1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. _____________________________________________________________THIS POEM IS STILL BEING WORKED... your criticisms and comments are invited and welcomed.
Border Autumn 2001
1.
Clear channel news radio
echoes coast and Mexico
88 degrees in Hollywood
nineties valleys and triple
digits across our inland empire
every measure taken at right angles
fighting for freedom without adjective
describing a shift of San Andreas
evil character fault in the world .
This broken web mind, our global village
cannot stop that twin tower crash
in New York, or Pentagon Washington .
Ay Mister Magoo
filibustero
no hay nada
you can do don señor
the world says September Eleven
you sit up, take notice, and growl .
It begins with television news
that goes on forever and ever
and will not stop at the border gate .
2.From the lines behind each port of entry
our two nations measure each other
one purpose, one face, one war
and never
a voice to say no, or say yes,
only
endless revision of identity
beckoning forward
slowly, slowly
this light
both red and green
shining on your ears
frontier radio coast
esta ilustración
this enlightenment from European
dream of liberty, this independent
struggle from September 1820
viva free Mexico under Monroe
cuya Hollywood doctrina lucha
pa'siempre en posters y volantes
measuring live lines between two planets
where now there were four, five others
echoing 24 hours every damn channel .
3.Airplanes frozen on the ground a week, dark
seven nights, leap back toward new cloud moon
capital city prayer messages tell
their tones from churchtower bells .
This is a liberty whose markets growl
across all three of our continents:
America Norte, America Latina,
& lost Aztlantis
in your soul
smoking mirror echo
through a glass, darkly .
The horror, the terror, has gripped us hard
one life leading both binational feet
onto the mountains where Bible movie
Moses points at four corners of the Earth:
HEAR ME, my children, this is the truth --
everyone must show identification
again and again and again and again --
4.Kuchama thunderstorm on holy mountain
flash flood from this sierra to that coast, a
shining fire of terror has conquered
half our being. The other half takes note .
Your shield is word and act and one true love
that Moon may eclipse but the Sun still shine
and Eagle knows it has good cause to fight .
No prophecies of Nostradamus against
the towers of New City can change
one fact everything must change to die .
Only two certainties in this world :
between each birth and our end comes all the
phalanx of war and peace, phoenix pleasures
and griefs, daily market trips, and that
last, lingering sigh, goodbye, goodbye....
this is the sadness that grips our frontier
awakening to deadly clarion call
you too can be a target in the Fall .
5.broken links of a chain
earlier sunsets than your
memory of summer -- a grief
question: how long can this
storm last? extinguished
lives regard us out of
television screens crumbling
metal, billowing smoke
80 countries in New York
6000 human beings gone
pierced across the invisible fence
that no one watched against our sky
America your electric image
jabbered and growled disaster catastrophe
bad star turning down to no more
relief but pain service memory
where the nation may recover
flag songs unity war peace .
6.beyond the borders we hold our breath
no one knows what cold you'd catch
global freaks go head to head against
fear of big brother fawns .
peace is a hard deer to hunt
if tyrants rule the earth and
no one dare say why .
smoking mountain rumbles
above the halls of
Motecuzoma
pole to tropic pole .
your nervous breath reminds me
not forget the store supplies &
friendly tongue speaks word to
tell no difference between
face of one or the other name,
country, language, ethnic
same at home anywhere on this
planet: we need our people
around us .
7.Someone let mirror smoke
against the summer sky
ending autumn fires warning
dry hills Mexico coast until
you smell a city that
never dies burning far
away as near as your hand .
The news broke a
peace of 1,000
years or 50
or ten .
You dream of plucking glass
splinters from your eyeballs
until finally you can't
watch it any more .
Switch off the
tv set .
The dog at least
seems happier .
8.a feeling you must check in
every hour, every day
to see what next what will they do
what will we do a world divided
you are either with us or against us
this simple pun to measure them all
you she he them us I one ring token
to find them and in the darkness bind them
commandos fly across the heavens
lady Columpia swing moral compass
from Colombia to something -stan
all -isms stand up bowling pins
or dominoes in triangular rows
one world view divides the waters
where Moses said walk across fire
my son of no mother better than her
golden lamp beside that harbour .
another answers: Moses, it's okay
the football's on -- no attack today .
Poems
Gringo