Dubya’s Accomplishments

They are holding
their convention
in New York City,

so Dubya
can brag
about his accomplishments:

two towers
gone,
millions of jobs

lost,
so many of
our freedoms gone,

so many
young men and women
dead in Iraq,

dead in
Afghanistan-----
and the American Dream

dying from
self-inflicted
wounds.

The Purple Dubya

I never saw
a purple Dubya,
I never hope

to see one.
But I can
tell you anyhow

I’d rather see
than be one.
Because you see

a purple Dubya
has no brain
and no feelings

and goes
about the world
despising those

who do.
And all this in an
English language

that’s native only
to him
and purple cows.

Dubya Imitates The Ex-President As Best He Can

Dubya stands
on the very
spot

where President Clinton
stood
when Monica

took the President
in her mouth.
Dubya stands

there for
a long time.
Eventually he goes

to his
cigar box,
gets

a cigar,
pretends that
America is Monica,

and shoves
the cigar
all the way in!

Dubya’s God

Dubya’s God
came by today
accompanied

by the Secret Service.
He wanted
to know

why I’ve
been making
so much fun

of Dubya
lately.
And I told him

"What’s it to ya?"
Angrily he said unto me,
"Well, Dubya

sits on
my right hand!"
And I said,

"Tell him
to get off of it,
you dummy!"

God and the Secret Service
agents got in their Suburban
and left.

But they took
my computer
and my sense of humor.

Dubya Makes History Repeat Itself All Over Again
Like Déjà vu Said Yogi Bear

When Dubya
is alone
in the White House,

he puts on
his old
Air National Guard

uniform
and parades
around the historic halls

saluting
the portraits
of the past presidents.

He salutes Lincoln,
Nixon, Reagan
and Ford.

Then he pulls
his pistol
out of the holster

and tries
to shoot the portrait
of President Clinton,

but he misses
and shoots Lincoln
in the head.

The Scream

Two masked men
storm into
the Art Museum

and steal
"The Scream"
at gunpoint.

The getaway driver
is waiting
outside in a fjord

and they
speed off
on the Norwegian streets.

Meanwhile
the painting
never stops screaming.

You’d think
someone
would hear

and call the cops
but only bystanders
hang around.

We hear
Iraq scream
and only the French protest

that the United States has
cloned Edvard Munch
to paint a new masterpiece.

God Talks To George About The Working Man

God calls Dubya
into the Oval Office
and informs him

that he’d like
to have
the working man destroyed.

"The working man, George,
is the scum
of the earth,

always dreaming
of bettering
himself,

always daring
to dream
the impossible dream!"

"So, Georgie,
do you think you
can take care of that?"

And Dubya says,
"Sure, God,
we’ll start with

taking away
his overtime
pay.

The working man
lives for overtime pay,
sucking the profits

right out
of our callous
hands,

the working man
is always trying
to rip off

our country’s rich people!"
A self-righteous Georgie saluted God
as he left the Oval Office.

In Memory Of Pete Soldado

Pete died in Viet Nam
fighting for the right of the Viet Namese
to immigrate to the USA.

He spent nine days
trapped in a trench
until re-enforcements arrived.

He listened
to rock and roll
and smoked dope.

He didn’t
kill any babies,
he just killed the enemy,

and the enemy
killed his buddies.
He wrote down their names

in letters home
that spoke of
the horrors of war.

Pete died in Viet Nam
while unloading ammunition
at an ammo dump.

We buried Pete
in a cemetery
three blocks from his home.

His Chicano name
is carved into the granite stone
on the northeast corner of the CourtHouse.

Pete died in Viet Nam
fighing for the right of the Viet Namese
to immigrate to the USA.

Dubya’s Desktop

When you turn on
Dubya’s computer
the Start button

is misspelled.
It reads
Retart.

The My Documents folder
is renamed
the My Lies folder.

There is no
word processing program.
What for!

But if you open Powerpoint,
you find presentations
of God actually talking to him.

And indeed
God is telling him to kill
all the enemies of the Republicans.

God jokes with Dubya
and tells him
"Hey, George, spell goddamnit backwards!"

Suddenly,
a tin, mad dog chases them
around the Rose Garden,

thorns sticking
out of
both their behinds.

Do You Want Freedom Fries With That?

Since the Statue of Liberty
was given to us
by the French

and we hate
all things French,
let’s change the name

to the Statue of Freedom Fries
and give
the taters away to the homeless,

to the criminals,
to the stray dogs,
and to the masses

that cross our borders
from the south
hungering for these Freedom Fries!

Among Chicano School Children

I was born on a farm
we had no electricity
only kerosene lamps for light,

a woodburning stove
to keep warm in winter
and to cook the pot of beans year-round.

My first day of school
I had to go barefoot
amazed that other kids wore shoes.

They laughed at me
and I myself thought
how odd they looked with covered feet.

Mr. Patlan (a Mexican-American teacher)
took me to some store and the school district
bought me a pair of sneakers.

But, ever since that
first day of school
I go proudly barefoot in my Chicano soul!

A Friday The 13th Poem

The White Chickens

So much depends
upon

the once white chickens
run over

by a wheelbarrow
with

the wheel turned
red

and glazed with
feathers

The President Suffers A Briefcase Of Sanity

Dubya pushes
the red button
on his nuclear briefcase.

Uncle Tom
(that’s Colin Powell
to you ignorant types)

yells at Dubya,
"What are you
doing Mr. President!"

"Well, Colin Boy,
I’m just practicing
blowing up North Korea."

"But, Mr. President
you have all our nukes
aimed at Crawford!"

"Oops, that’s what
I’d call a
Texas-sized barbecue!"

"Mr. President,
who let you
have the keys?"

"Well, Dick said I could
use them
for one day

if I let Haliburton
have that contract
to pump Iraqi oil to Israel."

Chicano Viking

Would you believe this,
some people don’t appreciate
my doggerel,

but all I tell them
is that doggerel spelled backwards
spells

some kind
of Norwegian god-----
and they leave me alone.

Perhaps they think
I’m a Chicano Viking
and I will rape and pillage,

but I tell them no, no,
you’ve got me confused
with the Americans!

The Invisible Man Plagiarizes
Wallace Stevens

I placed a jar in Tennessee
to see if poor white trash
would come out to see.

Instead, the Air Force
sent bombers
to neutralize the threat.

The welfare department
searched in vain
for whoever abandoned the jar.

A Chicano scholar
wrote a research paper
to see if it pertained to chicanery.

I placed a jar Tennessee
to create another poem
that you could see through.

The see-through poem
being the rarest of all-----
You can not see this line!

Papalote State Of Mind

Sometimes you can not believe
everything you hear.
You ask for proof

and there is no pudding.
They serve you
beans and tortillas

because that’s
what we eat
down here.

I think therefore I am
said the Great Chicano Thinker
Alurista

as he unwrapped
the mummy of Aztlan
on the kitchen table.

We ate of it
like a frozen wholly mammoth
eaten by Russian scientists.

We ate of it
but Aztlan remained
a castle in the clouds.

Therefore this poem pours out
like lava from the famous
volcano of Papalote.

Lava, lava
burning bright on the coastal plain
where the pyramids rise

to sacrifice the clouds.
They tear the heart
out of the sky


and it becomes
the Aztec sun
to the believers.

But I drink my Hippo soda water
and pen this poem
on the forehead of Lady Bird Johnson.

I sell used computers
at the Papalote Mall,
they’re loaded with Win98 in Spanish.

Some weekends
they sell like hotcakes,
sometimes they sit on the shelves like my books.

The wisdom spilling out
of them
like Frank Lloyd Wright houses.

These period pieces
of the Chicano Movement
block Highway 181

and you can’t get
to Sinton or Taft.
Who’s going to pick the cotton?

My poems
engulf the Papalote Mall
like the Blob.

But I hide
inside my pickup truck
until the Brown Berets rescue me.

Till then I breathe
like the Gill-Man
and listen to the oldies.

It’s Freddy Fender
or Little Joe y la Familia
trumpeting the arrival


of Lalo
and the 25 pieces
of his Chicano mind.

Stupid America
let this poem that’s stuck in your throat
bring you freedom once again!

What Happens When You Beat Your Meat

A cow-gang walks into McDonalds
and shoots up the place
with Uzis.

Men, women and children
dead alongside
fries and Big Macs.

This is all
very comforting
you know.

You use and abuse
a species
and eventually it snaps.

Not only postal workers
go postal.
Sometimes cows won’t cower.

The Department of Homeland Security
has raised the terror level to orange,
home on the range!

I Wish I Was Not The War President

I wish I was not
the war president,
the killing, the bombing, the killing.

I wish I was not
the war president,
the National Guard Retard.

I wish I was not
the war president,
the AWOL AHOLE.

I wish I was not
the war president,
but this is my chance to kill children.

I wish I was not
the war president
laughing all the way to the bank.

Mona Lisa

The red sun is setting
and the white moon
balloons up about to blow up.

The man in the moon
better watch out
if he’s up and about.

The orbs go round
and round as da Vinci
draws his helicopters

in the background
of the Mona Lisa.
You have to look real close.

You see them there
on the left.
The eye does not deceive.

The whole world
is a truth.
Only man can lie.

The Story Of The Leaf

My grandson tells me
the story of the leaf,
the story he knows well.

He’s two years
and four months old,
so the story

is still in its infancy.
He tells the story
complete with hand motions.

He crashes the leaf
into his left palm,
and makes a leafy, screeching noise.

Perhaps we’ve been
watching too many TV car races
on Sunday afternoon.

But, afterwards we always
take him to the park to run and play.
So that someday he’ll perfect the story of the leaf.

The Subject Was Her Smile

Some poets can do more
with Mona Lisa
than others.

I, myself, dress
her in blue jeans.
See the contour of her thighs?

I cut her hair short
and dye it blonde
like the Leaning Tower of Pisa.

I buy a watch for her
so she can tell time
and the centuries.

I train her mind
to appreciate the sound
of my Chicano poetry.

I train her to ignore
all other verse.
Only mine can exist.

I told you some poets
can do more with
Mona Lisa than da Vinci.

I’m gifted that way.
And this line right here
is her famous smile!

To My Grandson

Sometimes a son can’t reach the lofty goals
a father sets for him,
sometimes the grandson is called upon
to carry on the dreams.

I tried to be a great writer, grandson,
not for fame or glory,
not to enlighten the world-----but me.
And I am still trying!

Along the way you try to do some good,
it doesn’t have to be that much,
but it’s got to be at least a little.
Every little bit helps, you know.

Just try your best to write
the greatest poem you can make out of your life.
It doesn’t have to rhyme
and it doesn’t have to reason.

As you can see already
anything you write will be better
than anything your grandpa has written.
So pick up that crayon, boy!