LALO DELGADO ~

 

Stupid America

stupid america, see that chicano

with a big knife

in his steady hand

he doesn't want to knife you

he wants to sit down on a bench

and carve christ figures

but you won't let him.

stupid america, hear that chicano

shouting curses on the street

he is a poet

without paper and pencil

and since he cannot write

he will explode.

stupid america, remember that chicanito

flunking math and english

he is the picasso

of your western states

but he will die

with one thousand masterpieces

hanging only from his mind.

__________________

Lalo Delgardo

"Stupid America"

from Latino Poetry

Rigoberto Gonzalez, editor

The Library of America, 2024

BLAS MANUEL DE LUNA ~

 

To Hear the Leaves Sing

Going down Highway 99, to Modesto,

I see an orange glow in the sky.

At first I think it is a fire, but, as I get closer,

it is the lights of a packinghouse,

where women work through the night,

giving up the fire of their lives,

to get the peaches to market.

Ten minutes later I pass

the Avenue 20 off-ramp, the ramp

that, in summers, would take me

to the peach fields of Madera,

where, as the sun rose to its peak

in the brilliant sky,

and the bitter dust

settled in my throat,

I would stand on a ladder,

my heavy sack pulling me down,

and throw peaches, as fast

as I could, into the trees,

to hear the leaves sing,

the tiny branches break.

________________________

BLAS MANUEL DE LUNA 

from Latino Poetry

edited by Rigoberto Gonzalez

The Library of America, 2024

Blas Manuel de Luna (b. 1969) was born in Tijuana, Mexico,

raised and schooled in California and is the author of the poetry

collection Bent to the Earth (2005).