Town
On the corner of a desert river
at the end of the known worldnot Grande nor Bravo
but sometimes floodthey built a town
and the city grew -Zaragoza Tijuana .
The founders began at an old rancho
between hot springs and the sea -shared, divided, united, apart, this
first piece of border pueblo was bornalready splintered into battle
over ownership of landuntil even those founders' children
debate the true date of foundationor deny the existence of "Tia" Juana
yet you must never doubt they love oldZaragoza de Tijuana
so near the horizon of Los Angeles
and so far from Mexico City .Ranchos - cattle - horses - onyx
transformed the roaring 20s into"old west" & Spanish bullfights
drinking & curios souvenirsLa Ballena - The Whale Bar -
world's longest beer hall -cowhides, boots & vanished casino
the most visited city in the worldsoon grew into a strange metropolis
drawn against the gringo line in sand .La garita mas transitada del mundo
the busiest border gate in the worldTijuana Zaragoza
has now become a postmodern maquiladora
factory millennium megalopolis - the futurebreeding ground for bourgeois
Marxism & binational millionairescapital plaything for chilango
bureaucrats in Technocratlanyet equally a stronghold
of most loyal oppositionaquí empiece la patria - here the nation
begins - on this farthest river frontier .for this is and
will always be- Zaragoza de Tijuana, Mexico -
Tijuana Gringo | Poems |