Too Many Mexican Poets! 
by Gary Corseri
www.dissidentvoice.org
May 5, 2006



 

Mexico has too many poets!

Ay caramba!

Pouring over the border,

Hiding their bebes inside their sombreros,

Carrying bombs inside their tortillas --

Mariachi bands exploding everywhere!

They want we will say,

El camion esta tarde

(The bus, it is late);

Or, maybe,

No tengo los zapatos

(I have not the shoes);

And,  

Mi hermano espera en la casa por el rio

(My brother waits in the house by the river);

And, even,

La sangre llora en sus heridas

(The blood cries in his wounds).

They are stealing our jobs!

(Never mind those we shipped overseas!)

They are stealing our land!

(Never mind first we stole it from them!)

They are stealing our heritage!

(No longer can we take pride in

The Red Man’s Holocaust,

Slavery, Hiroshima, Vietnam, Iraq!)

Let’s dance round the gravestones on

El Dia de los Muertos!

Let’s eat sugar candy

In the shape of our skulls.

What is this fear of ending and becoming?

The death throes of an old empire

Spur the birth pangs of a new nation:

Viva!  Viva

Los Estados Unidos de las Americas!

All poets will sing in their singular voices,

Por amor, por libertad!

Slowly, but surely, we will kiss a new language --

The daughter of English, the daughter of Spanish,

She will wear silver earrings

Like crescent-shaped moons,

And a black lace mantilla over her hair.

Por los indios, por los negros, y todos los otros --

She will weep and remember, weep and recall

Lost chants and lost battles, songs in the redwoods,

Songs in the mountains on whippoorwill wings

Till warrior spirits shout through our lungs:

Vivamos!  Vivamos!

In peace on this land.

Gary Corseri’s articles, poems, fiction and dramas have appeared at CounterPunch, Common Dreams, Dissident Voice, the New York Times, Village Voice, City Lights Review, Redbook, PBS-Atlanta and elsewhere. He has taught in public schools, prisons and universities, published two novels and two collections of poems, worked as an editor, busboy, grape-picker in Australia, gas station attendant, etc. He can be reached at: corseri@verizon.net.

Other Articles and Poems by Gary Corseri

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