I didn’t know I was so Latino
Until walking the stone cold courts of Stanford
Brahman Lilly white faces that glare
Behind political pretensions
Aquamarine eyes burning holes into my skin
Like a child pressing harder and harder
On a light brown crayon building wax
Until beige becomes walnut
Over and over outside the lines
“See what I made Daddy, a Mexican”
Walnut becomes a dark burnt mahogany

I’m Latino
Look at me
There’s a sign outside my door
“Don’t feed the greasy Chicano..
but if you do, 3 lengua tacos
1 chimichanga and a Corona vato”

I didn’t know I was so Latino
Until I cut my finger on a page
Of William Prescott’s Conquest of Mexico
Roasted pepper blood splattered cloistered walls
Tagging “Somos Latinos” like in the barrio
Mama’s salsa gushing as I strolled
Cool like a Stacey Adams wearing pachuco
Down corridors muffled snickers crept past
An alumn who took out a razor blade and sliced
Her snowy white pretentious ass
Bleeding blue rivers that mocked and swallowed
My earthy crimson blood reeking of cilantro

I didn’t know I was so Latino
Until I realized strolling Romanesque paths
As a morning’s chill wind blew across campus
Past Ivy league senator’s sons cheeks flushed
The only men that looked like me
Pablo Hernando Garcia with mustache trimming the tree
“Buenos Dias” we exchange
Both smelling like chorizo and eggs

Black-as-coal arms outstretched
Like Moses in benediction over hopeful masses
Huddled.…waiting….anticipating….
The dream!
Washington DC
August 28, 1963
King didn’t have a dream
That one day the grandsons of the sons of slaves
walking in ignorance
In unison shuffling with gold chains swaying
Reflecting the emptiness of soul
To dead ancestors who dreamed for freedom
Heads bowed beneath crumbling buildings
While exhaust-painted pigeons shit
Onto concrete oasis of oil-stained gutters
Pants hung low Ass showing
Twisting King’s vision
Into a Negro Armageddon

King didn’t have a dream
Black men in ghettos getting paid
By the government by getting laid
Bitch-slapping, pimping, gang-banging
Dem hoes
Making babies getting honey to make money
Would represent African-American mores
Children without Daddy’s
Black Daddy’s without a vision
Turning King’s Dream
Into a Japanese business scheme

King had a nightmare
That one day the grandsons of the sons of slaves
Blackened coal eyes enraged
Would rise up
Fighting brother against black brother
Dead ebony boys strewn across asphalt
Blood mixed with dead hope
Washington DC
Jan 20, 2009

PAPA WAS A ROLLING STONE

"Papa was a rolling stone" echoed
across scuffed-marked wooden floors
covered with a thin layer of grease
from the thousands of fried tacos
"wherever he laid his hat was his home"
vibrating across cockroach wings under the fridge
eating frijoles and welfare cheese crumbs
over beer bottle lips
and 5 Latinas whose hips curved round
like the foothills between Sanger and Avocado Lake
where drunken vatos drown

The Temptation's soothing words like hot sex
On a Fresno's sultry night when gunshots
Ring through the barrio in a twisted serenade
Crooned six Latinas holding back tears
Bright red lipstick sucking on menthols
Remembering golden years cruising
In her sancho's lowrider impala

"Give me another beer hermana" Mona sighs
fixing her black bra with charcoal eyes
reminiscing 'bout ol' times
When love was steamy like the Valley in July
When "Jorge and Anita" forever
Was an unbroken vision
Blessed by Church, Family and the Virgin

"Papa was a rolling stone" as six Latinas
shake hair-sprayed heads in approval
take another round of shots of Jose Cuervo
"and all he left us was alone"
as black masquera runs down high cheek bones
like dark brown rivers of loneliness

My great grandparents emigrated from Mexico in 1914 in order to flee the violence of the Mexican Revolution and the banditry of Pancho Villa and his men. Evidentally, Pancho Villa would terrorize the village and ranch the my great grandparents were from. The point is that I was born in California, as were my parents, as well as my grandparents. Ever since I can remember I have always considered myself an American. In fact, Mexico is as much a foriegn country to me as it is to any of my white homeboys. When I was a little boy, however, I encountered racism up close and personal. I wrote this poem in remembrance of that time when I was very young, while I was playing during recess at school one day. The principal of the school sent my head spinning when she blasted my innocent mind with her venom. I liken what she did to me as a type of rape - it felt like it.

On a schoolyard in 1979
laughter echoed from the blacktop off brick walls
large red rubber balls
bounced high touching a smoggy blue-gray sky
little girls with pigtails
with smiles gleaming ran past me teasing

in the fifth grade
in one exact instance as a tetherball wound round and round
and cute Suzy Jones hung on the monkey bars upside down
innocence was lost forever

She caught me alone and she raped me
right there in the school yard
during recess
as two hundred kids
played, giggled, skipped

Mrs. Walker
principal of John Muir Elementary
looming high above me in a black overcoat
her gray hair with the ashen sky blending
bent over she whispered so that no one could here
but me, a nine year old innocent
ugliness set in
and her words fucked my head
"Youre nothing but a stupid little Mexican"

Echoes of laughter
became shrill cackles
and I stood there dazed, worried, scared
as Mrs. Walker smirking wiped the blood off her dick
strolled away
left me bleeding - left me for dead
On a schoolyard in 1979

SINS OF THE FATHERS

American Pop Culture

Divorce



mornings came to us like presents
at sunrise
beams of light, ribbon tassles
ready to be greedily opened
anticipation
consuming a young boy's mind
as mama worked a magic spell
in the kitchen
conjuring homemade tortillas
at dawn

everything is a wonder
as a child
it must be magic daddy, mommy

but now mornings come to me like
the closing scenes
of nightmares
climbing high into the sky
dark blackened sky
then falling falling forever
no one to catch me
beams of light burn, bite
trepidation
dominating a lost boy's heart
as mama recovers from a night out
in the kitchen
drinking Folger's
unintentionally
divining black magic horrors
with the grounds at the bottom of her cup

everything is a wonder
as a child
it must be black magic
one morning daddy was there
behind a newspaper
as eggs cackled dancing on grease
and a round tortilla sending out comforting vapors
bubbled to perfection

one day he was gone -
and memory making dissapeared