One Of My Favorite Rebecca Gonzales Poems
(from Cicadas)

Withholding Evidence

Like a probing, jealous lover,
x-rays drill through my pelvis.

I hold my breath,
withholding pictures
of you taking root in me,
you and me in every conceivable way.

In a second it finds me innocent,
shows me smug evidence,
black-and-white absolute:
nothing but held-together bones,
not even touching in spaces
that are a hollow cry.

I smile a quiet victory,
knowing it isn’t always so.

A Poem By Rebecca Gonzales
from Slow Work To The Rhythm
Of Cicadas


WORKERS IN THE WATERMELON FIELDS

Cicadas sing in the watermelon fields,
clear wings like prism in the sun,
till sane, green furrows ramble in the heat,
pinch the land like a wailing accordion.

Field workers weave slow work, stooping
cutting, hauling rows of watermelons,
watermelons, soft inside like a belly
you could stick a knife into.

Cicadas sing in the watermelon fields,
and ringlets of heat dance crazy,
like gasoline fumes from a handkerchief
you sniff to get high before a dance.

The sun above is a woman,
a hot bitch under your skin,
and if you’re a man,
you work like hell beneath her,
worship her in a sweat,
slow work to the rhythm of cicadas,
in a day so long, the only sense.

A Poem By Rebecca Gonzales

Her Love Story

It’s a strange quilt,
It warms no one.
The pattern is karmic
So inevitable, there are no seams.
It’s mixed metaphors,
Too petty to be tragic.
An eternal game of hide and go seek.

She’ll try to kiss your eyes closed.
Still, don’t let her tell it to you!
Cover your ears.
Walk away before you see her smile fade.
Anything after a first kiss is anticlimactic.
You wouldn’t want to still be in the audience.
What would you do? Applaud?

Rebecca's book Slow Work To The Rhythm
Of Cicadas remains one of the best book
of poems by any Chicano or Chicana poet.

A Poem By Osip Mandelstam

The Stalin Epigram

Our lives no longer feel ground under them.
At ten paces you can’t hear our words.

But whenever there’s a snatch of talk
it turns to the Kremlin mountaineer,

the ten thick worms his fingers,
his words like measures of weight,

the huge laughing cockroaches on his top lip,
the glitter of his boots-rims.

Ringed with a scum of chicken-necked bosses
he toys with the tributes of half-men.

One whistles, another meows, a third snivels.
He pokes out his finger and he goes boom.

He forges decrees in a line like horseshoes,
one for the groin, one for the forehead, temple, eye.

He rolls the executions on his tongue like berries.
He wishes he could hug them like big friends from home.

(November 1933)

This poem, when word of it reached the authorities,
was the occasion of Mandelstam’s first arrest (1934).

Your Love Story

you tell me
the love story of your life

complete with twists
and turns

farther out
and more often

brisk flight from the Valley
dusty mercy

spreading eastward
against the sun

flash forward:hammers under your bed
wood itself

hunting some guy now
I’d take you

into the cloudy bedroom
carry your voice

like a dozen roses
your love story

stuck to the refrigerator
a heart-shaped magnet no less

your SUV
parked in the lonely garage

hears you dancing against your will
your panties spied in the dawn drawer

your smile
wasted on strangers

(in the precisest of dreams)
pops up on my sleeve

if only
for a bitter split second

before it sweetens
along the vine

More Cowbell


Wait for it...wait for it...

Poetry that speaks.Check it out here.

Pick Up Truck To Destroy
Your Poems

if your poems raise dust
on the gravel road

and a prairie dog
or wayward bird wanders across

no photo in my wallet
would suppress the story

nothing to divide
the real from the unreal

the lyrics
a hard pill to swallow

a pick up truck barreling
towards your poems

I would have lost my shirt
if I had placed the bet

(this actually happened in West Texas)

Over Time

my face has been here before
planted its feet firmly

perhaps on another continent
will suck on straw

tens of years from now
will have rested its lips

on grass two thousand years gone
will dart in front of stones

in dark ages yet to come
my face

Another One By My Niece Rebecca

don't know how to walk through life

without being barefoot

on glass...in the dark.



I don't have any feelings

without doubt

in pain...with stupidity.



I don't see the point

believing there's good

in you...for me.

I don't know how to walk through life

taking the easy route

comforted by the arms of another...

I'm used to sorting through the ruins

I'd rather walk

alone than believe in you...

for me.

A Poem By My Niece Rebecca Gonzales

hide and stick

It was a sticky web
I'd spin and strengthen

to cover and hide

With words a sticky web
I'd spin and tangle

to have a safe place
for mangled heart shreds
to muster a beat

A sticky word web
That was not just words

but a whole facade
so that others cant see past

My sticky web of sticky words.

Pancho Villa’s chingado

Pancho Villa’s   
        chingado
                who used to
                ride Siete Leguas into tejasjustasi
                                               Chuy
he was a macho man
                y lo que queiro saber es
how do you like your meskin muchacho
Senor Calavera

Te Recuerdo Amanda

Te recuerdo Amanda, la calle mojada,
              corriendo a la fabrica
          donde trabajaba Manuel.
La sonrisa ancha, la lluvia en el pelo,
no importaba nada, ibas a encontrarte con el,
         con el, con el, con el, con el
                son cinco minutos
        la vida es eterna en cinco minutos
    suenan las sirenas de vuelta al trabajo
         y tu caminando lo iluminas todo
      los cinco minutos te hacen florecer.

    Te recuerdo Amanda, la calle mojada
corriendo a la fabrica donde trabajaba Manuel
      la sonrisa ancha, la lluvia en el pelo
no importaba nada, ibas a encontrarte con el,
      con el, con el, con el, con el,
 que partió a la sierra, que nunca hizo daño,
            que partió a la sierra
     y en cinco minutos quedo destrozado.
     Suenan las sirenas de vuelta al trabajo,
  muchos no volvieron, tampoco Manuel…

          Te recuerdo Amanda…

I Remember Amanda

I remember Amanda, the wet street,
          running to the factory
     where Manuel was working,
  her wide smile, the rain in her hair
nothing mattered, you were going to be with him,
       with him, with him, with him, with him,
             five minutes
    life lasts forever in a mere five minutes
the whistle and he went back to work
and you, walking illuminating everything
those five minutes make you flower

  I remember Amanda, the wet street,
running to the factory where Manuel used to work,
    her wide smile, the rain in her hair,
nothing mattered, you were going to be with him,
    with him, with him, with him, with him,
   who went into the mountains, who did no harm
and in five minutes was destroyed,
  the whistle blows to return to work
many did not return, neither did Manuel…

I remember Amanda…

Bringing Up The Miners

they bring up miner number 1
(do not forget the hands of Victor Jara)

they bring up miner number 2
(do not forget the hands of Victor Jara)

they bring up miner number 3
(do not forget the hands of Victor Jara)

they bring up miner number 4
(do not forget the hands of Victor Jara)

they bring up miner number 5
(do not forget the hands of Victor Jara)

they bring up miner number 6
(do not forget the hands of Victor Jara)

they bring up miner number 7
(do not forget the hands of Victor Jara)

they bring up miner number 8
(do not forget the hands of Victor Jara)

they bring up miner number 9
(do not forget the hands of Victor Jara)

they bring up miner number 10
(do not forget the hands of Victor Jara)

they bring up miner number 11
(do not forget the hands of Victor Jara)

they bring up miner number 12
(do not forget the hands of Victor Jara)

they bring up miner number 13
(do not forget the hands of Victor Jara)

they bring up miner number 14
(do not forget the hands of Victor Jara)

they bring up miner number 15
(do not forget the hands of Victor Jara)

they bring up miner number 16
(do not forget the hands of Victor Jara)

they bring up miner number 17
(do not forget the hands of Victor Jara)

they bring up miner number 18
(do not forget the hands of Victor Jara)

they bring up miner number 19
(do not forget the hands of Victor Jara)

they bring up miner number 20
(do not forget the hands of Victor Jara)

they bring up miner number 21
(do not forget the hands of Victor Jara)

they bring up miner number 22
(do not forget the hands of Victor Jara)

they bring up miner number 23
(do not forget the hands of Victor Jara)

they bring up miner number 24
(do not forget the hands of Victor Jara)

they bring up miner number 25
(do not forget the hands of Victor Jara)

they bring up miner number 26
(do not forget the hands of Victor Jara)

they bring up miner number 27
(do not forget the hands of Victor Jara)

they bring up miner number 28
(do not forget the hands of Victor Jara)

they bring up miner number 29
(do not forget the hands of Victor Jara)

they bring up miner number 30
(do not forget the hands of Victor Jara)

they bring up miner number 31
(do not forget the hands of Victor Jara)

they bring up miner number 32
(do not forget the hands of Victor Jara)

they bring up miner number 33
(do not forget the hands of Victor Jara)

Mi Raza

sometimes mi raza
suffers

sometimes
it takes the cake

for the mas pendeja
raza of all time

it advances
and retreats like a glacier

it lies dormant
and explodes like a volcano

sometimes mi raza
loses its way

sometimes it sees a light
at the end of a tunnel

but it’s only
the prison guard’s flashlight

sometimes we discover
una virgen

other times
la otra cosa

sometimes mi raza
rejoices

sometimes mi raza
misbehaves

but you gotta
love it or leave it

I guess I’m just a fool
and can’t stop loving it

Miguel Hernandez From Jail

Amor, the bitter lemons
you offer me in tears

so much like the sun
fool me happily.

Hidden from the moon,
your forced smile

has taken me prisoner,
and though iron bars

have a bitter taste,
and the rust

flakes off in my mouth,
I eat the rinds and seeds,

and wait for you each day
inside my lemon tree jail.

Brave New Chante

The crippled ship
arrived at Mars

todo catiado,
the worst for wear,

as if Michael Jackson
had Beat It.

The twelve volunteers
beamed down

in groups of two.
The transporter

estaba fregado, broken.
The ticker tape tardeada

took place in the lab,
no towering skyscrapers,

just hopes
and dreams for the future.

Over the next
year or two,

news tickled in slowly
as the last

of the Google Robotic Reporters
either were destroyed

by the Martian
or succumbed

to mechanical problems.
The Mexicans

were again
strangers in a strangeland,

alone in the universe…
For now.

Google This

Limping home,
the crew was exhausted

while back on Mars,
the Mexicans

were partying into the dawn
proclaiming Copasllenas

and the rest
heroes.

Communication packets
were arriving

sporadically.
The Martian had gone

on a tear,
killing everyone in sight,

men women children
frogs bears

even destroying (for unknown reasons)
McDonalds Restaurants.

Whitey was
being wiped out

left and right burro e elefante.
No actual reportage

was being done
by white humans.

No, indeed,
the only news

reaching Mars
and the S.S. Anzaldua

was via
Google Robotic Reporters

which had taken over
news reporting

for the last
twenty years on earth.

Some Google Robots
were reporting

that they too
were being attacked.

More news after
this message from our sponsor.

Google,
The Super Raza search engine.

Eyes Wide Open

The deafly silence
was broken only

by the sound of cicadas
in Rey’s head

as he looked
at Copasllenas,

who was already
shouting orders.

“ Double-shields up,
Double-shields up!”

she shouted
her orders quietly.

“Warp speed
as soon as possible.”

she continued
as huge explosions

rocked
the S. S. Anzaldua.

Outside, interstellar dust
became conscious,

woken out of its
billion years of sleep.

Everybody strapped
into their seats.

Suddenly they were
up to warp speed.

No looking back now, ese.
Copasllenas was checking

all aboard computers to see
(are there offboard computers?)

if there was any damage.
A gaseous plume

trailed the ship.
Back on earth,

the Martian was coming out
of her Sertapedic sleep.

The Lincoln Monument
stared at her.

Was the race
of the Great Shemancipator

done for?
The Martian opened her eyes wide.