Memoriam

Sun, 03/17/2013 - 19:34 -- sal2495

Location

92173
United States
32° 32' 59.0784" N, 117° 2' 17.5776" W

A stranger born in México, 1930s, desde el sur.
A supernova radio train that lets its branches
Disperse into the fog of the sierra, and diffract
The lakes of light. Watery roots
That stay restless and move still,
Prayers circling through the wind.
Famished is the seed from the cold of existence.

Flight into the capitalist eagle’s embrace, who sings
A canticle in the skyscraper church of blue, white, and red.
Fabela and Chávez’s pains singe
Their words in my chained skin: “¡Fuera, oppressive
Status of smoke!” I follow the vines, yearning along
The monochrome film. Transparent, somber,
Are the grapes of the eyes which I’ve longed.

Let your thoughts flow to me in amber
Cempasúchil. The fragrance frees the swallows
From the down staircase of the factories.
You burn bras with Beauvoir, hollering
Goodbyes to cookie-cutter conformity in the Stonewall Riots.
We’re guardians of scholarly music boxes,
Sonnets of México City’s blues against makeup and french fries.

Valdivian footsteps of our hearts
Shattering nuclear cages that silenced spring.
Love flows down our lips, departs
As sprouting honey-dew at the flash of morning.
Hummingbirds chant “Blowin’ in the Wind” to
Relieve Nigeria’s wails, and Kansas’ flowers
Uproot Paris and Haight-Ashbury in youth.

We are driving through the twilight, the sound of
The Tangier moon, waves that drown me
Into you, beats of ecstatic power.
In Woodstock’s night, pausing and sauntering
I meditate to our underground rhythm,
Letting your thoughts flux in free speech
and have a dream against concrete valleys

The tiger’s napalm roar resounds; he shears
From the Pentagon hurricane bullets in your soul.
The gates let all the water in, the mere
Violence burns and erases me from Angkor
Wat. The soft sand of our body,
The breeze from your smile, now ashen
Leaves and burnt petals on Tlatelolco.

Vanishing woman, transient apple,
Smothered by drugs and lightning bombs,
Defeated by corpocratic puppets. Resist or assimilate,
Both lead to the heaviness of being. Prague’s
Autumn, embers of commune pamphlets, yesterday’s sun,
Now one name, one illusion, one tangible passion
That self-immolates with Oswald’s gun.

Slave of the Spanish Hacienda, slave of the
Mean Quarantines of Díaz, now slave of the parish
Of our technocracy. God cannot see us tendrils
Of flame climb walls, accordions blowing anti-pendejismo gallery readings,
koanic hookah. I have seen cedars with draft cards fall under the volcano,
Now who has come to see me fall?

I fight at the sit-ins and Kent State,
At the barricades of My Lai, Córdoba,
Tenochtitlán, Damascus. My innocence,
On the road, is reflections that walk out of Time, stay whispering away.
Blood flows slowly, scabs fading and never healing.
What is never was/ and never will be
Clouds, my/ thoughts are through rye fields./ (blindly crashed.....)

June 21, 1969. Folksingers ‘round Harvard Square
Howl in paper ships, rescuing flowers from hypnotic advert pills,
And search for peace in Mt. Sinai. We are holding
Hands through the snow, hoping not to be conscripted and deported
Against ourselves with PTSD. Wind-up flying fish
Hunt for the escapees of the asylum-
"Sybils", disobedient gurus with the key to Paradise.

You’re knitting hammocks where to lay
Your dead dream children, in latifundia prison schools where
There’s little pay, little light in Little Rock. You’re a phantom
Of your former self, sewing your walls and straightjackets and mental suicide to society’s therapist.
Paint a different story. Strum the heart in graffiti for the opening of the world mind.
Clash of celebrity china, ignorant fences, war and slavery. You are not dead,
For death is only a labyrinth waiting to be demolished. Eternal is nirvana, never forsaking.....

I gaze through the telescope in the rain,
Hoping for that rose comet to return. It is forbidden to gaze at the past; It’s
Now Spring in Arabia, but winter in discontent. Still, I hope
to find the truth in the desert of the past, the grand avenues, to find the right
Door that leads to you, in the heat of my hundred years of sacrifice
And reach for you in the skies, a stranger born in México, 1930s, desde el sur...

Guide that inspired this poem: 

Comments

gnr6695

That was amazing...

sal2495

I thought no one was going to read my entry....Thank you, though. I really appreciate it!

sal2495

This is my first time applying for a scholarship; since I’m really introverted, I decided this would be a good step out of my uncertainty. However, what motivated me to participate was not the simplicity of the prompt, but rather, it was the sentiments the subject invoked in me. The poem is based on my grandfather’s stories about his struggles as a bracero. He ran the risk of being deported, of dying from pesticides and hunger, just to support his family. I soon realized that the ghosts of his past continue to haunt the present. We are all one part of a convoluted world, where the destitute are still excluded from privileges and resources. If we attempt to protest against the status quo, we are confronted with retribution and apathy. People find themselves in desolation, and either fight for the sun that is wished to be seen, or surrender under suppression. Based on my own experiences, I view civil rights as human impulse to find acceptance, virtue, and truth in an imperfect society. The progression towards equality is a movement wishing to find the answers in heritage to balance freedom and authority, and to transform the world for the better. It is necessary that we must never forget the past, for there lies the essence to never repeat the cycle of mistakes again.

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