THE FALL OF KABUL
 
carpet-baggers locusts cannibals lice
the head turns to stone the moon is drawn
out of its well and decapitated in a dust flurry
minutes before the evacuation promises of
paper-flowers fruit without vermin bread !
for two decades a series of statues come and gone
artillery composed of offal and headwinds
ox-carts bearing sultans of medieval dialects
everything a matter of renunciation
movies cosmetics opium military footwear
the greatest Demon in the world has just
surrendered his vices in a big photograph swap
history is written on mattresses with bedbugs
remember the Soviet carrion ?
remember the big Buddha at Bamian ?
five thousand years since the Aryans bruited
the Vedas in the Hindu Kush and today
nothing but a reversal of system and value
blond poster-girls peeling off bloodied walls
hoodwinked soldier boys from Iowa City
haunted by the part they played
dismembering the carcass of progressive Reform
Jihad ! Mujahideen ! turn the volume up !
the Twin Towers were destroyed by fireflies
a nuisance of idioms and heresy
monstrous illiteracy of social media lies
verbiage and tattooed air multiples of Zero
Balkh the birthplace of Rumi surrenders !
President of USA suffers from PTSD
a painted screen a flutter of Chinese diplomats
wearing poisoned masks an x-ray of Night
what good are stealth bombers and drones ?
red ants versus black ants ! civilization !
mendacity of General Petraeus and the CIA
operatives who drill like moles through earth
nothing is solid and even less is holy
the Beloved ! houris wearing burkas on Main Street
Yea this day is Paradise and Gehenna
above and below and forever !
 
08-15-21

​​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.

“Go defend our country son make Uncle Sam proud.
Don’t worry about a High School Diploma,
You’ve got the Viet Cong to think about.
 
You’ll be physically fit, cock strong, in your dress blues
All these westside chicks are gonna want to fuck you
 
You’ll have medals pinned on your chest, a career as a cook or custodian
Benefits with a steady paycheck, a cheap little house with an iron fence
 
C’mon be a real man with a rifle in your hands
And tell them all, later on, about the young heroes of war
Jungle sounds, Khe San and how things were in’ Nam.

 Vietnamese rats
Chasing like rabid dogs
So large you couldn’t swallow
Shooting women
And children
Coming back
To be a Little League coach
For your kids-
A hero?
A patriot?
 
Wearing a red and gold cover
That reads:
             1967-1969 Reconnaissance USMC
Raising a Devil Dog flag in the front yard
Next to an American flag.
                                                          Everyone driving by knows where you stand.
                                                     Who you are
                                         A Veterano
                                        What you did
                           For this country
                  That is not yours
              A dream you’re not in.

is physically fit,
says OORAH when they see another marine,
has American pride,
honors the eagle, globe and anchor,
has a bulldog named Chesty,
tells war stories,
while polishing his medals,
banks with USAA,
psycho tough,
ready to kill,
never hesitates,
knows martial arts like Chuck Norris,
is an alcoholic with a side chick,
has PTSD,
a racist in denial,
attends air shows with the silent drill platoon.
 
A real marine says
this country has gone to shit,
doesn’t want to die,
because their grandson is gay,
on the flip,
he wants gays in the military to serve as bullet-catchers.
 
A real marine gets shafted by the corps,
years later,
thankless service,
wearing a red cover,
USMC t-shirt,
won’t stop until the job is done,
flashbacks,
hates Asians,
haircut high n’ tight,
originally from Parris Island,
is sometimes a tio taco,
not that amphibious,
a cock boy in dress uniform,
marching at grocery stores.
 
A real marine trains people of color to kill people of color.
A United States fucking Marine,
trained to kill anyone,
anything,
even himself.
 
I didn’t go to war.

Listen along as ​Robert René Galván performs "Hero"

Listen along as ​Robert René Galván performs "Curandera"

​Do we have to go to war in an unknown land
            and fight for our country in order to prove our patriotismo?
Do we have to risk our lives against soldados we know nothing about,
            except that they, too, are fighting to defend their country?
Will this war change the world? We ask of all the wars.
Nuestros padres, nuestras parejas, los hijos, los hermanos. Tienen que
            sufrir our absence while we prove our patriotismo?
El patriotismo no nomas se demuestra en la Guerra, en una tierra extraña,
            contra soldados que no conocemos, or that we personally have
            nothing against.
Patriotismo se demuestra when we served in the military
            even in the face of discrimination.
When we are only allowed to scrub the deck or paint the ship.
O, trabajar en la cocina peeling the potatoes y lavando los trastes.
We went and defended our country, in spite of this.
            when our troops were separated by color, like when you do the laundry.

One war receiving 45 sons from Hero Street, Illinois,
            sending them to the Philippines because of their Spanish tongues
            only to be silenced when they returned to their homes.
Patriotismo is watching your child going off to war
            and your heart is heavy and your spirit cries because
            it does not know if there will be a reunion embrace.
The neighborhood of Edgewood in San Antonio losing 54 to another war,
            with 2 of them still M.I.A., 10 of them graduating in the same year from
            the same high school.
Yet, “We’re a very patriotic family,” said Gloria Carson, sister to one of the 54.
Many of our returning soldados never honored until after death
Or, the families of those we lost in the battles, esperando años para recibir
            el Honor to be bestowed on their loved ones.

Patriotismo is knowing you have to drink from a different water fountain
            and enter through the back door.
Yet, we do not hesitate to take up arms to defend la poquita libertad
            que los permiten.
“Foreigners in our land” quizas, but it is our land.
Y a pesar de todo, we are orgullosos of our Patriotismo.
Patriotismo is not just defending and sacrificing in times of war.
Patriotismo is forming The American GI Forum, to serve and assist
            the needs of our veterans and their families.
And fighting for our veterans’ rights, who are American after all.

Patriotismo is leaders like Cesar Chavez,
            who fought at home and sacrificed for the dignity deserved to all.
Patriotismo is fighting in our own land upon returning home,
            not with weapons of mass destruction
            but with weapons of words and fearless leadership.
Patriotismo is encouraging people to vote,
            organizing them as a community, empowered with the knowledge
            that they are all capable of accomplishing the impossible
            regardless of circumstances.

Patriotismo is Believing in equality for all and achieving
            civil and labor rights with nonviolence.
Marching so that men, women and children have access to decent wages,
            education, decent housing and food to eat.
Patriotism is holding the country you sacrificed for, accountable to fulfill
            its promise of equality and freedom for all people.

Patriotism is collectively believing what Cesar Chavez once said:
            Once social change begins, it cannot be reversed.
            You cannot uneducate the person who has learned to read.
            You cannot humiliate the person who feels pride.
            You cannot oppress the people who are not afraid anymore.”

Patriotism cannot be taken away because we ARE this Tierra and Patriotismo is US.

​San Juana Guillermo, Texas-born, but raised in Chicago Heights, Illinois, where her migrant family had settled out to raise a family, arrived in San Antonio in 2015 from Grand Rapids, Michigan, where she had moved and raised her own family. Grandmother to 14 grandchildren and 3 great-grandchildren, she wrote her first poem at age 60 and has been published in several San Antonio-based zines and chapbooks by Jazz Poets of San Antonio and Voces Cósmicas. San Juana is active with local writers’ groups and at public readings. She may be contacted at [email protected].

​I

Where El Pueblo Points Their Thousand Fingers at La Niña Tere

​We did what every pueblo did
    when soldiers came asking
for our children. We hid inside
    barrels of beans and slept
on rooftops. We called the names
    of our gods and our country
hollered back. They found us
   at school, reciting the national
anthem. They found us selling
   conchas a cora on the streets.
They found us between bedsheets,
   nude as newlyweds, asking
for names. And if they gave us
   the choice between their enemy
and our head, we did what every
   pueblo did. We gave them puta
ó pobre. We saved ourselves.

II

Where Tía Tere Knocks Out the First Conquistador and All Else is Unimaginable 

​Spilling colónes on the street
is the closest we will get
to smearing dirt all over

Cristóbal Colón’s gilded face. 
So, when soldiers tear the purse
from her arm and bills rip ragged

as flags from its slapped mouth,
burying coin and conquistador
in shit and mud, we can call it

resistance, a victory for the little
hand that spun and struck midnight
raw against the jaws of soldiers. 

Tía Tere’s wrists were younger
then, stronger than they are now,
puffy and punctured. She caught

the first soldier in the nose and broke
red yolk down his rugged grimace.
Before he raped her, she forced him

to weep a boy’s tears. If he survived
the war, then he still walks today
with the nose the devil gave him.

Best believe she would have merked
him before the gun buckled her neck
and for hours she blinked back black.

III

Love Letter from Tía Tere to a Boy Soldier
​

​n the months dogs dig their dry noses through trash in search
of water, you were the boy who left out tins for the strays to lap,

a chicken bone for muzzles to startle and snap. Papi threatened
to beat us if we stole the fruit that fell from your father’s terreno

into our yard. I hid the mangos you gave me in my shirt and only
got caught once. Later, we shared the bruised seed, our white uniforms

half-translucent in the summer sweat, the pulp, bright and yellow,
stuck thirsty on our lips. I never repaid you for your kindness.        

He had your face,

The man with the fat nose
who dug through me like trash.

Here are my kindnesses in return:                 

      I fucked up his mug, gave him a new nose
      and busted lip before he overtook me.

I told myself you went North instead of enlisting.
You were the one I saw when I closed my eyes.

​IV

Where Tía Tere Faces the Judge 

​If bullet wounds had tongues
to testify, ¿would the judges

believe us then? If the vagina
could speak and write its darkest

name in blood, if she could count
the soldiers and their barrels,

¿would my pain be legitimate?

I gave up water and let my voice evaporate
       in the Chihuahuan desert.

I gave up a language—even the words amor y luz
        --and now my teeth cut
 my lips like rakes.
  
I gave up a good mother who worked like an ass,
a father who starved
      to feed his children.
 
I gave up my body and let its most tender parts
crack to pieces like a clam
full of dirt.
 
I gave up a whole country and you keep asking for more.  

Your honor, dile al presidente, the officials of ICE, the alt-right,
and this nation’s countless slaves: I am here to court each of you.

I brought you all the arm of a child, plucked from the earth
the way some pick a daisy. I apologize for its lack of fingers.

You already know how these games go. He lives, he lives
not. Are your men astute enough to tell me when it’s from:

¿our old war or yesterday’s tiraera? They all look the same.
If it’s not el ejercito, it’s la policia. If it’s not a landmine,

it’s a mara. ¿Which are you? If you want to play Pantokrator,
por favor, please judge me. 

In the Last Judgement, we will all be sent
to El Salvador to reap our eternal redress. 

In the Last Judgement, you will be forced
to face the insurrection of our dead.

V

Prayer to Cipactli Tlaltecuhtli
​

​Cipactli Tlaltecuhtli,

Tía says so many men went over her she lost count. 

They all blurred into one— 
            the soldiers y conquistadores
the judges y el pueblo
the police y las maras
the boys who once offered
her the ripe heart of a mango.  
             
You were the goddess men tore in two and claimed
they created the earth, as if la selva isn’t the nap
of your kitchen, as if Izalco y Ilamatepec blossom
from somewhere other than your bosom. 

We call you the world monster—la mujer, la guerrillera,
who survived a gang rape of gods and gave us your queendom,
bloody belly and slaughtered womb. ¿Are you not madre y martyr 
of our Americas, splintered at the isthmus, legs thrashing

against every chain and stitch? ¿Are we not all the children
of a woman torn at the border? You burst from the pin
of a guerrillera’s grenade as an angel. You flapped
your wings and the leaves of the trees fluttered

in flames and spoke--


Mija, soy la mera, mera, Santa Salvador.
Mira las heridas sobre mi cuerpo,
       las bocas que gritan en cada rótula, el rio
sangriento de mi pelo que llena mares
con su furia. Sos mi hija-guerra, nene, carne
de mi carne, la rosa de mis moretones. 
Entiendes ahora porque mis bocas siempre
 ansían por la sangre. He perdido tanto
de la mía. Pero no vas a morir aquí, ahorita,
       mija, yo te concederá la vida.
  
and the men were blinded
            by your light, made deaf
            by the roar of your rifles

and the men hid behind
            your trees which fell
            like hands clapping flies

and guerrilleros ambushed
      the camp as the colonel
      selfishly begged Tía for life

and the men lost their arms
            in the scuttle and finally prayed
            to mothers they never loved

and the men lost their legs
            in the scuttle and finally knelt
      humiliated before their Maker

and her thighs were still mud-slapped,
            bleeding to her knees as she led him
            through her homeland, the dark arch

and dip of your chest, where once
      she nursed from your honey and felt
      her bones harden with your marrow

and where then you gave her
      the strength to save a man
      who didn’t deserve your blood.           

VI

Prayer to Tía Tere
​

​ Tía,

When I call you Cipactli
            Tlaltecuhtli I mean this:
                                                 
You gave us a world, torn
limb by limb, rich with your sacrifice.
You gave birth to the poet and the thug,
to men who never knew your power.
If you let us live,
it is by the grit of your grace.
If we betray your love,
then we do not deserve your mercy. 

Editor’s Note:
This poem is about a woman’s abduction and torture in El Salvador in 1979.

​Willy Palomo, the son of immigrant parents from El Salvador who now lives in Cedar City, Utah, is a McNair Scholar, Macondista, and a Frost Place Latin@ Scholar. He has performed his poetry at the National Poetry Slam, CUPSI, and V Festival Internacional de Poesía Amada Libertad in El Salvador. Other works have appeared in Best New Poets 2018, Latino Rebels, Muzzle, and The Wandering Song: Central American Writing in the United States. His first collection of poetry is due out in 2020 by Black Lawrence Press. Follow him @palomopoemas 
and  www.palomopoemas.com.

​
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. ​