The Door Of Perception

When the security cameras failed,
the Council asked for volunteers

to go check the cameras
since the problem appeared to be

with the equipment itself,
and not with the computer controls

or the software.
Rey volunteered

together with two other
techs.

They were working
on the cameras

when the impenetrable door
was ripped apart

and flung hundreds
of yards away

into a nearby crater.
The dust rose

and settled quickly.
The three volunteers

were staring into the Martian’s
flaming, red lips,

emotions clearly visible
in the Martian’s square eyes,

eyebrows which covered
and uncovered her eyes.

Suddenly, it lashed out
at Mariano,

he fell dead without a sound.
Beatriz did not even

have a chance
to express terror on her beautiful face

before her beautiful face
lay in shreds.

Gringolangos

Mexico City looked ridiculous,
inhabited as it was

by the white people
repatriated from Arizona.

Every damn Mexican had been
exiled to the moon,

and then on to Mars.
Well, not every Mexican---

the Native Mexican Indians
had been considered

not worth the trouble
so they were just given

a “vaccine” which immediately
put them out their misery.

Back on Mars,
every contingency

had been addressed.
No one in the lab

knew if the Martian
would stay underground

or come knocking
on the impenetrable door.

A door made on Ganymede
of unobtainium

which had somehow been obtained
by the stubborn, sweaty cojones

of the men
and women miners

with the loss
of many space-suited vidas locas.

Capitán Copasllenas

The S.S. Gloria Anzaldua
had been hurtling toward Mars

when it heard about
the terrifying occurrence,

and was now
in stationary orbit

above the lab complex.
It had a load

of explosives
headed to the mining camps

on the moons of Jupiter.
Captain Lola Copasllenas

had burned a lot of uranium
on this accelerated trip.

She beamed down
the explosives as instructed

and awaited
further orders.

Lola was young,
and had been

promoted to Captain
when she was only twenty-three.

Now at twenty-eight
she was a veteran

out here on the outskirts
of the solar system.

She was the only lesbian
of the eleven female captains

making up the Mexican space fleet
of nineteen starships,

ships which were
way beyond their prime---

and with nothing akin
to the stars.

El Plan Espiritual De Marte

The plan
was to attack the Martian

if it attempted to come
through the entryway of the lab.

Its colossal hallway
would serve as a trap.

The explosives would be placed
in a way

which would cause
no damage to the entryway,

but, yet, would hopefully
destroy the Martian.

Rey and Isidra
retreated to her quarters

until the Martian
made its approach, if it did.

Isidra’s panties lay
on Rey’s pants

which he’d flung
to the floor.

Isidra did not
remove her bra

during their lovemaking.
(Gente, this is the point

in the narrative
where the proverbial train

enters the tunnel of love).
Meanwhile, the Security Council

kept a vigil
on the security cameras

for any sign
of the Martian.

By this time, the Martian’s minds
had been made up.

Her emotions
gathered in one place.

Sine=Tpace

Basking in the three hundred degree
below zero temperature,

she relished the sweet
Martian atmosphere,

her belt-shaped lung caressed
each molecule of red dust,

her minds full of questions,
questions not framed like ours,

questions which protruded
into space,

questions which could knock
moons from their

comfortable, but silly orbits.
Man’s creation of mathematics

was revealed to be
a pure, stupid, invention,

thus making time and space
quite impossible.

She was driven
by the survival of her race,

unaware she was
the last of her kind.

She sensed the creatures
had retreated

to those strange structures.
She no longer felt

threatened by them.
But, her twenty,

separate minds
urged dangerous caution.

Eve Of Destruction

The Security Council
ordered Captain Chon Juarez

to bring whatever explosives
were left on the ship

to the surface of Mars,
and andale pronto.

The Council had decided
that dynamite

was their only form
of defense.

No one was sure
that it would work at all,

but that was their only hope.
Rey told anyone who would listen

that he did not think
the Martian would leave

the safety of its sanctuary.
But even as Rey spoke,

the Martian took her first steps
towards the surface.

The Abomination

After a hundred thousand years
of sleep,

waking up to this confusion,
the Martian

tried her best
to regain her senses.

There were questions
in her mind,

but not such things
as we would know as questions.

Who were these creatures
in her sanctity,

why did they befoul it
with their presence,

didn’t they know
the Great Forbidden Laws.

She must,
if it remained within her power,

wipe them all out.
She must prepare herself

to walk upon her planet,
her planet,

reclaim her homeland.
She did not know

how many of these abominations
were out there

(she was thinking like a gringa
on Fox News).

She must go to the surface
and face them.

Wassup, My Migas!

After a hearty breakfast of migas,
Rey Urias decided he’d walk

over to the lab
to see Isidra.

When he got there
he found out

that Isidra was among
the missing.

Why had no one bothered
to tell him!

He rounded up
a couple of his techs,

Rufino and Modesta,
to accompany him

to the pyramid
(which is what most New Martians called

the complex known
as the Face on Mars).

They approached carefully
from the side

which was bathed in shadows.
They, of course, had no weapons

not even their cunning, just the aluristos
for communication.

What good communication
would do them

was something
they choose to ignore.

Suddenly Isidra
came out of nowhere,

Shortly, they had
to change their shorts,

not literally, of course,
pero ya mero.

Isidra grabbed Rey
and hugged the hell out of him.

She hugged him so damn hard
he almost let go a miga pedo.

Out here on desolate Mars,
in a space suit, hell, that could be deadly.

She told him about Beto,
Rey did not know Beto that well

but he felt bad for Isidra.
They hurried back

to the relative safety
of the lab

passing the rusty, robotic spirit
of an antique, Martian probe,

there was no opportunity
for the weary to stop and rest.

In Dante’s Inferno

Isidra descended into
the bright, red hallways,

cautiously, ever so cautiously.
She had removed her shoes,

the heels of her feet
barely touched the stone surface.

If she came face to face
with the Martian monster,

she had no plan.
What her urgent intentions were---

she had no clue.
She felt she owed it to Beto

to, at least, get his personal belongings
off his severed body

while at the same time hoping
not to meet the same fate.

Beto’s torso lay against a wall,
her heart pounding against

her small breasts.
She reached into his pockets,

she unclipped his id badge,
she struggled to pull a ring

from a white, lifeless finger.
A noise startled her,

it was just a fine dust
falling from the ceiling above her.

She hurried out,
hallway after endless hallway.

When she reached the surface,
her eyes were still seeing red,

the red of those lights down there
made her stomach upset.

She felt queasy.
She threw up.

There’s Gold In Dem Dar Planets

Planetary rings usually consist
of two per cent gold,

in the solar economy,
that’s worth

all the effort
the New Martians put into it.

Since earth
is off limits to Mexicans now,

this gold trading
becomes sweet revenge.

The gringos back on earth
pay a heavy price

for this extra-planetary gold.
These traficantes of ring gold

look at this trafficking
as poetic justice---

minus the poetry,
of course,

and, maybe,
even,minus the justice.

Ring-A-Ding-Ding

Aboard the S.S. Cesar Chavez,
Lupito busied himself with work.

After he had talked
to Chela and the kids,

Lupito and the other workers
continued harvesting

the rings of Saturn.
After a year

of harvesting the rings,
there were only two rings left.

In six months,
the work would be done,

and they would move on
to the rings of Neptune.

It was a dirty job,
but someone had to do it.

The Teleporting Blues

“The Mexican will always be
a caged animal,

though he tries to be good
it is not within his nature,

he cheats, he scams,
he lies,

and this comes easy to him.
He excels in it,

he glories in it,
ay dios mio,

in this the pendejo
is unsurpassed.”

Every damn time he teleported,
these kinds of thoughts

filled the mind of Rey Urias
and always left him

uneasy, afraid of himself.
Somehow or other,

Rey always convinced himself
that he was a good Mexican,

contrary to
the evidence.

Alurista's Tunapalooza Tour

alurista Tunaluna book tour and presentations 2010

• Sun Aug 29 | 2-4PM La Palabra Avenue 50 Studio, 131 N. Avenue 50, Studio Highland Park, CA
• Sept 15-17 | 2010 Festival de Flor y Canto | Doheny Memorial Library on the USC campus | Visit Read Raza for schedule details
• Tues Oct 5 | 9:30AM Carmen Tafolla’s “Latino Cultural Expressions” class | University of Texas at San Antonio (UTSA) North Campus, One UTSA Circle
• Tues Oct 5 | 6:30-9PM Public Reading, Plática & Book Signing w/ reception | UTSA Downtown Campus, Southwest Room, 501 W. Durango Blvd.
• Wed Oct 6 | 7-9PM Public Reading, Plática & Book Signing | Texas Lutheran University, Langner Hall 120, 1000 West Court St. Seguin, Texas
• Fri Oct 8 | 12-1PM Public Reading & Plática | Palo Alto College, Student Center 1400 W. Villaret, San Antonio, Texas
• Sat Oct 9 | 10AM-12:30PM: Chicano Poetry workshop (requires registration through Gemini Ink; capped at 20) | Palo Alto College Performing Arts Center Recital Hall 1400 W. Villaret, San Antonio, Texas
• Tues Oct 12 |11AM-12:20PM: Reading & Plática | Laredo Community College, Kazen Center 122, Ft. McIntosh Campus, West End Washington St.
• Tues Oct 12 | 7-9PM Public Reading, Plática & Book Signing | Laredo Center for the Arts, Roseller Goodman Gallery, 500 San Augustin Ave.
• Wed Oct 13 | 12-1:20PM Reading & Plática | Laredo Community College South Campus, Billy Hall Community Hall, 5500 S. Zapata Highway
• Thurs Oct 14 | 10:30AM-12PM Class Presentation | Austin Community College
• Thurs Oct 14 | 6:30-9PM Public Reading, Plática & Book Signing | Austin Community College (Austin Community College, UT-Austin collaborative event), East View Campus, Bldg. 8000, Multi Purpose Hall, 3401 Webberville Rd.
• Fri Oct 15 | 12-1:30PM Public Reading, Plática & Book Signing | University of Houston, Visualization Lab, 216 Philip Guthrie Hoffman St.
• Fri Oct 15 |7-9PM Public Reading, Plática & Book Signing | Casa Ramirez, Houston 241 West 19th St., Houston, Texas

Pozo Libre

Isidra feels like La Llorona,
having drowned her child

in the waters of this Martian monster.
A monster which she herself had discovered,

thought of it as something amazing,
a wonder to behold,

which had now
come out of its

centuries old sleep
only to kill. To kill.

The Martian had not
followed them to the surface.

What’s it waiting for,
she wondered

in the space of her space suit,
the cold winds of Mars

kicking up ice dust
onto her visor

just at the moment
Rey Urias had teleported

to the surface.
She wondered

if it was too soon
for him to have heard the news.

Even though her boss
had specifically told her

to head back to the relative safety of campus
she decided

to go back down
into the abyss.

Red Light District

After Isidra gathered
her senses,

she called her boss.
He in turn

called the security chief
who initiated

evacuations to the shelters.
There was no police force

on Mars,
not what one normally associates

with police---
no weapons whatsoever

were allowed
except for those

the whites flooded
earth and the earth’s moon with.

The only thing resembling weapons
on Mars was explosives used

for mining the moons
of Jupiter and Saturn.

How this monster
was going to be stopped

with beyond anybody’s
comprehension.

Isidra nursed
her mental wounds,

feeling responsible
for Beto’s death.

She thought
about the Martian,

what have we
gotten ourselves into

she thought pensively out loud
to herself or to anybody who would listen

as the face on Mars flashed its red
sickening light about.

One Man Short

The structure was immense
(and tense),

it could be seen
by distant space ships.

Isidra and her team
had rushed to investigate,

only to be attacked
by the ancient Martian

as they entered
the blazing hallways of light---

hallways which had always
been dark until now.

The team’s artificial lighting
had never been sufficient

for anthropological research.
Beto, the young intern,

(he was twenty or so)
was cut in half by the Martian

with a mere, meticulous look.
Everyone ran for cover,

shaking and horrified.
Isidra yelled,

“Go! Go!” meaning
haul ass outta here.

They scrambled to the surface
one man short.

Isidra cried
bulbous tears.

The Return

As the S.S. Denham Dentifrice
returned to Mars from the darkside

and swung around
to the daylight side

those who happened
to be looking out the portals

were astounded
that the face on Mars

was lit up a bright,
blinding red.

The Captain immediately
called Mars Control

inquiring about
the strange phenomenon.

The reply was:
they are investigating it now.

Rey had been
taking a nap,

dreaming either of
Isidra or Debbie,

what’s the difference
he thought to himself,

a woman
is a woman,

interchangeable,
malleable,

always gullible
to the right man.

Rey had never been known
for his political correctness.

That’s what a macho
is all about, after all,

he insisted
to his alter ego.

Dogs Are Shakespearean, Children Are
Strangers In A Strange Land

Meanwhile, back on earth
Speedy Gonzales ran for his life,

the Sheriff was pissed
that one dirty Mexican was still at large,

and roaming Arizona freely
which by God-given right

belonged to white people only.
But Speedy, true his name,

was impossible to catch,
making fools of Arpaio’s ghouls,

running circles around them
while shouting,

“Arriba! Arriba!”
pointing to Pepe

up on the lunatic moon.
“Arriba! Arriba!”

shouted
Speedy Gonzales.

Pepe

Lupito threw moonrocks
for Pepe (his dog) to fetch.

Of course,Pepe
had to use

the mechanical mouth
which was part of his space suit

to fetch
the tasteless moonrocks,

so it took most
of the fun out of it

and soon Pepe was doggone bored.
Lupito and Griselda

bounced a hundred feet
into the airless air

as they headed
back inside.

Being kids
they were not

impressed at all
as the racist blue and white

ball of earth
slid silently into view.

Pepe tried his best
to mark his territory,

but only succeeded
in marking his space suit.

Moonwalking Mexicans

Chela and her kids,
Lupito Jr. and Griselda Marie

were housed
in bracero-type barracks

while they awaited
their transfer to Mars.

Despite all the technological advances,
the trip to Mars

would still take
at least eight months,

depending on
cargo priorities.

Lupito Jr. and Griselda
enjoyed playing

on the moon
with the other kids.

They had never been able
to jump so high,

throw a ball so far.
They rolled down craters

not heeding the warnings
to be careful with their space suits.

“Chamacos will be chamacos,
I guess.” said Chela.

The Roundup

"The ground on which the ball bounces
 Is another bouncing ball."
                       Delmore Schwartz 

Meanwhile, back on earth,
Lupito’s wife, Chela,

and Lupito’s two kids
are being herded into space ships

for their trip
to the moon.

When these ten space ships
leave earth,

there will be no more Mexicans
left on the planet.

From the moon,
they will be transported to Mars.

Chela calls Lupito
on the aluristo,

a sort of telephone device
which carries voice across space

at a hundred thousand times
the speed of light.

“Lupito, me and the kids
are on the way to the moon.”

“Good, Chela, I can’t wait
to see y’all,

I’ll be anxiously awaiting
your arrival, amor.”

The silent rocket ship motors
barely made a noise

as the space craft
slid along clouds momentarily

before it reached
the blackness of space.

La Rosa De Tejas

Juanito had been missing
Dolores del Grito,

after ten months
harvesting the moons of Jupiter

he was ready
to head back home to Mars.

His space freighter, La Rosa de Tejas,
was full to the brim

with purple methane
and rock ice.

The processing plants on Mars
would process the raw materials

and ship them back to earth,
to the gringo world,

where only pure-bred white people
were allowed to live-----

with a few minor exceptions.
The last Mexicans on earth

are being deported to the moon
as we speak.

The End Of The World
As They Knew It

He was the last ruler
to finish his reign

before the giant comet
appeared beyond the Ort Cloud.

Soon the royal astronomers
had confirmed

that all would be lost
if something wasn’t done.

But all attempts to re-direct
the giant icy rock failed.

After the ruler’s descension
and enshrinement

Martian civilization survived
another fifty years

before the atmosphere was destroyed
by the inevitable impact.

A cloud of red dust rose into space
like a beautiful intergalactic flower,

and flourished there
for a million years.

Stirrings In The Dark

While Isidra
ate her supper,

down in the bowels
of the face on Mars

silence struggled
with silence---

as silence
is wont to do,

and dust clung to dust,
photons became even prouder.

In the sepulcher
a muscle or two twitched,

a leg and arm
tried to return to warmth,

realized heat as something good,
became slowly accustomed to it.

Funny how a hundred thousand years
can be wiped away

with the blink of an eye.
Darkness was his light,

he relished
in its presence.

He recognized
his own life.