomers such as “Latinos” and “Hispanics,” which he says hold us as psycho/physical hostages of ourselves in a self-colonizing perpetuity that needs chains broken.






Nudo
Por Carolina Torres

Hoy te gritaré
con la desesperación
de 43 voces
hasta que incontables puños
encendamos los cerillos
que desaten la esperanza,
arderá el amor
y no necesitaremos más carteles
con fotografías
empapadas en llanto de madres,
nunca más será domingo
así no tendrás permiso de muerte,
ni bala,
ni fuego,
ni fosas,
no, no habrá verde olivo
con pestilencia de Estado
capaz de atravesarte,
hoy correrás a los brazos
de la ternura
y ya no tendremos que clamar
por vivir o morirnos,
hoy
desaparecemos los dinosaurios.


Carolina Torres. Tegucigalpa, Honduras (1989). Estudiante de la carrera de Medicina en la Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Honduras. Su poesía ha sido incluida en Honduras: Golpe y Pluma, Antología de poesía resistente escrita por mujeres (2009-2013), Miembra del Movimiento poético Las de Hoy. Miembra activa de la Asociación Nacional de Escritoras de Honduras, ANDEH. Ha participado en Festivales internacionales de Poesía de Centroamérica.


QEPD los 43

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Veteranspeak, or 5 Questions To Ask a Veteran

Michael Sedano

MiG Alley below, Homing All the Way Killers above

I’ve been a Veteran since August 1970, forty-four years since I walked away from Ft. Lewis Washington, discharge in hand but still in my Class A uniform. In a curious parallel, that was early in the predawn darkness, just like that January day in 1969 when my busload of inductees stood in the predawn fog of Ft. Ord.

Ever wonder what to say when you learn someone was once boots on the ground? Veterans of my era will spin you some memories to one or more of these conversation ice-breakers. I was Army, other services have similar answers. Kids from Bush and Obama’s Iraq and Afghan wars are likely to understand the questions--the answers are the cement that links a majority of Veterans with one another.

What was your MOS?
Military jobs have code numbers, the Military Occupational Specialty, M.O.S. The best known is eleven-bravo, 11B, Infantry. Me, I was trained as an oh five bravo intermediate speed morse code radio operator, a defunct trade in military communications, even then. Assigned to a rugged anti-aircraft missile site guarding MiG Alley at the Korean DMZ, I worked an oh five charlie field wireman's job. Mid-tour I lucked out and took a job in the Colonel’s office, writing military propaganda as an acting 71Quebec Information Specialist.

Short and Shorter. Sedano 3d from right, with shades.

When did you DEROS?
Short, short-timer. We counted the days until we would “get back to the world.” Upon arrival overseas, clerks calculate your Date Estimated Return from Overseas. If all goes as planned, you’ll be heading for the airport on your "dee-rhos" date. Not every Veteran served overseas. A stateside post meant serving the full two year hitch. Draftees doing one of the hardship tours—Vietnam and Korea—often put in a thirteenth month in order to earn discharge upon DEROS. I put in thirteen months, two weeks, three days, seventeen hours seven minutes and thirteen seconds in Korea, but who’s counting, que no?

RA or US?
Did you sign up, or were you Drafted? Draftees were assigned US serial numbers, volunteer tipos were Regular Army. On the sidelines were ER and NG, Enlisted Reserve and National Guard. The latter pair did Basic Training then went home. Everyone in today’s military are RA, or in barracks vernacular, Lifers. For a long time I knew my serial number by reflex. It was stamped on the dog tags to identify our bodies. I've forgotten the number now, and that's a good thing.

Would you want to see your grandchildren in uniform?
Not involuntarily.

Would you do it again?
Gente I know, to a man and woman say, Yes. I told an Army recruiter friend that I would go if I could take the place of one of the kids he was signing up. No way in Hell would I volunteer for the Draft, but if they called me again, I'd go.

Veterans and active duty wearing a uniform get free chow at  a number of chain restaurants today. A DD214 gets you fed, too. So there's that.

Veterans get to understand important yet amorphous concepts like Duty and Honor. I remember telling a friend about my cannon fodder post had the north invaded. The friend asked why I would hold my ground instead of running before it was too late? I told him it was my Duty. His eyes told me I was a fool. Así es.

Not short.

Take This Man Grossly Captivating Memoir

Review: Brando Skyhorse. Take This Man. NY: Simon & Schuster, 2014.

On-line Floricanto for November 11, 2014
Elizabeth Cazessús, Henry Howard, Ashley Garcia, Jackie Lopez, Iris De Anda

Los Rehenes, Elizabeth Cazessús
Guilty of Being Brown (Showdown in Arizona), Henry Howard
Illegal, Ashley
Blessing for James' Place, Jackie Lopez
#bringbackourgirls, Iris De Anda


Los Rehenes
Por Elizabeth Cazessús

…el viento del crimen a la altura del delirio.
Rodolfo Hasler

es la hora de escribir un poema acerca del mundo
de diagnosticar las formas en que amedrenta
con su odio y deslava el rostro de la sinrazón
para justificar mil malabares políticos

es hora de escribir que estamos al acecho
de ladrones, de gangsters, de la avaricia
de la falta de libertad y la zozobra
de la mezquina relación de las entelequias

es hora de callar lo escrito
aquello que no tiene razón en la sobremesa
congestionadas las entropías mediáticas
ante verdades telúricas y tan llanas

es hora de nombrar en lo oscuro
la íntima ejecución de los días
la denuncia, el porvenir y la esperanza
con un silencio atroz que no deje dudas

es hora de contar metrallas, muertos, a los que corren,
de ver la película en las calles y al desnudo
dilucidar acaso en la espesura
de ciertas e inexplicables densidades

es hora de escribir un poema acerca del mundo
de éste y no del otro repleto de metáforas
ya no podemos escapar, no hay letras de salva
Somos rehenes de la impunidad que nos cohabita.

(del libro Hijas de la Ira)



Guilty of Being Brown (Showdown in Arizona)
By Henry Howard

I had a nightmare the other night.
I dreamed I went to buy the morning paper,
And the headline screamed
For all the world to see,
“SB1070 Declared Fully Legal!”
And I cried, because I knew
I was now legally unwelcome here.

My mother took the paper and milk from me
With trembling hands,
And told me in her soft Mexican voice
That Papa had been arrested on his way to work.
For the crime of driving without a Green Card,
He was found Guilty of Being Brown.

We did not have time to kiss him goodbye,
Or even make him a sandwich
On his way back to a country he had not seen
In twenty years.

I woke with my heart pounding,
And my eyes full of tears.
I slowly relaxed,
Realizing it was just a dream.

Then I drove to the store in my first car,
And the morning paper screamed
For all the world to read,
“SB1070 Declared Fully Legal!”

It was my 16th birthday,
and now I, too,
Had been found Guilty of Being Brown.



I am a Los Angeles activist and Peace Poet, whose literary focus has been on human rights since 2001. Published most notably as a featured writer on Quill and Parchment.com, and the legendary Sam Hamill's global anti-war poetry protest, Poets Against the War (beginning in February, 2002), my most recent work was published as a full-length compilation of peace and justice poetry called "Sing to Me of My Rights: Poems of Oppression and Resistance" (editor/publisher Mark Lipman, Vagabond Books 2014). Immigrant rights have been a focus of my street-level activism since 1980, when I learned in college of the murder of El Salvador Archbishop Oscar Romero--followed, of course, by the rape/murder of the four U.S. churchwomen that December. I was active in the Sanctuary Movement from 1984-98, and a member since 1986 of Refuse and Resist! and La Resistencia. I have never been to our Southern border, but it looms large in my consciousness. The horror of our country's involvement in the collective Central American slaughter, and the residual xenophobic policies towards immigrants, both documented and undocumented, reflected in legislation such as SB1070, haunts me to this day, and inspires me to take to the streets. I have one philosophy that sums up all my activism, including my writing: NO HUMAN BEING IS  ILLEGAL!

Contact me about the poem or order my book. I am also available for readings at public and private events, and will travel to Arizona, Northern California or Nevada to share my work at open-mic events. EL PUEBLO UNIDO! JAMAS SERA VENCIDO!




Illegal
By Ashley

You say I am illegal because of my flesh,
Racism-pigmentocracy,
Separation-marginalization,
Apartheid, a race apart.
Even after the laws change,
Discrimination still exists
Cradling fear and fight of flesh-hood
Same flesh, different color.
Illegal,
So is it my flesh, my body, or my being?

You say I am illegal because of the land I stand on.
I do not belong here.
The land sits underneath the sky,
Shall we fight over clouds?
However, this is no different than the land I was born from.
Migration to illegal immigration,
I am, me, the im- in immigration,
The prefixed knot in the rope,
The prescribed not of ‘im’ and ‘il’
Illegal,
So is it the land, my body, or my being?

You say I am illegal because of love,
An endearing criminal at best,
Same heart, different passion,
Love is not a crime.
What matters is within:
not the shape of our skin
377: I went sleep in 2013 and woke up in 1860,
Illegal,
So is it my heart, my body, or my being?

You say the I of me, the me of I is- Illegal.
The law versus: Land, love, and life,
No! No being is illegal,
Neither my body, flesh, nor heart,
Not even my soul,
It is time,
To set my soul afire and let it free.

This poem was first published on Orinam on Dec 20, 2014 at http://orinam.net/illegal/ and is being republished with permission of the author


Ashley was born and raised in Southern California. Her parents are from Mexico. Ashley has been published both online and in-print. A poet, aspiring writer, and is currently learning classical dance. This poem "Illegal" was first published on Orinam on Dec 20, 2014 at http://orinam.net/illegal/ and is being republished with permission of the author

Blessing for James' Place
By Jackie Lopez

James, I bless you from the tip of my hat to the bottom of your feet.
James, never covet another’s house because your place is blessed for having feasted.
I do believe you are entitled to a blessing.
I do believe you become disjointed at the ends when I don’t come around.
Don’t worry.
I will come around every Thursday night at 7 in between meals.
I happen to have happiness around.
I happen to have a misnomer claiming that I am “mad,” but that is how it should be
because I am quite the crazy little pajama party girl.
The mockingbird is singing outside of your studio.
The melancholy moon is twisting in her bed.
She heard you have blasted fun.
The pavement to your studio has been watered by daffodils.
The encouragement of the nonchalant is ever present.
There’s an artistic renaissance running around naked in your studio.
There’s a show girl at your doorstep.
There’s a criminal lurking around, but you know better, there is never a love that can be considered a crime.
If you watch your watch words, you will find me misbehaving.

When I was lost and had no matrimony to offer,
you took me in.
When the painters, poets, musicians, prophets, dancers, and one-night-stands came by,
you gave them an apple dessert to eat.
It so happens that I have come a long way from my home,
and I am able to salute you on a happening basis.
When the ticket to the train I was going on fell through,
I took to hiding in between the sheets.
Now I have you to call friend.
If ever you need a helping hand, if ever you are lonely and blue, call me telepathically.
I shall send the angels to rescue you because you deserve it, James Watts-and you, too, Juan Pazos.
Thursday night dinner is for dancing and being ludicrously in love.
It is for harnessing a misbehavior and going about town.
It is for the young at heart and for the philanthropists.
I summon all the powers of the Universe Complete to bless your studio now
and forevermore or for as long you endeavor to stay home.
When I saw your rocket scientist artwork, I became a lucid woman.
Simple things mean so much more when they are shared with friends.
So, keep on trucking.
I shall meet you on the other end of a transcendence.



Jackie Lopez is a poet and writer from San Diego. She was founding member of the Taco Shop Poets and has always pursued a study of history of which has influenced her writing. She has taught in San Diego City Schools and has been published in several literary journals. She has just finished her Magnum Opus titled “Telepathic Goodbye” described as a long poem of 25, 333 words. She is now looking for a publisher for this. You can catch her work on facebook under “Jackie Lopez Lopez” where she shares her work with a daily poem. She has a radio interview that will come out later this year. Her email: [email protected]






#bringbackourgirls
By Iris De Anda

ruby rage shouts escape
as our young girls disappear
there is no sleep
when night falls without them near
days and days and days have passed
can you remember their bright eyed brilliance
forsaken flowers with petals that wither
under boots of beatings and men with guns
they are killing them softly
raping them daily
silencing their spirit
every time one of them dies
can you feel it in your body
walk around so heavy
carry unseen sadness
on the bridge of our backs
they are our future failing
mountains crumbling
deserts flooding
stars extinguished after lightyears of shining
blood moon tainting the night sky
mothers wailing to the goddess
bring back our schoolgirls
bring back our daughters
they are the martyrs of this modern plague
where men get away with murdering women
while the world looks away
closed eyes to our girls plight
makes the whole world blind
you do not want to see
what you would rather neglect
because it’s not your daughter, sister, or niece
you pretend to respect
can you protect morning dew from the blazing sun
the young woman from the older man
a system that teaches a girls life is worth less than his pen
there is no gentle here where our daughters cry
only rivers of pain
flowing back to the Niger
years of disdain
growing darker by the hour
bring back our sisters
bring back our feminine
bring them back
backdrop of africa
blackout of femicide
backbone of generations
backyard of transgressions
giveback our girls
payback our pain
paperback our stories
comeback our angels
we are waiting
arms wide open
feet tired from running with you and for you
tongues chanting
all the ways we could pray for you
hearts broken
night and days we wait for you
bring back our girls
bring back our girls
bring back our girls


Iris De Anda is a writer, activist, and practitioner of the healing arts. A womyn of color of Mexican and Salvadorean descent. A native of Los Angeles she believes in the power of spoken word, poetry, storytelling, and dreams. She has been published in Mujeres de Maiz Zine, Loudmouth Zine: Cal State LA, OCCUPY SF poems from the movement, Seeds of Resistance, In the Words of Women, Twenty: In Memoriam, Revolutionary Poets Brigade Los Angeles Anthology, and online at La Bloga. She is an active contributor to Poets Responding to SB 1070. She performs at community venues and events throughout the Los Angeles area & Southern California. She hosted The Writers Underground Open Mic 2012 at Mazatlan Theatre and 100,000 Poets for Change 2012, 2013, and 2014 at the Eastside Cafe. She currently hosts The Writers Underground Open Mic every Third Thursday of the month at Eastside Cafe. Author of CODESWITCH: Fires From Mi Corazon. www.irisdeanda.com

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Memorial Poetry Reading for James Foley

Among LA's hardest-working poets, Luivette Resto, Iris de Anda, Gloria Enedina Alvarez

La Bloga friend and fútbol poetry contributor, Yago S. Cura, sends news that will have gente circling their calendars to remind of a spectacular reading of Los Angeles poets. Here's Yago's email:

Gente/Folks!

On Sunday, November 23, from 2-4 PM the La Palabra reading series will host a reading for American Journalist, James Foley, at Avenue 50 Studios (131 N Avenue 50, Los Angeles, CA 90042 / (323) 258-1435) in Highland Park.

The reading hopes to celebrate Foley's work as a combat journalist, fiction writer, and English teacher. The event will also serve as an opportunity for people to donate to the James Foley Legacy fund and the James Foley Scholarship  at Marquette University in Milwaukee.

Please come celebrate his legacy with some of L.A.'s hardest-working poets: Dennis Cruz, S.A. Griffin, Billy Burgos, Annette Cruz, Millicent Accardi, Matt Sedillo, Luivette Resto, Angel Garcia, Ashake M. Jackson, oConney Williams, Ryan Nance, Rebecca Gonzalez, Gloria E Alvarez, Daniel Sosa, Iris De Anda, Karineh Mahdessian, and William Gonzalez



On-line Floricanto for Día de los Muertos

"If I Could Weigh My Memory" by John Martinez
"Baile" By Jose Faus
"Two Dia De Los Muertos Tales" By Odilia Galván Rodríguez
"Ancestor Dreaming" by Christine Costello
"A beautiful day in the neighborhood" by Sharon Elliott
"Holyhand" By Jolaoso Pretty Thunder
“My Own Louie” By Paul Aponte
"CALAVERA A GRACIELA B. RAMÍREZ" Por Betty Sánchez
"Tinta roja"/"Red Ink" Por Sonia Gutiérrez
"Altar en el desierto / Altar in the Desert" by Francisco X. Alarcón


If I Could Weigh My Memory
by John Martinez

If I could weigh my memory
Like a sack of something,
It would have the weight
Of my loving dead

My Uncle in an empty church,
Red carpet beneath
Pressed soles

My mother holding her arm
Like a wounded baby

My brother, opening
Another door to a lesson,
Still seated in the center
Of his room
Where loss and imagination
Are riddled about
And the exhale of the dying,
Is distant and furling
Through trees

If I could weigh my memory,
On the scale,
Like a gunny sacks of chili's
And beer hands reaching,
And burning sun
Scorching our skin
Browner than brown,
I would weigh it with a smile

Because the weight
Of my  memory,
Summons a sum paid

And so I walk away
With the grin of a child,
Walk into a perfect landscape,
With my reward secure
In my dusty pockets

(c) John Martinez 2014
All Rights Reserved



john Martinez has published poetry in several journals, including, LA WEEKLY, EL TECOLOTE, Red Trapeze and this will be his 17th poem published in LA BLOGA. Martinez studied creative writing in the early 80's at Fresno State University under, the now, U.S., Poet Laureate, Phillip Levine and has attended seminars with several established American poets. For the last 30 years he has worked as an Administrator for a Los Angeles Law Firm and has recently complete his long awaited Manuscript of 60 poems entitled PLACES, which will be published by IZOTE Press.








Baile
by Jose Faus

She came to my door last night
like so many times before
At first I do not see her
hiding in the bushes
Turning back into the living room
her bony legs trip me
and I land on the floor

I love it when that happens
She laughs and heads for the altar
helping herself
to the ofrendas on the shelf
Hey what gives señorita
You know these are for the souls
that will come tomorrow night
Do you really think I am a señorita
She smiles coyly
the blush coloring her bleached bones
Of course my lovely

And for the umpteenth time
since we first met
I lead her to the table
and serve her tamals
baked in banana leaves
a tall glass of avena
with a hint of cinnamon
On the stove
arroz con pollo
spiced with cloves and
littered with green olives
simmers

I pour her a cup of vino de casa
and in the dim light we reminisce
Tio Jaime and tu primo Sancho
send their regrets
Emerita tu abuelita
cries over her Cuco
Give me a picture to take to her
Then she takes her finger
and slowly strokes my beard
and with the hollow of her eyes
looks deep into my heart

You know someday
I will come for you

Don’t think of work tonight my dear
I reach behind her on the table
and grab the long stem rose
She puts it in her mouth
and stands apace
I push the player to shuffle
and in a tight embrace we sway
to boleros and tangos
the rattle of her bones
an eerie metronome
I ply her with vino
until she is tipsy in my arms
Any moment she will fall asleep
and then suddenly she glides
awkwardly across the floor
stops and holds the rose
on the tips of her weary bones

These advances are so nice
to feel and be what I was once
but it is futile to resist
someday I will come for you
and what will have been
the point of this

Nada chica nada
But you can’t blame me for trying
Besides how many can claim
to have danced
with such a lovely death
cheek to cheek
in a tight embrace
Alma de mi vida
you can really shake and bake



José Faus is a founding member of the Latino Writers Collective and Writers Place board president. He is a 2012 Rocket Grant recipient for the community project VOX NARRO. His writing appears in the anthologies; Primera Pagina: Poetry From the Latino Heartland, Cuentos del Centro: Stories From the Latino Heartland, Raritan, Whirlybird Anthology, Luces y Sombras and I-70 Review. He is the 2011 winner of Poets & Writers Maureen Egen Writers Exchange award.




Two Dia De Los Muertos Tales
by Odilia Galván Rodríguez

La Calaca's
bones rattle
make sounds
como when los músicos
play la marimba
Calaca dances
down the hall
looking for people
to mesmerize
with its fancy jiggly steps
it dances street and wise
La Calaca wants to steal
anyone’s last sweet breath
and twirl them dazed
into its bony arms
of death


ஜ ஜ ஜ ஜ ஜ ஜ ஜ ஜ ஜ ஜ ஜ ஜ ஜ


La Llorona they say
drowned her children
because their father left her and
she lost the love of her life
but others say it was because
she could no longer provide
on a single mother campesina’s wages

didn’t know how to care for them on so little
that was not the life she had envisioned
she despaired for her children’s future and
went crazy from so much worry
about how to pay for care for them
while she was at work   or sometimes even
where their next meal would come from

one night after crying and crying and
ravaged with so much guilt and fear
she decided it was better
to return them to the water
so they’d swim happily back
to that calm calm place
where all life begins
again



Odilia Galván Rodríguez, eco-poet, writer, editor, and activist, is the author of four volumes of poetry, her latest, Red Earth Calling: ~cantos for the 21st Century~. She’s worked as an editor for Matrix Women's News Magazine, Community Mural's Magazine, and most recently at Tricontinental Magazine in Havana, Cuba. She facilitates creative writing workshops nationally and is a moderator of Poets Responding to SB 1070, and Love and Prayers for Fukushima, both Facebook pages dedicated to bringing attention to social justice issues that affect the lives and wellbeing of many people. Her poetry has appeared in numerous anthologies, and literary journals on and offline.





Ancestor Dreaming
by Christine Costello

(Idle meandering thoughts of an insomniac)

Eyelids flutter as my curtains blow to the same beat
Flutter whoosh whoosh
Window open like a restless mind
The wind seeks sleep
perhaps a dream
Flutter snap wind
A dream awaits
A shadow passes by in the hall
A spirit conjured by the wind paces back and forth
Waiting for the sound of tires on a wet street
dripping with a hope of rain.
Dream.
Flutter.
Storm.
Spirit.

Insomnia holds me captive
under the weight of a dream
waiting to be released to a sleeping mind
Ancestor I hear your whispers
Ancestor I feel your strength
Ancestor
sleep doesn't live here anymore
Only a deep flutter of a restless night
Dancing.
Flutter.
Snap.

Sweet slumber
I beg you to quick grab the key
The key
It opens to the dream
Please open
Wrong key
Missing is the slumber
the evasive sleep I crave
Is there a key
I can't remember



Born and raised in San Francisco Christine Costello is a 6th generation San Franciscan who grew up in the Mission District. She was the recipient of the Benny Bufano Art Scholarship and attended the San Francisco Art Academy majoring in Fine Art. She has been keeping illustrated journals for 40 years. Christine still resides in the City's Duboce Triangle neighborhood. Christine was a union labor activist for many years, working for various unions after being inspired by the farm workers movement, For the last 14 years she served as Business Agent for Theatrical Stage Employees Union Local B18, Christine volunteered her services for many years as the event planner for Instituto Laboral de la Raza’s annual fund raiser.  An early retirement  due to a disability has once again spurred her writing, journaling and illustration. She is a priest of Yemaya practicing the Lucumi traditions as well as an espiritista.





A beautiful day in the neighborhood
by Sharon Elliott

copper calavera
helicopts
above blue seas
grey sand

gyrates
a white flower
coffee cup
dance
at the inlet

drives a car
strewn with branches
green
scarlet
periwinkle

leaves are
woven into noise
grate against
ears
too full of sound

bird
of unknown origin
calls to children
playing in the street
they shout at each other
without answering her

wings gifted to
the calavera
stop her tortuous flight
allow her
to settle on a skylight
blocks away
knock three times
dissolve through it
fluff her bony
caderas
over a purple pillow
drink a lighted candle
blow wax through her ears
smile toothily
at humans
choosing to ignore her

she decides to stay

Copyright © 2014 Sharon Elliott. All Rights Reserved.




Sharon Elliott was born and raised in Seattle and lives in Oakland. Four years in the Peace Corps in Nicaragua and Ecuador laid the foundation for her activism in multicultural women’s issues. Her book, Jaguar Unfinished was published in 2012. She was an awardee of the Best Poem of 2012, The Day of Little Comfort, by La Bloga On-Line Floricanto; and has been featured in poetry readings in the Bay Area. She is an initiated Lukumi priest of Scot/Sámi/African Carribbean ancestry; ally to people of color and to the earth.





Holyhand
By Jolaoso Pretty Thunder

I am saying datura grows in colonies
on abandoned roads on the hips of the interstate
I do don't remember what she says
lost several hours, days even
ghost rattle
I am saying the dumb sky above looked down
on my galvanized roof, my castle
and two bucks locked antlers
In front of the house
03:00 am
dragging each other 150 feet
I call the dream helper by name
It's that time again
dirt
ash
mist captured
The women of my clan tossed the family name into the pit
I too burn the bridges
goodbye
My vision can change with the invisible borders that
I see, then cross
Trespassing
Yet further
I push it, reach the edges, some kind of darkness that brightens
Don’t look in the skeleton closet
you will find me there
The town dump, ocean, ravine, last stand of redwoods
I am the rubbish of the compound
Being eaten by the village chickens
I shapeshift into the sailor, a crossroads
Then the common wife, the storm flower, perfect whore, your queen
I am on the porch tethered to a cinderblock that lays in the crabgrass
This is exile self chosen
I nap in the sun
Irresponsible
Drawing it out with a stick in the dirt
I am the green hoop around the sun
on far away days
I see you in your manner
I speak in your Way
Dressing the house in tea and cakes
Spirit plates left for the dead
I know the songs for war, love, invisibility and undoing the sorcery
I tie knots in the rhythm
I say outright you have abandoned your own self
I say to you, those matching dishes and pillows are your spirit, malnourished
That formal garden, the same
I speak that I fear my own black magic and what I can do
what I have already done
I say I know these trees and which way to glance to accomplish it all
Blood in the hollow
1234567
This is what I am saying
This is the language I speak




Jolaoso Pretty Thunder is an initiated Apetebi and Orisa priestess of Oya in the Lukumi tradition. She lives in the woods of Northern California with her two dogs Rosie Farstar and Ilumina Holydog. She is a certified practitioner and student of herbal medicine (Western, Vedic, TMC and Lukumi) and  is an ordained minister of First Nations Church. She is a well traveled poet and  loves southern rock, porch swings, pickup trucks, cooking, camp fires, lightning, steak, long drives, hot cups of coffee, gathering and making medicine and singing with her  friends and family.







My Own Louie
by Paul Aponte

down Capitol Avenue.
You know, Capitol Avenue en SanJo.

Way Before some güey
decided to express it
by demolishing cantones
and turning it all
into a cesspool
of boiling concrete & cars.

Anyway,
Andábamos en su ranfla
down Capitol Avenue.
El Louie was driving Dad's
46 Plymouth Coupe
From Story Rd
down Capitol Avenue
approaching el Payless.
Payless:
with the huge drive-in type parking lot
where jainas and vatos hung out at night,
listened to "Angel Baby" and "Hanky Panky".
.
but right now it was daytime,
and two of his buddies
con su ranfla chingona
came up right next to his window.
.
With lip-bobbing cigarette he said:
"Ey, Louie you got a match!"
"Órale.  Hold on.
Poly, drive the car.
"Qué?"
Just grab the steering wheel!
El Louie sat on the window sil
paper matches in hand
lit up three together to make sure,
lit the vatos trola,
and sat down
before the carrucha
complained
about the 8 year old steering it.
.
He gave me a couple of looks
and on the 2nd gave me his signature laugh:
"Puh-th-th-thuh".
He drove me to Mark's Hot Dogs,
the place with the juiciest,
crispiest and most delicious dogs,
making me feel welcome again.
.
My summer vacation from el Defe,
starting off pretty well.
.
He'd been there, himself.
Got a tough guy reputation
in a place filled with the toughest.
Constantly came back to our Tlatelolco apartment
beat up for taking on too many at once.
I imagine they called him el Tlate-loco.
So the uncles had to send him back to SanJo.

I never saw any meanness.
I only saw crazy funny,
or quiet, wistful, pensive Louie.
Though, most times he was out and about.
.
Even so, I do have some memories.
Like that hot summer night
when he was stuck at home for some reason.
He gave me a note, and instructions:
"All you have to do is knock on the window.
When Sylvia opens it, tell her Louie sends this.
Now, go!"
I knock, and Sylvia opens the window
immediately grabs the note without asking
and tells me to wait.
She comes back out with her thick eye-liner,
and puffy hair with the flipped out ends
and straight cut bangs barely above her brows.
she gives me another note to give to Louie.
Then I become a ping-pong ball on the
table of grounded teenagers.
I know at some point it stopped,
but I actually don't remember that moment.
I think the ghost of me or parallel universe me
is still out there doing it.

.
He was definitely the ladies man,
and even though he was tall & studly,
with light skin & light blue eyes,
he liked them gorditas, prietitas y bien Chicanas.
Le gustaba la guitarra just like Dad,
and he impressed the ladies just like Dad.
.
The summer was over.
Back en el Defe things began boiling.
Just like everywhere around the world and the U.S.
.
1968 came around - a horrific year.
The beginning of the Tet Offensive in Vietnam.
Labor strikes and riots in Poland, France & Italy.
Race riots throughout the U.S.
President Johnson refused to run for re-election.
Martin Luther King - assassinated.
Bobby Kennedy - assassinated.
Student riots in Mexico City.
Estudiantes contra granaderos.
In Tlatelolco where I lived -- many students were murdered.
and in 1968 ...
Mi carnal Louie died.  He was 18.
He died March 30th, 1968.
.
The newspaper said he drowned in Coyote lake.
Maybe he drowned in sorrow
after his good friend
committed suicide.
Maybe he abused his body
and just couldn't come back out.
Maybe, as they say, he was involved with gangs
and was killed when he chose to lead a different gang,
beaten up and thrown in the water
at a supposed "going away" party.
.
Don't want to know.
.
Years after:
My sister's daughter was born ... on March 30th.
My son was born ... on March 30th.
There is a supernatural feeling about that.
.
I think it was 1970
cuando me retaché a mi dulce hogar
for the summer.
I remember getting a high fever, almost delirious.
In the depths of my illness
I actually felt myself feeling like I might die.
Casi estiraba el teni.
Then I had a dream.
I was in the middle of the main road
in a typical western town of the old wild west
a strange town, unknown to me
deserted dirt streets
rolling tumbleweeds.
I realized I was going to be in a gun fight.
The other guy showed up at a long distance
on this main town road
in a hero's style cowboy outfit
with a red scarf blowing in the wind
I knew it wasn't my town
I knew this man meant business
and I had no business being there.
His arms slightly out, hands wide open by the holsters.
Then I saw it was Louie.
His message was “this town, his town, ain't big enough for the both of us”.
.
After I recuperated from my fever,
and was playing outside on a windy day,
I thought I heard in the wind, his signature laugh.
"Puh-th-th-thuh".














Paul Aponte is a Chicano poet born in San Jose, California USA, and now a proud citizen of Sacramento.   Paul, was a member of the performance poetry group "Poetas Of The Obsidian Tongue" in the 90's, and now is a member of "Escritores del Nuevo Sol". He is the author of the book of poetry "Expression Obsession" published in 1999, and has been published in "La Bloga" and in the book "Un Canto De Amor A Gabriel Garcia Márquez" which was put together by Alfred Asis from the country of Chile to honor Gabriel Garcia Márquez with poems from around the world with 31 countries represented. Through his many poems in English, Spanish, and Spanglish he conveys a connection to his culture that transcends the material.  He does this while retaining a voice that is very clearly his own, one which he commands with sincerity and a truthful, even wise sense of humor, and of self. Facebook website.





CALAVERA A GRACIELA B. RAMÍREZ
por Betty Sánchez


Se ha esparcido la noticia
Usted no lo va a creer
Graciela Brauer Ramírez
Ya ha dejado de ser

Con el Creador hizo un trato
De llegar a los sesenta
Pero al llegar a esa edad
Se fue a comprar indulgencias
Y rebasó los ochenta

Se murió placidamente
Esbozando una sonrisa
Logró lo que tenia en mente
Cruzó esta vida sin prisa

En vida fue muy activa
Practicaba el Tai Chi
Tenia otras perspectivas
Eso apenas descubrí

Tres maestrías completó
Se la pasaba leyendo
Sus memorias registró
Como le hizo no lo entiendo

La muerte llegó en carreta
A recoger sus huesitos
Vio dormida a la poeta
Y se robó sus escritos

El sol de los escritores
Se ha eclipsado de momento
Muy tristes le llevan flores
Perderla es el peor tormento

Los ángeles y el chamuco
Por su alma se pelean
Han armado un emboruco
Uno y otro forcejean

Ni pa’ ti ni para mi
Dijo el demonio enfadado
Esto ya lo decidí
Echémonos un volado

La parca que no es paciente
Les arrebató a su cliente
Se fue directo a los cielos
Para evitar mas recelos

En la puerta la esperaban
Con maracas y tambores
José Montoya y Phil Goldvarg
Para hacerle los honores

Tremenda pachanga armaron
Que les costó el paraíso
Al infierno los mandaron
Para volverlos sumisos

En la tierra los mortales
Añoran a su poetisa
De vez en cuando hay señales
Que nos visita la occisa

En México se aparece
Por la calle Bucareli
Ahí transcurrió su infancia
Sus recuerdos no perecen

Alguien asegura verla
En las aulas de Sac State
Acaso eso nos sorprende
Si por veinticinco años
Su enseñanza aun trasciende

El averno esta de gala
Se organiza un floricanto
La calaca se acicala
Luciendo su mejor manto
Graciela es la invitada
Que a todos deleitará
Con su épica chicana

Si una grulla ven volando
No es una pájaro cualquiera
Es ella que esta extrañando
Sus hijos nietos y amigos
Los árboles y los ríos
de ésta su amada ciudad
Que aun sigue visitando

Adiós viejecita linda
En mi corazón te llevo
Con respeto se te brinda
Ésta plegaria que elevo.

Con todo mi cariño y admiración para mi querida Graciela B. Ramírez
28 de Septiembre de 2014

foto:Andres Alvarez

Betty Sánchez, miembro activo del grupo literario, Escritores del Nuevo Sol desde  Marzo del 2003.

He colaborado en eventos poéticos tales como el Festival Flor y Canto, Colectivo Verso Activo, Noche de Voces Xicanas, Honrando a Facundo Cabral, y Poesía Revuelta.

Ha sido un privilegio contribuir en la página Poetas Respondiendo al SB 1070, Zine 10 Mujeres de Maíz y en La Bloga.








Tinta roja
por Sonia Gutiérrez

“Si tú mueres primero, yo te prometo . . .”
—Julio Jaramillo, “Nuestro juramento”

Hace unos minutos
vino mi Lola.
Estuvo aquí.
Sentí su presencia
como un zarape
cálido sobre mi cuerpo,
y sus colores
como rayos de luz
llenaron mi corazón.

En el cuarto junto
a mi alcoba,
donde nuestros cuerpos
florecían y perfumaban
las noches, ella misma
encendió la música
con su llanto.

Me visitó mi Lola
para que juntos
escucháramos
la guitarra,
las palabras,
y los gemidos
de nuestra canción.
Y entonces las paredes
y los santos recordaron
nuestros besos, nuestras caricias.

Estoy contento.
Estuvo aquí mi Lola;
cumplimos nuestra promesa,
y Ay como le agradezco
su visita para que ella vea
que tomé la pluma roja
y recordé
nuestro juramento.


Red Ink
by Sonia Gutiérrez

“Si tú mueres primero, yo te prometo . . .”
—Julio Jaramillo, “Nuestro juramento”

A few minutes ago,
my Lola came.
She was here.
I felt her presence
like a warm
zarape over my body,
and its colors
likes rays of light
filled my heart.

In the room next
to my bedroom,
where our bodies
flowered and perfumed
the nights, she herself
turned on the music
with her cry.

My Lola visited me,
so together
we could listen
to the guitar,
the words,
and the moaning
of our song.
And then the walls
and the saints remembered
our kisses, our caresses.

I am happy.
My Lola was here;
we kept our promise,
and Oh how much I appreciate
her visit, so she could see
that I took the red pen,
and remembered
our oath.

Translation by Sonia Gutiérrez



Sonia Gutiérrez is a poet professor, who promotes social justice and human dignity. She teaches English Composition and Critical Thinking and Writing at Palomar College. La Bloga is home to her Poets Responding SB 1070 poems, including “Best Poems 2011” and “Best Poems 2012.” Sonia recently joined the moderators of Poets Responding to SB 1070.

Her vignettes have appeared in AlternaCtive PublicaCtions, Storyacious, and Huizache. Her bilingual poetry collection, Spider Woman/La Mujer Araña, is her debut publication. Kissing Dreams from a Distance, a manuscript written in the Tomás Rivera and Sandra Cisneros literary tradition, is under editorial review. “Tinta roja” first appeared in Tijuana poética #7 / octubre 2014.





Altar en el desierto / Altar In the Desert
by Francisco X. Alarcón

foto:Javier Pinzón

foto:Javier Pinzón

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Michael Sedano

The “crown jewel” of the University of California system shifted from Berkeley to UC’s Riverside campus last week, where faculty member and California Poet Laureate emeritus, Juan Felipe Herrera
closed out his two-year term with a Unity Poem Fiesta.

Stephen Cullenberg, Dean of the College of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences, rounded up a cohort of sponsors to give the event first-class cachet from entry onto campus to the siting of the free lunch, poetry tables, and presentations on a main campus walkway. Hundreds of passersby, if for only the minute’s traverse, shared The Most Incredible & Biggest Poem on Unity in the World.  Click here for sponsor details.

A major bugbear of attending University public programs is paying nine bucks parking to attend a free event. UCR took care of it, free parking. Organizers set aside the closest-to-campus parking lot for poetry. Making sure drivers find their free parking, directional signs line the highway approaching campus.

This superb planning put smiles on faces following the signs to the fiesta a quarter mile distant. Reaching the walkway, the first tent greeting visitors is the free lunch. A soft tacos bar—three per eater, asada, pollo, vegetables--with the trimmings.

In the shady park, multiple hydrating stations offer iced water, juice, coffees. Another proof of top-notch planning, there’s ample supply of cups.

Herrera, Chancellor Wilcox, Dean Cullenberg, Winer

The speeches met their epideictic obligations but the speakers kept their style informal and affectionate. They spoke of Herrera the poet, Herrera the person. Mixed in were accolades for the Laureate, the Professor, the Friend. Dean Cullenberg read his remarks bilingually. It was heartfelt and it worked. Chancellor Kim Wilcox and Andrew Winer, chair of the Department of Creative Writing, also took the lectern.

African-Colombian music from UCR’s Mayupatapi ensemble opened the preliminaries, but poetry was the order of the day. The ceremonies begin with 4th and 5th graders from Mary McLeod Bethune Elementary in Moreno Valley.

The kids perform a beautiful choral reading of their composition Roses are red violets are blue There's only one unity between me and you! The poem was composed by the students as an element of the Poet Laureate’s The Most Incredible & Biggest Poem on Unity in the World Project.

The highlight of the fiesta is the Unity Voice Choir assembled from myriad regional poets and writers, including La Bloga friends Liz Gonzalez and Iris de Anda, along with La Bloga’s Michael Sedano.

Improvising from a chapbook assembled from the Unity poem, the choir performs call-and-response voice music. The bass and drums of Trokka Rhythm & Spoken Word Percussion Group, featuring poet John Martinez on congas, add to the enjoyment of both the choir and the audience. Martinez lays down some complex beats.

Herrera has invited poets from across California to join him today. They form the heart of the Unity Voice Choir. Herrera begins the aural feast by reading off the chapbook page. The choir follows along, guided by the book. Inspiration conquers page and Herrera calls out rhythmic and singsong variations, short gasps or multisyllabic chant, puro a la brava taking off on rhyme and reason that have the choir laughing to keep up. The words call out all manner of inspiration from fruit to vegetable to love.


Luis J. Rodriguez Named Los Angeles Poet Laureate


A nourishing sign of poetry continuity arrives even as Juan Felipe Herrera closes his two years as the California Poet Laureate. The day after the UCR fiesta, the Mayor of Los Angeles announced the Los Angeles Poet Laureate is Luis J. Rodriguez.

A candidate for Governor of California, Rodriguez lost in the primary despite articulating a philosophy of unity and opportunity. The Los Angeles Laureateship reminds gente that foremost Rodriguez is a poet. Given Rodriguez' activist nature, Los Angeles should look forward to eye-opening poetry initiatives that reflect the City's objectives for the Poet Laureate program:

Enhance the presence and appreciation of poetry and the literary arts in Los Angeles;
Create a focal point for the expression of Los Angeles culture through the literary arts;
Raise awareness of the power of literature, poetry, and the spoken word;
Inspire an emerging generation of critical thinkers, writers, storytellers, and literary artists;
Bring the literary arts to people in Los Angeles who have limited access to poetry or have few opportunities for exposure to expressive writing;
Encourage both the reading and writing of literature; and,
Create a new body of literary works that commemorate the diversity and vibrancy of the LA region.

La Bloga sends abrazos and felicidades to Luis J. Rodriguez, Poet Laureate of the City of Los Angeles.


News & Notes
Teatro Summit Sweeping Los Angeles

The Los Angeles Theatre Center in the heart of Los Angeles is the site of an historical gathering of professional raza theater companies from across the nation. If LATC's publicity sounds ambitiously chingón that's because they stand behind their work.

A vibrant company that hires local actors and develops plays by local writers, LATC recognizes an obligation to widen the artistic horizons of what people get to see on stage. Per LATC's website, Encuentro brings

a month-long celebration of Latina/o theater from October 12 through November 10. This groundbreaking month-long event is the first theater festival in the U.S. to bring together more than 19 theater companies and 150 artists from the U.S. and Puerto Rico to present 19 works that represent the multi-faceted Latina/o experience on stage – from violence at the border and pressing immigration concerns to the complexities of romantic relationships and families.

Visit the teatro's website for tickets and curtain times.


News & Notes
Anaya Lecture Slated for Albuquerque

The UNM Department of English hosts distinguished writer Ana Castillo to deliver the 5th annual Rudolfo and Patricia Anaya Lecture on the Literature of the Southwest, on Thursday, Oct. 23 at 7 p.m. in George Pearl Hall room 101. A reception will follow. George Pearl Hall houses the School of Architecture and Planning and is located on Central and Cornell NE. The lecture is free and open to the public.


On-line Floricanto for the 14th of the Tenth
Victor Avila, Richard Vargas, Oralia Rodríguez, Jeff Cannon

The Moderators of the Facebook group Poets Responding to SB 1070; Poetry of Resistance commend four poets in the second of this month's pair of La Bloga On-line Floricantos.


Looking Through Chain-Link at McAllen Station
by Victor Avila

Although this young girl is not Ruby Bridges
and has never heard her name
she has the same heart of forgiveness
for those looking to blame
this anonymous child for every ill in the world
as she tries to get sleep in McAllen Station.

In her dreams she looks into the eyes of an ambiguous nation
and sees two completely different faces.
One speaks with empathetic eyes that understand her suffering.
While the other face...speaks about God's love and mercy
but seemingly, only on Sundays.

She's awakened by the hum of fans on the ceiling-
beside her, a younger sister who is still sleeping.
She notices a orange butterfly just outside the window.
She wonders what it would be like to have wings
that could fly over any wall or any border.

No, her dreams of becoming a butterfly will not be denied.
Certainly not by those who shout venomous words
that she can't understand. She's beginning to learn
that forgiveness is greater than hatred found in some hearts.
And that humility is a sign of true strength no matter the circumstance.

It's as if God has polished her heart
and it now reflects His light for the world to see.
Her love is His love and a beacon for all
including those who protest her presence through ill-conceived notions.
Yes, the butterfly has flown and left McAllen Station
And flutters northward beyond the reach of ignorance and hatred.


Victor Avila is an award-winning poet.  His poetry was recently included in two anthologies: Occupy SF-Poems From the Movement and Revolutionary Poets Brigade-Los Angeles. He is also writes and illustrates the comic book series Hollywood Ghost Comix.  Volume Two will be released in November through Ghoula Press.  Victor has taught in California public schools for twenty-five years.






song for Shenandoah… for Luis Ramirez
by Richard Vargas

“The Devil has the people by the throat…” Annina, explaining to Rick why she is leaving her country.              Casablanca

I.
oh Shenandoah, strip mined and bare
by the sweat of men cursing in broken
English as coal-black dust streaks their
European faces with eyes on the
look-but-don’t-touch prize

mother to Tommy and Jimmy
Dorsey who gave our soldiers
big band swing music as they
dodged bullets on the way to
victory over Berlin and Tokyo

land of Mrs. T’s Pierogies
and a meager slice of the
American dream worth
$12, 562 per capita income
at the start of the 21st century

Shenandoah
some say the name
Shenandoah
is derived from indigenous tongues
Shenandoah
means “beautiful star daughter”

II.
small town once proud once
thriving thirty thousand strong
today’s headcount barely five thousand
Shenandoah hangs on like another
forgotten whistle stop crying out
for new blood new people
until we heed your call

we climb your walls and
wade through muddy brown river
we walk and run across deserts
hide in bushes and seek shade
while drinking warm water from
discarded plastic Coke bottles
tied to our waists with twine

we die with swollen tongues from border heat
we smother in the trunks of cars and asphyxiate
packed like sardines in 40 ft. trailers left to
bake in the noonday sun for the jobs you
don’t want and the wages you refuse

III.
the grass will always be greener
the grass will always be greener
the grass will always be greener

Shenandoah, we claim you
cut your lawns
bus the tables
wash your dishes
take out the garbage
sweep your sidewalks
shore up crumbling walls
patch the cracks in your
weathered face with flowers
that bloom in the spring

Om-pah-pah
Om-pah-pah
the bass of a tuba
vibrates dirty windows
shakes the dust off
worn and faded curtains
we bring tortillas and pico
de gallo to your table
Tecate and pan dulce
the laughter of children
breaking open Spider-Man
piñatas on birthdays
we are grateful because
for us a day’s hard work
is a gift from God


IV.
Shenandoah, your children walk
the streets angry and drunk on
the sweet lies of corporate media
mouthpieces singing empty and false:
The Mexicans are coming!
The Mexicans are coming!
The Mexicans are here!

a man’s head kicked hard
with the force of a hate unleashed
from the dark side of fear and loathing
will crack like a melon dropped
on the pavement and its juices
will slowly leak and stain the street

a religious medal hanging from
the neck and stomped into a man’s
chest will imprint the holy face
of the savior deep into the skin
brand him in the name of
twisted salvation
   
Jesus salva
he convulses
Jesus salva
he foams at
the mouth
Jesus salva
he is still

hiding behind screen names
on the internet a new generation
of minutemen join in
take aim and post comments:
“these boys sacrificed their futures
in much the same way a marine
sacrifices his life on the battlefield
we are being invaded
if i was on the jury no way
these boys would be convicted
more dead illegals will discourage
future border jumps”

V.
sometimes a moment
is an hour, a week, a year
sometimes a decade or
a century passes in the blink
of an eye when all it takes
to recall the history of
our people buried deep
in our genes is the
sound of one word
wetback
is the humiliation of
tired and hungry ancestors
enduring its ugly sound
while picking Texas cotton
and California grapes from
sunup to sundown
wetback
is the mean reminder of
all that can never be and
all that will be denied
wetback
is the neighborhood
where houses can be rented
and the side of the railroad
tracks that are off limits
after dark
wetback
is long drives down
dusty roads looking
for crops to pick and ditches
to dig in a strange land
where wages are determined
by skin color

VI.
and still we come
again and again

Shenandoah, why are you weeping
why are your shoulders hung low
do not hide your face in shame
your sad cry rolling through
the valleys and bouncing off
the mountains is not in vain
no matter how many miles
there are between us
how many walls are raised
to keep us out

we are
coming home
coming home

coming home
to you





Richard Vargas was born in Compton, CA, attended schools in Compton, Lynwood, and Paramount. He earned his B.A. at Cal State University, Long Beach, where he studied under Gerald Locklin and Richard Lee. He edited/published five issues of The Tequila Review, 1978-1980. His first book, McLife, was featured on Garrison Keillor’s Writer’s Almanac, in February, 2006. A second book, American Jesus, was published by Tia Chucha Press, 2007. His third book, Guernica, revisited, was published April 2014, by Press 53. (Once again, a poem from the book was featured on Writer’s Almanac to kick off National Poetry Month.) Vargas received his MFA from the University of New Mexico, 2010. He was recipient of the 2011 Taos Summer Writers’ Conference’s Hispanic Writer Award, and was on the faculty of the 2012 10th National Latino Writers Conference. Currently, he resides in Albuquerque, New Mexico, where he edits/publishes The Más Tequila Review.

He will be reading at the following Midwest venues in Oct. 2014:
10/15: Left Bank Books, St. Louis
10/16: The Kurt Vonnegut Memorial Library, Indianapolis
10/17: Rainbow Bookstore Co-op, Madison, WI
10/19: City Lit Books (w/Diana Pando and Carlos Cumpian) Chicago


GAZA/2014
por Oralia Rodríguez

Tumultos de cenizas
ríen, al no poder llorar,
los cuerpos
se volvieron flores deshojadas
son llevados
en brazos por el viento,
la muerte danza, danza
en un eterno letargo,
las bombas
marcan su ritmo.
Las sombras se abrazan
al escuchar los alaridos
de los jazmines mutilados,
el dolor vuelto a nacer,
el estómago es un nido de alacranes,
¿Dios, Dios,
aún estas ahí?.
La humanidad se viste de indiferencia
las palabras son menos que sal,
mientras
el cielo vomita lumbre,
el laúd esta de luto,
ahora guía al cortejo
de trozos de ilusiones, sueños y esperanzas,
que ni la embriaguez
diluye,
los gobiernos como perros se disputan,
muerden, ladran, engañan
en la tierra de nadie.
La Tierra cual cántaro de sangre,
las bestias, se jactan, besan los trozos
que encuentran a su paso
de
humanos.
Cuando la mar se seque sabrá
del dolor,
que muerde mis adentros,
la verdad, ¿cuál verdad?
Tan simple, tan llano
son genocidas.

© Oralia Rodríguez 


MARIA ORALIA RODRIGUEZ GONZALEZ. Poeta y pintora, nacida en Jerez Zacatecas, radicada en Tijuana B.C. Estudió la Licenciatura en Informática en el Instituto Tecnológico de Tijuana, y la Licenciatura en Educación Primaria en la Normal Fronteriza Tijuana. Trabaja como docente de educación básica. A participado en antologías en México y Argentina , en encuentros literarios. Actualmente estudia la maestría en Cultura Escrita en el Centro de Posgrado Sor Juana y el Diplomado de Creación Literaria del INSTITUTO NACIONAL DE BELLAS ARTES en el Centro Cultural Tijuana.




Before the Darkness
by Jeff Cannon

I fold a homeless leaf weary
writing to the air

Then your distant light falls on me
potent fire thread
I uncurl from that brown devouring mouth
Eating me
Swallowing me into the sad stomach of
its Detroit trashed home
where boarded windows weep
life less rooms eat me with
their endless moans
the food betrayed dreams can only place
on empty tables

Lift me poet light from this dungeon
i am alive
must speak despite the words that fail me
words no longer moist
more brittle autumn whispers than
volcanic passion that rose before
the clamp
darkness pressed against my throat

Save me poet light
warm me by your sounding
the way Neruda passed the vibrant ocean
to everyone imprisoned

I am your wounded kin
my fleshless palm still presses against
the open wound
spurting what’s left of me against
dead concrete side walks
angry roads, death fumed cars, mad driver driven

Since the vocabulary of love got stopped
at the border
the guards couldn’t find its number
sent love back into the desert to die

Well
my word brothers, my verse sisters
i may be sinking ankle caught but
not ready yet to descend into oblivion
without at least
another swing
before the bullets

Besides the honor of this second poem in La Bloga, Jeff Cannon appears in Boundless 2014 and in Goose River Anthology: 2014. Jeff is the author of three books of poetry: Finding the Father at Table and Eros: Faces of Love (2010, published by Xlibris Corporation), Intimate Witness: The Carol Poems by Goose River Press, 2008, a testament to his wife’s courageous journey with cancer. He first appeared in the anthology celebrating parenthood, My Hearts First Steps in 2004. He has been a featured poet at Manchester Community College, CT and at local Worcester poetry venues as well as in New Hampshire. He is the father of two daughters, retired and “can’t stop writing” although he does not read out as much as he would prefer.

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The Gluten-free Chicano's Arepa Antoja
Michael Sedano

Traffic noise thrums with a different urgency that morning. I look up the avenue and see traffic cops and barricades. An NYC tianguis has popped up on the boulevard where I intend a stroll and some chow. Cops entertain themselves blowing their whistles at thronging cars. Through the rumble of buses and countless taxicabs it’s unlikely closed windows and stereo sound systems let even the shrill xrii-xriii reach the drivers. Traffic complies with the gesturing cop’s finger and detours left or right. It's life in the big city.

I step off the sidewalk and into the middle of Fifth Avenue. Pop-up booths line both sides of the closed-off block. I do not need sunglasses and more sunglasses. I don’t own an iPhone so I don’t need iPhone gadgets. Alpaca carpas and sweaters catch interest for a moment but I’m quickly distracted by the aromas of Italian sausage and peppers, Mexican asadas, and, from a few booths up, Arepas. Whatever that is.

The cocinero explains Arepa ingredients are puro corn and no flour nor wheat nor barley, nor in any of the meats and cheese. That sounds safe and The Gluten-free Chicano is about to order his first ever Arepa when gluten-free terror strikes. The whatifs win--what if I get sick when I’m in New York city for fun?--and I walk away, all antojado for the Venezolano specialty.

That was last year, a trip to enjoy the Poets Forum activities at the Academy of American Poets (link). This week serendipity rewards The Gluten-free Chicano with his first assuredly gluten-free Arepa and sabes que? It won't be the last.

Three bites short of a whole Arepa

I'm off to a camera show, and my walk takes me past some new businesses. There's a yogurt place, something else, then a hand-printed sign in a storefront makes me hitch a step. On my return walk I'm on the look-out for that “Gluten-free Sandwich” window.

Amara is on Raymond Street in Pasadena, next door to the large municipal parking lot, first 90 minutes free. It's a short walk from the Gold line's Del Mar station.

Amara prepares coffees, sweets and sandwiches. Their website features their choclatier and coffee specialties, along with arepas. The proprietor assures me he's familiar with el celiaco, era médico back home. In his new home, he's a restaurateur. Así es, pero ni modo. This is his place, and Alejandro knows celiac issues. No whatifs at Amara.

I order La Propria. Arepa names both the bun and the inside, a synecdoche of the whole for the part.


Manna from heaven must have been an Arepa. Split the arepa, spoon in some carne deshebrada, add creamy gouda cheese morsels, and The Gluten-free Chicano knows he’s been delivered from the wilderness of bread-like analog food.

The pan element of the Arepa at Amara is light, fluffy, and delicately flavored. Made with P.A.N. corn meal and water, this pan is an incredible discovery for gluten-free eating and cooking.

Alejandro and Amara welcomed The Gluten-free Chicano with incredible warmth and hospitality, which appears the standard at this worthwhile enterprise. Next time you're in Pasadena, the Arepas are on me.

Amara holds an arepa

Mail bag
Heritage Studies Celebrated in SanAnto

La Bloga friend Juan Tejeda, a principal in the daring Aztlán Libre Press, invites gente to come to San Antonio Texas for the epitome of cultural tourism. La Bloga urges travelers to select intriguing activities and plan a few days drinking in Texas' best city and Palo Alto College's engaging seminars.

Click the poster for a larger view, or, mejor, for a full list of scheduled events including times and locations, visit alamo.edu/pac/NAHHM. You may request information through the Office of Student Engagement and Retention at 210-486-3125.


from Juan's email:

We have been working hard since this past summer to organize Palo Alto College's inaugural Native American/Hispanic Heritage Month Celebration 2014 in San Antonio, Tejas. We have a great schedule of activities that includes scholarly presentations, workshops, a free Chicano Batman and Sexto Sol concert, film series, readings and book signings by prominent poets and authors.

The focus of this over-a-month-long celebration is engaging our students and community on the important fact that we are Indigenous/American Indian first and foremost, and native to this continent now called America, otherwise known as Cemanahuac, Abya Yala, Turtle Continent. In an age when most of our students call themselves Hispanic, the issue of our Indigeneity has not been addressed properly, nor our mestizaje and connection to the Indigenous populations of the Americas and our positions as Mexicans, Xicanas/os and Latinas/os in the U.S.

All events are free and open to the students and community, except for a small fee charged for the Luchadora! theater production for those 19 years and older. And there is free parking and free aguas frescos.

Late-breaking News!
Poet Laureate Laurie Ann Guerrero Free Workshop

San Antonio Poet Laureate and Palo Alto College Poet-in-Residence, Laurie Ann Guerrero, will be conducting a free one-month Creative Writing Workshop beginning Oct. 14. Details on image, click to enlarge. Guerrero is an alumna of Palo Alto College.





Mail bag
Poet Laureate Feted in Houston


Details at AP's website here.



Call for Papers


On the Eastside of the city of La, at the juncture of the 10 and 710 freeways, lies California's semi-official raza university, California State University Los Angeles. CSULA, through the leadership of La Bloga friend Roberto Cantu, holds a significant annual conference exploring junctures of las culturas on ambos sides of the frontera. 2014's theme was Rudolfo Anaya. Next up, los de abajo.

Cantu and the conference co-sponsors invite scholars to submit papers on themes surrounding the Mexican Revolution and its novels. For details, visit the conference site (click here).



October On-line Floricanto: First of Both
Betty Sánchez, Joseph Ross, Robert Neustadt, Joe Morales

La Bloga and the Moderators of the Facebook group Poets Responding to SB 1070: Poetry of Resistance share two sets of poems this month. Today, it's La Bloga's pleasure to share the first four of the month's dual delights.

Carne De Cañón por Betty Sánchez
For Gilberto Ramos by Joseph Ross
Crossing the Line by Robert Neustadt
Nothing Is Right Until You Say It Is by Joe Morales


CARNE DE CAÑÓN
por Betty Sánchez

Me llaman niño sin acompañante
Aunque ese no fue el caso
Cuando salí hace meses
De mi tierra
Mirando siempre adelante

Mi madre vendió un riñón
A su ambiciosa patrona
Para pagarle al coyote
Mi pasaje al infierno
Alias el norte
Que de libertad pregona

Mi tía Evelia se despojó
De su parcela y sustento
Para enviar a sus dos hijos
Al país de la abundancia

Rosita la vecina de mi infancia
Lavó ajeno tres veranos
Para escapar del abuso
De su padrastro y su hermano

Rogelio el hijo del cerrajero
No deseaba terminar
Como los demás del barrio
Siendo mara salvatrucha
Lloró incesante a su padre
Y obtuvo su bendición
Para irse al otro lado
Por ésta te juro viejo
Dijo besando la cruz
Que dólares mandaré
En cuanto consiga asilo

Mercedes la de la esquina
No conoció a su mamá
La dejó siendo pequeña
Al cuidado de su abuela
La anciana al enterarse
Que viajaríamos en grupo
Sacó dinero de un jarro
Para que fuera a buscarla

Con esperanza y con miedo
Nos brindaron triste adiós
Sin siquiera sospechar
Que al dejarnos ir solitos
Nos convertían sin querer
En ser carne de cañón
Al frente de los peligros
Vulnerables al abuso
Y la vejación de extraños

Partimos de Honduras
Cargando en el morral
Sueños y demonios
Derramando lágrimas
Emprendimos la ruta migratoria
Ignorando el infortunio
Que nos seguiría
Como una sombra funesta
Sobre nuestras cabezas

Tan pronto como
Abandonamos el hogar
Pisamos suelo hostil
Y actitudes áridas
Por nuestro atrevimiento
De anhelar un futuro mejor

Cada tramo de terreno
Que logramos recorrer
Arrastraba una historia
De miseria consigo

Cruzar las fronteras
No fue el desafío
Atravesarlas constituyó
Un acto de fe y valentía

El hombre de aspecto duro
Que nos sacó de San Pedro
Nos abandonó en Corinto
Sin podernos regresar
Proseguimos el camino
Hacia un futuro inseguro

Guatemala y México ignoraron
Nuestra condición de niños
Aduaneros y civiles
Nos trataron por igual
La fatiga y la desdicha
Se incrustaban en los huesos
Buscábamos refugio
bajo los puentes
En lugares solitarios y oscuros
Cubriendo nuestro dolor
Con cartones malolientes

Rosita y Mercedes
Vendieron su inocencia
Para saciar el hambre
Rogelio escapó de las pandillas
Pero no de la muerte
Por disentería y fiebre
En un albergue en Tabasco

Mis primos y yo hicimos
Trueque de pintas de sangre
Por un par de mantas
Para cubrirnos del
Escalofriante temor
Que nos producía
Viajar en el tren
Que llamaban la bestia
Un monstruo de mil cabezas
Semejantes a la nuestra

Perdimos cuenta del tiempo
Las semanas y los meses
Perdieron todo sentido
Eran solo pesadillas
Repetidas y con creces

Los que corrimos con suerte
Llegamos a la línea fronteriza
Junto a tantos otros miles
Queriendo cruzar de prisa
Para encontrar familiares
Otro hogar trabajo y visa

Pobres ilusos
Nosotros y nuestros padres
La bienvenida esperada
Se torno en una réplica
Exacta de lo ya acontecido
Carne de cañón de nuevo
Hacinados en jaulas
Durmiendo en el piso
Considerados indeseables
Objetos de escrutinio público
Temas de agendas políticas
Crisis nacional
Números, casos, estadísticas

Nos llaman niños sin acompañante
La estampita de la virgen de Suyapa
No cuenta en los reportes

Los derechos de los niños
Son solo un papel decorado
Con frases dignas sin valor alguno
La ley no nos protege ni nos acusa
Nuestros parientes no protestan
Por riesgo a ser deportados

Los que quedaron en el camino
Son olvidados
Nadie reclama
Sus huesos calcinados en el desierto
O bajo las vías de un ferrocarril
Que carga en sus lomos
Vidas engarzadas
Destinos similares
Otros mas se pierden en la indiferencia
De un mundo que no reconoce su humanidad

Tú que me lees
Y me ves a través de una pantalla
Que lloras al pensar en mi desgracia
Que me discutes en los medios sociales
Y me envías libros y juguetes para
Hacer mi estadía en esta prisión
Más llevadera
Que harás cuando sea enviado
De regreso a mi patria
A enfrentar la muerte
Que se disfraza de pobreza
De desempleo
De violencia …


Madre, abuela, maestra, poeta…en ese orden. Residente del condado de Sutter; trabajo como Directora de Centro del programa Migrante de Head Start.
Soy miembro activo del grupo literario, Escritores del Nuevo Sol desde  Marzo del 2003.  He sido invitada a colaborar en eventos poéticos tales como el Festival Flor y Canto, Colectivo Verso Activo, Noche de Voces Xicanas, Honrando a Facundo Cabral, y Poesía Revuelta. Ha sido un privilegio contribuir en la página Poetas Respondiendo al SB 1070, Zine 10 Mujeres de Maíz y por supuesto en La Bloga.



For Gilberto Ramos
by Joseph Ross

15 year-old Guatemalan boy who died
in the Texas desert, June, 2014

Before you left, your mother
draped you with fifty Hail Marys,

a rosary of white wood,
a constellation she hoped might

guide you. But Texas does not
know these prayers. It knows

that desert air is thirsty
and you are made of water.

It drank you slowly. Your name
only linked to your body by the string

ofaves still around your neck,
the small cross pressing against your

wooden skin, the color of another cross.
You left home on May seventeenth

with one change of clothes and two
countries ahead of you, your brother’s

phone number hidden on the back
of your belt buckle so the coyote

couldn’t find it. The coyotes pray
in the language of extortion.

The phone number was eventually
found by a Texas official whose name

your brother couldn’t remember. She called
and spoke in the language of bones. He translated

her news into “pray for us, sinners,
now and at the hour of our death.”

His prayer meant “brother,” a word
he kept moist, just beneath his tongue.


I was born in Pomona, California, just outside of Los Angeles. After studying English at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles, I taught high school in Southern California and then went on to receive an M.Div. at the University of Notre Dame. I taught in Notre Dame’s Freshmen Writing Program before moving to Washington, D.C. in 2000, where I founded the Writing Center at Carroll High School, taught at American University, and currently teach in the Department of English at Gonzaga College High School.  www.JosephRoss.net.

Crossing the Line
by Robert Neustadt

Little children cross the line.
Thousands,
legions of children,
seeking the love of a mother,
a father, a place to be.
A place where you can eat.
A place where you can stare at your feet,
or clouds that look like bunnies,
and not have to worry that
they’ll cut your throat,
or rape your sister,
or rape you and
cut your sister.
Thoughts. Thoughts of nine year olds?
Such are the thoughts of little children
riding the train, with hungry bellies,
cutting lines across thousands of miles,
riding rails on top of box cars.
Miles and miles and, yes, occasionally smiles.
Dreams of mami.feel the wind, it feels like we’re flying.
Rails of worry, wheels of Beast.
Don’t sleep, they’ll throw you off.
Don’t slip,
labestiawill suck you in and slice off your legs.

Swim the river, cross the desert,
Find the Migra, find Mamá.
We’re here, we made it,
the United States!.
Have we arrived?
New York, is near?

Cages. Children in little cages.
It’s like the zoo with children-as-animals--
sad young polar bears, locked inside refrigerated cages in a desert zoo.
No children with balloons on strings,
no squeals of laughter, no organ grinder music.
Just kids, never-smiling, inside cages.
This is no American Dream,
rather another segment of an endless nightmare.

Green-clad agents watch,
with guns on their belts, and tasers and clubs,
they guard the little brown children,
who dared
to cross
the crooked
lines
that divide
us
from
them.
Those
who
have
and those
who don’t
have the right
to eat,
to stare at their feet,
to find happy dreams in clouds,
to be.

Thousands of children crossed a line of water and sand.

Do we really want to hold that line?
Incarcerate children like dogs in the Pound?
Do we really want to cross that line
from human to inhumane,
shifting in shape from human to soulless steel-gutted beasts?



Robert Neustadt is Professor of Spanish and Director of Latin American Studies at Northern Arizona University. Over the last four years he has been taking students on field trips to the US/Mexico border. He co-produced and contributed a song to Border Songs, a double album in English and Spanish about the border and immigration (http://www.bordersongs.org). All contributors donated their work and the project donates all of the sales revenue to a humanitarian organization, "No More Deaths / No más muertes." Each album of Border Songs purchased provides 29 gallons of water for migrants in the borderlands. So far the album has raised approximately $65,000 for humanitarian aid.


Nothing Is Right Until You Say It Is
by Joe Morales

You, dreamer that cries in heartbreak
whose voice wails with the injustice of it
whose voice echoes against a wall of grief
gathering round the coffins
in the long sleepless watches of the night

traveler from ancient places,
you praise the finger pointing north
in awkward persistence
if you walk far and hard enough
will the sweet smell of freedom follow?

you of time, you of silent merit
you relinquished of childhood
fair flower how do you so calmly grow?
even as you are among us, you're about to let go
even if your disrespected you’ll forgive
even if you act responsible you'll be criticized
even as you walk away you’ll remember

you’re one acquainted with the night
coyotes and vampires glisten in your window
making their morbid and evil way
hacking through old neighborhoods
while slithering through, accumulating slime,
hopelessness littering the horizon

about suffering you were never without
for you all human nature seems at odds
you see violated ones with gentle hearts die
too eager for the predictable, too late for change

you’ve been standing in line patiently, quietly
too long to measure, while others perished
you’ve now raised your voice
for weary hearts and ears to hear

for all who’ll lend a hand
for those who will fight
who'll challenge the injustice, hypocrisy
give credence to inalienable rights
knowing humanity grows if nurtured
you lend your voice


Joe Morales is an artist, poet, writer, singer/songwriter and producer from Boyle Heights now living in South San Gabriel.  Married and has three children. Retired but continues to expand boundaries, generate interesting projects and cultivate new friendships.

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The Desmadreization of Xólotl Zapata

Review: Ernest Hogan. High Aztech. Smashwords, 2013. Link here.

Michael Sedano

While it’s trite to call a novel “unique” you’d have to go all the way back to 1962’s A Clockwork Orange to read a novel anywhere similar to Ernest Hogan’s 2013 High Aztech. There’s certainly nothing like High Aztech in Chicano Literature, nor the broader U.S. science fiction genre.

Fans of A Clockwork Orange are sure to enjoy High Aztech’s multicultural dystopia and distinctive Españahuatl dialect. There’s horrowshow ultra-violence but the sharp edges are taken off by absurdist humor and the hapless first person voice of thirty year-old Xólotl Zapata.

Hogan jumps the reader into the middle of a xixatl storm, no preamble. Xólotl is tied to a table drugged by an (at this point) unseen inquisitor. The all-seeing government may be Zapata's iniquisitor. Then again, it might be one of the other organizations vying to control Tenochtitlán: The mafia. Or the Iyakuza. Or the Neliyacme. Or the Pepenadores. Or High Aztech itself.

The economical plot effectively incorporates backgrounds and definitions as the narrative unfolds, Hogan rarely stops the action to explain something. The pepenadores, for example, are ubiquitous hazmat-suited ciphers. They recycle trash into useful materials but also phantasmagoric vehicles that give them a fighting chance against their similarly heavily-armed rivals.

Hogan understates the grand irony that los pepenadores, like service workers everywhere, grow invisible to hoity-toity tipas tipos who spill secrets around the help. They make perfect spies and a formidable insurgency. Each of Hogan's thugitome combatants has their quirks and capacities for trouble.

Zapata’s girlfriend, Cóatliquita, infects him with a virus. It gives him a compulsion to go around in crowds, like the metro, and touch people, passing along the virus. The government and the rival groups know and want to capture Xólotl.

What ails Zapata is not some Ebola-like plague that kills, but a faith virus developed in Africa, where the world's best science is, that spreads by touch. The virus genetically modifies the brain. Give a Catholic a Catholic virus they ardently reaffirm their faith. Give that virus to a Muslim and you have a troubled convert.

The virus Zapata is spreading reaffirms or converts gente to the neo-Aztec religion that already has an upper hand among the gente. Clearly, the Catholic government wants Zapata off the streets. The other organizations want Zapata, to study and make their own viruses. And kill Zapata.

Zapata as the story begins, lives a semi-famous comic book writer and "a rare literate expert on Españáhuatl." As the virus grows in him he begins thinking of himself as an Aztec warrior and seeks a flowery death every time it looks like he’s about to bite the dust. And that happens a lot in ways that bring smiles of a reader’s face.

Chaos, riots, sex (but only a hint), surprise, treachery, philosophy, surreality push the plot along. Your head will spin. Zapata is captured, escapes, is captured, escapes, is captured. He’s injected with all the religion-inducing viruses in the world. He escapes to spread the resulting virus.

Hogan’s writing is at its best in Xólotl’s hallucination when all the gods and Gods and goddesses come together during a wild virus-induced religious bacchanal. Readers will find their own favorites. High Aztech hits readers with page after page of memorable inspirations from the author’s fevered imagination.

The Españahuatl is lots of fun. As a Chicano writer, Hogan has a good feel for code-switching etiquette and uses that in building his extensive Nahuatl Spanish vocabulary. Fortunately, the author abandons appositional translation early on, allowing the code-switched idiom to stand on its own.

Not that gente will have much difficulty with easy cognates like mamatl, or radioactivotl “hot,” horny, or chilangome Tenochtitlán inhabitants, pl. chilangotl sing. Applying phonetics to other terms will make them readily accessible, like quixtianome non-Aztecan religionist, Christian, or xixatl for shit. Some words might be decipherable, but real pronunciation challenges, making reading a tongue-twisting “A” ticket ride like the key term, ticmotraspasarhuililis.

Hogan provides a useful glossary at the back, but leave it for later.

As with any successful science fiction, High Aztech provides food for thought, perhaps advocacy, on the roles critical thinking, belief, and syncretism play out in people’s contentment with one another. Above all, High Aztech is a good-humored story that pushes the boundaries both of science fiction and Chicano Literature and, until more raza start writing genre literature, High Aztech is sui generis and merits broad readership.

High Aztech comes to you as a publishing initiative by the author’s effort. Click the link for Ernest Hogan's La Bloga column on the venture. Various booksellers distribute the work in these formats: epub, mobi, pdf, rtf, lrf, pdb, txt.

My reading was of the Smashwords edition of High Aztech, https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/321713.




Mailbag, News 'n Notes
It's Happening at a Frontera Near You

Artesia NM • 9/14 - 21

Tara Evonne Trudell

Alas is a Border Beads poetry project that La Bloga friend Tara Evonne Trudell (featured in this week's On-line Floricanto) launches to bring awareness to unconscionable treatment of women and children immigrants detained in Artesia, NM.

Trudell has issued a call for poetry that deals directly with the current immigration and detention travesty.

Trudell and friends fashion prayer beads from the printed poems. They will roll the submitted during a weeklong fast in solidarity with the mothers and children, the week of September 14 through 21.

Submissions are open now. Please submit to [email protected]


Austin • 9/21

San Benito, TX • 10/4

Date: Saturday, Oct. 4th
Time: 10 am - 6 pm
Location: Narciso Martinez Cultural Center, San Benito, TX

Event Description: This is the first book festival of South Texas which is a collaboration between UT-Brownsville, Mexican American Studies at UTPA, and the Coalition of New Chican@ Artists (CONCA). This space is to reserve a table for small presses, independent bookstores, libraries, etc. The first table is free but if you wish to rent a 2nd table the fee is $50. We have limited space, so this will be handled on a first come, first serve basis.

For more information, contact Christopher Carmona at [email protected] or call at 956-854-1717.

Deadline for Submission is September 22nd by midnight.

Guerrero MX • 12/24

From La Bloga friend Reyna Grande:
This December 2014, I will be going to my hometown in Guerrero, Mexico to host a Christmas event known as a "Posada", where I will be giving free toys to all the neighborhood kids! When I lived there in poverty, the posadas were something to look forward to. I have never forgotten the poverty I came from, and how the simplest acts of kindness can change a child's life.

Please help me make this Christmas season special for the children living in my hometown. Starting today, I will be doing a sixty day fundraiser campaign for my Christmas toy giveaway. Be part of the Grande Posada by contributing to my fundraiser!

Please consider donating today or tell a friend! Thank you so much!

Click here for the IndieGoGo campaign.
https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/grande-posada-toy-drive



On-line Floricanto September 9, 2014
Tara Evonne Trudell, Sonia Gutiérrez, Jorge Tetl Argueta, Eva Chávez, Raúl Sánchez, Tom Sheldon

"This Round" by Tara Evonne Trudell
"Grandchildren of the United Fruit Company/Nietos de la United Fruit Company" by Sonia Gutiérrez
"Nuestros niños y niñas / Our Children" by Jorge Tetl Argueta
"Faces Under the Shadows / Rostros bajo las sombras" by Eva Chávez; edited by Raúl Sánchez
"Poetry Is" by Tom Sheldon


This Round
by Tara Evonne Trudell

this round
will go
to mother earth
she who
prevails
and survives
pain
she who
takes destruction
and rebuilds
finding her
way to grow
continually
defying
all odds
against her
she not trying
to hide
her beauty
pure
in nature
giver of life
battling
jealous gods
and bible words
forever
captured in
man's greed
and corruption
the pain
of persecution
inflicted
never leaving
her awareness
in layers
of the not caring
upon ground
she provides
a place
for humanity
to stand
over and over
again
all source
of inspiration
her gift
of being
unconditional
and providing
life
for all those
around her
raising fists
in the air
earth wins
this round.





Tara Evonne Trudell studied film, audio, and photography while in college at New Mexico Highlands University. She is a recent graduate with her BFA in Media Arts. As a poet and artist raising f four children, it has become her purpose to represent humanity, compassion, and action in all her work.
Incorporating poetry with visuals, she addresses the many troubling issues that are ongoing in society and hopes that her work will create an emotional impact that inspires others to act. Tara has started a life long project, Border Beads, that takes poetry off the page and transfers it into energy in action by making beads out of the poems. She uses her own poetry as well as other poets to address the crisis on the border.




Grandchildren of the United Fruit Company
by Sonia Gutiérrez

for Claudia González

Knock, knock, knock.
America, there are children
knocking at your door.
Can you hear their soft
knocks like conch
shells, whispering
in your ears?

Weep, weep, weep.
Can you hear
the children whimpering?
Their moist eyes
yearning to see friendly TV-gringo-houses
swing their front doors
wide open.

America, America, America!
The children are here;
they have arrived
to your Promise Land,
sprinkled with pixie dust,
paved with happiness
and freedom.

America, why do these children
overflow your limbo rooms?
Why are the children corralled
in chain-link fences,
sleeping on floors
and benches?

America, did you forget
your ties dressed in camouflage
and suits in that place
called The Banana Republic?

What say you, America?
Please speak. And speak
loud and clear—
so the brown pilgrim
children never forget
the doings
of your forked tongue
and their color schemed
prison's-eye-view.

Nietos de la United Fruit Company
por Sonia Gutiérrez

para Claudia González

Tan, tan, tan.
América, hay niños
tocando tu puerta.
¿Puedes escuchar los golpes
suaves como conchas,
susurrando tus oídos?

Llorar, llorar, llorar.
¿Puedes escuchar
a los niños quejarse?
Sus ojos humedecidos
anhelando ver las puertas amistosas
de Tele-casas-gringas que se abran
de par en par.

América, América, América!
Los niños llegaron;
han llegado a tu Tierra Prometida,
espolvoreada con polvo de hada,
pavimentada con felicidad
y libertad.

América, ¿por qué estos niños
desbordan tus cuartos limbo?
¿Por qué hay niños acorralados
en bardas de alambre,
durmiendo en pisos
y bancas?

América, ¿acaso olvidaste
tus lazos vestidos de camuflaje
y trajes en ese lugar
llamado La República Platanera?

¿Qué dices tú, América?
Por favor habla. Y habla
fuerte y claro—
para que los niños peregrinos
morenos nunca olviden
las acciones de tu lengua viperina
y las esquemas de colores
de sus vistas prisioneras.


Sonia Gutiérrez is a poet professor, who promotes social justice and human dignity.
She teaches English Composition and Critical Thinking and Writing at Palomar College. La Bloga is home to her Poets Responding SB 1070 poems, including “Best Poems 2011” and “Best Poems 2012.” Sonia recently joined the moderators of Poets Responding to SB 1070.

Her vignettes have appeared in AlternaCtive PublicaCtions, Mujeres de Maíz, City Works Literary Journal, Hinchas de Poesía, Café Enchilado, Storyacious and forthcoming in Huizache. Her bilingual poetry collection, Spider Woman/La Mujer Araña is her debut publication. To listen to “Grandchildren of the United Fruit Company,” visit Poets Cafe on KPFK 90.7 FM Los Angeles’s PodOmatic.




Nuestros niños / Our Children
por Jorge Argueta

Nuestros niños

Juegan con trocitos de madera
llevan mariposas en las manos
se levantan con los pájaros

Nuestras niñas cantan
a la ronda
le hablan a las nubes
un día se van siguiendo sus sueños

Nuestros niños y niñas
vuelan
nadan
no le temen a la bestia

Nuestros niños y niñas
son guerreros
son gorriones
tienen vocales y coraje en sus corazones

Nuestros niños y niñas
no son extraterrestres o ilegales
son como los niños y niñas
de todo el mundo

Hermosos como el agua
como el viento
como el fuego
como el amanecer


Our Children
by Jorge Argueta

Play with small pieces of wood
They carry butterflies in their hands
They rise with the birds

Our children sing
Round and round
They speak to the clouds
One day the go follow their dreams

Our children
Fly
Swim
They do not fear “The Beast”*

Our children
Are warriors
Are hummingbirds
They have voice and courage in their hearts

Our children
Are not aliens or illegal
They are like all children
Of the world

Beautiful
Like the water
Like the wind
Like the fire
Like the sunrise

*The Beast: the train that travels through Mexico to the border.




Jorge Argueta is an award-winning author of picture books and poetry for young children.He has won the International Latino Book Award, The lion and the Unicorn Award, The Américas Book Award, the NAPPA Gold Award and the Independent Publisher Book Award for Multicultural Fiction for Juveniles. His books have also been named to the Américas Award Commended List, the USBBY Outstanding International Books Honor List, Kirkus Reviews Best Children’s Books and the Cooperative Children’s Book Center Choices. His new book, Salsa, A Cooking Poem is due for publication in Spring 2015. He also is the founder of two popular poetry festivals, Manyula Children's Poetry Festival and Flor y Canto Para Nuestros Niños y Niñas. A native Salvadoran and Pipil Nahua Indian, Jorge spent much of his life in rural El Salvador. He now lives in San Francisco.





FACES UNDER THE SHADOWS
by Eva Chávez, edited by Raúl Sánchez

We are the bronze skinned people
whose shoulders bear the burden
heavy bags sweet harvest grown
on fertile land

we climb up and down
ten or twelve foot ladders
eight, nine or more than ten hours
our feet know the weight

cold dawn our dry skin cracked
raising sun travels west
to burn our skins
at dusk we count our full bins

our backs bent all day
we work under our own shadow
picking asparagus onions
everyday we take that soil on our skin

orchards full a table full
bounty of the earth
your family and mine partake
the sweat, and sweetness of our labor

we are not afraid of hard work
others avoid
they prefer to criticize us
we take care of the land

we tend this American soil
where we live and grow
under the shadows proud and brown
as the soil, the land watching us grow

ROSTROS BAJO LAS SOMBRAS
por Eva Chávez, editado por Raúl Sánchez

Somos gente de bronce
cuyos hombros soportan la carga
bolsas pesadas, llenas de fruta dulce
cosechada en tierra fértil

subimos y bajamos escaleras
escaleras de diez o doce escalones
ocho, nueve o más de diez horas por día
nuestros pies y hombros conocen la carga

el amanecer frío seca nuestra piel ya agrietada
el sol créce en su camino hacia el Oeste
para quemar nuestra piel
al atardecer contamos cuantas cajas cosechamos

durante el día, nuestras espaldas permanecen dobladas
trabajamos bajo nuestra propia sombra
piscando cebollas, esparragos
todos los días la tierra se queda en nuestra piel

huertos llenos una mesa llena
generosidad de la tierra
para tu familia y la mía
disfrutando el sudor y la dulzura de nuestra labor

no tenemos miedo al trabajo duro
lo cual otros evitan
y prefieren criticarnos
nosotros cuidamos de nuestra madre tierra

cuidamos esta tierra americana
donde vivimos y crecemos
con mucho orgullo bajo nuestras sombras de bronce
tal como la tierra que me ve crecer




Eva Chavez. I arrived to the USA in 2005, at the age of 18. I worked for five consecutive years picking fruit in Washington State. This was my first job in the United States after emigrating from Mexico. On average, I worked eight to ten hours per day, six to seven days a week. All that hard work in the fields taught me all the value that immigrants bring to this country. This hard work also taught me the importance of education.

My educational journey started about four years ago at Yakima Valley Community College (YVCC). In those four years I progressed from the ESL program, to Adult Basic Education (ABE), to completing my GED, to enrolling in the DTA in Business Administration in YVCC and CWU. My experiences working in agriculture are motivating me to reach my educational goals, but also they inspired me to show to others the importance of the immigrant workers in the USA.

Therefore, one of the fuels that moves my art expression comes from the sweat that immigrants workers leave on this American soil. This is also part of the fuel and motivation that keep me involved in the activism for immigration.

Raúl Sánchez comes from a place south where the sun shines fiercely. He is a translator currently working on the Spanish version of his inaugural collection "All Our Brown-Skinned Angels" that was nominated for the 2013 Washington State Book Award in Poetry. He is also working on a Long Poem Memoir a project for the 2014 Jack Straw Writers. He is a mentor for the 2014 Poetry on Buses program sponsored by Metro King County and 4 Culture. http://beyondaztlan.com and http://moonpathpress.com



Poetry is
by Tom Sheldon

Poetry is a cold wind on an
empty street.
Its a symphony of broken glass
with letters falling.
Poetry is open doors,and open hearts.
Its the smell of blood on
home ground.
Poetry is the song of a thousand birds
in color.
It is the first born,the first kiss
and the first tree.
Poetry is the smell of fresh paint
on a sagging wall.
Poetry is tears ,and ink
blended.
A communion of thought form,
and mystery.
Poetry is a law that reaches deep
inside.
It is the light in the dark
a breathing prayer.
Poetry is winter dust sparked
by a spring rain.
Poetry is.




My name is Tom Sheldon and I was born and raised in New Mexico and come from a large Hispanic family. I have always loved and appreciated the gift of creating in various forms. Southwestern themes and landscapes are among my favorites and the wonder and beauty of the the history her and my surroundings here continually inspires my artwork. Thank you greatly for considering my words. Mil gracias.

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Elizabeth Nunez. Not For Everyday Use. NY: Akashic Books, 2014. ISBN: 9781617752339 e-IBSN: 9781617752780

Michael Sedano

You won’t necessarily take a phone call one day, maybe you’ll be there. You won’t necessarily be 64 like that song, but you’ll be old when you get the news your mother is dead. Not For Everyday Use is Elizabeth Nunez’ memoir of the hours and days following her mother’s passing.

In the course of a few days, the family reunion, funeral and church rituals, sibling expectations, and the author’s own disconnectedness spark reflections upon memories that guide the daughter’s comprehension of the immensity of this change in her family.

While the theme of the matriarch’s death is universal, readers will appreciate the writer’s post-colonial, immigrant, and person-of-color themes that play strongly throughout the memoir. Nunez devotes elaborated discussion to class v. color arguments, fidelity, decolonized mindsets, the isolation and hardship of an immigrant single mother on her own, why her mother pushed her away.

Written with a novelist’s pen, the story flows from incidents and anecdotes juxtaposed in time. In one section, the reader learns that Nunez and Betty Shabazz work in the same academic department. Any sense of solidarity between the Trinidadian and the US Muslim quickly dissipates in another account, Nunez being told off by a U.S.-born black woman that the Trinidadian black woman should know her place. They were competing for a student leadership position. Another tale, in dialect, reflects an attitude that infects and strengthens the Nunez clan, what don bile, don spile. It's the attitude the old man displays looking upon the corpse of his wife of 65 years. He nods and says before walking away, "Well, that's that."

Mourning often gives way to old resentments and unfinished business. Nunez has some of this, perhaps, in her descriptions of her sisters and brothers. Her sister Karen really gets under her skin. Her father’s cheating and her mother’s pain at it are recurring jabs at the 90 year old demented man. The father’s Carnival dance at the funeral parlor comes as total surprise and author's restrained humor. You’re not supposed to laugh, are you?

Not For Everyday Use is the autobiography of Nunez’ novels Anna In-between and Boundaries. For practitioners of the craft of memoir writing, the author shares a writer’s insight on using one’s life and family to populate her fiction, and how a moment's recognition winds and unravels skeins of time recorded in the words.

Readers of those two excellent novels will appreciate the connections between the writer’s world and that of the novels. Prior reading won’t be required with Nunez calling attention to key parallels and differences between the novels and the author's life. The writer treads a storyteller's line that leads her familia to accuse the author of getting too honest about private matters. The writer’s defense, “I’m a writer.”

Reading Elizabeth Nunez’ two-novel life of Anna Sinclair, Anna In-Between and Boundaries, introduces readers to a flinty mother, a daughter wanting more affection, a divorced single mother immigrant black woman employed in New York publishing industry. That’s almost Nunez’ profile. She’s an English professor.

In the novels, Anna and Beatrice suffer one another’s needs but maintain an icy distance. Nunez' friends say she's too hard on the fictional mother. That’s also the mother-daughter relationship the author weaves together in Not For Everyday Use. It’s not a spoiler to say--look for it--Elizabeth and Una have a warm reconciliation when both manage to say, without choking on the emotion, “I love you.”

Readers and writers of US ethnic literatures will find Nunez’ voicing of immigrant sentiments familiar, eloquent, and distinctive. Coming from a newly de-colonized gente--she's first generation--the author’s voice and insight into exigencies in-common will prove vitalizing to readers and writers.

You can order Not For Everday Use through your local independent bookseller, or directly from the publisher, Akashic Books’ website here.



Seven by Five: On-line Floricanto for September 2
Gabriel Rosenstock, Francisco X. Alarcón, Jackie Lopez, Frank de Jesus Acosta, Mario Angel Escobar

The Moderators of the Facebook group Poets Responding to SB1070 Poetry of Resistance recommend five poets from two continents writing in three languages for today's La Bloga On-line Floricanto.


"An End to Borders" by Gabriel Rosenstock with his original poem in Gaelic, "Deireadh Le Teorainneacha"
"Frontera / Border" by Francisco X. Alarcón
"Slithering Our Way to Heaven" by Jackie Lopez
"Why I Write?" by Frank de Jesus Acosta
"Brown Chronicles" by Mario Angel Escobar



AN END TO BORDERS
by Gabriel Rosenstock

An end to borders
An end to flags
An end to barbed wire
An end to towering walls
An end to nations
End the base tinkle of currencies
End wars
Let the planet breathe freely
Without borders
Without flags
Without barbed wire
Without towering walls
Without nations
Without the base tinkle of currencies
Without wars
An end forever to borders

DEIREADH LE TEORAINNEACHA
by Gabriel Rosenstock

Deireadh le teorainneacha
Deireadh le bratacha
Deireadh le sreang dheilgneach
Deireadh le fallaí arda
Deireadh le náisiúin
Cuir deireadh le cling shuarach na n-airgeadraí
Deireadh le cogaí
Lig don phláinéad análú gan bhac
Gan teorainneacha
Gan bhratacha
Gan sreang dheilgneach
Gan fallaí arda
Gan náisiúin
Gan cling shuarach na n-airgeadraí
Gan chogaí
Deireadh go deo le teorainneacha



Gabriel Rosenstock. Poet, novelist, playwright, haikuist, essayist, author/translator of over 170 books, mostly in Irish (Gaelic). Taught haiku at the Schule für Dichtung (Poetry Academy), Vienna, and Hyderabad Literary Festival, India. Prolific translator of poems, plays, songs, he also writes for children, in prose and verse. Represented in Best European Fiction 2012 (Dalkey Archive Press) and Haiku in English: The First Hundred Years (W. W. Norton & Co. 2013). Books Ireland, Summer 2012, says of his detective novel My Head is Missing: ‘This is a departure for Rosenstock but he is surefooted as he takes on the comic genre and writes a story full of engaging characters and a plot that keeps the reader turning the page.’
New and selected poems I OPEN MY POEM …(translated from the Irish) published in 2014 by PoetryWala, Mumbai, India and The Partisan and other stories published by Evertype, 2014.
Rosenstock’s Blog address:
roghaghabriel.blogspot.ie




Frontera/ Border
by Francisco X. Alarcón





Francisco X. Alarcón, award winning Chicano poet and educator, born in Los Angeles, in 1954, is the author of twelve volumes of poetry, including, From the Other Side of Night: Selected and New Poems (University of Arizona Press 2002), and Snake Poems: An Aztec Invocation (Chronicle Books 1992), Sonetos a la locura y otras penas / Sonnets to Madness and Other Misfortunes (Creative Arts Book Company 2001), De amor oscuro / Of Dark Love (Moving Parts Press 1991, and 2001).
His latest books are Ce•Uno•One: Poems for the New Sun / Poemas para el Nuevo Sol (Swan Scythe Press 2010), and for children, Animal Poems of the Iguazú/Animalario del Iguazú (Children’s Book Press 2008) which was selected as a Notable Book for a Global Society by the International Reading Association, and as an Américas Awards Commended Title by the Consortium of Latin American Studies Programs. His previous bilingual book titled Poems to Dream Together/Poemas para sonar juntos (Lee & Low Books 2005) was awarded the 2006 Jane Addams Honor Book Award.
He teaches at the University of California, Davis, where he directs the Spanish for Native Speakers Program. The issue of eco-poetics and xenophobia are a the core of three upcoming collections of poems, “Poetry of Resistance: A Multicultural Anthology in Response to SB 1070,” “Borderless Butterflies: Earth Haikus and Other Poems / Mariposas sin fronteras: Haikus terrenales y otros poemas.” He is the creator of the Facebook page POETS RESPONDING TO SB 1070 where more than 3,000 poems by poets all over the world have been posted. This is the link to the Facebook page:
https://www.facebook.com/PoetryOfResistance




Slithering Our Way to Heaven
by Jackie Lopez

I see love, peace, and joy slithering like a snake in the grass up to our spines.
It enables us to see Heaven on Earth when there is plenty of Orisha-orientations.
We sink into Mother Earth for her comfort and strength in our enterprise for survival.
And, we will survive.
Every border,
every genocide,
every racist, sexist, classist sentiment is thrown out the window for our survival.
Every history book will speak the truth of our organization.
Every Thursday we shall have dinner with wonderful disorganization.
Now and then, we cross the border of discontent and organize an evolution.
We march in the streets.
We picket on the line.
And, we shall nail our edict on the cross.
There is hope in a word.
There is hope in a dance.
There is hope in a march and we go marching on.
We claim the universe complete.
We are anointed and know that the only way to survive is if we take a trip to the truth.
I am not agnostic and esoteric at the same time.
I am survival of the kindest.
I am survival of true love.
We sink or swim in misbehavior.
For our solution is found in the consultation of our souls.
And, where does it all start?
And, where did I come from?
It all started with a misbehavior one evening when I was anointing the masses.
We are organizing an evolution for the promotion of restitution.
We are aghast with philosophy, and we shall anoint whomever washes a dish.
And, the saints are marching in.
We wear mini-skirts and shorts.
We wear an Alaskan mask and we shoot the breeze with the namesayers.
We are closet scientists and we mistake enamorations for flirtations.
So, now I say, Let us rejoice for the world has opened up with dire pollution in order for us to be united as emancipators.
We shall cross the border.
We shall reach the sea.
We have been accosted at every turn with oppression.
And, it is getting thick like molasses.
So, I cling to hope and enamorations.
I cling so that I might see the universe for what it really is and what it does to us.
We are disjointed at the ends, and we are getting the Heaven out of Hell.
So, speak your truth.
I am listening.
Sing, for boyfriends offer patrimony to the lovely creationism that you bring.
And, I dive into the lies and remember that the only thing that can get through my pores is the truth.
We are shamans.
We promote the non-toxicity of the world.
We are crazy with love and emotional control.
We sing in the spirit of a saint.
And we embark on traffic control.
There is not such a thing as hope without despair.
It is now our golden opportunity to live on Earth and say, “We are hope.”
So, little is said about the misogynistic era of enlightenment.
However, I am one to say it.
This is the millennium of Heaven.
There is an ocean of forgiveness somewhere out there.
There is emancipatory proclamations out there as well.
And, we are ones to ride that wave.



Jackie Lopez is a poet and writer from San Diego. She was founding member of the Taco Shop Poets and has always pursued a study of history of which has influenced her writing. She has taught in San Diego City Schools and has been published in several literary journals. She has just finished her Magnum Opus titled “Telepathic Goodbye” described as a uniform poem of 25, 333 words. She is now looking for a publisher for this. You can catch her work on facebook under “Jackie Lopez Lopez” where she shares her work with a daily poem. She has a radio interview that will come out later this year. Her email: [email protected]







Why I write?
by Frank de Jesus Acosta

I write to:

Give scope to my growing understanding of truth;
Impart my dreams and visions;
Honor the sacrifice of the ancestors;
Remember the stories, traditions, and history of my people;
Reflect the duality of pain;
Express gratitude for the miracle of creation;
Acknowledge the integrity of all cultures;
Celebrate the expression of my own;
Lament the anathema of hate, greed, egoism, and tyranny;
Witness to justice, compassion, respect, and non-violence;
Incite aspiration to human possibility;
Voice the inspiration of love;
Commune with the presence of God in others;
Leave footprints of my dance to the song of life...



Frank de Jesus Acosta is principal of Acosta & Associates, a California-based consulting group that specializes in professional support services to public and private social change ventures in the areas of children, youth and family services, violence prevention, community development, and cultural fluency. In 2007, he authored, The History of Barrios Unidos, Cultura Es Cura, Healing Community Violence, published by Arte Publico Press, University of Houston. Acosta is a graduate of University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). His professional experience includes serving in executive leadership positions with The California Wellness Foundation, the Coalition for Humane Immigration Rights of Los Angeles (CHIRLA), Downtown Immigrant Advocates (DIA), the Center for Community Change, and the UCLA Community Programs Office. He is presently focused on completing the writing and publishing a two book series for Arte Publico Press focused on best practices to improve the well-being of Latino young men and boys. Acosta most recently co-authored a published “Brown Paper” with Jerry Tello of the National Latino Fatherhood and Family Institute (NLFFI) entitled, “Lifting Latinos Up by Their Rootstraps: Moving Beyond Trauma Through a Healing-Informed Framework for Latino Boys and Men.” Acosta provides writing and strategic professional support in research, planning, and development to foundations and community-focused institutions on select initiatives focused on advancing social justice, equity, and pluralism. He is also finalizing writing and editing a book of inter-cultural poetry and spiritual reflections.





BROWN CHRONICLES
by Mario Angel Escobar

If you ever want to walk
the corners of your streets,
Be ready to put your hands up
because the pigmentation of your skin,
Has already made you guilty.
Be ready to hold your last breath
because eyes with a sense of supremacy
will stalked you
following your foots steps.
Don’t hold anything in your hands
Open them like roses in the spring
accelerating their process
because if you don’t
the law will drop a white blanket
on a puddle of blood
covering a history
that has been deny
over and over again
but why cry
if the tears will continue to blossom
everyday
flooding with sadness
our sunsets.
Wherever you go
Sirens
Will stalked you
suffocated your path
with the scent of your
dead ones
If you ever want to walk
the corners of your streets,
Be ready to put your hands up
because a single phrase
I am not guilty!
I am not guilty!
I am not guilty!
Will not do
and in the vortex
of the hourglass sand
you will find
that the dream
still a dream
in the corners
of your street.



Mario A. Escobar (January 19, 1978-) is a US-Salvadoran writer and poet born in 1978. Although he considers himself first and foremost a poet, he is known as the founder and editor of Izote Press. Escobar has stated that his exposure to “poetic sounds” began during his childhood and that his foundation in poetry stemmed from what he witness during the Salvadoran Civil War. Escobar began his writing career by the age of 13 as a poet. He cites Roque Dalton, Tato Laviera and Jaime Sabines as some of his early poetic influences. Escobar’s work has been feature in UCLA’s publication Underground Undergrads which recognizes the poet as an activist for the undocumented Student Movement. In 2004, Escobar was placed under arrest and was scheduled to be deported. In 2006, Escobar won his case for political asylum making him one of the last Salvadorans to win a political case fourteen years after the Salvadoran Peace Accords were signed in 1992. Escobar is a faculty member in the Department of Foreign Languages at LA Mission College. Some of Escobar’s works include Al correr de la horas (Editorial Patria Perdida, 1999) Gritos Interiores (Cuzcatlan Press, 2005), La Nueva Tendencia (Cuzcatlan Press, 2005), Paciente 1980 (Orbis Press, 2012). His bilingual poetry appears in Theatre Under My Skin: Contemporary Salvadoran Poetry by Kalina Press.

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Reading in the lovely, architraved               room of the Villa Galliata.

Looking to the Future…for All of Us

Photo by Jesus Treviño

Thelma T. Reyna, Ph.D., is the author of four books, including Rising, Falling, All of Us—issued in summer 2014. Reyna’s short fiction, poetry, and nonfiction have appeared in anthologies, literary journals, textbooks, blogs, and regional print media off and on for over 30 years. Visit www.ThelmaReyna.com


Ten On the Fifth of the Eighth: August On-line Floricanto
La LLorona/ Cihuacoatl
By Josefa Molina

Let me drop the withered bodies of my young
at your doorstep, children eaten
by the Beast or left to die in deserts
next to bone dry water tanks shot full
of holes by local cowboys with
delusions they were sheriff.

Let me drop my dying children at your feet,
praying for refuge from the coyotes that follow,
that you've fed, that salivate
over the fear-filled scent of frightened children.
Coyotes call, promising home, then slit
small, smooth, brown throats and devour their prey.

Let me drop my ghost children at your border,
hoping for compassion in a land where full~ bellied,
ranting "Patriots" want to send them back
to the slaughter they've risked life and limb to escape.
"Patriots" cursing and spitting out jagged shards
of hate that dismember with a familiar terror.

I howl with anguished cries as I mourn
my sons and daughters. If only I could feed them
with my withered breast and let them drink salty tears,
I might save them. Instead, I'm left to wail
each dread full night, as I gather up the remnants
of their souls and softly call them each by precious name.


Copyright: 2014
Josefa Molina, PhD
All rights reserved.


By Gerardo Pacheco Matus

we are the children of la frontera
left to live, to rot and to dream en el desierto

day and night, we follow the old coyote’s shadow
through this dry world of cacti and rattlesnakes

en el desierto, the dead speak to us
disguised with our father and mother’s voices---

we listen to their feeble hearts
beat as soon as they tell us
the old coyote left them to die
alone and thirsty en el desierto

some dead children smile too glad to see us
others cry and shriek like crows
too fearful to see the old coyote
guide us through this wasteland

day and night, we follow the old coyote
through this labyrinth of bones and shadows
hoping we will live
free en el gabacho

we wear La Virgen de Guadalupe’s medal
for protection
so mother Death knows
we are the children of la frontera

day and night, we wait en el desierto
chewing and gnawing at dry cactus roots
until la migra breaks our spell…

day and night, we wait for la chansa
de cruzar la linea, no matter what…

as we are the children of la frontera;


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