On-Line Floricanto: Poets Respond to Arizona Racists

"Lightning On a Black Night Over The Chuska Mountains" by Kristopher Barney
"The Stone Garden" and "I Am" by Luis Ascencio-Cortez
"To the Poets / A los poetas" by Edith Morris-Vásquez
“A.R.I.Z.O.N.A” by José Gutiérrez
"Rubbish" by Luzma Umpierre
“Kokopelli Pauses” by Alma Luz Villanueva
"Prayer For The Civil Disobedient" by Iuri M. Lara
"Rimas contra las cárceles de papel" by Octavio Merecias Cuevas
"Broken"- Rosa Escamilla
---------

LIGHTNING ON A BLACK NIGHT OVER THE CHUSKA MOUNTAINS

By Kristopher Barney


yaaishjaach'ili'.7.10


there’s a part of me that becomes alive
becomes deadly aware of everything
in all the insane moments of my life
in every cloud shape
in the shapes of my homeland
in the faces
in the rough texture of brown bodies
where one can find
trails of beauty
parts of the eternal
passions ignited in the sensuality of the touch
that gives me goose bumps
the magic that happens
too sudden and less often and
yes i miss you and my mind
runs a separate road of longing of
absorbing beauty through silence and the
internal dialogue over the value of life and
words & actions given to
souls lost somewhere between
this world and the next
a dual battle between gods and men & the
gentle children who
walk in the first days of freedom
we still have it inside of us
this sense of freedom
everything before Columbus
before all the bullshit
this fragrance
this look in the eyes
in bodies tanned by desert wind
and blue sunned skies
beautiful brown bodies that
fit right into scenes of
red canyon bottomlands
brown eyes
black hair
the beauty that only Native can appreciate
this spirit that brings songs to me
in this early morning
all that i take in
when i’m on a journey
hell bent on easing the lonesomeness and
momentary heartbreak of coming to terms with
this life
with seeing
the organs of the earth split open
the trembling nature of anger taken hold
when i walk through this land
see coal trains and trucks hauling
coal to power plants and hear the endless rhetoric
and debates of NDN politicians
hear the worthless discussions over
how life contains so little value next to pleasing
the greed of corporations and
the shadows that implode
as shareholders withhold their investments
as the world of Wall St. becomes
covered in seaside oil sludge
when all so called transparency gets fogged
by the smoke stacks of power plants and cities
the death
the black winds that cover us all and yet
all i can think of is you this morning
the restless night
the wrestling to sleep
this wind that surrounds me in this a.m. moment
the images fading through overcast and sun’s
first light and the silent wishing to be
somewhere else
an escape from the torture of this life
the responsibility those like myself face
this road
this song
this act of pure resistance
this dance with eagle plumes and clouds
the lightning that strikes
through a black night over
the Chuskas……..

(c) Kristopher Barney

------

"The Stone Garden" was written by my son, when Bush was president, my son hates injustice.--Gabriela Cortez-Sweningsen


THE STONE GARDEN

By Luis Ascencio-Cortez

Packed with the innocent, not the guilty
Death row inmates are hidden
By the people who hide the sea
The souls of Granma’s babies
Taken from us by the presidency
The president, a shadow cloaked in white sheets
White supremacy is the enemy
Racist faces of rulers, shun us from power

People are treated like sheep herded,
And used for their products by the hour
We need revolution; we need to act, before we are dead

Because, if we don’t, then no one will
People have lost their will
A will to obtain their freedom
I haven’t lost it, I have kept it hidden
So they don’t steal it
The CIA, FBI, all after it
There are scared of all of us taking action
To destroy the evil in this,
This world, full of fake democracy

By Luis Ascencio-Cortez

------

TO THE POETS / A LOS POETAS
Dedication to Those Responding to SB1070

By Edith Morris-Vasquez


Laws are the broken shackles of hatred
Entwining you in this Ritual of Old,

Bards,
Poetas, Declamadores… son nuestro ejercito verbal
y poseen herramiento alfabético

que es relacionado

con el herramiento que cargan los músculos
desgastados de nuestro pueblo indocumentado

Their Labor is your Labor. Their tools much heavier
Your tools are Words and Poetic Strategies

Poetas, su herramiento
Consiste en palabras en términos poéticos

Que manejan al nivel poético,
where tragic quantities are measured

donde se miden las trágicas cantidades


Este reclamo se ve aumentando
The Disquieting Clamor is Growing


(I Recall that when I
Waitressed Away all my Youth, a Sign in the Kitchen
Spoke Very Loudly. It Read:


A happy customer tells one friend,
an unhappy customer tells everybody.)

------

A.R.I.Z.O.N.A.

Por José Gutiérrez

Aquí estamos y no nos vamos
Recuerda tu historia indígenas logramos
Impactar al mundo con un profundo legado
Zodiacos escritos en paredes de concreto
Olor a puerco vigilando el corral despierto
Nunca nos dividen unidos como ancestros
Armados pero en vez de matarte te dejo tieso

------

RUBBISH

por Luzma Umpierre

Vivo en el país de los amaestrados
I beg your pardon, excuse me, I'm sorry

Fila india para coger la guagua pisotón
I beg your pardon

Ir por la calle siempre a la derecha encontronazo
Excuse me

Hablar siempre en voz baja ¡CARAJO!
I'm sorry

No dejar que un papelito se te caiga en la
acera FLOP
Excuse me

Coger un número y esperar ¡Colao!
I beg your pardon

Estacionar a quince pies, ni uno menos,
del fire-hydrant ¡Déjalo ahí al frente!

Twelve inches from the curve ¡Párate en la curvita!
Excuse me

Caminar siempre de prisa ¡Acángana!
I'm sorry

I b-e-g yul paldon, escuismi,
am sorri pero yo soy latina
y no sopolto su RUBBISH.

-------

KOKOPELLI PAUSES

By Alma Luz Villanueva

Sergio Adrián Hernández Huereka
es muerto, un hijo
es muerto, este día
7 de junio de 2010, Ciudad Juárez...

under the railway
bridge between Mexico
USA, el Río Bravo between
the boys, the Border

Patrol- his mamá, María
Guadalupe, displays a
photo of a skinny boy,
eyes of soft light, on

two soccer teams, his
report card of 'As & B's',
just graduated from junior
high, dreaming of university,

what was his true destiny,
we can only guess, perhaps
a healer in his work,
a father, husband, grandfather,

his family mourns his
death, the murder of
a fifteen-year-old boy
accused of throwing

rocks across the wide
river bank, so the
agent turned, blindly turned,
the rocks falling in the mud,

his friends say he was
just there, no rocks,
just there, rocks thrown
across the wide river

bank that shifts, that
swells with storms, that
ancient river still
sings of migrations, that

Kokopelli laughs over,
his plumed serpent wings,
that day, that moment,
the agent blindly turned,

Sergio Adrián Hernández Huereka
es muerto, un hijo
es muerto, este día
7 de junio de 2010, Ciudad Juárez-

Let us remember this
skinny boy with
eyes of soft light,
his murdered dreams,

Sergio Adrián Hernández Huereka
es muerto, un hijo
es muerto, este día
7 de junio de 2010, Ciudad Juárez-

Kokopelli pauses where his
blood feeds the ancient
river, and he sings an
ancient child-warrior song,

which carries on the
wind to our ears, to the
Sixth Sun, that we
not forget too soon,

Sergio Adrián Hernández Huereka
es muerto, un hijo
es muerto, esta dia
7 de junio de 2010, Ciudad Juárez,

blindly murdered
while standing
in his
own country.


Alma Luz Villanueva
San Miguel de Allende, Mexico
10 Junio, 2010
SERGIO ADRIÁN HERNáNDEZ HUEREKA SIEMPRE PRESENTE....

An angel leads the way- San Miguel de Allende...Semana Santa, 2010...


-------

Luri M. Lara

PRAYER FOR THE CIVIL DISOBEDIENT


Madre Tonantzin,
Madre Tozi-
Madre fuego of the buried
heart.
Don’t allow the police
to take us prisoners.
Don’t allow them to arrest
our bodies
for acting
with disobedience
towards the laws that take our
blood, voice,
attempt to take our dignity.
Make our spirits live forever
on the mountain collective
of vibrant butterflies who gather
pine medicine.
Don’t allow our voices
to die, let them be
heard in the sound
of the conch shell
blown by Native dancers
with intent
to honor the
four directions-
speaking.

-----

Rimas contra las cárceles de papeles

Para mis hermanitas(os) morenitas(os)

Por Octaviano Merecias-Cuevas

A ella le gusta surgir, sentir, decir, reír, escribir
Su día se describe entre surcos agrícolas de Oregón
Su historia es abnegada, ignorada por el blanco barrigón
sus sueños son ilegales en el mundo del anglosajón

No tiene papeles que puedan limpiar lágrimas de sus sueños
Sus amigas regresan del colegio el día de su cumpleaños.
Y entre lunas sigue en el mismo campo esperando el día
Que la cobardía no triunfe sobre la misericordia.

Vive sin papeles entre Ángeles materiales de inglés
sueña que educando, escribiendo, leyendo se va doctorando
pero vuelve a la triste realidad de su identidad sin nacionalidad
otro día más como sombra en una tierra sin pluralidad.

Vuela, vuela palomita de papel, alas de miel,
llévale al mandatario hojas arrancadas de su triste diario.
Que la sociedad vea las letras de su abecedario rutinario.
A diario, sus sueños son el motor de mi vecindario.
Este país solitario es beneficiario de su aporte comunitario.

-----

BROKEN

By Rosa Escamilla


Tortuga of the five legs,
ruling your throne of shell
and creosote brush blooming
after the rains,
immortalized in
shards of native pottery, broken,
left behind,
with bones and sacred remains,
honored remnants,
disturbed and spat upon, profaned,
shards, of earth baked and used
in a myriad ways and functions,
kicked by a cavalry soldier
intent on destroying all the breakables,
but most especially the hearts and minds
of those molders of clay.

A seed pot when it breaks,
strews the kernels, born of the sun,
maiz-colored, blue as midnight,
red as the rust of mountains
when the day's light falls.
Maiz-to-be,
reaching heights of phototropic splendor
and sweetness, jewels of topaz shrivel,
sink in the earth, as if driven
through a chasm, into the deep,
cannot rise and fuel a hunger,
wide as a continent,
vulturous and unabated,
dark, stalking, despairing and life-choking.

Words and wisdom, break and fall,
tongues separated from the source, stories lost.
Histories erased from children's minds,
as if a giant brush could paint over
a canvas, of figures and forms,
etched in history,
silence the many songs.
The breakers know time is a complicit ally,
and drums without skins, lose the beat.
Breaking spirits,
as easy as easing an infant's tiny hand
into yours, treacherously
breaking spirits, easy as
when little ones are stolen, insidiously,
a giant octopus, monstruous eye straying
and tentacles flailing,
grasping, tearing, lifted out
of a mother's surprised arms
to a mission's sway and influence.
But little ones wither,
like newly sprouted seedlings,
when all they are, is
unloved, unseen, unheard,
like mustangs, hobbled and tethered,
when skin and tongue and actions,
are betrayed, deemed not worthy
to exist in its essence, but only
in forgotten skins and voices.

And mother earth wails dolefully,
its mountainous curves demolished.
Nature's riches, robbed,
from its cradles, caverns,
lodes and flows,
from the prairies, where bison trudged,
from the forests, towering sentinels of majesty,
hewn, in graveyards of graying stumps,
left behind,
oil, gut flow of earth's entrails, vacuumed,
from abodes, deep and profound,
from tierra y mar,
lakes burn and lands vomit
the oily spew, while oceanic currents
strive to shake a darkened stew.
Those responsisble point a finger elsewhere;
no covenant to mother earth contemplated,
the very words, just semantics.
Greed needs no excuse, no apology.

Contracts and agreements, meaningless.
And treaties signed,
made again, again and still again,
with tribes, nations and communities,
over a timeline of centuries,
were never to be kept.
Their worth, nothing against a dollar.
And off to lands awarring.
Those recruited, upon return
discover love is a one-way trip.
No jobs await, needs not weighed,
feelings not considered,
to start the healing of
broken bones, hearts and spirits.
Again, another broken promise.




BIOS

1. "Lightning On a Black Night Over The Chuska Mountains" by Kristopher Barney

2. "The Stone Garden" and "I Am" by Luis Ascencio-Cortez


Luis Ascencio-Cortez was born on a beautiful Friday morning, on December 27, 1996 at the Garden Grove hospital, in California, He is the first son of Gabriela Cortez and Alberto Ascencio, and Eric Sweningsen has been his father, Luis lives with his parents (Gabriela Cortes-Sweningsen and Eric Sweningsen) and his two brothers and two sisters.

Luis has dealt with many obstacles in his young life, but he is always a happy kid and ready to go forward, he is going to start the eight grade, he has many aspirations for his future. Luis enjoys, writing, reading, really loves history, painting, sculpting, swimming and enjoys time with family.

Luis is a great son to have and has brought so much joy to all our family.

3. "To the Poets / A los poetas" by Edith Morris-Vásquez
Edith Morris-Vasquez is a researcher, writer, and teacher. She publishes in several fields including poetry, women's studies, translation, and civil and worker's rights. While trained in the humanities, she specializes in teaching creative and research skills to students of all backgrounds. As an interdisciplinary scholar, her interests reach into the social sciences, art practice, and communication. She dedicates the poem, "To the Poets/ A los Poetas," to the literati who have always committed their verbal talents to the goal of bolstering society against incivility, racial animosity, and segregation. Que Vivan los Poetas Siempre!

4. “A.R.I.Z.O.N.A” by José Gutiérrez


March 4th, birthname Jose Gutierrez, is an established poet and emcee. He lends his name from the date the U.S. Constitution went into effect. M-4 easily weaves thru Spanish/English with thought-provoking wordplay that crosses borders and gives meaning to the phrase, "We the People..." This revolutionary lyrical approach is reflected in his personal creed: "Don't waste a breath."

March 4th has performed in the Northwest and Los Angeles with other conscious artists including Quetzal, Blue Scholars, 2Mex, Olmeca, El Vuh, and Native Guns. Whether in the studio or on stage, M-4 brings an intense energy comparable to none. He is also single and ready to mingle. For serious inquiries contact: majormarx@gmail.com

5. "Rubbish" by Luzma Umpierre

Poet, educator, and human rights advocate; born in Santurce, Puerto Rico, where she graduated with honors from both the Sacred Heart Academy and the Sacred Heart University. In 1974, Umpierre came to reside in the United States. She has published seven books, including Una puertorriqueña en Penna; En el país de las maravillas; The Margarita Poems; For Christine. Poems & One Letter; Pour Toi/For Moira, Our Only Island—For Nemir; a collection of essays, Nuevas aproximaciones críticas; the book Ideología y novela en Puerto Rico; and over 100 articles, among them, “La ansiedad de la influencia en Sandra María Esteves y Marjorie Agosín,” published in the anthology Woman of Her Word: Hispanic Women Write.

Umpierre has undertaken legal battles and pioneering work for the inclusion of issues of sexual orientation, gender, race, class, and ethnicity in the curriculum of universities. She also helped found and worked for PABE (The Pennsylvania Association for Bilingual Education) and the International Classroom at the University of Pennsylvania to help Latina/o children be given proper educational rights in the state's school system. In 1995, she received a nomination to the Women’s Hall of Fame in Seneca Falls, NY. She was also nominated for the Jefferson Outstanding Citizen Award in 1996. In 2004, the MLA held an homage session at their yearly convention to honor Dr. Umpierre's poetry and humanitarian work. She received a Lifetime Achievement Award in 1990 from the Gay and Lesbian organizations of New Jersey. She has also received awards for her advocacy of AIDS patients, including the Bayard Rustin Award from AIDS Massachusetts and Woman of the Year at Western Kentucky University. She has also worked with the Red Cross, the Ford Foundation, and Amnesty International on different Human Rights projects. Umpierre was named Outstanding Woman of Maine by the USA Congress in 2002.

Umpierre received her Ph.D. from Bryn Mawr College, PA. She also has done Post Doctoral work at the Woodrow Wilson International Center, The University of Kansas (sponsored by the Ford Foundation) and the New School of Social Work and Social Research. She now resides in Florida.


6. “Kokopelli Pauses” by Alma Luz Villanueva


7. "Prayer For The Civil Disobedient" by Iuri M. Lara

Iuri Morales Lara, was born and raised in Santa Ana-Orange County, CA. She is a Chichimeca-Mexica danzante, a youth ally to grassroots youth groups focusing on community empowerment and urban murals, and an assistant writer for the Barrio Writers Youth Program. On June 3, 2010 she and seven others collectively participated in a direct action in front of the department of Homeland Security Office in downtown Santa Ana against Arizona's SB 1070 law, and anti-undocumented peoples "rule of law statements" made by the cities of Costa Mesa, Orange, and Yorba Linda. She is also a candidate for a Master of Fine Arts in poetry at U.C. Riverside.


8. "Rimas contra las cárceles de papel" by Octavio Merecias Cuevas


A trilingual Mixteco poet, socio-linguist, researcher, filmmaker and community educator. A member of H2@arte and Black Poets Society. He is leading the new movement of Poesía Mixta, where the indigenous languages mix with Spanish, English, and Portuguese, can be part of one whole song/poem/piece using simple mathematical structures. Currently he lives in Oregon where he serves as a faculty member for Oregon State University Extension Services working with youth at risk and leading New Media Technology projects. He has long hair, is single, and is looking for his musa. You can find out more about his new media projects at vozdenube.com and Facebook.com/octaviano.merecias or @ myspace.com/oktavio104

9. "Broken"- Rosa Escamilla

Rosa Escamilla, a long-time union and community activist, has been writing poetry for over 20 years. Most recently, she moved to Southern California after 15 years in the Bay area. Presently, she is in Brownwood, Texas, attending to her ailing father. She is also helping to start up the first community garden in the area. It is irrigated solely with collected rainwater, lit with solar panels, and over 50% of the produce goes to local food pantries. The organic garden is also a vehicle for using and educating on sustainable garden practices. Her poetry is about family, the environment, and social justice issues.