i
Brooklyn a park bench a quart bottle of
malt liquor and a brother
how did that happen late spring early death
drone of skies ready to annihilate themselves
an ear wrenched from its rock formation
a buzz of intonations from the Mahatmas
stoned and iridescent in their vanishing
perched like quetzal birds on the telephone wire
high above planet Nothing all comes back
to this moment realization of these deaths
the masks of infancy withering yet beautiful
and Hey ! did you hear the eloquence emanating
from the jazz trumpet of Miles Davis ?
basements in accolades of marijuana smoke
decadence and livelihood waiting for births
for nomenclatures to disclose their irate vowels
in a backyard next door to Betty Carter
mind soaked in tequila playing boyhood one
Last Time and it all falls down the sudden repetition
of a life experience the onset of seizures
the rest of breath reduced to a red parenthesis
inside which the conflagration of ideas and love
recycled eerie representations of store windows
masked and hooded figures demons alluring
and baleful and after that what is there to know
a trip to the outback a dozen hospitalizations
mysterious tumors ventilators bad x-rays
memories of Mayo Clinic cold spells
long periods before and after that no one remembers
but for the poignant high notes the small echo
in its shell and the massive but absent seas
 
                            ii
the little red clarinet case pushed under the bed
sheets wrung out turning yellow from ichor of the gods
transpiration and head-wounds tilted off the moving
wagon on to the sidewalks of inferno and whatever
could that mean the isolation wards and always
the stranger at the door bare-knuckled with a bag
to capture whatever malignant spirits trying to escape
the maps were drawn tight around the peninsula and
causeways and trampolines for the kids to jump
up and down inside the coma where an excised cosmos
auto-destructs with all its plastic passengers
most of whom have traveled to the Yucatan and
harbored nights in Teotihuacan with vessels of ether
the countdown hasn’t even started before the finish
is a fait accompli the forlorn hills of dialect and
twilight the way they reappear in dreams half-beings
bereft of intellect and side-swiped by planetary diesels
plunging like headless horsemen down the Pan-Am Highway
motels and endless waiting rooms dismantled telephones
ambulances and more ambulances the wrong address
and finality of sliding curtains hanging like angels
left to dry from the wars and the doctors of hypnosis
and mercury just staring into the abyss devoid
of language the cuneiform of their brains working
overtime to excuse themselves from all culpability
and soon it’s another Halloween trick or treating
on the doorsteps of a missing basement and phantom
music ascends The Monster Mash with calaveras de
azúcar and the jingles and marionettes of memory
dancing sing-song in the cavities
I got the shakes I’m going fast
 
                           iii
cada día es el día de los muertos
 
11-01-21

​Ivan Argüelles is a Mexican-American innovative poet whose work moves from early Beat and surrealist-influenced forms to later epic-length poems. He received the Poetry Society of America’s William Carlos Williams Award in 1989 as well as the Before Columbus Foundation’s American Book Award in 2010.  In 2013, Argüelles received the Before Columbus Foundation’s Lifetime Achievement Award. For Argüelles the turning point came with his discovery of the poetry of Philip Lamantia. Argüelles writes, “Lamantia’s mad, Beat-tinged American idiom surrealism had a very strong impact on me. Both intellectual and uninhibited, this was the dose for me.” While Argüelles’s early writings were rooted in neo-Beat bohemianism, surrealism, and Chicano culture, in the nineties he developed longer, epic-length forms rooted in Pound’s Cantos and Joyce’s Finnegans Wake. He eventually returned, after the first decade of the new millennium, to shorter, often elegiac works exemplary of Romantic Modernism. Ars Poetica is a sequence of exquisitely-honed short poems that range widely, though many mourn the death of the poet’s celebrated brother, José.

LA VOZ EN EL ESPEJO
​
Los bordes no tienen cielo, 
se extienden, 
vibran como sogas de sol a mediodía, 
viven entre los muertos.
He nacido con causa. 
Entrar es emerger, 
y salir es moverse dentro.  
Cuatro cruces existen sobre nosotros,
volar hacia abajo es subir.  
Un segundo nos retorna a los huesos,  
cielos de luna.  
Los ojos debajo son noches rojas, 
crujen en el viento.  
Las ancianas nobles, 
encienden el fuego. 
La culebra,
hunde sus fauces sobre el agua, 
la palabra llueve sobre la tierra.  

THE VOICE IN THE MIRROR

The edges have no sky,
they extend,
vibrate like ropes of sun at noon,
live among the dead.
I was born with a cause.
To enter is to emerge,
and to go out is to move inside.
Four crosses exist above us,
to fly down is to go up.
One second returns us to our bones,
moon skies.
The eyes below are red nights,
they creak in the wind.
The noble old women,
light the fire.
The snake,
sinks its jaws over the water,
the word rains on earth

REFUGIO DE HIERBA
 
La palabra se bebe,  
aconseja a la madrugada, tuerce hilos. 
El oído, al otro lado, es la corriente del sueño,
camino de sol donde la tierra se separa.
Una luz blanca es un collar de semillas.
Los sentidos de las palabras son frutos,
puntos de canto. 
Retomar el aliento al barrer la hierba,
es pronunciar el mundo en suelos negros,
es ascenso vertical, es la regeneración del llanto.
Es tumbar, quemar los huecos poco profundos,
es sembrar el cielo, la luna, el trueno,
es derramar la sangre en nudos y en hojas. 
  
GRASS SHELTER
 
The word is taken in,
it advises dawn, it twists strings.
The ear, on the other side, is the stream of sleep,
a sunny road where earth is separated.
A white light is a necklace of seeds.
The meanings of words are fruits,
singing points.
To catch our breath when sweeping the green grass,
is to pronounce the world on black soils,
it is to ascent vertically,
it is to regenerate a cry,
to knock down, and burn the shallow holes
to sow the sky, the moon, thunder,
and to spill the blood in knots and leaves.

Masiel M. Corona Santos es poeta bilingüe y líder comunitaria. M.A. Letras Hispánicas y Lingüística (CSUSB). B.A. Literatura Hispánica y cultura, Especialidad en Estudios Chicanos/Latinos (UCI). Recientemente publicó Cantos Revolucionarios (Letras Huastecas, N. L. México). Ella es fundadora de Revista Raíces. Su trabajo aparece en revistas digitales e impresas, al igual que en antologías. Ella colabora con Los Angeles Poet Society y Centro Cultural de México donde promueve las literatura. Ella ha coordinado talleres de poesía para la comunidad de Santa Ana, Ca. y en Comachuén, Michoacán, México y también codirigió un taller de poesía mediante Círculo de Poetas and Writers.  

Masiel M. Corona Santos is a bilingual poet and community leader. M.A. in Hispanic Literature, and Linguistics (CSUSB) B.A. Spanish Literature and Culture, minor in Chicano/Latino Studies (UCI). She recently published Cantos Revolucionarios, (Letras Huastecas, N.L. México). She is the founder of Revista Raíces. Her work appears in digital, print journals, as well as in various anthologies. She collaborates in Los Angeles Poet Society and Centro Cultural de México where she promotes literature. She has led poetry workshops for the Santa Ana Ca. Community, and Comachuén, Michoacán México. She also co-led a poetry workshop through Círculo de Poetas and Writers. ​

Join us in a New Grito: a call for worker rights for all such as human rights, independence from poverty, full legalization and fair trade not exploitation!
 
Performances by Diana Gameros, Francisco Herrera, Enrique Ramírez, Elizabeth Esteva and Diego Sardaneta
 
Poetry by Rafael Jesús González and Nancy Esteva 
 
Presentations by David Frias, San Francisco Living Wage Coalition; Sara Terry Manríquez and Elvia Villescas of Las Hormigas; Karen Oliva, Committee in Solidarity with the People of El Salvador; Porfirio Quintano, Hondurans in the Diaspora; Meredith Wilkinson, Network in Solidarity with Guatemala; Diana Bohn, Nicaragua Information Center for Community Action; and David Bacon, Dignity Campaign organizing committee

El 16 de septiembre de 1810, el Padre Miguel Hidalgo entregó el Grito de Dolores, una declaración de la independencia del colonialismo español; y una llamada para la abolición de la esclavitud africana, para un fin al sistema de la casta que explota a los indios, y para la reforma social y económica. Hoy, mexicanos y centroamericanos están forzados a salir fuera de sus patrias a causa de una larga historia de la intervención militar estadounidense, la explotación del los pagos de deuda del Fondo Monetario Internacional y Banco Mundial, los programa impuestos de la austeridad, los esquemas de la privatización y los acuerdos de "libre cambio": la dominación corporativa de EEUU para crear una fuente de obra barata. Los migrantes a los Estados Unidos, enfrentan la represión de la migra, la negación de su derecho de organizar y la falta de protecciones legales en su lugar de trabajo: forzandolos a aceptar trabajos de bajos-sueldos.

Unámonos en un nuevo Grito: una llamada para los derechos del trabajador tales como los derechos humanos, la independencia de la pobreza y la completa legalización y "fair trade" sin exploitación.
 
Música por by Diana Gameros, Francisco Herrera, Enrique Ramírez, Elizabeth Esteva and Diego Sardaneta
 
Poesía por Rafael Jesús González and Nancy Esteva
 
Presentaciones de David Frías, Coalición de Salario Digno de San Francisco; Sara Terry Manríquez and Elvia Villescas of Las Hormigas; Karen Oliva, Comité en Solidaridad con el Pueblo de El Salvador; Porfirio Quintano, Hondureños en la Diáspora; Meredith Wilkinson, Red en Solidaridad con Guatemala; Diana Bohn, Centro de Información de Nicaragua para la Acción Comunitaria; David Bacon, Comité organizador de la Campaña Dignidad

Donaciones para beneficio de la Coalición de Salario Digno de San Francisco, Las Hormigas de Ciudad Juárez, Trabajo Cultural Caminante y Área Bahía Comité en Solidaridad con el Pueblo de El Salvador
 
Para más información, comuníquese al 415-863-1225 o [email protected] o visite www.livingwage-sf.org

​Flor y canto para nuestros tiempos
(al modo nahua)

By Rafael Jesús González

La flor y canto que nos llega
es desarraigado --
         se marchitan las flores,
                  se desgarran las plumas,
                          se desmorona el oro,
                                    se quiebra el jade.
No importa que tan denso el humo de copal,
         cuantos los corazones ofrendados,
se desarraigan los mitos,
         mueren los dioses.
Tratamos de salvarlos
de las aguas oscuras del pasado
con anzuelos frágiles
forjados de imaginación y anhelo.
Dentro llevamos voces mixtas --
abuelas, abuelos
conquistados y conquistadores
         — nuestro legado.
De él tenemos que escoger lo preciso,
         lo negro, lo rojo,
cultivar nuestras propias flores,
cantar nuestros propios cantos,
recoger plumas nuevas para adornarnos,
oro para formarnos el rostro,
buscar jade para labrarnos el corazón --
sólo así crearemos el nuevo mundo.

​Flower & Song for Our Times
            (in the Nahua mode)
  
The flower & Song that come to us
is uprooted --
          flowers wither,
                    feathers tear,
                             gold crumbles,
                                       jade breaks.
It matters not how thick the incense smoke,
           how many the hearts offered,
myths are uprooted,
           the gods die.
We try to save them
from the dark waters of the past
with fragile hooks
forged of imagination & longing.
Within we carry mixed voices --
grandmothers, grandfathers
conquered & conquerors
          — our legacy.
From it we have to choose the necessary,
          the black & the red,
grow our own flowers,
sing our own songs,
gather new feathers to adorn ourselves,
discover new gold to form our face,
seek jade to carve our hearts --
only thus can we create the new world.