Feast of St. Valentine

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-------The Distance


The distance between us
is holy ground
to be traversed
feet bare
hands raised
------- in joyous dance
so that once it is
--------------crossed
the tracks of our pilgrimage
shine in the darkness
& light our coming together
in a bright & steady light.



------© Rafael Jesús González, 2011


(RUNES — A Review of Poetry, Connection;
CB Follett & Susan Terris, Editors;
Arctos Press, Sausalito, California; Winter 2007;
author's copyrights.)









---------La Distancia


La distancia entre nos
es suelo sagrado
para atravesarse
con los pies desnudos
elevadas las manos
----------en danza jubilosa
para que una vez
----------cruzado
las huellas de nuestro peregrinaje
brillen en la oscuridad
y alumbren nuestro encuentro
con luz brillante y fija.



------© Rafael Jesús González, 2011


(RUNES — A Review of Poetry, Conección;
CB Follett & Susan Terris, Directoras;
Arctos Press, Sausalito, California; invierno 2007;
derechos reservados del autor.)








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Lunada, Galería de la Raza, February 18, 2011

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LUNADA - Literary Lounge

Spoken Word * Música * Open Mic

Friday, February 18, 2011 | 7:30 pm
Lunada 2011 Spring Season Opener: "Fronteras Reales e Imaginarias/Borders Real & Imaginary" An evening of poetry, music and visual art, guest curated by César Barragán, featured poet Rafael Jesús González, and hosted by Sandra García Rivera.

The waxing Spring Season begins with an evening of poetry, music and visual art, "Fronteras Reales e Imaginarias / Borders Real & Imaginary"/Jeux Sans Frontiers / Juegos sin Fronteras./Games Without Borders" Guest Curated by César Barragán, the featured poet Rafael Jesús González, will be reading from his new book of moon poems La musa lunática / The Lunatic Muse, and visual artists Joaquín Alejandro Newman and Sean Levon Nash will be featured in a live collaboration.

LUNADA is the Bay Area's only full moon bilingual literary ritual & performance gathering. Located in the heart of the Mission District at Galería de la Raza in San Francisco, each Lunada features community poets, local legends, visiting mystics, and other mero meros of the stage. Guest curated by some of the Bay Area's most dynamic word slingers and artists, LUNADAS are community gatherings where stories, food, songs, and spirit are shared.

Open Mic sign-up at 7:15pm at the entrance. Musicians and first timers are always welcome.
Show starts at 7:30pm $5 entrance, or FREE with food dish to share, or with Galería membership.
GALERIA DE LA RAZA
2857 24th St (at Bryant) in The Mission.
San Francisco, CA
www.galeriadelaraza.org
info@galeriadelaraza.org
415-826-8009


ARTIST BIOS

César Barragán (Guest Curator & Co-Host)

"…frequently explores issues of border politics, immigration, and identity in his work as well as in the exhibitions of contemporary art that he has curated…" ~Inside Out, Oakland Museum of California.

Born in Tijuana, México and raised in Alta and Baja California, Cesar received a Bachelor's Degree in Business from the University of San Diego. A self-taught artist working in mixed media, and sometimes curator of incurable art, tonight is his first foray into the realm of logos. He has lived in the Bay Area since 1997 and teaches Spanish at Arise High School, in Oakland.


Rafael Jesús González

"Llora por sus hijos-
la desconsolada madre,
sus hijos arrebatos por la guerra,
por la violencia, por el hambre.
Es sordo el que no la oye,
su corazón tambor mudo y desusado…"-
---~ de "Luna de La Llorona" by R.J.G.

"She cries for her children
the inconsolable mother,
her children carried away by war,
by violence, by hunger.
He is deaf who does not hear her,
his heart a drum dumb & disused..."
---~ from "Moon for La Llorona" by R.J.G.



"La musa lunática / The Lunatic Muse, Rafael Jesús González's long awaited collection of moon poems, fulfills its promise of beauty and poignancy… master of the imagist lyric, the poems are both brilliant and immediate. And, we find in its metaphoric language a deep love of the Earth that can sustain many readings."
---------------Amazon.org


Born in the bicultural/bilingual setting of El Paso, Texas/Juárez, Chihuahua, attended the University of Texas El Paso, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, & the University of Oregon. Professor Emeritus of Creative Writing & Literature, taught at the University of Oregon, Western State College of Colorado, Central Washington State University, the University of Texas El Paso, and Laney College, Oakland where he founded the Mexican and Latin American Studies Dept.

Joaquín Alejandro Newman and Sean Levon Nash have been working together for the past decade, and have worked with a cadre of inspired, talented, and community involved artists, organizers and educators.

"The Forrealism Movement is composed of a group of mixed Indian and Latino artists who create works collectively, drawing from our own traditions and those of our elders who have shared gifts of their wisdom and experience. … As urban Indians working in a city where many cultures come together, the scope of our work spans the Americas…."



Sandra García Rivera is the Host and Series Curator of LUNADA ~ Literary Lounge.
Photos



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Join our Mailing List »
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year of the rabbit 4709

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Cui Bo (1061)

Tanka for the Year of the Rabbit


The rabbit, the hare,
swift, meek, may not inherit
the Earth but teach us
to confront the arrogant
with a firm, fierce compassion.



--------------© Rafael Jesús González 2011

Tanka para el año del conejo


El conejo, la liebre
veloz, manso, tal vez no herede
la Tierra pero nos enseñe
a enfrentar a los arrogantes
con firme, feroz compasión.



-------------------© Rafael Jesús González 2011


------------

Meiji Period (1868-1912)

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riverbabble 18, winter 2011

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riverbabble 18 --------winter 2011

Icicles by Lauren Howard

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riverbabble 18

Winter Issue

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Featured Poem

Ixchel, la diosa luna/Ixchel, the Moon Goddess

Ruth Pérez Aquirre:
Ixchel, la diosa luna (Spanish)

Nina Seranno:
Ixchel, the Moon Goddess (English translation)


Poetry

Rafael Jesús González:
Canción de cuna: las luces de Marfa /
Cradle Song: the Lights of Marfa
Consejo/Adice
Conversión de un tamborilero/Conversion of a Drummer

Laura McCullough:
To the God of Pryrography
The Small God of Winter, a Little God of Temperatures


April Michelle Bratten:
White Flowers in Winter 2000
Nighttime Range

Suchoon Mo: Snow Flake

jd Daniels: Ghazal of the Now

Timothy Gager: When It Is Still Winter

Maude Larke: Center Congregational Church/19 January 1979

Stephanie Bryant Anderson: White Ground, Glares

Colin Dardis: Deepest Breath

Joanne Faries: Innocuous

Zoë Gabriel: Pendulum, Not Tightrope

Morgan Harlow: Accumulation

Travis Hedge Coke: Impromptu 49er, 1:25 a.m. Los Angeles

Robert Jacoby: the voices in the hallway I'll never tell you about

Jocelyn Paige Kelly: Soul Flakes

Anthony Adrian Pino: Of Storms and Cities

Tim Tomlinson: Gulf Stream

Ekphrastic Poems

William Landis: The Nude The Sea The Sky Standing Open

Aleathia Drehmer: Cy Twombly / Animula Vagula, 1979


Fiction
Jon Sindell: Donuts

Anthony Adrian Pino: A Meditation on Snow: The Death of J. J. Finkelstein

Eric Prochaska: Shadows in Midgard

Renos Nicos Spanoudes: Status

Tim Tomlinson: Just Tell Me Who It Was


Flash Fiction

Ted Chiles: Lot's Wife

Francine Witte: Halfway Up the Mountain

Chella Courington: Bad Night

Joyce Lautens O'Brien: Dystopia

Michael K. Gause: The Work of Snow

Essay
Jannie M. Dresser: Is the Music Over? Has Free Verse Made Poets Tone Deaf?

_____________________________________________________

(communes with the night) Face reminds me of his poor mother. In the shady wood. The deep white breast. Ferguson, I think I caught. A girl. Some girl. Best thing could happen to him. (he murmurs.) . . . swear that I will always hail. ever conceal, never reveal, any part or parts, art or arts, . . . (he murmurs) . . . in the rough sands of the sea . . . a cabletow's length from the shore . . . where the tide ebbs . . . and flows . . .

James Joyce, Ulysses, p. 4901-4954

___________________________________________________________

| Submissions | Contact Us | Archives | Staff
~

Pandemonium Press


available now on Amazon.com

or from

the publisher: pandemoniumpress@gmail.com


_________________________________

Leila Rae, editor
riverbabble
http://iceflow.com/riverbabble/Welcome.html
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Acquarius

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------------Acuario

A Acuario,
---el airoso,
------fijo en su servicio,
lo vigila Urano desde lejos;
Saturno le pesa como plomo
y su luz como granate ardiente
destella en el cántaro de amatista
que carga Acuario,
----sus tobillos, sus pantorrillas
----bañados en el aire fijo
----de sus ideales luminosos.



---------© Rafael Jesús González 2011




-------------Aquarius

Aquarius,
---the graceful,
------at ease in his service,
is watched by Uranus from afar;
Saturn weighs on him like lead
& its light like a burning garnet
bounces sparks on the amethyst jar
that Aquarius carries,
----his ankles, his calves
----bathed in the fixed air
----of his luminous ideals.



----------© Rafael Jesús González 2011
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Full Moon Over Mexico City

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---Luna llena sobre la Cd. de México



La luz de la luna plena
----cascabeles en las mejillas
-------se rompe en las ventanas,
----------------------los espejos,
----------------------las vidrieras,
----en las escaleras del Templo Mayor,
------------las torres de la catedral.
La marca del conejo
-----------que lleva en la mejilla
parece incitar la embriaguez
pero no se le puede achacar
la locura del nuevo Tenochtitlan.



---------© Rafael Jesús González 2011







---Full Moon Over Mexico City


The light of the full moon
----------bells on her cheeks
breaks on the windows,
------------the mirrors,
------------the windshields,
on the stairs of the Great Temple,
--------the towers of the cathedral.
The mark of the rabbit
------------she bears on her cheek
seems to incite drunkenness
but she cannot be blamed
for the madness of the new Tenochtitlan.



------------------© Rafael Jesús González 2011



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Noche de reyes/12th night

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Adoration of the Magi, Andrea Mantegna 1495-1505

------------------ Magos


Pensar que yo, Baltasar de Caldea,
------tenedor de las cosas sacras,
------dejé los observatorios,
------cargado de incienso,
------para ir allí.
Aun hasta al punto de encuentro fue largo;
para Melchor de Nubia cargado de oro,
para Gaspar de Tarso cargado de mirra,
fue aun más largo.
-----Y de allí a Judea
-----y más allá condujo el lucero —
-----------a la morada de animales,
-----------lugar natal del infante mendigo.
Si era dios,
---como todo dios,
---------ha de haber llegado a mal fin.
¿Qué significaban los agüeros?
-----Tal vez sería el viaje mismo,
---------oír de los leones de Nubia,
---------de los ríos de Tarso;
y sobre todo,
-----sí, tal vez sobre todo,
---------- el ofrendar.



---------© Rafael Jesús González 2011





---------------Magos


To think that I, Balthazar of Chaldea,
----keeper of the sacred things,
----left the observatories,
----laden with frankincense,
----to come there.
Even to the point of meeting it was long;
for Melchior of Nubia laden with gold,
for Gaspar of Tarshish laden with myrrh,
it was longer.
---And from there to Judea
---and the star led on —
--------to the abode of animals,
--------birthplace of the infant beggar.
If he was a god,
-----like all gods,
-----he must have come to a bad end.
What meant the auguries?
----Perhaps it was the trip itself,
-------to hear of the lions of Nubia,
-------of the rivers of Tarshish;
and above all,
----yes, perhaps above all,
-----------the gifting.



----------© Rafael Jesús González 2011
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(first published in Dear Winter: Poems for the Solstice;
Marie Harris, Ed.; Northwood Press, Thomaston, Maine 1984;
Author’s © copyrights)
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