Untitled

Earth brown hands
with bulging rivers pulsating
up her fragile arms
these are working hands
cooking and cleaning hands
raising seven children hands
the rivers on these hands
throbbed with the blood
of my ancestors
these are feeling hands
they touched souls within
the faces of those who's
existence is but a memory
these hands have caressed my face
and blessed me with a rich history
passed down from generation
to generation to generation
these hands lie listless in a bed today
no cognitive thought to direct
them a purpose
these are the hands of my grandmother

These are my father's hands
Coffee stained hands
inclined to destroy hopes and dreams
these hands became fists
and raged with hate, they were
his drumming hands, his drinking hands
his punching hands, they
conveyed an endless string
of false promises
these hands when left to their own devices
longed to connected with neglected children
grasping and pulling them into the past
These hands symbols staining
memories of violence

These are my hands
they looked like papí on this side
and mamí on the other side hands
with bulging veins traveling great distances
from the outreach of my fingertips
to the great beat of my heart hands
I wondered as a child would these
hands be the hands of violence and destruction
would they be the hands of housework and child-rearing
Would these hands have yet another purpose
A divine purpose, a gift bestowed upon me
A destiny to use these hands
they are searching hands of
near misses, manipulating pen to paper
these hands are on a a journey
across space and time to
connect what once was to
what now is
these hands carry love and rage
and it is because they love
that the violence from that rage
can meet with the page and
become the sweet lyrics to life's melody

These are working hands
raging hands
powerful hands
soul touching, mind opening hands
Uncovering the past
and diving into the future
hands

Letter of Love

Dear Erica,
See I had to write you this love letter,
because at the time I knew
that communicating with you
in the moment would not have been
the most effective way for me to share
with you my point-of-view

See, as I sat at my desk and
listened to you discuss Chris Brown's
not-so recent arrest for assaulting Rihanna
my heart began to pace uncontrollably
"She probably came out her face," you said
"She pushed him to the limit," you said
"Some girls get hit," you said
and as you giggled and laughed

I knew that a move on my part
could have only resulted in
me coming out of my skin
and be forced to break on you

I bit my tongue as your classmates joined in
"guys beat on girls and girls beat on guys," they said
"that's just the way it is today," they said
"I know if a guy hits me, I'm hittin him back," she said
"Uh, I don't hit girls, but if she come out her face," he said
and I knew that a move on my part
could have only resulted in
me coming out of my skin
and be forced to break on you

I began to breathe deeply as you teacher
tried to share with you another view
"you old school Miss," you said
"girls don't think like that no more," you said
"I know a girl that doesn't come to school
when she gets hit," you said
And I knew that a move
on my part could have only result in
me coming out of my skin
and be forced to break on you

So I took a step forward
and I took a step back
as visions of blackened and bloodied
faces swirled inside my mind
and childhood memories of
hiding in closets hands covering ears
I knew that I loved you
I realized that I had to love you
and confront the violence
that you have grown so comfortable with

So I write you this letter, not in anger but in love
because our sisters must be loved
and our brothers must be loved
and our children must be taught
that violence will no longer be spelled
L-O-V-E

I Am Poetry

I am pen to paper
Illustrating metaphors
I am the barely dry ink
before the pen meets paper again

I move about your body
As blood carries me like oxygen
to your mind
My journey from mind to hand
then exiting from your mouth

I am the alarm that wakes you
in the middle of the night
with haunting images from
someone else's dreams

I am your wild heart
beating rapidly
thump thump thumping reminders
for you to stop - and think

I am the Asian monk riding the subway
the child staring back at you
the sharp, shrieking, sirens of the ambulance
in your neighborhood

I am pain
the pain in your joints
reminding you that time is a concept
you haven't quite figured out yet

I am the sun reminding you to work
the moon reminding you to sleep
the image you hide from as you
race passed the mirror

I am every gray hair
every wrinkle
every flaw

I am page after page
in your journal
the unfinished business on your desk
the neglected alarm when you hit snooze

I am the thing you just remembered that you forgot
the empty promise of writing it down
from flicker, to flame to wild fire
Burning you from within

I
am
poetry

Poverty

I saw a child sleeping on the street today
He was no more than nine or ten
I passed him on my way to see
A sight of wonder and beauty
He lay on the ground within a gated monument
Wearing a dirty pair of shorts and shirt
It was midday as he lay
Undisturbed by tourists taking photographs

I saw another child today
Sitting on an abandon building's stoop
Barefoot, his eyes were swollen almost shut
As he begged for money from passersby
No one gave him a second glance 'cept me
I didn't reach into my pocket for fear
That he might be baiting me
For some larger fish's attack

I saw yet another child sleeping on the street today
Amazed at how the crowds walked by
As if this was a common sight to see
I stopped and wondered where his mother was
Where all the mothers were, but in my heart I knew
Having just read an article on the epidemic of abandonment
In Bahia and now I'm faced with proof

I just received my quiche and coffee
Having lost my appetite, wondering how to help
The two small children forced to leave my hotel
For trespassing and playing in the pool
A New Yorker born and raised
In this city homelessness is a mainstay
A minor inconvenience
Seldom getting in your way
Except when polluting your subway car
or begging for the change
You don't intend to give
As you look down and wait for him to pass

Never a child do you see
Begging in a subway car or sleeping on the street
Yet, you've seen nothing until you've seen
A human being rummaging
Through someone else's trash
Alongside stray cats and dogs
All searching desperately for something to eat

Poetry

Poetry
Is the thing
That awakens you
In the midst of a long night
Beckoning you to more hours
Of frenzied writing
Attempting to capture it all

Poetry is a wild animal
You attempt to tame it
Perhaps make it your prey
It is devilish and sly
escapes your almost grasp
And winks at you, provoking another game

Poetry is a war between your heart and mind
For control of your every action
While your soul tries desperately in vain
To keep the peace

It is poetry that violently burns inside your stomach
Physical convulsions causing you to regurgitate
An endless string of painful memories

It is poetry when little girls test the threshold
Of their tolerance for pain with sharpened blades
Or sear their skin with lit cigarette butts
Then mask their pain with long sleeved shirts

No, see I know it was poetry
That found you lying naked as a child
Invading every orifice until you
Were filled with poetry

Poetry lights the day and awakens you
From sleep deprived nights; it is the hot
Streaming water that beats you awake
So that you may start your day

Poetry is an emergency, an urgent call of duty
For your which only you can report
It commands you to write the lines
And tell the story

Poetry doesn't ask your permission
It doesn't ask, "Is this a good time?"
Poetry is rude and foul, it doesn't make
time for you and could care less if you're busy

It is poetry looking back at you
When you face the mirror
It is poetry that graces your skin, fills your heart
And forces you to accept yourself

Poetry does not take rejection lightly
It will haunt your dreams, disrupt your thoughts
It is poetry knocking on your door
Calling on your phone
Waiting for you to answer

Declaration of Liberation

When in the course of human events
it becomes necessary for women
to dissolve the emotional, physical
and financial bonds that have
connected us to any man
and assume a new position in society
One which the laws of nature's goddess
has entitled us
that we should today declare to the world
the causes that impel us to take such a course

We hold these truths to be self-evident
We are true goddesses and have been endowed
by our creator with certain inalienable rights
and among these are the right
to control our own lives, to affirm our liberty
and the right to pursue our own happiness

Whenever any relationship becomes destructive
and after repeated injuries to
the heart, the body and the soul
it is the right of those who suffer under it
to take the necessary steps to free our selves

This is me being free

freeing myself of the weight
of engagement rings, apartment hunts
and false promises

freeing myself from you
years after our break up
by admitting that I still love you
and walking away

free to go to battle
with my students everyday
to give them what their world won't
and remind them of what their parents don't

free from the restraints of motherhood
and other such womanly obligations

free to color outside of the lines
think outside of the box and
measure my worth in passport stamps
as opposed to dress sizes

free to love myself
like no one else can

my heart, body and soul
here on this stage
I invite you to take it

This is being free

We liberate ourselves from you
We liberate ourselves from hate
We liberate ourselves form violence
We liberate ourselves from ignorance

We liberate ourselves sistas

We
Liberate ourselves

There are no chains on our hearts
When we smile in a world we create
with our words we remind others
that we are
free

Para Las Mujeres de Juares; Ni Una Mas (2007)

For five dollars a day
you can drop out of school at sixteen
drop into a full time job
and bid your dreams goodbye
you can hold a factory job
buy a ticket to your future
forget the look of daylight
you can don a uniform
drenched in sweat
while you unwillingly compete
with other girls for the unwanted
affections of your floor supervisor
you can out earn your parents
forget your mother's face
emasculate your father
leave your sisters with no one

for five dollars a day
you can be touched, fondled, harassed
leave work feeling dirty and impure
you can live in fear as one by one
women continue to disappear
you can avoid looking
as your pale and sunken face
in the mirror
kiss your mother goodbye
as your childhood becomes
a distant, faded memory
your restless soul longs for
you can forget fairytales of love,
living happily ever after
having a family of your own
you can look into the eyes
of another girl who looks just like you
who you will never see again
you can pretend to be the girl
en el otro lado
that lives the life
you only dream about

for five dollars a day
your parents can sit in a precinct
sobbing, full of fear and longing
waiting for their number to be called
your picture can hang from a telephone pole
in the company of the posters
of other missing girls
you can be raped, beaten and tortured
your mangled body
left to fester in the desert
you can lose your spirit
lose your energy
lose your life