block to talk with an old painter woman
about art—so I did.
Devotion
the evening shades are creeping
away as you sing morning prayer
expecting some great Spirit to drift
nearby with greetings. you lean to
whisper in the wind something about
being put a long way from fear in the
unknown coming day that threatens
frail bodies with workplace raids that
never leave foreigners in peace. your
troubled dust has been up in the early
morning for months holding tightly to
the hope that Angels would shortly come
and slip you a pass to basically live, take
you away from the shackles of evil States,
and allow your thoughts to breathe. you
will continue these morning prayers until
the long road you have taken North gives
you rest, the Bethlehem star is once again
in sight, and the world that hates your
company confesses the presence of a
divine-king in your brown Spanish
speaking face!
The Substitute
the school bell rings to call
pupils inside for the start of
a fresh day of learning. in
class a substitute eagerly waits
for everyone to take their seats,
then announces they will spend
a little time reviewing newspaper
clips for current events. the teacher
graduated from a local city college,
the kind filled with the children of
immigrants who speak in tongues of
the good news that led their family
name to North American shores.
Mr. Laboda dreamed himself into
the teaching world, filled with the joy
of leaving a speck of himself in kids
who will learn to unveil the dark for
themselves, and keep imaginary sails
within them from slack. that morning
the students discussed New York Times
headlines, the errors of government, the
misunderstandings burning houses down,
the fear of foreigners, bombs dropped on
Afghan heads, the dried blood papers find
a thousand ways to ignore, and the tilted
telling of truth.
War Drums
I visited the well-lit corner
on the other side of Southern
Boulevard in that time of day
everyone kept telling me too
many kids forget a needle with
dope coped on the block would
leave them dead. after the mounting
years of war this country has used to
to count passing years, I particularly
recalled Viet Nam protesters gathered on
that very spot unpacking their Spanish
objections in the name of bringing home
the neighborhood poor who were dying in
jungles for rich men’s greed, far from
diplomacy and the requirements of peace.
on that specific day, I saw Manolo’s mother
standing on the spot pouring her life in
tears, since her son came from the jungle
just to die in a tenement hallway with a
needle fixed in his veins. she whispered
into my ear, whenever the country is at war
the poor kids around here stop dreaming of
big things, and Tío Sam carts them away to
become citizens that die in the ghastly lands,
and for what! I carry this corner with me each
day praying for the war drums to stop their tenacious
beating, always asking the good Lord to soften the
the stone hearts of the men responsible for sending
poor kids to die in the name of their arrogance and
gluttony.
Waiting
I was born in the arms of a tender world with voices beneath a greying city sky telling stories of penniless days.
slowly I began to crawl guided by small lights on the block, to
walk in its varied dark, and grow
older in a wreckage field of Spanish names. I watched buildings go up in flames in the arson days of those who never felt this land a welcome place. I listened in many
tongues to the conceited excuses
explaining why in the barrio people
are undone, our hopes steered into
ignominious graves and our lives
treated like filthy specks of dust.
someday, when night approaches the
morning light, the blind start to see,and the world moves a little closer to truth, our hellish gates will unlock
and the wailing in this forsaken land
will come to a just end.
Bricks
one long summer morning, I spent
the time trying to count the bricks
that lifted the tenement six stories
high. the wind laughed when it blew
by the stoop where I sat in the rather
hopeless eye-opening task that made
people on the way to work slowdown
to stare at me like a miracle was on its
way. I restarted the count more than
once, pausing until the restless sidewalks
held still and the singing coming from
the storefront church filled with brown
feet for an old-fashioned time of praise,
stopped. my thoughts wandered about
that