Mardi Gris

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below the Elysian Fields

waiting for the parade to come

and for lent to end.

The Krewe of Orleans marches,

wearing black face through its parade

route. The floats float from Gentilly

river-bound toward the I-10 onramp,

throwing beads of drowned tears

and doubloons minted by years

of neglect. Bareback survivors

cling to the sides, adorning the float.

Queen Oceanus waves to the flyers-by

while the water around them is painted

in green, purple and gold, the Mardi

Gras colors. I can barely hear

anything other than the blaring silence

of the jazz funeral procession.

"Throw me something, mister," they scream.

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Matamundos - First Installment
Category: Writing and Poetry

Matamundos

The feared and anticipated arrival of Supreme Commander José Rivera of the Colombian Revolutionary Armed Forces to Hacienda Matamundos, which belonged to Judge Contreras, Commander Rivera's sworn enemy, was a magnificent spectacle of desperation performed by the workers of Hacienda Matamundos.

            The fears were well founded for the workers of the hacienda, who had heard about the many massacres ordered by the Commander. The fears were also well founded for the judge, for the Commander's visit would ultimately cost him the upcoming Gubernatorial Election.

            The dozens of Indian workers and plantation foremen ran aimlessly around the Hacienda's barns and the mansion, not knowing what to do, forming a cloud of dust so thick that children of the hacienda had to be led outside by the cooks so that they would not get lost inside. The women knelt in front of their altars by the kitchen praying for the commander's prompt and peaceful departure from the Hacienda. The workers became so enthralled with the uproar the Commander's arrival caused that the four hundred and fifty tamales produced by the kitchen workers for the harvest celebration burnt inside the furnace and had to be thrown away. What was even worse was that nobody thought to call and alert the judge of the commander's arrival, and that nobody paid attention to the ham radio or heard the news about the tropical storm that approached from the Pacific and had already devastated the coffee-growing regions of the Northwest.

            The commander's arrival came precisely three days after the cotton harvest ended. The barns were overflowing and ready to burst with cotton bushels. He jumped off the Zulich truck, the commander wearing Russian surplus fatigues, a French handkerchief that had once belonged to Ché Güevara, and a Type 56 SKS Chinese rifle slung over his right shoulder.

            "I've come to see my mother," the commander tapped gently on the portico with the rifle's butt and strode back towards the truck. The commander was so short and thin that Feliz's first instinct was to invite him to eat pork and hormigas culonas left over from the three-day feast the judge had ordered for the Indians and the cotton pickers after the harvest.

            Carmen, the judge's concubine, and the commander's mother sat plopped on the floor leaning against the adobe wall near the judge's studio completely dressed in black, holding a white handkerchief to her face while her usually impeccable mascara ran down her face. Carmen was a voluptuous matron with the figure of a cattle head. Two Indian women half her size attempted to console her.

            "Why do you cry, Mrs. Carmen?" Feliz, the judge's five-year old grandson said.

            "Ay, my little boy. Because when the Saint came to town, she predicted that this year one of them was going to die because of the other, and I think it's going to be today." Feliz didn't understand.

            The commander stood outside next to his truck waiting.

            Carlos Federico, the oldest and most boisterous of the judge's grandchildren, walked behind Feliz wearing an American cowboy outfit and cradling an iguana on his left forearm. Feliz treaded back towards the wall and pushed him away.

            "What's that?" Feliz said.

            "It's for Cecilia—she will pee her pants again. Here. Hold it." He held it out in front of him. Feliz turned away and faced the window. "Girl," Carlos Federico said.

            Stag beetles clung to the windows. The commander and his men peeled their tank-tops off their backs and plopped them on the steps that led to Matamundos' pine portico. The air became heavier. Carlos Federico dropped the iguana. It skidded and darted towards the inside of the mansion. Feliz's coveralls stuck to his skin. The judge's Volkswagen Beetle pulled up behind the commander's truck. The Indian exited the vehicle, walked around its back to avoid bumping into one of the guerrilleros and held the passenger door open for the judge.

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Commander Rivera and his men had left their trenches on the mountains surrounding the capital, trimmed their beards, combed their Jesus-length hair and bathed under the ..:namespace prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" />Tenquendama Falls before they trekked on horseback through the páramos of the Cordillera, where the only things that survived the cold were lichens and mosses. They came down the mountainside and passed the Valley of the Devil's Nose. They rode around Mt. Pacandé into the mess of cacti, rattlesnakes and jagged cliffs of the Tatacoa desert. In the process, they bypassed the Military Police checkpoint established by the Army's Ninth Regiment at the eighteen-kilometer mark of the Bogotá-Neiva road. In the town of Villavieja, the commander exchanged the horses to Paeses Indians still sympathetic to the commander's communist cause for the Russian truck, Johnson-n-Johnson baby powder and a tarnished mirror he and his men used to ensure the maintenance of  proper grooming while they journeyed through the desert to meet women for the first time in over seven months. They drove through the desert past the Painted Rock engraved by the Aipe nomads before the time of the Spaniards.

            They found Neiva an oasis slumped in a hole in the middle of a desert. The commander drove past the regional airport and hung a left onto Avenida José Eustasio Rivera.

            From a window of his office on the top floor of downtown Neiva's tallest building at eleven stories, Alberto Medina, the judge's son and campaign manager, saw them. At first he thought the commander's truck belonged to the Bogotá-based shipping company  the judge had contracted to transport the cotton slabs to buyers in the capital, but he realized his mistake when he noticed the French handkerchief waving from the truck's cabin. He was the one that first warned the judge of the commander's presence. From the top floor of the National Building of Mail and Telegraphs, Alberto watched the commander make his way downtown past the monument to the Gaitana Chief, the Colonial Capitol and the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception. When the truck passed the National Road Police Station on Fifth Street, two conscripts stood on both sides of the truck without raising their rifles, perhaps taken back by the charisma of the man waving the French handkerchief on his procession through downtown Neiva.         

            When the judge was handed Alberto's message by the bailiff, he adjourned the court proceedings and retreated to his chambers because he knew he had just enough time to fix his bowtie and reach the balcony overlooking Avenida José Eustacio Rivera before the commander's truck passed the House of Justice on Second Street. The commander's truck stopped on the light of José Eustacio Rivera and Second. When he saw the judge, the commander crawled out of the passenger side window and stood on the truck's cabin.

            "Judge, I came to see my mother."

            "She's not here."

            "I came to warn you so that you don't bother sending any policemen to their death when you find me in front of your house." A tower of black clouds and lightning flashes approached from the far north.

            The judge ensured his white hat was placed squarely on his head and brought the Indian with him on his way up to the governor's office. The judge planned to just stop in briefly to excuse himself for taking the liberty of leaving early because he had extremely pressing business to attend to in regards to his cotton harvest, but in reality he wanted to keep Commander Rivera away from Hacienda Matamundos.

            The judge's first lash of anger of the day came from visiting the governor's office. Seeing the governor reminded him of what he had not been able to achieve five years earlier precisely because of his involuntary relationship to the commander, and what he was afraid he would not be able to do that year because of that relationship again. Governor Barreto's relentless attacks on the judge's family ties with one of the country's most wanted man were credited with costing Judge Contreras the gubernatorial elections for the Department of Huila. There was for the judge no greater humiliation than presiding two floors below Governor Barreto's office and having to brief him on every one of his legal decisions.

            The judge pushed open the Governor's white oak door. He found Governor Barreto along with Housing Secretary Haas and Economy Secretary Aguilar.

            "You don't have to make any excuses, Contreras. I know you have to leave." Governor Barreto pulled on his silver pipe. He punched the intercom button. "Gisela, get me General Piedrahita and Radio Garzón. Tell them I have a great story for the afternoon news." He hung up the receiver. "You should consider dropping out of the race, judge. Your step-son's little visits are going to get me a second term in office."

            The judge slammed the door and dragged the Indian with him to his Volkswagen. He followed the commander's truck on the Misael Pastrana Borrero Bridge over the Ceibas River. When they came up to the bridge, the traffic slowed down. The sky blackened. They passed the National Army's Fifth Division's Ninth Brigade's base, home of the Sebastián de Belalcázar Anti-Guerrilla Battalion and drove up the Central Range towards Matamundos and the cotton plantations. One of the commander's men turned the truck's naked radio knob between his knuckles, but he did not find any signal.

The Indian thumbed the radio dial looking for the score of the Deportivo Huila-Atlético Nacional match. When he found Radio Garzón, the judge ordered him to stop. The afternoon news had reported the arrival of Commander Rivera to Neiva to meet with Judge Contreras in his hacienda. Radio Garzón, being the propaganda machine of the Conservative Party, spoke about the swift action to be undertaken by the Sebastián de Belalcazar Anti-Guerrilla Battalion and the National Police in the event of any disturbance.

            "Just what I needed, Indian," the judge said. The Indian never spoke. The judge had always thought that the Indian was a mute, but in reality he just didn't want to talk—not even in his native garble. The Indian just sat silently with his toasted eyelids and his sagging cinnamon-red cheeks behind the polished steering wheel as he had done for the past thirty-four years listening to Judge Contreras air the pains and secrets no one else could know. "My grandfathers liberate this country from the Spaniards. I get a bullet in my arm serving this Army. I lead my company to a victory in Los Guaduales. We kill fifty-eight Liberals and capture Colonel Collazo in the Violencia so that these blood-sucking socialist journalists come and doubt my patriotism because of that ruffian." The Indian turned on a dirt road that shot off the main road in order to gain time back to the hacienda. The judge shifted uncomfortably on his seat and fidgeted with his bow tie to make sure that it was straight. When Radio Garzón reported the damage caused in the coffee-growing region by the approaching Tropical Storm, the judge was no longer listening.

When the judge arrived at Matamundos, he found the commander bare-chested, smoking an unfiltered cigarette and leaning on the truck. The commander rose, leaving a clean imprint of his slender frame on the dust the truck had gathered during its journey. The judge walked over the iguana and around a cello the band had forgotten to pick up after the feast. The judge thought that the commander looked skinnier than ever. He figured that there was nothing to pity about a man that despite being so ugly and physically unimpressive had nevertheless achieved command of the nineteen-thousand guerrilleros of the Colombian Revolutionary Armed Forces and become the most sought after man in the country after Pablo Escobar and the Ochoa brothers.

            "I am glad that being the barbarian that you are," the judge said outside to the commander, "you at least have the decency not to break into your own mother's house."

            "Be careful judge," the commander threw the cigarette on the floor. "I am sure you don't want to get mud on that white suit of yours."

            The judge nudged his way past the commander and adjusted his black-laced hat. He walked up the steps, removed his white jacket and handed it to the Indian. He felt the stupor growing. He stepped up to the portico and banged on it with an open palm.

            "Judge," the commander said. "When you see my mother, you tell her I am looking for her."

The Indian opened the portico for the judge. He looked back and studied the commander and the royal way in which he sucked on his Piel Roja cigarette. He sighed and called for Carmen to come to his side.

            "If this costs me the governorship again, woman…" he said.  

            The judge helped the Indians drag the portico door shut. He told them to gather the foremen in a kitchen that he equated in genius to the Ford assembly line because of the efficient way in which Carmen, the Indian women and the two black cooks from the Pacific produced enough bushels of 10-pesos loafs and enough cups of chicken broth to feed the three-hundred and fifty-six people that inhabited Hacienda Matamundos during the harvest. The judge dragged Carmen up by her arm, knelt down beside her and whispered loud enough so that everyone around her could hear.

            "You tell that hick that he's not wanted in this hacienda." The judge stood. "I want coffee and some bread."

            "Why don't you tell him yourself?" Carmen stood above him with the two Indians hanging from her shoulder.

            "Because that hick is your son." The judge rose and nudged past her towards the kitchen.         

The judge sat down at the head of a rosewood table long enough to seat all the workers, the Indians and the cotton-pickers.  Blood from the eight pigs slaughtered during the three-day celebration was still splattered on the walls. Plantain bunches were still buried under mounds of humus, and corn kernels were wedged in the cracks between the tiles and the wood laths. The foremen for the cotton-pickers and cattle herders that had arrived by train months before from the plains of Casanare filed around the table after the judge. He crumbled the bread and explained to the foremen the grave dangers of allowing the plantation workers to mingle with the commander and his men and be infected with their Communist rhetoric. He ordered for the workers to be relieved of their duties, paid for their three months of labor and driven to town so that they could board the Neiva-Villavicencio express train for the ride back to Casanare. He slurped on his coffee cup and told the foremen not to worry—that their labor was done. He told them that the shippers from the capital and the Indians would be enough to load the cotton on the trucks and send them back to Bogotá. The judge did so despite his better judgment, because Judge Contreras' biggest embarrassment in life and the biggest roadblock to his political advancement was to be the step-father of José Rivera, and he would risk ruin before allowing one of his workers to be recruited by the commander and his band of leftist thugs. 

The judge stepped into his study. Without making a noise, he lowered himself onto the mahogany sofa he'd purchased from Lebanese merchants around the time of the violencia in 1948. He withdrew a Colt six-shot revolver from the first drawer on his desk and wiped it with a damp red cloth. The telephone rang. He placed the revolver inside his coat and picked up the French Association des Ouvriers PTT24 1941 monophone.

            "Contreras family," he held the mouthpiece up with one hand and balanced the monophone with the other. It was General Piedrahita of the National Army. He said he was concerned for the judge's safety and for that of everyone in Hacienda Matamundos. In reality the general had just called to save face because he had already been told by Governor Barreto not to order the snipers on the watch-towers to shoot the commander when they'd had him on their crosshairs while crossing the Misael Pastrana Borrero Bridge. "Don't bother yourself, General," the judge told him. "The commander is not going to do anything while his mother is around. Besides—think about it: If your men kill the commander, you and a lot of people in this country would all be out of a job."

Carmen entered the study carrying a bag of bread loafs. The judge looked down at his legal papers. He did not acknowledge her presence.

            "What is it?" Without moving his gaze he signed a document, stamped it and placed it on top of a pile.

            "I'm going outside to see my son," she said. "I have not seen him in five years."

            "Don't come back, then." He pulled another document from the bin.

            "This is my house too. I come and go as I want to."

            Carmen, almost the same size of the judge, spoke with the characteristic slow and unhurried cadence of the descendants of the Paeses Indians of the Colombian Southwest.  The judge stood and took two steps towards her. She dropped the bread bag. They breathed on each other's face. Her massive matronly breasts pressed against his stomach. Her forehead rubbed against his chin. She placed her hands on his chest. She shoved him back against the desk. She turned around, picked up the loaves and exited the study.

            "Don't bring him inside my house," he said.

            The judge sat back down in front of his desk. Carmen's twin flour handprints were painted on his white jacket. He signed the document, stamped it and placed it on top of the pile.

            "The shippers from Bogotá should be here any minute." He lifted the hourglass and observed it for a second. He slammed it against the wall.

9:59 AM - 1 Comments - 2 Kudos - Add Comment

If you never read any of my postings, please read this one
Current mood: drained
Category: Life

Last night I was bored enough to look through some of those cutesy bulletin posts that promise to bring nine years of bad luck if you don't forward them to three hundred people in thirty seconds. One of the postings advertised a website which gives you an estimate of how many people in the United States have your exact name based on statistical probability. According to the website,

However, I know this information to be at least partially untrue. Up until March 29 of 2003, there was another Diego Rincón. A nineteen-year old male from Conyers, Georgia. He was a soldier, like I am, and he was born in Colombia, like I was. Private First Class Diego Rincón, only a year younger than I was, served as a SAW gunner for the Third Infantry Division, and was killed by a suicide bomber. He was one of the first casualties in the Third's push into Iraq that begun Operation Iraqi freedom.

The phone rings again.

Me: Hello.

Friend or Relative: Diego? Mijito, are you okay? I just heard in the news that--

Me: It's another Diego Rincón. I'm in the States. I'm alive.

I was a little freaked out to say the least, so I did some research about my deceased tocayo. Don't ask me why. Sheer curiosity, I guess. Our life stories were quite similar: His father brought him to this country to escape the violence most Colombians are unfortunately too familiar with. Similar circumstances drove my mother out of Colombia. He decided to thank his adoptive country by enlisting after the events of September 11th, 2001. While the military bug had bitten me many years before 9/11, the fact that my home had been attacked drove me to eventually raise my right hand and take the oath.

He enlisted as a non-citizen, as did approximately 37,000 immigrants that today deploy in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Enduring Freedom to defend a country that does not yet recognize them as citizens. Diego was awarded his citizenship posthumously. A little too late, if you ask me. After Diego's death, his father George was quoted as saying that he himself would enlist to finish the job his son had started, even though at the age of 41, he was inelligible for enlistment (or commissioning for that matter).

A couple of years ago, I visited the now defunct website www.diegorincon.com to pay my respects to my compatriot (both Colombian and American) and my tocayo. I don't remember what I wrote his mother, but I remember that I didn't know what to write. Nothing can ever bring him back. No tribute is enough to pay for the blood of the soldier shed in combat. Regardless of your feelings about the war, if you're reading this today, feel fortunate that men and women like Diego have chosen to serve wherever your country may ask them to serve.

The GI's who served in World War II have been touted as the Greatest Generation, a term derived from Tom Brokaw's book of the same name, bacause they were common Americans who left everything to fight in Europe and the Pacific.They didn't have a choice. They were drafted. While I greatly value the sacrifices of that generation, the greatest generation exists today. It is deployed around the world fighting a war it doesn't understand and which's results are not tangible battle victories or line breaches. The generation is consisted of everyday men and women of all ethnicities and creeds, motivated by different reasons, yet united under a common cause. I will venture to say that ninety-nine percent of the people who serve in our military today have chosen to serve or extend their commitment during a time of war, knowing that with the service oath came a ticket to the Middle East.

Last night I bid farewell to my friends of the 2nd Battlation, 30th Infantry Regiment, 4th BCT, 10th Mn DIV and support elements as they left behind spouses, sons, daughters, mothers, fathers, and friends to reinforce Coalition Forces engaged in OEF. I hope to see them all when they return, though that seldom ever happens, and I will most likely be down range when they return.

It's true. We are a nation at war. We all come back wearing the same flag on our right shoulder or draped over our casket. If nothing else, pray for us.

3:38 PM - 4 Comments - 6 Kudos - Add Comment

Hispanics and Miltiary Recruitment

For those of you kind enough to read my poetry blog, you will remember the poem of epic proportions dealing with the neglected history of Hispanics in military service for the United States of America. I am glad to see that during this "Hispanic Heritage Month," I've seen the Army trying to outdo itself in recognizing the contributions of Latinos to the armed forces. For example, the GoArmy.com (recruiting) website featrures a rather nice tribute to Hispanics in the militatry at http://www.goarmy.com/hhm/index.jsp.

It also bears mentioning that the Army deliberately targets Hispanics for recruitment (thus the tribute on the Recruiting wesite) because unfortunately many of us in the States come from impoverished backgrounds with little opportunity, which makes military service, with the promised benefits and educational opportunities, a viable option. If you do not believe me, look through printed Army enlistment recruitment materials and count the Latino names you see on the name tags and posters. We are grossly overrepresented in the enlisted ranks and  combat Military Occupational Specialties that require lower test scores and more manual labor. We are also underrepresented in the officer ranks, and more so in the field and general officer grades, and this is all because sadly, many of us do not have the educational credentials and are thus relegated to the lower enlisted ranks and the more menial jobs of the service.

I don't write this to discourage any Hispanics from the military service. No, it's not for everyone. Yes, it's not an easy life and it's full of sacrifice. However, it is my duty to serve when I've come to this country to enjoy freedoms and opportunities that would have been denied to me in a Colombia steeped in a Civil War and suffering from a crippled economy. The benefits are there. I have seen many good people make an honest and honorable living as a result of military service. I have seen many young Latinos get degrees and qualify for jobs that they probably would not have had an opportunity to get had they not served in the military.

Most of you know where I stand on Iraq and how I feel about President Bush, so it does not bear mentioning. Serving in the military is a call to duty. It is not a call to serve in any given war or any given President. It is a call to be there wherever and whenever your country needs you to lay your life on the line for your fellow American regardless of color, religion or national origin. I am by no means a warmongerer. I am perhaps as opposed to armed conflict as the most staunch anti-war protester. As a soldier I have seen the cost of war firsthand, worried too much at nights and attended too many funerals. I don't like going to war. Yet the difference between the soldier and the civilian is that when the time comes to protect the country from aggression, quell the effects of a natural disaster or assist a friendly nation, soldiers will be there ready to die for one another, regardless of their feelings and political orientation.

Maybe I will be blessed enough to see more Hispanics become more involved in the higher echelons of our adopted nation's defense. Who knows? Maybe I will be the first Hispanic Chairman of the Joint Chiefs and institute a recruiting system that relies less on the "poverty draft."

Meanwhile, I will spend the month of October under a rock playing soldier, sharpening up my skills and getting ready to command troops into battle. I hope to see most of you in November.

Note: For those of you whose blogs I haven't gotten to, I apologize. I've been busy preparing for this upcoming training, but I will catch up upon my return.

Diego

3:59 PM - 3 Comments - 4 Kudos - Add Comment

Hispanic Heritage Month
Current mood: aggravated
Category: Writing and Poetry

Planté Bandera

"Yo sé que no te gustó

que yo plantara bandera,

pero a lo hecho pecho,

también yo tengo derecho."

Tommy Olivencia.

Planté Bandera, from the 1992 album of the same name.

Somewhere in the Southwest,

north of the border, where manifest

destiny does not exist, 90 miles

north of Cuba in a barraged

beach near Vieques there's a museum

evicted from the place in which it never was,

not for you, the historically illiterate

Anglophone, but for you, the bastardized

Latino who forgets the Maine

and does not remember the Alamo.

The Colors fly above all

and Taps is played to the cadence

of batá drums. The walls

are molded from sun-baked

Aztlán blood of the Chicano privates of

Echo Company, 141^st Regiment

that captured a desert Fox

over the Salerno crossing,

dying for a Tejas that didn't want them.

Over the entrance halls you see

the scratched coat of arms

of the Valerosos, Puerto Rico's

65^th Infantry Regiment—looming.

Volunteer Borinqueneers.

Campaign streamers hanging

from the shredded guidons

march through the battlegrounds

of the Rhineland and Uijonbu, stepping

on the nondescript deathbeds of the brown

Privates and the white Lieutenants

who couldn't understand them.

The museum is an octagon,

a wall of laments for each major conflict

scribbled with the name and rank

of bilingual tongue-twisters killed in action

The halls center on an ajiaco prepared

by their mothers for an empty place

at the dinner table with a dash

of illegal pride and the sabor

of knowing that each drop of salsa

shed in battle is another coat of color

painted on the Star-spangled banner.

The museum opens after retreat at 1700 hours

when a red and yellow flag was flying

over an América the English

had ignored, before the belief that all

white property-owning males

were created equal had been put forth.

You see the cinnamon colored rust

on the tip of Galvéz' sword,

splicing Spanish and English into one

America at the mouth of the Mississippi,

fusing with the four thousand Spaniards

chained to the brigs of British frigates,

and with the timbers from American vessels

offered refuge under a Yarey palm,

and that same red and yellow flag.

At twenty-four to 1800, you may watch Bernardo Galvéz,

Governor of Louisiana, signing a Declaration

that did not apply to him with invisible

ink and a trace of Spanish blood.

You will then curve around the Brownsville,

room where New Mexican kills

Louisiana Zouaves kills Alabama Spaniard.

The Confederate flag of the 10^th Texas

Calvary rides above and tramples on the

thirty-five hundred Vaqueros in blue

and gray, stomped into disregard,

buried under the Arizona desert,

left for a migrant worker to find.

At 1860 attend a signing at the Battle

of New Orleans room of a book

never written about the bravado of Colonel

Bonavides and the rank he never pinned

because stars were not made with Amarillo

clay for soldiers whose names

do not sound like they belong

on William Dean Howell's

An Imperative Duty.

You will ride rough under

Teddy Roosevelt's campaign

on a field of segregated crosses

not yet erected on Guantánamo

Bay to commemorate potato peelers

and deck scrubbers subjugating

their own race.

Your horse's hoofs crush

the drafted names and erase the accents

on Private Serna's Croix de Guerre

scattered on the Second Reich.

At 1941 join the 85 mile death march

with the Arizona National Guard

through a bombed out Pacific

and a Bataan Peninsula

to a Japanese Prison Camp.

Join in chants of "Pinches

Chinos Cabrones" for the duration

of thirty-four months of captivity. You will then

return to your state with a Congressional

Medal of Honor pinned on your

Class A Uniform to be beaten

by sailors for not being American

enough and refused service

at counters because Mexicans and dogs

are not allowed to eat with whites

in West Texas.

On the other side of Mundo Viejo,

you will join Lieutenant Ramírez

picking bodies from Normandy Beach

while Private Martínez washes

at your feet. You will meet the López

brothers, who both died,

but unlike the Sullivan brothers,

were unworthy of a film because

American archetypes of heroism

have light hair—like Private Ryan, who lives,

unlike Sergeant Longoria, with whom

you will be buried across

from the white cemetery because

burying an American casualty

in Three Rivers, Texas

is a violation of local custom.

Shortly after 1950 you will question

the Jones Act and Plessey vs. Ferguson.

You will land with the Valerosos

at the beaches of Pusan and see red-stained

snow for the first time, too consumed

by your awe to notice that a country

you'd never been to sent you to war

with officers that you couldn't understand

and clothing unfit for the temperature.

You will dig deeper inside your foxhole,

fixing your bayonet for a knife-edged

battle that is yet to end.

At 1957 you will arrive at the Hanoi

Hilton. Your name will be Sergeant Camacho,

you will fall before any other service-member,

and you will not understand why Latinos,

being four percent of America suffered

nineteen percent of the casualties

of a war sixty-five percent of America

didn't want, filled thirty percent

of the infantry ranks and only

three percent of the officer slots.

Your name will be Ensign

Everett Alvarez, etched on a prison

wall for nine years, earning the honor

of having been held longer in hell

than any other American name. You will be

beaten at school for speaking Spanish and become

Master Sergeant Benavidez. You will be

wounded over forty times and wait

twenty years before receiving

your Medal of Honor

and having your veteran's

benefits revoked. You will be Juan Valdez,

not the coffee guy, but the last American

to leave Saigon, and you will lock

the American embassy behind you.

You follow Lance Corporal Gutierrez

bounding across the border, illegally

breaching into the United State Marine Corps

Recruiting Station to thank

his adoptive country. You watch

him reconoiter brochures for jobs

he can't qualify for because non-citizens

are grunts allowed to die

but not to vote. You see him die

in Nassirya, awarded a posthumous

citizenship but not the benefits. You follow

the recruiters targeting non-citizen

illegal terrorist suspect prospective

recruits: Low-income men with

few prospects, shopping at the Hispanic

recruiting market. Recruiters prowling

sniping across the border, hunting

for school-deserters with papers

to fight for a country that doesn't

want them to cross the river to

die along with the desire

to accept the status quo.

Yo sé que no te gusto,

que yo plantara bandera,

pero a lo hecho pecho,          

también yo tengo derecho.

9:55 AM - 7 Comments - 10 Kudos - Add Comment

Penmanship

Penmanship

I found him, the ink seeping inside his chest, trickling down his bowels, stirring the acid worries that brewed at their very bottom, soaking an already fucked up view of a world in which he didn't fit. I can't blame his death on anyone but him, or perhaps his pen, if you believe in such things. I found him, stabbed fourteen times with his pen. A pen like mine, which inked his tears after telling him there was no God and elucidating that neither Sexton's nor Sara Teasdale's poems had happy endings either.

9:03 AM - 9 Comments - 10 Kudos - Add Comment

Iraq and 9/11
Category: Writing and Poetry

Dress Code

On a day like today,

it makes sense to wear

grey suits and black ties

to match the sky, the plume

and that hole in my

lower Manhattan.

Yet I'm wearing green,

and desert tan on Fridays.

It made sense after that day,

although wearing green

today no longer makes sense.

5:53 AM - 4 Comments - 8 Kudos - Add Comment

9/11 and what does it have to do with anything?
Category: Writing and Poetry

Period

His wife's smell awakens Army Specialist Daniel Jaramillo from his nightmare as it does every month since his return from his Iraq. He staggers off the bed, swoons through the door, lurches towards the window, droops on the windowsill and pukes on the fire escape.

            "Danny, it's cold as shit!" She slams the bedroom door and locks it as she knows to do. She knows to use alcohol wipes and break out extra pads—to not let him in until the blood smell fades. She plummets back in bed. She flings the spread over her head. She cries.

            He leans on the corridor wall. He wipes his mouth with his forearm. He sniffs. His fingers clench the fabric of his Purple Heart medal on the wall. He turns around. He bangs the bathroom door open. He leaps towards the sink. He scrubs frigid soap-water on his arm until it burns. He yanks open the counter and rustles through it. He breathes through his mouth. He marches through the hall. He sprays the bedroom door with lavender Lysol.

            He goes into the kitchen. He fries eggs and bangs pans.

            "I would like to be able to sleep," she yells from the room.

            "Me too," he bangs the pan. He sniffs. The kitchen fan whirrs.

            She strolls in the kitchen wearing a polyester gardenia on her left ear and still smelling like blood after two showers. She slams the front door and takes on Baltimore.  He stoops on the couch and digs his face between his knees. He still smells her blood. He looks down. He sees Private Antonio's blood still splattered on his hands.

2:35 PM - 3 Comments - 6 Kudos - Add Comment

Para los Salseros-Repercussions
Category: Writing and Poetry

Repercussions

Olokú Mí, my friend,

riding that mambo monster.

Salsa is a concept

in which clave is everything,

but there are repercussions.

Don't let them sell you

Desi Arnaz, the Big Bad Voodoo

Daddy, Xavier Cúgat and those watered

down versions of my tumbao.

Don't let them sell you. Tell them

that while the rhumba is danced

with ruffled magenta shirts

in front of a live studio audience,

la rumba is danced on the docks

of the Port of Matanzas with bareback

whip-lashed slave skin possessed

by the Salidor and the Quinto mayor

and putrid fingers holding two knives

slapping the dirt for Ochún's Apkwon.

Olokú Mí, my friend

riding that mambo monster,

the stares, the camcorders

and the camera flashes, spinning

on a wooden American stage calling

Orishas you don't know,

but there are repercussions.

Don't let them tell you that a bembé

is not for Elegguá's protections

Don't let them rip through the Conga's

hide and tell you that you don't have

to heat the skin to get the right pitch.

Olokú Mí, my friend

riding that mambo monster,

not knowing the repercussions.

2:07 PM - 6 Comments - 8 Kudos - Add Comment

Drive Friendly-The Texas Way
Current mood: sad
Category: Writing and Poetry

Drive FriendlyThe Texas Way

Drive FriendlyThe Texas way,

Proud Home of President George W. Bush,

down the streets of Jasper, Texas,

dragging James Byrd Jr, an invalid nigger

from the back of your pick-up truck

through Huff Creek Road, leaving an arm

and a head scattered as reminders

for people of color not to ask

for rides on logging roads

in Southeast Texas.

Yall drive FriendlyThe Texas Way.

10:21 PM - 3 Comments - 6 Kudos - Add Comment