Do You Remember The Good Old Days?

for Clyde Torres
(Lubbock Playboy and Chicano
Literary Critic)

Do you remember the good old days
when Ricardo Sanchez
battled Alurista at the Floricantos,

sin mascaras, with mil maracas?
Million man march, my brown butt…
using the n-word, Nahuatl!

Tigre esquinando a Ricardo,
Tigre was Ricardo’s right hand man.
Alurista backed up by Aztec dancers,

flutes, flores, cantos.
Today, Mexican-“American” writers
write only childrens' stories

or detective borers, or cuentos
about crossing the desert
or the Rio Bravo.

Meanwhile, the old lady of Chicano Letters,
la viejita Carmen Tafolla
reveals to us

that La Llorona was bipolar,
and La Malinche, a heroine.
Just then, Artemio wakes up

from his long and feathery dream,
drives to work in his
blue and white Volkswagen van,

wondering along the way, if anybody still remembers
the good old days when Ricardo Sanchez
battled Alurista at the Floricantos.