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!