When I'm Fifty-Four

Will I write poetry,will I write prose
will I still dress like a salty old Sgt. Pepper
when I'm fifty-four?

Will the audience still recognize my face
in the Brown Submarine beneath the waves
of the chicano sea?

I'm dancing a slow dance with Lucy
when skinny old-maid Eleanor Rigby
says, "didn't you used to be a poet?".

Nel,I used to be a Chicano poet,
but that was back in the days of the past,
not now that I'm fifty-four.

I once hung out with Alurista, Ricardo Sanchez,
Tomas Rivera, Carmen Tafolla and Cecilio
back when poetry cried like La Llorona.

When poetry floated like clouds
thru the Aztec pyramids built by Floricanto
in the middle of the barrio...

People ask me when I'm going to
cut my hair and grow up
and I tell them when I'm fifty-four,

and I tell them, when I become
more famous than the Beatles.....
oh,I b-e-l-i-e-v-e i-n Y-e-s-t-e-r-day.