by Elizabeth Monreal

Your blood was the deepest red my town had ever seen  
But your face remained that of an angel’s,  
White and soft, untouched by death. 
The sun kissed your cheek,  
Not wasting a beam of its light on anything else. 
You remained golden, you remained bright  
Even as we died slowly in darkness. 
 
Your laughter haunts this town.  
They say it was like honey, like morning dew. 
And now all of this has become you: 
The whisper of rain, the dim glow of fireflies, the fragrance of flowers 
Adorning the gentle earth that your shadow once touched.  
​
Your goodness haunts this town.  
Your body makes this earth fruitful, 
But your grave makes all your mourners blind to its beauty. 
The absence of your soft soul  
Warming their desolate streets  
Made a wasteland out of a paradise. 
This you would not recognize as your town.  
 
Your legend echoes from here to Guadalajara  
And no city escapes you.  
They named their sons after you, Gabi. 
Their tears fill up their wells. 
You keep them nourished even in their melancholy.  
Here, a foreigner might hear your name  
Taken by the wind and think you are a god 
“Is he a martyr? Is he a saint?  
Who is this Gabriel you all worship so?” 
You are the last good thing  
Anyone will ever know of this town. 
 
Gabi, if this must be your death, 
Let it be your last.  
Because in all the years after, they still tell your story here 
And you still die at the end of each retelling.  
But when the melody of your footsteps  
Walks your mother back home at night,  
We know the sun will rise once again on this town.  

​Gabriel “Gabi” Contreras Ruiz died in a car accident when he was fifteen years old. He was on a class field trip, riding in the trunk of a classmate’s truck with several other classmates. On the way to Teocuitatlán, the truck hit a rock, causing it to flip upside down. All of the children were hurt, but only Gabi passed away. The people of Cítala continue to remember him as a force of goodness in their town.

Conocí a Iván en los años ochenta del siglo pasado. Neeli Cherkovski me sugirió contactarme con Iván, poeta mayor y bibliotecario políglota de UC Berkeley. Me dio un ambiguo retrato: afirmó que llevaría una chamarra de mezclilla azul y el pelo alborotado sobre la frente, con un copete cayendo lacio sobre los anteojos. Esa imagen no ha cambiado en casi medio siglo.
 
No lo he olvidado. En el caudaloso río de estudiantes que cruzaban Sproul Plaza, la explanada central del campus, vi a una persona que caminaba lentamente, libro en mano, leyendo. Lo que más me impresionó fue que pudiera caminar y leer a la vez, sin alterar el tráfico estudiantil. Un ojo al gato y otro al garabato. Era Iván Argüelles.
 
Hoy en día, los jóvenes manejan y textean, atienden a una clase y mandan correos electrónicos y selfies al mismo tiempo. Se jactan de ser la generación de los delfines, que pueden mantener cinco conversaciones simultáneas y estar atentos a todas, inmaculados. En aquella época, éramos distintos. Nuestros padres nos educaron al ritmo de adagios como: “El que come y canta, loco se levanta.” “Concéntrate.” “Una cosa a la vez. Lo demás es caos.” Tal vez Iván Argüelles se adelantó a su tiempo o, más bien, siempre ha sido atemporal. Maneja con destreza sorprendente muchas lenguas: griego, latín, sánscrito, hindi y bengali, inglés, español, francés, portugués, italiano, alemán, catalán, rumano, etc. Y piensa en todas ellas, sin mengua. Alguna vez le pregunté cómo podía sostener su conocimiento de tantos idiomas. Me comentó sin inmutarse que alternaba los días y leía un poema o fragmentos en las lenguas que conoce. Es una costumbre que guarda desde que lo conozco.
 
Jack Foley escribió en 2010: “Iván Argüelles es uno de los más finos poetas de este siglo; sin embargo, sólo lo conocen unos cuantos de sus apasionados partidarios. Su obra es ‘difícil’ pero no más difícil que la de otros poetas más conocidos, y su poesía es mejor que la de ellos.” Su estética se ancla en la imagen vertiginosa, anacrónica, multidireccional y explosiva. John M. Bennett afirma que debemos leer la obra de Argüelles “con una manera nueva de pensar / with a new mind-set.” Y añade este fino consejo: “Uno debe dejarse llevar, “ahogarse” en el océano de esta sorprendente y proteica obra, y ser receptivo a todas las ambigüedades y contradicciones que contiene.” En muchas instancias, Argüelles se vale de monólogos dramáticos--siempre con una especie de máscara—y “una suerte de conciencia surrealista desnuda” que (afirma con acierto Jack Foley) deliberadamente busca, como Yeats, “the face I had / Before the world was done.”

​El método de Argüelles es inmediato y visceral. Hay que captarlo antes de entenderlo e incluso “no entenderlo.” Su poesía es panóptica y diacrónica: es decir, puede referirse, sin cortes transversales, al Gilgamesh y a olvidadas diosas fenicias, o recordar a su hermano gemelo subiendo las gradas de la pirámide de Teotihuacan, monologar con Caballo Loco, retratar a Dante, invocar los ojos de Elizabeth Taylor, silbar una tonada de Elvis Presley o un concierto de Mozart, monologar con Astolfo en la luna, o meditar sobre la nave de David Bowie que acaba de dejar el planeta y estalla en medio del polvo sideral. Sus imágenes son desaforadamente despegadas del significante y las palabras resuenan en múltiples lenguas, lanzadas sin sentido hacia inesperadas direcciones, como en una erupción gramatical de lava incontenible que, a sus 83 años, todavía arde y no se detiene.

Afirmé que su poesía es panóptica y diacrónica. Lo reitero. En aquel primer almuerzo del siglo pasado, en Larry Blakes, uno de los templos del blues desaparecidos, Iván Argüelles me regaló varios de sus poemarios; entre ellos Instamatic Reconditioning – Recondicionamiento instamático (1978), un título que todavía hoy no alcanzo a comprehender de manera cabal. Ahí encontré un poema admirable que ejemplifica los adjetivos que menciono. Se trata de “Antes de que llegara el Buda.” En esa visión panóptica hay algo misterioso que mueve fibras sensoriales arcaicas. Hoy se habla de memoria ancestral o información genética. El lector tiene la sensación de que Iván Argüelles estaba allí, en la más recóndita prehistoria, entre las primeras manadas de seres humanos, colgado de una rama, en espera del Avatar que otorgó conciencia al mundo. Tal es la plenitud y convicción de sus palabras. Con ese poema abrimos esta antología.​

A memento of the translator and the poet meeting in San Francisco in front of City Lights Books: Neeli Cherkovski, Iván Argüelles, Steven Schwartz and Arturo Dávila, ca 1986

I met Iván in the 80s of the last century. Neeli Cherkovski suggested that I contact Iván, a major poet and polyglot librarian at UC Berkeley. Neeli gave me an ambiguous description: he stated that Iván would be wearing a blue-jean jacket, his hair tousled on his forehead with a pompadour falling straight over his glasses. That image has not changed in almost half a century.

I have not forgotten it. In the mighty river of students that crossed the central Sproul Plaza of the UC Berkeley campus, I saw a person who was walking slowly, book in hand, reading. What impressed me most was that he could walk and read at the same time without disrupting student traffic. Un ojo al gato y otro al garabato. It was Iván Argüelles.

Today, young people drive and text, attend class and send e-mails, snapchats, and selfies at the same time. They take pride in being “the generation of the dolphins,” who can hold five simultaneous conversations and be attentive to all of them imperturbably. In our time, we were different. Our parents raised us to the rhythm of adagios like: “He who eats and sings his brain spins.” “Excess is no success.” “One thing at a time. The rest is chaos.” Perhaps Iván Argüelles was ahead of his time or, rather, he has always been timeless. He handles many languages ​​with surprising skill: Greek, Latin, Sanskrit, Hindi and Bengali, English, Spanish, French, Portuguese, Italian, German, Catalan, Romanian, etc. And he uses of all of them interchangeably. I once asked him how he could sustain his knowledge of so many languages. He told me without flinching that he read a poem or fragments in each of the languages he knew every day, as much as possible. It is a habit he has kept since I have known him.

​Jack Foley wrote in 2010: “Iván Argüelles is one of this century’s finest poets, yet he remains known to only a few passionate partisans. His work is ‘difficult,’ but it is no more difficult than the work of many better-known poets--and his work is better than theirs.” His aesthetic is anchored in vertiginous, anachronistic, multidirectional, expansive, and explosive images. John M. Bennett states that we must read Argüelles’s work with “a new mind-set.” He adds this fine piece of advice: “one has to allow oneself to be ‘drowned’ in the ocean of this stunning and protean work and be receptive to all the ambiguities and contradictions it contains.” In many instances, Argüelles makes use of masked dramatic monologues and a naked surrealist unconscious that, according to Jack Foley, deliberately reveals, like Yeats, “the face I had / Before the world was made.”

​Iván Argüelles’ method is immediate and visceral. You must grasp it before you understand it and even “not understand it.” His poetry is panoptic and diachronic: id est, he can refer, without cross sections, to Gilgamesh and forgotten Phoenician goddesses, or remember his twin brother climbing the steps of the Teotihuacan pyramid, engage in a monologue with Crazy Horse, portray Dante, invoke Elizabeth Taylor’s eyes, whistle a tune by Elvis Presley or a Mozart concerto, ride with Astolfo to the moon, or meditate on David Bowie’s ship that has just left the planet and is about to explode in the middle of the cosmic dust. His images are wildly detached from the signifier and the words resonate in multiple languages. They are thrown aimlessly in unexpected directions, as in a grammatical eruption of irrepressible lava that, at age 84, still burns incessantly.
​
I had previously stated that his poetry is panoptic and diachronic. I repeat this affirmation. At that first lunch with him at Larry Blake’s in the 80s, one of the longtime temples to the blues in the Bay Area, Iván Argüelles gave me several collections of his poetry, among them Instamatic Reconditioning (1978), a title that I still cannot fully understand today. I found an admirable poem that exemplifies the adjectives I mention in this collection. It is titled, “Before the Buddha came.” In the poem’s panoptic vision, there is something enigmatic that moves our ancient senses. Today we talk about ancestral memory or genetic information. The reader has the feeling that Iván Argüelles was there, in the deepest prehistory, among the first troops of human beings, hanging from a branch, waiting for the Enlightened One. Such is the fullness and conviction of his words. We open this anthology with that poem.

Arturo Dávila S.
Laney College
Oakland, California
February 2023

1.- Before the Buddha came
 
there were many of them
sleeping on the trees
or awake just watching from a
silvery distance the glistening backs
of animals
as if preparing the idea of the hunt
faces composed of aspirin and fur
teeth like combs riveted into
the shoulders of their mates
drawing a slow dream-like fluid
with which to tread the new moon
 
they have forgotten the dusky witness 
of the stars
now dwindling like orbs of dust
in the back mind of the sky
they have come down to the ground
to spend years inside the hides
of what they have killed
soon they will be persons
inventing units of thought or
describing parallel selves with which
to explain the strange inconvenience
of dying
 
1.- Antes de que llegara el Buda
 
había muchos de ellos
durmiendo en los árboles
o despiertos tan sólo mirando desde una
distancia plateada las espaldas relucientes
de animales
como si prepararan la idea de la caza
caras compuestas de aspirina y piel
dientes como peines clavados en
los hombros de sus compañeras
dibujando un fluido lento como un sueño
con el que pisar la luna nueva
 
han olvidado al testigo oscuro
de las estrellas
menguando ahora como orbes de polvo
en la mente oculta del cielo
han bajado al suelo
para pasar años dentro de los cueros
de lo que han matado
pronto serán personas
inventando unidades de pensamiento o
describiendo seres paralelos con los cuales
puedan explicar el extraño inconveniente
de morir

19.- Buffalo
 
under our feet
the grass has stopped rolling
a single cigarette undoes the leaves
metal appears for no reason at all
where we need to sleep
the horizon disappears in a zipper
our hooves sink in miles of paper
a thin flame piercing us
flank to flank
catalogs the function of our skin
 
in a still pool
somewhere to the far west of here
a god with a sky blue jaw
with creosote heels
with celluloid eyes
with a magnificent tin lapel
and a railroad ticket that works like a clock
is eating the last of us
   
19.- Búfalo
 
bajo nuestros pies
la hierba ha dejado de rodar
un solo cigarrillo deshace las hojas
el metal aparece sin razón alguna
donde necesitamos dormir
el horizonte desaparece en un ziper
nuestros cascos se hunden en millas de papel
una fina flama que nos atraviesa
flanco a flanco
cataloga la función de nuestra piel
 
en un estanque tranquilo
en algún lugar al lejano oeste de aquí
un dios con mandíbulas azul cielo
con tacones de creosota
con ojos de celuloide
con una magnífica solapa de hojalata
y un boleto de tren que funciona como un reloj
se está comiendo al último de Nosotros

22.- Illegal Sintax
 
where there can be only confusion... sleeping among the dead the glorious
ones who came through fire remembering the shore
where the shadows grew warm… dreaming in the dark oak-groves
strangling in the ivy childhoods already violent with the future
gods incarcerated in the pinnacle where a reading continues daily
about the seas underfoot about the paths divine about the morphology
desperately convulsed... orgasmic messages to earth the humus
the detritus of that other reality ... watching the screen for some
real significance for that burning for that ultimate signal on high
as they bring their barks to this strand exhausted with the lie of delivery
cattle in the meadow of their memory… bleeding hospices… dung
ancient with a forgotten tradition how they lift their palms waving
that one great feather of pampas grass and it is night already
not the mild one with fragrances and the calling of exotic birds
but the ruddy treacherous one where the planets acknowledge aloud
the illegal syntax the dread omens… falling from the heavens
the once considered pure the body and spirit      the demi-gods
“how can I touch the consecrated moment of     the imminent echo?”
… sluggish the source of the Meander the water of tragedy
where they stepped convinced this is the hour or the life of Noon
the meridian of philosophy the Holy the exchange of the sexes
…………………………………………………….
 
what kind of guilt is blindness combined with total recall of the visible?
each leaf extends its oratory to the eternal optic nerve…
the sea returns its buried to the skin of the Universal Day
and all around they cast their illicit glances waiting for History
to incarnate them those for whom the Republic was an uncultivated Vine
… the azure the crown the ring of day-stars dripping fiery dew
Enigmas… who can elude their passionate and embryonic solitude?

22.- Sintaxis ilegal
 
donde sólo puede haber confusión... durmiendo entre los muertos
los gloriosos que vinieron desde el fuego recordando la orilla
donde las sombras se calentaban… soñando en los oscuros robledales
estrangulando infancias de hiedra ya violentas con el porvenir
dioses encarcelados en el pináculo donde una lectura continúa diariamente
sobre los mares bajo los pies sobre los caminos divinos sobre la morfología
desesperadamente convulsionada…  mensajes orgásmicos a la tierra el humus
los detritus de esa otra realidad… mirando la pantalla para buscar algún
significado real alguna quemadura alguna señal definitiva en lo alto
mientras traen sus ladridos a esta ribera exhaustos con la mentira de la entrega
ganado en el prado de su memoria… hospicios sangrantes… estiércol
antiguo con una tradición olvidada cómo levantan sus palmas saludando
a esa gran pluma de hierbas de la pampa y ya es de noche
no la suave con fragancias y el canto de pájaros exóticos
sino la rojiza traicionera donde los planetas reconocen en voz alta
la sintaxis ilegal los temibles presagios… cayendo desde los cielos
los una vez considerados puros ¡el cuerpo y el espíritu los semidioses!
“¿cómo puedo tocar el momento consagrado del eco inminente?”
… perezosa la fuente del Meandro el agua de     la tragedia
donde pisaron convencidos de que ésta es la hora de la vida El Mediodía
el meridiano de la filosofía El Sagrado el  intercambio de los sexos
…………………………………………………
¿qué clase de culpa es la ceguera combinada con el recuerdo total de lo visible?
cada hoja extiende su oratoria hasta el eterno nervio óptico…
el mar devuelve sus muertos a la piel del Día Universal
y a su alrededor lanzan miradas ilícitas esperando la Historia
para encarnar en ellos a aquéllos para quienes     la República era una vid inculta
… el azur la corona el anillo de estrellas diurnas goteando rocío ardiente
Enigmas…. ¿quién puede eludir su soledad apasionada y embrionaria?

Iván Argüelles is the author of many books, including: “That” Goddess; Madonna Septet; Comedy , Divine , The,; Fiat Lux; Orphic Cantos; Tamazunchale, and many others. Born in 1939 in Rochester, Minnesota, he has lived variously in Mexico City, Chicago, New York City, Macerata, Italy, and settled in Berkeley, California. A retired librarian, he was employed by the New York Public Library and The Library of the University of California at Berkeley. His collection, Looking for Mary Lou, received the 1989 William Carlos Williams Award from the Poetry Society of America. In 2010, he received a National Book Award from the Before Columbus Foundation for his early selected poems, The Death of Stalin. This collection, Sintaxis Ilegal, written in English, was translated into Spanish by Arturo Dávila and published by the Universidad Autónoma de Nuevo León.

Arturo Dávila S. is Chair of the Department of Modern Languages at Laney College in Oakland, California. He specializes in contemporary Latin American poetry and Colonial Literature (the conquest of Mexico). He is poet laureate in Spain and Mexico where he won the following prizes for his books: La ciudad dormida (“Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz” Prize, México, 1995), Catulinarias ("Antonio Machado" Prize, Spain, 1998), Poemas para ser leídos en el Metro (“Juan Ramón Jiménez” Prize, Spain, 2003), and La cuerda floja (“Nicolás Guillén” Prize, Caribbean Philosophical Association-CPA, 2015). Some other publications include, Alfonso Reyes entre nosotros (UANL, 2010), an extensive prologue on poems by the same author, Homero en Cuernavaca (2014), the anthology La Tinusa. Poetas latinoamericanos in the USA (Aldus-Secretaría de Cultura, 2016), Sátiras (Hiperión, Spain, 2017), and more recently Tantos troncos truncus (Casa Vacía, 2020), and También garganta el mar (Casa Vacía, 2023). At present he is compiling a second anthology of 21st century Latin American poets living in the USA and doing research on pre-Hispanic codices and re-visions of the conquest of Mexico. 

​Tikkun Olam: To Repair the World

La Dolorosa/Virgen de Guadalupe altar in honor of the 21 victims of the Uvalde, Texas, elementary school shooting.

La Uvalde Dolorosa bears the pain of 21 bleeding wounds for the 21 victims: Her Sacred Heart skewered with 7 daggers and 14 large swords piercing her chest and abdomen.

The Uvalde pieta banner is draped across her lap.

La Dolorosa/Virgen de Guadalupe wears the crown of thorns from the crucifixion.
 
Behind La Dolorosa is her flaming aura of La Virgen de Guadalupe.

La Dolorosa's green cloak of La Virgen de Guadalupe has turned to ultramarine blue with white stars.

Her white gown is marked by the bleeding flow from her Sacred Heart and abdomen to form the red and white stripes of the United States flag.

Above and behind La Dolorosa is the cross of the crucifixion carved into the Uvalde oak tree from the City Seal of Uvalde, Texas.

The 21 Doves above La Dolorosa/Virgen de Guadalupe are the ascending souls of the Uvalde victims.   
​

George Yepes, born in a cross-fire hurricane beneath a meteor shower over Baja, then raised and educated in the crucibles of East Los Angeles, the meteoric double-barrel life of Painter/Muralist, continues to burn beyond the Los Angeles art world. Formed by a hard street life of poverty, and gang violence; this painter not only survived the gang violence of East L.A.’s toughest neighborhoods but he has also risen above and beyond the Chicano genre. Yepes' oeuvre incorporates art and architecture, ethereally beautiful women, world history, religion and literature presented in powerfully charged atmospheres. Self-taught, with a refined renaissance bent; from religious iconography to erotica, George Yepes brings a confidence and knowledge of his craft that calls to mind the great Velasquez and Titian, and the great Mexican Muralists. Imbued with a contemporary street sense, his paintings and murals combine the best of both worlds where bravado meets classical standards. 
More on the artist at: http://www.georgeyepes.com/

by Kristy Ward

I lay here in my pitch-black room with my eyes open wide.
Tears dripping down my face as I wipe them aside.
The sound of my dangling bracelet as I wipe away the tears.
I've cried in silence like this for so many years.
The sound of his snores as he fell fast asleep.
No worries for him as I lay beside him and weep.
I stare into the darkness with my mind in deep, deep thought.
The demons returning, even the old ones that I fought. 
I fought those demons and won, or at least I thought I did. 
The boiling war in my brain and they removed the lid. 
That stench of darkness that never left, it was hiding deep inside. 
I tucked them away to forget, or at least I tried. 
A woman in my 40s yet I'm still that little girl, dancing in my homemade dress and gave a little twirl.
Dancing took my mind off things and writing helps release.
And just for those short moments, I brought myself some peace. 
As I lie here in this pitch-black room, I see a tiny light.
The smoke detector floating from the ceiling, and then I get that feeling.
That little light is my hope, amidst the battle in my head, the light gets a little brighter.
One day at a time she said. 

Kristy (Molina) Ward is 42, is of Mexican American descent and was born and raised in Corpus Christi, TX. She graduated from Moody High School in 1998 where she played multiple sports, but Cheerleading was her favorite. She achieved her Associates degree from San Antonio College in 2016 after being a stay-at-home mother for some years. Kristy is a licensed insurance agent that now resides in San Antonio, Texas, loves to TikTok, and represents her culture in many ways. She has two kids who are currently in college. Alyssa is studying to be a Physical Therapist Assistant and Aaron is going into Business. Kristy's husband Ricky is also a college student studying to be in Sports Management. When she is not working Kristy loves to dance, discover new restaurants, hit the trails and spend quality time with her family. Kristy has never been published and has been writing her poetry since her teen years.

by David Estringel

Después de la estela
 
Yellow wallpaper
peels
behind faded pictures
in dusty frames,
falling to the floor
in ashen drifts—ephemeral--
of births and wakes,
stabbing
to the heart
like first kisses
or cold sips
of Mexican Coke
but dulled
from memory
(and time)
like giftless Christmases
and old housedresses,
drying on the line.
What ghosts roam these halls,
Haunting bowls
of waxed fruit
and glass doorknobs,
lingering ‘round saints’ alters,
dust bunnies,
and jelly jar glasses
like palls
or the bitter of burnt almonds.
As a pale pink echo
of rose
peeks through the air’s must,
a voice whispers, “Recuerdas esto, ahora,”
leaving me to chuckle and smile.
 
How silly it is to mourn life as we live it.

Caja de memoria
 
Fingers,
gingerly sifting
through ecos de lavanda,
praise spirits
of modest treasures
in silent prayer.
Ribbon-tied letters.
A lock of hair tied with blue ribbon.
Viejos dólares de plata.
Tarjetas de oración a los santos (two for St. Jude).
Pressed flowers in wax paper.
A faded scapular.
Old report cards (Never was any good at Math).
Broken reading glasses.
Una camelia encerada
and
the smell of her.
Amén.

David Estringel is a Xicanx writer/poet with works published in literary publications, such as The Opiate, Azahares, Cephalorpress, Lahar, Poetry Ni, DREICH, Rigorous, Somos En escrito, Hispanecdotes, Ethel, The Milk House, Beir Bua Journal, and The Blue Nib. David received his BA in English at the University of Texas at Brownsville and his MFA in Creative Writing at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley. Currently, he is a working on his PhD in English (World Literature) and a Graduate Instructor of Composition at Texas A&M-Commerce. His first collection of poetry and short fiction Indelible Fingerprints was published in April 2019, followed his second and third poetry collections Blood Honey and Cold Comfort House in 2022. David has written four poetry chapbooks, Punctures (2019), PeripherieS (2020), Eating Pears on the Rooftop (2022), and Golden Calves (coming March 2023). His new book of micro poetry little punctures, a collaboration with UK illustrator, Luca Bowles, will be released in December 2022. Connect with David on Twitter @The_Booky_Man and his website www.davidaestringel.com.

My brother saw a lone hammer on the side of a building in Rockridge: “Take it,” he said; I said no, that’s somebody’s tool, like dad’s. “Then write a poem about it,” he said.
 
My father had every type of hammer:
 
Black-handled, rednecked claw hammer, Craftsman, ‘made in America’ (He was proud
of that);
 
Black-handled, rednecked Ball-Peen hammer, Craftsman, ‘Made in America!’ (He made
sure to tell me this);
 
Blondehandled claw hammer; then, a two-pounder, worn, worthy of a warrior who
straightened things, metal and moral;
 
Finishing hammers, hammers that mom did not know about until much after he bought
them “This is my money, mijo, don’t tell mama.”
 
He proudly stated, “look how well-made,” as he showed me the mallets and other
hammers that fed us,
 
And which he used to build the addition to our house, build a garage, frame, shape
 
Nail.
 
He was proudest of those that were his friends, his companions, those he altered,
shaped, the steel worn, the ballpeen softened, the rounded ends flattened or bevelled;
 
For the fence he built on the side of our home, righthandside, as you looked at the
house, he used his hammers;
 
For the metal door he emplaced on the lefthandside, a door he made from sheetmetal
He welded, shaped, something from Mexico in the U.S., he used his hammers.
 
He hammered and hammered, his hearing going as he did so, and I oblivious, was
frustrated when he asked me to repeat things.
 
In Mexico, Papa was a pailero, boilermaker; In the U.S. his work was as a welder,
bumper-straightener and chrome-plater;
 
He wielded hammers at work and at home, forearms bigger than most men’s biceps,
biceps rounder than most men’s deltoids.
 
“Mr. America” is what the pastor of our church called him, if not “Mr. Universe.” He
sought priests for counsel and his hammers to shape.
 
He had a sledge, which as a boy I tried to heft but failed to raise above my shoulders.
 
He taught me later how to do so safely, effectively, deadly-right. What power I felt and
what a gift passed on to me by way of his tool — I felt a warrior, finally.
 
The accuracy of hammering a nail he taught me, ‘no, mijo, not like that; do it over until you get it right,’ — this time, delicacy.
 
His hammers went to the four winds after he died: My brothers and their wives borrowed them. They ended up in the back of pickups — stolen; in garages, lost (divorces).
 
There is an emptiness in my heart and soul for those hammers, like the emptiness I
filled when I visited Toledo, España where I found our name, Vela, amidst craftsmen,
 
Jewel-makers — 
 
Men using, wielding tiny hammers, making out of gold and silver earrings, pendants,
wonders, tiny jewels they emplaced with tiny hammers brought me back to him
 
His work, his name, his purpose.
 
And I having found that forebears in Toledo used hammers to make of Damascus steel
 
Swords, shields, and armor for warriors felt closer to him, my hammer my pen, my page metal shape, my words the indentations, impact, bent ideas, but memory all the same.

​David Vela was born and raised in Las Vegas, Nevada to Tlaxcaltecan and Pueblan parents, father and mother respectively. He is the ninth of nine children, five of whom were born in Apizaco, Tlaxcala, Mexico, one in Puebla, Mexico and the others in Las Vegas, Nevada. 

Hijo de soldador y pailero, a mother who was indomitable and self-educated in three languages, David studied at Yale and the Claremont Graduate School literature in English, Irish and Latin American authors, and has devoted 25 years to teaching literatures of Native Americans, Latin Americans, French (in French), Irish and British authors; he also loves and reads and has taught authors in Italian, including Dante and Petrarch, Boccaccio and Eugenio Montale. 

David was lead instructor in Paris in 2006 in a Study-Abroad program, teaching Latin American and American expatriate authors in a French Life and Culture course, and a course on terrorism and the French experience in Algeria during the Algerian war for independence. David has worked with military veterans and with Social Science professionals as writer and Editor. He was President of the Irish Literary & Historical Society of San Francisco, the only non-Irish or non-Irish American do be elected to that position for and continues to be a Board Member of that organization. He was Chair of the Irish-Mexican Association of the Bay Area for several years, recognizing the common historical and cultural connections between these cultures, and emphasized the prominence of heroes in first-responder professions from these cultures. 

David has worked with ambassadors and political personages in valuing and in disseminating culture in Ireland, Argentina, Mexico and in the United States, Northern Ireland and in the San Francisco Bay Area. 

He currently resides in Las Vegas, Nevada after living in the Bay Area for 28 years. 

little boy toiling in the beet field watching
white people gather for a track meet
toil and soil and summer sweat
rows extending to the end of dreams
melt youthful vigor into
puddles of warm despair
 
across the road they’re gathering
’neath the cover of umbrellas flowering
like tulips blooming in the manicured turf
they’re sitting on nylon camping chairs
’n sipping cold-sweat bottles of Gatorade
pulled from coolers the colors of fire & ice
 
I’m so hot and thirsty tired and dirty
said the little boy to the relentless sun
but we don’t go home until the field is done
while across the road cheers and laughter
and idle chatter waft on breezes carrying
the scents of sunscreen ’n privilege

​The photos above show some of the author's family members. The third photo the author mentions in his description below is the one used at the beginning of the feature.

​In his words: The one of my mom and great aunt Jennie was taken at a migrant worker camp called a "Colonia." The next one is of my Great-Grandmother, the full-blood Yaqui from Mexico; my brother and sister and I called her Amah. Third one is my Great-Uncle and cousin in between members of one of the families who worked the fields with them. Those three were taken in Weld County, Colorado in the early 1940s. The fourth one is my aunt in a beet field taken some time in the 1930s. I included that one because it closely aligns with the poem's opening line even though it's not of a "little boy." They didn't take pictures of themselves working in the fields because once the work started, as the poem says, they don't stop until the field was done.

​Joe Menchaca is an emerging writer of fiction, poetry, and nonfiction with a Master of Arts in Professional Creative Writing from the University of Denver. His poetry can be found in Dissident Voice. Joe’s writing is marked by an unpretentious, gritty, and raw yet lyrical style. Unflinching in his examination of self, literature, and culture, his distilled style reflects a sensitive and perceptive exploration of life. Joe, whose parents were migrant workers that settled in Colorado in the 1920s, was raised on farms in Northern Colorado, and in the summers, he worked hoeing beets and picking crops. According to family oral history, one of Joe’s maternal great-grandmothers was full-blood Yaqui from Mexico, and a paternal great-grandfather was full-blood Cherokee. Joe currently lives in Fort Collins, Colorado with his lovely wife of nearly forty years, and Tiny, their Chihuahua.

​Hammurabi
 
                               I grew up on television and so did my parents 
                                                  I Love Lucy 
                                       Lied to them sweetly 
                                         America's 
                                 Favorite redhead
                               Desires suppressed 
                                 In separate beds 
                                    Censors rest
                                       Assured 
                           Everything in good taste 
                       Everything in its proper place 
                         Every traumatic episode
             Ends with the threat of Ricky's hand 
      Never far from Lucy's face
                                                          Beaming in glorious black and white 
                                                                      Wrong and right 
                                                             Plot lines shade out the gray
                                                                    On John Wayne's 
                                                                       Shining silver 
                                                                       City on a hill 
                                                                   Of guns and butter
Where every 
             School child's desk
                        Doubles as bomb shelter
              Praying to the altar of the unquestioned 
                                                                              So 
                                                              Pledge your allegiance
                                                               Seal your documents 
                                                                  And lock and load
                                                                      Your freedom 
                                                                Because it is not free
                                                            Now fall to your knees 
                                      And praise be 
                                                                                                  To the only God
                                                                                                  In which we trust 
                                                                            The Atom 
                                                                       The Manhattan
                                                                            Hiroshima 
                                                                            Nagasaki 
                                                                    The nuclear family
                                   Nuclear testing 
                                                                                                          In the nuclear age 
Gave way 
To nuclear waste
That's me
   See 
I grew up 
In the eighties
                    Morning in America
                                       Ronald Reagan 
                                                          And Mr. Belvedere 
               Fresh at my door  
     Telling me life was 
                                                            More than mere survival 
                                             That I 
                                Might live the good life 
                                                                Yet when my time came 
                                                                                            Homer Simpson 
                                                                                                            Peter Griffin 
                                                                                                                         Al Bundy  
                                         Were all lying in wait
                   To convince me 
              I could raise a family
                    In a two story 
               On the single income 
                                                                                                                    Of a shoes salesman 
They lied 
And I cry 
Not for myself 
But for this oncoming generation 
                                  Of IPAD kids 
                                                  On the Hulu and Netflix
                                              Where you pick your poison 
                                                    But it rots your mind 
                                                         Just the same 
                                                      See them at cafes
                                                             Sit sipping
                                                           Job seeking 
                                                          Asking the net 
                                                       For deeper meaning 
                                                                                                                                      Who am I 
                               Where do I belong 
                                                                        Of what use can I be
         In days such as these
                                   Kids born of go go gadgets
Wired to networks 
                                                                                                               Connected
                                                                                       Directed 
                                                                                                  To the latest trends
                                                                 Surf the web 
                           In search of themselves 
                                                                  No different 
                                                          From medieval serfs 
                                                           Waiting on the bells 
                                                         Of the Catholic Church 
                                                               For the latest in
                                                                     Holy writ
                                                                    Holy script 
                                                                     Holy this 
                                                                        Since
                                                                 The golden rule  
                                                          Of Pharaohs and Caesars 
                                                              Romulus and Remus
                                                               Akbar and Alexander 
                                                              Xerxes and Hammurabi 
                                                            Since the days of scribes
                                                             And the books of Kings 
                            Since they from on high 
                                                                                                   Convinced us down below
                                                  That we
            Ever
     Needed 
                           Their 
                                                Code 
                                                                Of law 
                To tell us 
                                                                               We were free

Reading by Matt Sedillo and short interview.

Cutting Noise, a review by Scott Duncan-Fernandez

Why should you read City on the Second Floor by Matt Sedillo to hear something anti-greed or anti-colonial? Can't you got to Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram to see posts counting coup with the may or may not be true and the armchair warriors armed with glibness and not even one sentence memes, instant espresso shots of thought?
 
Poetry can cut through the noise. Needed now more than ever. Poetry can serve us Chicanos as it did in the Chicano Movement and before, our activism and words melded. The earth is dying, working people are abused and it’s the rich driving it with their pharaonic greed. It’s a message that needs to be believed acted upon and repeated. City on the Second Floor has the tradition, has the words and message and cuts the distraction.
 
Sedillo can see us. He knows we are entertained to inaction and death with the violins of streamed shows as the world burns in “Hammurabi”:
“Of IPAD kids 
                                                  On the Hulu and Netflix
                                              Where you pick your poison 
                                                    But it rots your mind 
                                                         Just the same 
                                                      See them at cafes
                                                             Sit sipping
                                                           Job seeking 
                                                          Asking the net 
                                                       For deeper meaning”
 
We, our bodies and minds, are commodified to the same kind of internet glibness, smiling and disposable as he points out in “Post”:
“Smiling at your service to gig economy
                 Side hustle, millennial, post industrial standard
Hire me as an adjunct
Fire me as contingent
Into a city I cannot afford to live in
Tell me my credit score
Better yet, tell me yours 
Promise me the world, then show me the door” 
 
More than exploited, we are commodified and vilified so the system for the rich can keep eating us. Keep us inactive and watching the television we grew up on. In the “The Rich” he lays the destruction of this planet at their feet, they escape culpability, they don’t even have to look at the misery down below as they live on “the second floor.”

Sedillo says they even want to colonize the heavens in the poem “The Sky.” I love the poem as it mentions our ancestors, compares the “beautiful brown mobile proletariat native to the continent” and the connection and guidance from the monarchs. These butterflies are like hummingbirds, messengers from the underworld, and masses of them traverse California and more of Turtle Island. These creatures are threatened by the ruining of the environment as tourists and towns commodify them, not listening to their message in their journey:

They are dying, we are dying.

It’s the Space Force Sedillo mentions vs butterflies. The suffocation of the void vs breathing.

We get a lot of witnessing of trauma in the literature of raza; we get the much more needed denouncing and recrimination in Sedillo’s work. No settler is slumming his way through these words for titillation of viewing traumatic experiences.  Sedillo isn’t smiling. This isn’t a sideshow for masters. This is not Taco Tuesday.

Support this poet. Poetry is spellcraft and ritual to heal and name what must be changed. Read City on the Second Floor. Cut the noise.

City on the Second Floor is available at FlowerSong Press.

​Born in El Sereno, California in 1981, Matt Sedillo writes from the vantage point of a second generation Chicano born in an era of diminishing opportunities and a crumbling economy. His writing—​a fearless, challenging and at times even confrontational blend of humor, history and political theory--is a reflection of those realities.

Scott Duncan-Fernandez is senior editor at Somos en escrito.