BROKEN STARS

No Se Permite Hol Gazanear (No Loitering)

 

1

This morning, you gave me a ride

to the therapist, a man

whose Navajo language is medicine

Before the Land was stolen,

before laws were enacted,

the shadows migrating north on San Mateo

were men and women whose brown-red skin

glowed, whose language was waters

grasses, spoke to animals who have deserted us

 

2

A man pushing a shopping cart down the

middle of the sidewalk, always dark

baggy, dirty, and smelly clothing.

I am one of them waiting for the bus.

blue tattoos on necks and falling

like broken stars from eyelids onto cheekbones.

swollen red faces, splatter painted hiking shoes.

impermanence reeking everywhere.

makeshift tents from when theyh had a salary,

a woman, a job.

 

UNHOUSED AND UNHARRIED

1

I understood, I was

unhoused. I felt eyes

examining my shoes. Am I

one of those that escaped,

or ignoramt masses,

believing in masters

who never existed.

 

Here, we are bleeding.

No one stops to offer help.

Tomorrow, the dried blood

will be confused with syrupy

stickiness of grape soda.

 

Sounds so loudbright it blasts

past me in a blur.

How much does a shadow cost?

 

2

I lost my voice somewhere

in my childhood Washington dc

the city I was born in, what can I say?

I know the truths about America

that continue to go unheeded:

the vision has already been of

a dark night looking forward

when we were wind when we were nothing

when we were wind.

What does [see attachment) feel like,

that beautiful fragile butterfly

batting its wings. I have

learned so many languages,

each more promising than the last:

No one has the answer,

NO ONE, the mysterious

number beyond numbers

 

3

I demand absolute freedom of being

 

where you have lived

I have not lived, except

once inside your skin

 

4

am I safe to live, here

die here

lie here

?

Why does my freedom

always seem so electric

and yours so ordinary.

 

5

What is the freedom of mirrors,

the freedom from approximation

and half-truths.

I want to find

the Infallible, Incorruptible

inside myself. I want to taste

of that white wine light, light

through lime leaves on the fig trees

the figs so sweet, pink, inviting

the center of the world is the color

of raspberry, but is so bitter

everything else is in fact its opposite

 

6

The time is so short

you pull out

your note pad and I pull out mine

we are racing

against a chronometer we’ve never seen –

the one that really matters

how often do daffodils

irises wisteria red yucca

have to bloom before your

recognize Spring?

How does One walk into the Wind

and not know Oya?

 

It has been almost 2 years since I first caught wind of the street paper movement while studying City Planning at the University of New Mexico. After attending the 2015 International Network of Street Paper Summit in Seattle, I knew that Albuquerque’s original street paper launched in 1990 had to be revived.

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