Matanza to Welcome Spring
for Pat and Victorio
Spread eagle sheep legs wide,
wire hooves to shed beams,
and sink blade in neck wool,
’til the gray eyes drain of life
like cold pure water
from a tin pail.
(It kicked, choking on nasal blood,
liquid gasping coughs
spattered blood over me.)
Slit down belly, scalp rug-wool
skin away, pinch wool back
with blade to pink flesh, ssst ssst ssst
inch by inch, then I sling
whole carcass in bloody spray over fence.
(Close to its face, I swear
it gift-heaved a last breath
from its soft black nose
and warmed my nostril hairs
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poem by Jimmy Santiago Baca
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Immigrants in Our Own Land
We are born with dreams in our hearts,
looking for better days ahead.
At the gates we are given new papers,
our old clothes are taken
and we are given overalls like mechanics wear.
We are given shots and doctors ask questions.
Then we gather in another room
where counselors orient us to the new land
we will now live in. We take tests.
Some of us were craftsmen in the old world,
good with our hands and proud of our work.
Others were good with their heads.
They used common sense like scholars
use glasses and books to reach the world.
But most of us didn’t finish high school.
The old men who have lived here stare at us,
from deep disturbed eyes, sulking, retreated.
We pass them as they stand around idle,
leaning on shovels and rakes or against walls.
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poem by Jimmy Santiago Baca
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Ten
If it does not feed the fire
of your creativity, then leave it.
If people and things do not
inspire your heart to dream,
then leave them.
If you are not crazily in love
and making a stupid fool of yourself,
then stop closer to the edge
of your heart and climb
where you've been forbidden to go.
Debts, accusations, assaults by enemies
mean nothing,
go where the fire feeds you.
Turn your attention to the magic of whores,
grief, addicts and drunks, until you stumble upon
that shining halo surrounding your heart
that will allow you to violate every fear happily,
be where you're not supposed to be,
the love of an angel who's caught your blood on fire
again, who's gulped all of you in one breath
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poem by Jimmy Santiago Baca
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V
Years pass.
Cattle cars in the downtown freightyard
squeal and groan, and sizzling grills
steam the Barelas Coffee House cafe windows,
as the railroad workers with tin hard hats
stop for coffee, hours of dawn
softly click on grandfather's gold pocket watches
in Louey's Broadway Pawnshop, hocked
to get a cousin or brother out of jail
City workers' tin carts and long-handled dust pans
clatter in curb gutters
as buses spew smoldering exhaust as they stop beneath
Walgreen's neon liquor sign.
I lean against an office building brick wall,
nothing to do, no where to go,
comb my hair in the blue tinted office windows,
see my reflection in the glinting chromed cars,
on a corner, beneath a smoking red traffic light,
I live-
blue beanie cap snug over my ears
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poem by Jimmy Santiago Baca
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As Life Was Five
Portate bien,
behave yourself you always said to me.
I behaved myself
when others were warm in winter
and I stood out in the cold.
I behaved myself when others had full plates
and I stared at them hungrily,
never speaking out of turn,
existing in a shell of good white behavior
with my heart a wet-feathered
bird growing but never able to crack out of the shell.
Behaving like a good boy,
my behavior shattered
by outsiders who came
to my village one day
insulting my grandpa because he couldn't speak
English
English-
the invader's sword
the oppressor's language-
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poem by Jimmy Santiago Baca
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Tire Shop
I went down yesterday
to fix a leak in my tire. Off Bridge street
there's a place 95 cents
flats fixed,
smeary black paint on warped wood plank
between two bald tires.
I go in, an old Black man
with a Jackie Gleason hat greasy soft
with a mashed cigar stub in mouth
and another old Chicano man
working the other
pneumatic hissing tire changer. The walls are black with rubber
soot blown black dust everywhere
and rows of worn tires on gnawed board racks for sale,
air hoses snaking and looped over the floor.
I greet the two old men
'Yeah, how's it going!'
No response.
They look up at me as if I just gave them a week to live.
'I got a tire needs a tube.'
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poem by Jimmy Santiago Baca
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From Violence to Peace
Twenty-eight shotgun pellets
crater my thighs, belly and groin.
I gently thumb each burnt bead,
fingering scabbed stubs with ointment.
Could have neutered me, made extinct
the volatile, romantic man I am.
“He’s dead,”
doctor at emergency room
could’ve easily told my wife that night.
Instead, “Soak him in a bath twice a day. Apply
this ointment to the sores. Here’s a month’s supply
of pain killers.” I remember the deep guttural groan
I gave, when the doctor pressed my groin.
Assured
I could still make love, morphine drowsed me
and in a dull stupor I don’t remember
police visiting my bed, or laughing so hard,
they scowled for a serious answer.
I howled a U.F.O. shot me along the Río Grande,
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poem by Jimmy Santiago Baca
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El Gato
At eight
El Gato's uncle lures them with grain in a pail
and shoots the brown pig between the eyes,
shoos the red-snouted white and black brothers
from guzzling blood in the trough.
At ten Gato walks chop-block streets
with a rooster's tail strut
razored for a fight – life
a broken fire hydrant
flooding streets with blood.
In opulent estates,
fountains gazelle and bridal-train gardens drain
abundantly over spear-tipped walls.
Grecian statues offer laureled wisdom
to butlered adults with paper-weight hearts,
who answer the burning and gunning of America,
by building more prisons.
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poem by Jimmy Santiago Baca
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