Three Poems by Cesar LoveLa Abeja We know the buzz of her flying but once she lands and stills her wings she makes other sounds the sounds of her unpacking The pants of La Abeja have several pockets She unpacks her pockets at pachangas, parades birthdays, weddings, cabalgatas La Abeja makes her delivery Her delivery of cultura: New dances, first recipes, original games Fresh jokes, bold accents, cool spellings La Abeja arrives early and leaves late She tastes every dish, she dances every song Before she leaves the party La Abeja refills her pockets She stuffs them with cultura, poesía, canción La Abeja flies south to the zocalos North to the gazebos East to the pagodas West to the rodeos To attract her, water your flowers Water you poesía, water your canción. La Cena With every mouthful of your cod My arms become fins I am a fish cruising through oceans Oceans so open I swim as far as the moon With every spoonful of your mango salsa I grow body hair I am a chango swinging across treetops` Trees so high in the dusk I dribble the setting sun No dessert please I too am cooked I am a thin stalk of asparagus Sizzling in a pan Ecstatic in your oil Vowels I sing a vowel to the sky A vowel of the land My bare feet touch the earth This jewel that holds me That lets me stand That lets me walk I sing this vowel to the sky I sing a vowel to mi gente The vowel of mi familia I learn this vowel from my bloodline The comida shared The luchas won I sing this vowel to mi gente I sing a vowel to my love The vowel of ancient forests A vowel as old as redwoods As young as blossoms This vowel bloomed when I met you I sing this vowel to my love César Love is a Latinx poet living in San Francisco, California. He is the author of two books of poetry, While Bees Sleep and Birthright, and he is a co-editor of the Haight Ashbury Literary Journal. He recently published Baseball: An Astrological Sightline, an examination of astrology and baseball. His website is www.baseballastrology.com.
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Poems, Iconic White Crosses, and MemoriesFirst published on September 22, 2013, in Somos en escrito Magazine By Sarah Cortez Vanishing Points: Poems and Photographs of Texas Roadside Memorials, edited by poet Sarah Cortez, is a memorial in itself to the thousands of spontaneous roadside memorials, usually marked by small metal crosses, which line Texas highways. The prominent display of these iconic white crosses, some with accumulated mementoes, is often ignored by motorists. Yet these roadside memorials are invitations to pause, invitations to ponder the meaning of life and death. This volume of poems responds to these invitations with an array of stunning black and white photographs of these Texas roadside memorials accompanied by poems written by some of the state’s finest poets. Bro That day you grabbed the armadillo’s tail and jerked it upside down as it snarled and raked air with black claws. Remember? All of us laughing at the squirming, silver ball of scaly, pissed-off critter who’d thought he’d burrow into safety when chased. It’d be on that day—if I could have you back—that exact moment. Your right arm outstretched under scrub oak alongside a one-lane road. You, flushed, breathing hard, sweaty—that instant suspended the same as that armadillo who’s now probably as dead as you, alongside some other back road nearby. Faith By Sarah Cortez But the sky, Nate, the big blue sky crowns this cross so far above both you and me that I get scared just trying to think about it. And I promise you I still believe in God, and I believe in His Only Son Jesus Christ, and I believe in the Spirit sent down upon us like the dewfall. I believe, I believe, I’ve always believed, but I have a hole in my chest where my heart loved you, and I walk around like a clock without a mechanism, and I’m not joking when I say I’m dead too now. Not just inside, the cold blackness, but outside, and only, and only this wind up high here and the burning sun and the million pesky grasshoppers buzzing remind me that God’s ways are so infinite and beyond, so far above my mind, my pitiful body, my heart-no-longer-there that I’d just better go on into whatever I have left after losing you. Not that I know what that is. But there’s something. There’s bound to be something worth living for.
Poems in War and Love Archangel You deployed six times, I count them as such Never mind the lingo and the requirements to define – You fought in one of the nastiest of them – Fallujah - Against Al Mahdi and his friends, Yet you came back with all of your men. You grew up in a town that might have been mine, Except that yours was near rivers and mine Was in the desert; You fought in the desert too, Learned to love there, to be fully alive, sober to the threats, To be kind to the populace. Then you fought at the ends Of the earth, making friends all the way, even as you had To remember to be lethal. A dog, you said, in that other Country had come upon you and your forward man: You were trained to slit its throat, You – dog-lover, rescuer of dreams, Faithful man to your wife, whom you left and came home to Twice. Dogs, yes, dogs you are faithful to, and this one did not bark. So you did not have to slice and silence him with a knife, And on that night you made your way back with relief For sparing - at least- one more life. Archangel, Sniper, man from the skies, friend for life. ≈≈≈≈≈≈≈ On the conquest of Raqqa Mourn with your brother in war and Love, Alex, And mourn for the Kurds who have declared Like lions their autonomy. Mourn for the women You miss, indescribable loss not to hold them In your gaze and in your embrace. Mourn the purpose they gave you, both ends Combatants and warriors, women and culture, Ancient, tested in fires from century to century. Mourn, too, your brother and friend, who like Odysseus and Gilgamesh, who like Aeneas And Patrick Leigh Fermor had to voyage back to Woman, society, and cultivation of mother earth; Mourn them who had to sheathe the sword, put it beyond use Back in the head and on the hearth - who always have it at the ready In the heart, in the hand and in the mind And in the memory of those you fought for, that sword From beyond time, now and past and for the future. Mourn them, mourn them all warrior, friend, Poet, lover, son and brother. Mourn, brother Andrew, mourn. Mourn the man who blew up behind you Spinning legs in the air were all you saw, Yet you had to go forward and take the village See the traps, the mines, burned out and blasted Cinderblock of once-homes made sniper shot-watches. Mourn now because you can, brother Andrew. Mourn the families you embraced and those who Adopted you: Mourn and rejoice: So many are alive because of you. So many have hope because of you. ≈≈≈≈≈≈≈ Elaine I want to lay my head in the warmth of your lap Then watch iridescent stars fall behind your hair Trace your brow’s shape, the pomme of your cheek Touch your lips, while tracing light in scintillant eyes. I feel the emanating warmth of your womb Hear your voice in the dark, taste its sweet depths; Then feel your pulse beat through your sex As you shape the sounds of your words - like angels falling, One-third, from the sky. Auburn-haired woman, sapphire-braided skies Halo you, while stars hang pendant From your tilted head even Renoir could not capture. Kiss me with your eyes (and lips), Sing to me with your honeyed voice. ≈≈≈≈≈≈≈ SEB I scent you in the breeze of fall as Spring -- Soft fire, feminine song, emerald eyes: You. You evanesce sooner than the scent of Your body. Oh Soñia, how I wish that you would Place my ring on your finger –and you do. But don’t you know what that means? Or best, you do. That’s what leans me To you, emerald eyes, Soñia Such womanly hips, such warm thighs. I Follow your time, your rhythm, your honeyed Voice, knowing that once I surrender to you -- if That is what you wish -- I am complete or finished. Indicate, say, tell me all I need to know. Time, age, those erase if you say them so. David Vela is a professor of English at Diablo Valley College, in Pleasant Hill, California, where he is also an advisor to veterans and an instructor and mentor in the Puente Project. |
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