reading

BARRIO SONGS

JOAQUÍN ZIHUATANEJO

TRANSLATION BY MARCO ANTONIO HUERTA

Toñio, tell Jasón he was right,

there is magic in the letters

BARRIO SONGS

Joaquín Zihuatanejo

ISBN: 978-1-61842-425-9

First EBook Edition November 2011

Book design and production by Joaquín Zihuatanejo.

Published and manufactured in The United States by Bonita Blvd Publications.

Photos by Tristan Bynum, except photo of Marco Antonio Huerta

Translation by Marco Antonio Huerta

Technical assistance by Aída Zihuatanejo.

Order additional CDs by Joaquín at www.artspeakspoet.com

Order additional copies of Barrio Songs, the EBook, at Apple IBookstore, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, NOOKbook Store, and Sony Reader Store

Also by Joaquín Zihuatanejo

Books

of fire and rain

a collaboration with natasha carrizosa

CDs

Barrio Songs

Stand Up and Be Heard

Live at Longwood

of fire and rain

a spoken word collaboration with natasha carrizosa

Child of the Hood Days

HOPE 5 MILES

Barbaric Yawps

Best of Joaquin Zihuatanejo for Students

forthcoming

Canciones del Barrio

Poemas en la Lengua de mi Abuelo

for

mi Abuelo, my grandfather

who showed me The Path of Light

my wife, Aída

who walks The Path with me

and my daughters, Aiyana and Dakota

The Path of Light will be yours

Barrio Poem

There is something beautiful about the barrio just before night falls.

A thousand beer bottles dropped or thrown to the ground

in the parking lot of the barrio elementary school,

where a thousand vato locos would meet to drink and curse

over a thousand births or a thousand deaths.

They’ve swept away all those pieces of glass from many years ago

but because of the rough texture of asphalt

a thousand tiny fragments hide in cracks and crevices

glowing as the sun sets

reflecting beautifully like a thousand possibilties

reflecting helplessly like a thousand memories

that want more than anything just to be found.

There is something beautiful about the barrio just before night falls.

A thousand children will ride with their abuleos

to state penitentiaries to visit men who stopped being their fathers

oh so long ago

the pine forests surrounding the prison

the mortar

the barbed wire

the electrified fence

all this will dissolve away to nothingness

as we return to our barrio

which loves us and our fathers not despite our faults

but because of them.

There is something beautiful about the barrio just before night falls.

A thousand mocosos, skin every shade of brown under the sun

dance in front yards in wide concentric circles absorbing the sun’s last rays

dark wild-eyed children who a thousand years ago

would have been Nahuatl pole dancers dart about like

a thousand flights of fancy that might become

a thousand poems that may or may not change the world.

These magic niños del noche know

what I thought only the viejitos knew

Everything in life desperately wants to be a circle or a poem.

Haiku Validating Miracles
or
Miracle I Witnessed by the River Named for the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit

She danced, I saw her.

She danced with a butterfly

for eternity.

Dancing with Skeletons

Sometimes I wonder,

would it be better to live 300 years ago,

or in the living present,

or 300 years from now?

I read once that your past and your future

are skeletons just behind and just ahead of you

that you dance with.

If you get too close to one,

or God forbid ever touch one

you will be destroyed.

Perhaps that’s why so many

of the vato locos I came up with

ended up drunks stumbling out of the It’ll Do Bar,

or inmates in a state penitentiary,

or shot dead

face down in the street

shot dead on the corner of Bonita and Alegría,

Most of the streets in Barrio EastSide

had Spanish names,

but to die on the corner

of Bonita and Alegría

which translates in English

to the corner of Beautiful Joy,

que lastima

sometimes the barrio exists in a constant state of tragic irony.

I always thought the barrio had turned its back on these

fallen warriors.

And don’t tell me these men were no good.

Don’t tell me these men were failures.

Don’t tell me these men were criminals,

because I saw them play with children.

I saw them cry at funerals and births.

I saw them dance with wives and daughters

at quincieneras swirling in beautiful circles

like Indios dancing in worship

of their sun gods and moon goddesses

These were gentle brown men

at some moment in their lives.

Don’t you see,

at some moment in their lives

they emitted love and hope

and they embraced life.

At some moment in their lives

They…were…beautiful

like the first snow falling seen through the eyes of a child,

immaculate

unspoiled

pure

What was it that caused these warrior poets to stray from their Path of Light?

Perhaps on some dark moonless night

by the soft glow of a street light

they caught a glimpse of those skeletons

just behind and ahead of them,

and they realized for the briefest of moments

that they were not alone,

and they had to,

they just had to reach out

and touch them.

Paper Flowers for the Dead
Flores de Papel para los Muertos

Taking photos,

paper flowers,

tacos de lengua

and ice cold beers to my tío’s grave

en el día de los muertos

I got to tell you,

this feels right.

As a child life revolves around what is not seen,

prayers to La Virgen de Guadalupe,

the all-forgiving Mother of God

stories of far off countries and adventures

that will be relived as exploits of dirt-covered Chicano boys in front yards

just before night falls,

spirits that will rise from graves

to eat and drink and laugh con familia y amigos,

all this is as it always was

and it is good.

And there is nothing

in this time in this place

that can break the faith of a child

unanswered prayers

unfinished books taken back to libraries to avoid late fines

tacos and ice cold beers left untouched on gravestones

these are anomalies.

Because this dirt-covered Chicano boy

believes without seeing.

He knows in his soul what is true

He trusts his heart more than his eyes

He has compassion

There in lies the secret of his magic

He feels so deeply

He trusts so completely

that he has learned to see beyond the here and now.

and when he closes his eyes

and an evening breeze caresses his brown face,

when he loses himself in reveries,

and his child’s imagination transforms his front yard

that is nothing more than dirt

into a forest where he must escape a labyrinth of dangers

aided only by fairies and elves,

when he dreams,

He knows he has entered a world that is tangible

a world that is real

a world based on faith without doubt

a world where prayers are always answered,

a world where adventures are lived out,

a world where spirits will rise from the dead

to eat

and drink

and laugh

with family and friends.

Poem for Felipe

I think about you ‘mano,

think of you kissing your beautiful mother

good night

the night she killed herself.

And I see your soft brown eyes

the next morning

wondering how long it will take to piece

your young shattered soul

back together again.

And although I didn’t know you then

I wish I did

I wish I could have been there for you

the way you were there for me years later

wish I could have written a poem for you

listened to you

shoot pool

and get drunk with you

curse the moon for being so goddamn beautiful

and far away with you

Wayne Street never looked so beautiful

as those nights we sat on the porch

stayed up all night drinking, talking, dreaming

cursing and popping off at the mouth.

I look back on those nights

as some of the best of my life.

And what overwhelmed me most

about those nights

was your strength.

It overwhelms me still.

Ten years later sitting out on my porch

a breeze will fall on my face

taking me back to East Dallas

taking me back to Wayne Street

taking me back to those nights on your porch

and your laugh

and those oldies we’d sing along with

taking me back to those two young Chicanos

fearless in their machismo

taking me back to that moon

so goddamn beautiful

and far away.

Poem for Jesús

Jesus,

I miss you

Jesús Santos

vato loco with the holiest name on record

miss your Piñero smile

how that smile always leaned to one side

like Shorty the only black viejito in the barrio

meandering down Bonita Blvd

like you always said vato,

the pain-induced drunk is the most tragic

I miss you

Jesús Santos

vato loco with the holiest name on record

miss your Joaquín Murrieta eyes

the darkest shade of brown

and always filled with anger

anger at a father who died

seekin’ a cause in a causeless war

but for anyone who took the time

to look beyond the darkness

behind the anger

they’d see this beautiful hermano

hermano

that word says it best

because you were a brother to me

and I loved you

loved your curse word for the world ways

loved how you’d listen to me read you some obscure Whitman poem

and you’d say

Oyes, vato, listen to how beautiful it sounds in Spanish

and taking it from me you’d read it loud

in your broken Spanish

accent thick and dark as mole

and in your voice

I’d hear how the barrio loved me

I miss your lazy mota smoking summer days

and your crazy beer drinking summer nights

and though you were the baddest vato in the barrio

you had this beautiful presence about you

though you were beaten for years

by the man who married your mother,

though you often said bad words and did bad things

all you ever showed me was love

you were a gentle, brown, young man

and though you had the hands of a fighter

I knew

you had the eyes of a poet

Jesus,

I miss you

Jesús Santos

vato loco with the holiest name on record

The Lost Flute

While pulling up ivy and weeds around my daughter’s swing set

I unearthed a lost treasure

a little wooden flute

my youngest daughter, Dakota,

had lost the year before.

Hecho en Mejico

inscribed on the side

I know this to be true

because I saw the little girl painting it in Zihuatanejo

moments before I bought it from her

a little girl ten, maybe 11 years young

and she was beautiful,

she could have been any one of my two daughters

perhaps that is why I purchased it from her.

But when I pulled back that last clump of ivy

and saw that dirt covered pink flute

the only thing I could think was

where had it been all this time

what songs had it been playing

and for whom

had it traveled the thousand miles back home

only to return again

playing songs all the while

for all the children of Zihuatanejo and here

if so, what made it return home to my small daughter

and what made it leave in the first place?

Had it been longing for home

playing corridos,

sad, epic songs of revolution and the sun

of freedom and the ocean

of small Mexican hands and the moon

or had it simply been laying in a clump of ivy waiting for this moment

this poem to honor its beauty

and the beauty of the small brown hands that made it

the beauty of los niños

who sleep in hammocks

and dream