Entries Tagged as 'Poetry'

Yo escribo porque tengo coraje

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YO ESCRIBO PORQUE TENGO CORAJE ¿A poco no te pasa? A veces quieres escribir una historia que se te ocurre y que te parece genial pero cuando te sientas y la comienzas a escribir piensas: pero qué pendejada estoy diciendo, esto es una mierda, ¿a quién le va a interesar este cuento? Yo por eso […]

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COLIBRÍ

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COLIBRÍ   AMNESIA what are stars but question marks left in grass dew-form hiatuses in the longing the hand has searching for its soul the distant and perfervid traffic of nerve and sinew echoing some archaic rock come to rest on the western edge of water where the likely sun will set its dizzy head […]

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Eulogy for Súper Pancho from the Land of Maíz

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Eulogy for Super Pancho from the Land of Maíz Illustration by Víctor Ochoa Crowned with a black sombrero, a halo of dust trails behind Súper Pancho from the Land of Maíz as his tan steel-toe work boots touch the ground. Súper Pancho’s tamale arms and legs don’t hide from the scorching sun to sell diamond-faced […]

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¡Presentes!

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  Alfred Arteaga We could talk about how his heart was taught the secrets of the serpent’s tail. We could confer hours incalculable upon the small chamber that holds the ultimately unknowable blue bed embodied within his very core and how our own beetle and bug infested poor mats and cots and bags of straw […]

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Superman for a Day

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Superman for a Day                                     (It ain’t what it’s all cracked up to be) “Look! Up in the sky! Is it a bird? Is it a plane? No, it’s Superman!”   Was all we needed to hear to drop everything and run en chinga to grab a front row seat on the cold linoleum floor in […]

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Floricanto en Mictlan

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alternaCtive publicaCtions would like to honor contemporary Chicano/a authors who have preceded us in the journey to Mictlan. In the tradition of the Floricantos, we have gathered quotes from their work, book covers, and pictures. May they serve as one way of remembering these writers. We have included in this hommage those who published during […]

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Selected Works

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In Mexico, there are dark places in the midst of the squalor and the pollution where there is no noise, little motion, where one can sit undisturbed. I live in the little village several miles from here. Here is El Toro, a bar or café. What could you call it? The men sitting at the […]

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Codex M

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MS Codex Mojaodicus   Aztechnicians night spreading as peacock his eye like charcoal 1168 dayknife signs of declining social orders: war   importation   translation   man a rational creature Montezuma Cortes ye knew suppose rational man’s stripped of apetites hunger thirst &c at his rational man experiments when knock knock from his lab door […]

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Conjuro (Selecciones)

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Cabezas olmecas Secretos de húmeda selva Guardados en labios de obsidiana. Entre árboles putrefactos Se esconden los dioses jaguares. Cabezas olmecas, Colosos de cultura madre. No hay pantanos que traguen La historia en piedra. De los manantiales secos, Resurgen los guerreros olmecas. Labios de selva negra Sellados con inmortalidad. Ojos celestiales que buscan Las constelaciones […]

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SHADES OF BROWN

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A Quick Quihúbole   Truth is, I wrote this for the Chicanao Mestizaje del Valle Imperial, for the shades of brown.  And so, even though I know this might not shade everyone in The Desert, I hope the Shades stretch and reach that certain someone…or two or 70-something-percent. See, I’m not coming to you with […]

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