Halloween

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- - ----------Trick & Treat


Death at the door,
----or lurking among the leaves,
death itself is the inevitable trick;
the only treat worth the having,
----to love fearlessly,
------------------------and well.



-------© Rafael Jesús González 2010



(The Montserrat Review, Issue 7, Spring 2003;
author’s copyrights)




-----------Chasco y Regalo


La muerte a la puerta,
----o en emboscada entre la hojas,
la muerte misma es el chasco inevitable;
el único regalo que vale la pena,
-----amar sin temor,
------------------------y amar bien.



---------------© Rafael Jesús González 2010

Dylan Thomas (October 27, 1914 - November 9, 1953)

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-------Occupational Hazard-

-------------------------to Dylan Thomas


'Write,'
--------they said,
-------------------'of love —
how the wind turns
& calcifies the blood.
-----Erect pillars of salt
-----smoke crowned of pity
----------where witches meet
----------to gossip of despair —
set down the foot-steps of the heart,
their echoes climbing
the perpendicular bone streets of loss
-----into a thin tomorrow —'
----------The angular hands of saints
----------accused;
their tears of stone
clanged loudly on the pavements
-----& their incense breath
-----embalmed the lungs.
----------He saw his hands
----------turn to lizards' claws,
---------------his pen's ink
---------------turn to dust,
blow off the page,
blind him —
---------------& he died
of an insult to the brain.



---------------© Rafael Jesús González 2010


(El Grito, Vol. 6 no. 3, Spring 1973;
author's copyrights.)

Dylan Thomas

-----------Gajes del oficio

----------------------a Dylan Thomas


'Escribe,'
----------dijeron,
-------------------'del amor —
como voltea el viento
y calcifica la sangre.
-----Erige pilares de sal
-----coronados del humo de la piedad
---------donde las brujas se encuentran
---------a chismear de la desesperación —
fija los pasos del corazón,
sus ecos escalando
las calles verticales de hueso del perder
-----hacia una mañana flaca —'
----------Las manos angulares de los santos
----------acusaron;
sus lágrimas de piedra
resonaron fuertemente en los pavimentos
-----y su aliento de incienso
-----embalsamó los pulmones.
----------Vio sus manos
----------volverse en garras de lagarto,
---------------la tinta de su pluma
---------------volverse polvo,
disiparse de la página,
cegarlo —
-------------y murió
de un insulto cerbral.



--------------© Rafael Jesús González 2010


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Full moon: Moon Swollen with Light

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---Luna hinchada de luz


La luna está hinchada de luz,
calabaza soltando
sus pepitas brillantes
sobre el suelo de la noche.

La luna esta llena de luz,
jarra de leche desbordándose
sobre la mesa de la noche.

La luna está hinchada de luz,
cochina pariendo
sus cochinitos relucientes
en la polciga de la noche.

La luna está hinchada de luz.


----© Rafael Jesús González 2010








---Moon Swollen with Light


The moon is swollen with light,
pumpkin releasing
it brilliant seeds
on the floor of the night.

The moon is full of light,
pitcher of milk overflowing
on the table of the night.

The moon is swollen with light,
sow birthing its shining piglets
in the sty of the night.

The moon is swollen with light.


------© Rafael Jesús González 2010
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Scorpio

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-

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---------Escorpión

El alacrán
---en sus ojos de ópalo
---guarda los secretos
---del agua inmóvil.
Eleva, tenaz, su cola de hierro
y su aguijón de topacio
refleja las luces rojas de Marte,
---las luces obscuras de Plutón.
Se esconde detrás del palo erecto,
------en la cueva húmeda;
y sabe los secretos del alma.



----------© Rafael Jesús González 2010


----------------Scorpio

The scorpion
-----in its opal eyes
-----guards the secrets
-----of the immobile water.
It tenaciously raises its tail of iron
& its topaz sting reflects
----the red lights of Mars,
----the dark lights of Pluto.
It hides behind the erect pole,
---in the moist cave;
it knows the secrets of the soul.



----------© Rafael Jesús González 2010
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Columus Day

-October 12 is a feast-day known in various regions and times by many names: Columbus Day, Discovery Day, Hispanic Culture Day, Day of the Americas, Day of the Race, Day of the Indigenous Peoples.

In Mexico in 1928 at the insistence of the philosopher José Vasconcelos, then Minister of Education, it was named Día de la Raza (Day of the Race), denomination of the Iberian-American Union in 1913 to declare a new identity formed by the encounter of the Spaniards with the native peoples of the Americas. In 1902, the Mexican poet Amado Nervo had written a poem in honor of the President Benito Juárez (a Zapoteca Indian), which he read in the House of Representatives, titled Raza de Bronce (Race of Bronze) praising the indigenous race, title which later in 1919 the Bolivian author Alcides Arquedas would give his book. Bronze (noble metal amalgamated of various metals) came to be metaphor for mestizaje (the mixing of the races.) According to the thinking of Vasconcelos, a Cosmic Race, the race of the future, is the noble race that is formed in the Americas since October 12, 1492, the race of mestizaje, an amalgam of the indigenous races of the Americas, the Europeans, the Africans, the Asians, the world — in a word, the human race made of a mixture of all the races which Vasconcelos called the Cosmic Race.

But that this race is formed at great cost to the indigenous American peoples (and to the African peoples brought here as slaves) cannot be ignored. Since 2002, in Venezuela the feast-day is called Día de la Resistencia Indígena (Day of Indigenous Resistance.)

Be that as it may, by whatever name we give it, however way we cut it, it is the same cake — the date commemorates the arrival of the Europeans to America (which for them was a “new world”), not a visit but an invasion, a genocide, a subjugation of the peoples of that “new world” which we know today by the name of a European cartographer who scarcely set foot on the sacred ground of the continents that bear his name. What the date marks is a continuous colonization, exploitation, abuse, outrage of the indigenous peoples of the Americas that has scarcely lessened, that has persisted these five-hundred and some years.

It could well be called Day of Globalization. Since that date, the Earth is concretely, definitively proven to be truly round, a sphere, a ball, a globe. And from that date is imposed by force upon the indigenous American peoples a quite strange (in my view, mistaken) cosmology, attitude toward life, toward the Earth, toward economics, toward the sacred, toward the human being him/herself — a single truth narrow and intolerant, a rapacious disdain toward the Earth seen only as a resource to be exploited, a concept of progress difficult to distinguish from greed and the lust for power.

The cause of the indigenous peoples screams for justice: their lands, their fields continue to be stolen from them, destroyed for their valuable woods and minerals; their agricultural creations, such as maize and the potato, which have saved a great part of the world from famine, are modified at the molecular level and controlled by rapacious corporations; their traditional medicines are patented by those same corporations; sacred water is privatized and stolen from them; even their right to their own beliefs and cultures is not respected. Even putting justice aside, we should all ally ourselves with the indigenous peoples of the Americas (and of the entire world) in their resistance against such abuse because what threatens them threatens us all throughout the whole world — and the Earth itself. They have a very much to teach us about a healthy relationship of humankind with the Earth.

In an Earth much smaller and more fragile than we imagined, we find ourselves in full globalization and struggle against the imposition of an unbridled capitalism and the fascism, its logical extension, that accompanies it. The indigenous resistance that has never ceased these five centuries and some continues in spite of a brutal repression and now all of us of the cosmic race, of pure necessity, must align ourselves with their struggle, for that struggle is ours if we are to survive on the Earth, holy mother of our race, the human race — and of all our relations, the other animals, the plants, the minerals. On the round, seamless Earth all borders are fictitious and what threatens one threatens all. To think otherwise is not only immoral but insane.

Berkeley, California, October 12, 2007

© Rafael Jesús González 2010

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10/10/10

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---Quilticóyotl alza flor y canto

--------------(al modo nahua)


El décimo día del décimo mes
de la décima década del milenio
atando un haz de años
tres banderas quince puntos,
el viejo coyote aun meneando
su aun verde rabo,
inseguro de su maestría
de la tinta negra, la tinta roja,
si dueño de un rostro
-----(de múltiples máscaras)
de un corazón
-----(labrado de jade imperfecto),
alza flor y canto
para dar gracias al Sol y a la Tierra
padre, madre, los dioses, las diosas
por el don de la vida
-----y su máximo adorno —
----------el amor, la amistad.




------© Rafael Jesús González 2010






-Quilticoyotl Raises Flower & Song

------------(in the Nahua mode)



On the tenth day of the tenth month
of the tenth decade of the millennium,
tying a sheaf of years
three flags fifteen dots,
the old coyote,
still wriggling
his still green tail,
unsure of his mastery
of the black ink, the red ink,
if master of a face
-----(of many masks)
of a heart
-----(carved of flawed jade),
raises flower & song
to thank the Sun & the Earth
father, mother, gods, goddesses
for the gift of life
-----& its greatest adornment —
----------love, friendship.



------© Rafael Jesús González 2010



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