Iztcuincle

soy tu iztcuincle
y con mis patas picaras
persigo tu corazon

Landscapes

because... a landscape is only beautiful in person.

when it becomes a memory,
its image is only a scribbled lovenote
whose immensity no one will ever comprehend

A LOS 23 ANOS...

a los 23 años yo vi,

desnudo,

el cielo.

la luz había caido debajo de sus pies

con su ropa sucia y arrugada

atrás del horizonte.

millones de diamantes

engarzados tiritaban

con la humedad de su respiro

y el vacío lleno

de su omnipresencia

como en la nieve queda el hueco

calido y solitario

de un lobo vagabundo…

la tierra soplaba

y yo en mi espalda

un bicho atrapado

la vi vestirse otra vez

rescatando lagrimas cometas

escondiendo dedo por dedo

su belleza cruda

con la llegada del sol

(En los Andes de Bolivia, 2006)

The Personal & The Political

EL PORTAVOZ

anoche se murio el portavoz del movimiento
tal vez por suicidio,
quizas por estar tomado-

La conciencia ya no sembraran
los granudos con gritos recios;
Ni jamas nos inspirara
el canto de poetas pericos.

Anoche en este momento,
con dedos tiernos y un cepillo antiguo
peine pelos negros y largos,
mis manos;
dos aves anamorados preparando su primer nido
a tu cabello liso tejieron,
acariciando...

y tu trensa humildemente brillaba
en nuestro silencio


From "Black Boy" by Richard Wright:
My mother opened the door and stared curiously at the pile of magazines that lay upon my pillow.
"You're not throwing away money buying those magazines, are you?" she asked.
"No. They were given to me."
She hobbled to the bed on her crippled legs and picked up a copy of the Masses that carried a lurid May Day cartoon. she adjusted her glasses and peered at it for a long time.
"My God in heaven," she breathed in horror.
"What's the matter, mama?"
"What is this?" she asked, extending the magazine to me, pointing to the cover. "What's wrong with that man?"

With my mother standing at my side, lending me her eyes, I stared at a cartoon drawn by a Communist artist; it was a figure of a worker clad in ragged overalls and holding aloft a red banner. The man's eyes bulged; his mouth gaped as wide as his face; his teeth showed; the muscles of his neck were like ropes. Following the man was a horde of nondescript men, women, and children, waving clubs, stones, and pitchforks.

"What are those people going to do?" my mother asked.
"I don't know," I hedged.
"Are these Communist magazines?"
"Yes."
"And do they want people to act like this?"
"Well..." I hesitated.

My mother's face showed disgust and moral loathing. She was a gentle woman. Her ideal was Christ upon the Cross. How could I tell her that the Communist party wanted her to march in the streets, chanting and singing?

"What do Communists think people are?" she asked.
"They don't quite mean what you see there," I said, fumbling with my words.
"Then what do they mean?"
"This is symbolic," I said.
"Then why don't they speak out what they mean?"
"Maybe they don't know how."
"Then why do they print this stuff?"
"They don't quite know how to appeal to people yet," I admitted, wondering whom I could convince of this if I could not convince my mother.

"That picture's enough to drive a body crazy," she said, dropping the magazine, turning to leave, then pausing at the door. "You're not getting mixed up with those people?"
"I'm just reading, mama," I dodged.

My mother left and I brooded upon the fact that I had not been able to meet her simple challenge. I looked again at the cover of the Masses and I know that the wild cartoon did not reflect the passions of the common people. I re-read the magazine and was convinced that much of the expression embodied what the artists thought would appeal to others, what they thought would gain recruits. They had a program, an ideal, but they had not yet found a language.

Here, then, was something that I could do, reveal, say. The Communists, I felt, had oversimplified the experience of those whom they sought to lead. In their efforts to recruit masses, they had missed the meaning of the lives of the masses, had conceived of people in too abstract a manner. I would make voyages, discoveries, explorations with words and try to put some of that meaning back...

Charts & Graphs

i sat down with pencil and paper to make some linear charts & graphs about la mujer, cosas politicas e importantes en el mundo,  algo sobre "la esencia" de la mujer fuerte y educada, que no necesita a nadie, but got distracted...

para ti, que puedo hacer?

todos los colores te quisiera mandar,

per aguanto.

y tù, sin responder.

para ti, que puedo hacer?

fingo negro y blanco.

mientras toda luz remolina

en mi ser interior

Por Què el Caracol?

"Oh Hijo del Hombre! Mi calamidad es mi providencia, aparentamente es fuego y venganza, pero por dentro es luz y misericordia. Corre hacia ella para que llegues a ser una luz eterna y un espìritu inmortal.  Este es mi mandamiento para ti, obsèrvalo..."   -Baha'u'llah

"Oh Son of Man! My calamity is my providence, outwardly it is fire and vengeance, but inwardly it is light and mercy.  Hasten thereunto that thou mayest become an eternal light and an immortal spirit.  This is My command unto thee, do thou observe it..."   -Baha'u'llah

Por què el caracol?

"En su infinita belleza, el caracol nos recuerda el agua, el mar, la lluvia, la fertilidad; en fìn, todo aquello que forma parte de la vida.  Y es que el caracol es el sìmbolo vital por excelencia.  Habita en el agua, tiene vida en su interior, posee sonido y, por eso, aparece en el mito de la bajada de Quetzalcòatl al Mictlàn, el lugar de descarnados.  Còmo un caracol, esta muerto y carece de sonido.  Es necesario que sea horadado por los gusanos...para que haya vida en su interior.  Es por todo esto que caracoles y conchas de diversas especias marinas y de agua dulce son los que se encuentran con mas frecuencia en las ofrendas del Templo Mayor" -de un libro sobre el arte de Mexico

*Horadar: Agujerear algo atravesàndolo de parte a parte.

"In it's infinite beauty, the conch represents water, the sea, the rain, and fertility; in sum, everything that forms a part of life.  The conch is a fundamental symbol of excellence.  It lives in the water, it has life in its interior, it possesses sound and, because of this, it appears in the myth of the ascent of Quetzalcòatl to Mictlàn, the place of the dead.  Like the conch, Mictlàn is dead and has no sound.  It is necessary that (the body of Quetzalcòatl) is devoured by worms...so that there is life in it's interior.  And it is because of all this that the conch and shells of various ocean and river species are found so frequently in the offerings of the Templo Mayor." -from a book on the art of Mexico

Asì como la carne del interior del caracol es devorado por los gusanos, asì como el cuerpo de Quetzalcòatl fue devorado en su bajada a Mictlàn (El lugar de descarnados), asì como un caracol vacio tiene la capacidad de manifestar la musica, y asì como los huesos de Quetzalcòatl fueron dotados de vida can la entrada de los gusanos, quemar nuestro pegamento al yo por medio del fuego de pruebas, en vez de destruirnos, aumenta nuestra capacidad de manifestar nuestro divino y creativo ser...

Like the flesh of the shell is eaten away by the worms, like the body of Quetzalcòatl was eaten away on his descent to Mictlàn (The land of the dead), like the conch has the capacity to make music once it is emptied, and like bones of Quetzalcòatl were given life by the entering of the worms, the burning away of our attachment to self through the fire of tests increases our capacity to manifest our higher divine and creative self...

Maìz

MAIZ

el receptàculo femenino

es la comida que comemos

y nuestra manera de cultivar las plantas

se refleja en nuestro pensar

còmo tratamos a nuestros mismos?

masticando.

còmo pensamos en nuestro vientre?

echamos pesticidias sin parar.

còmo vemos a la fertilidad?

chicas que no comen

que pierdan su regla mensual.

Las papas son raìces que crecen

debajo de la piel de la madre tierra.

Algunas papas no tienen equilibrio.

Van muriendo las papas,

comidos por los gusanos swarming

incubatados en serros Andinos,

al calor de global warming.

el maìz es un vientre que florece

de las cejas de la madre tierra.

Algunas mamaìzitas no tienen equilibrio.

Son convertidas por maquinas monstruosas,

digeridas por trokas

y escupidas en un humo pestilente,

manteniendo el abuso persistente

de madre maìz a la madre tierra

por medio de los Hombres.

el maìz

es un vientre frutal

con bebes amarillos, morados,

rojos y azules:

con sus bebes

hacemos el pan

con sus bebes

hacemos las tortillas-

machacamos su fruto

en un acto de sacrificio

y cuando nos olvidamos de su santidad

se convierte en un vicio

Many plants are either male or female. The female plants bear fruit; the fruit we eat contain the seeds of that vine, tree, or shrub.  When we eat a fruit, we are essentially eating the female receptacle of that plant. When we eat corn, we are eating the swollen ovaries of that plant. All of our food, the building blocks of our nutrition, come from the feminine. What implications does this have, if we think of how we treat the feminine that gives us life? Ourselves, our mothers, the food we eat. Processed, high fructose corn syrup- is that what we want to transform the feminine in-to? Qualities considered feminine such as compassion, humbleness, faithfulness- should they be cultivated and digested like a hearty cornbread, or processed into biodiesel only to raise the price of tortillas?

The Sea Inside

MOSAICO

patronas que repiten

desde el rincon mas intimo

hasta lo mas conocido

grande, grande es el reflejar

chiquito, chiquito, todo quisiera analizar

muy adentro, lo politico

muy afuera, mi pensar