Monday, December 18, 2017

Tezcatlipoca’s Glory


A poem by Daniel A. Olivas

I made a fool out of you
Back in the bright days
Of the Aztecs and Toltecs.
I made a fool out of you,
And it was easy.

I was a simple god,
Not as wonderful as you,
The great Quetzalcoatl.
¡Ay Dios mío!
You, the sun god, were the greatest!

Long after the Spaniards
Evicted us and brought the Christian
Deities, you were remembered!

Even D. H. Lawrence named
A novel after you: The Plumed Serpent.
Because that is your form,
A horrendous snake
With a head framed in magnificent feathers.

Yet who am I, simple Tezcatlipoca,
As compared to you?
The god of the air!
The pinche goddamned air!
What kind of god is that?

But it was I who shamed you
So that you fled Tenochtitlán,
Our homeland,
In humiliation.

I know you remember the night
I disguised myself
As a great hairy spider and
Offered you your very first taste of pulque
Which (as I’m sure you now know)
Is worse than tequila
Because it sneaks up on your brain
Without warning.

¡Ay!  You got muy borracho!
And you loved that warm feeling
That ran down your throat and into your stomach
And your groin grew hot, too!

What did the great sun god do?
In a drunken heat,
You had your way
With your sister, Quetzalpetlatl!

I watched from behind a cactus
As you ripped her clothes, and you
Moaned an ugly moan, and your sister
Screamed and I laughed!

And in shame, you left your home
And wandered,
Leaving it all to me!

My brilliant plan,
So simple but so effective.
Why you would trust a great
Hairy spider is beyond me.
Perhaps your hubris lulled you
Into a sad belief that no creature
Would dare cause harm to Quetzalcoatl!

I made a fool out of you
Back in the bright days
Of the Aztecs and Toltecs.
I made a fool out of you,
And it was easy.

[“Tezcatlipoca’s Glory” is featured in Daniel A. Olivas’s debut poetry collection, Crossing the Border (Pact Press).]

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