IN THE WORDS OF THE DREAM AT TEN

 --for my teachers

I was ten years old back when I was asked

to deliver the speech “I Have a Dream.”

Summit Elementary School, sixth grade.

I was a very serious child.

I could hold an adult conversation.

In English or Spanish and write well too.

I won a mathematics competition.

But did I know anything about you

Dr. King? Though I heard the tiresome

ruinous exasperation again

the Letter was longer than I assumed

I had to hold the microphone alone.

When I get to the part about the Dream

I awakened to the Words of the Dream.

ODE TO E. SAID

As an epistle composed on the wind

so to Said is written this sonnet

for his contributions to epithets

the unspoken beauty of a silence

when brought to perfection is Arabic

Arching for reasons inherent to awe

the mysterious side of everything,

then to its ineffable anxiety

a love of the weary exemplary

for genius that no cure can avail

Wreckage of stars, oh, the ad hominem

what it crashes on top of and wails

As it exceeds the Poet, the Prophet

goes to the Microphone to clear his thoughts.

TREE ARBOR

The sounds of the morning are muted.

I hear what sounds like air turn to raindrops.

There is a symphony in the soundtrack.

It plays my favorite music the tree bough.

There is a world within the world, all knows,

Of many-colored rhythms in the spring

It mirrors as a forest casts shadows.

That it is aware of itself it knows

What beauty without limit would answer.

By words, “beauty, come forward” grows closer

leaf blooming palms eternally travels

the world it crosses crosses it ever

Rooted with restlessness stored in its feet

with heaven in its heart  arms of the tree.

Satelite CD. Juarez

SATELITE CD. JUAREZ

-- A la Colonia Satelite

I return to Juarez in a moment.

I enter the parchment memory of time.

And I can see under shade of cloud thought

I run without motion toward the sublime.

Next to the immanent feature of sound

arise the aromas of roasted corn

and moistened the heart dripping with raindrops

streams over the surface of my vision

The history the Revolution still groans

Effort as momentous as Creation.

Que Viva Villa Que Viva el honor.

Platicame Algo, di que me quieres.

Porque entre tu y yo Ciudad Juarez

No hay Olvido no hay Distancias

SPIRIT OF THE WORD FORCE

Forceful for there was a Spirit within

It contained more or less everything

that ever mattered or meant what it meant

as to write within a dream of a poem

putting to words what’s not easily said

for a place of new beginnings awaits

where beauty of images and rhymes dawn

almighty was love, love was almighty

which brought out the miracles of being

such as you, here, today, my friend

you are to me what eternity time

as you appear in these words as my eyes

with your head slightly lowered and neck turned

on the words of the same force and purpose

Langston and the Law

And speaking of Langston I come to see

the sardonic absence that derisive

becomes lighthardened ascends from a vise

mutually exclusive hearts come to be

There is no love for a brother of verse

“I Can’t Breathe,” … won’t you let me go for once

Stop harassing me it’s so tedious

Get over to the sidewalk discussion

What do you have against me let’s be clear

I don’t have a Gun.  Don’t shoot. I can’t breathe

I wonder what you would have said and felt

--I come to tell you of the horror you hear

The dance of the law is a pirouette

Of Life and Death Chances don’t you forget it

YOUNG EULOGY

Dead men naked they shall be one, they shall rise again! D.T.

Young in the undertow, strong and certain,

the dense earth recoils within its core

as between the present day and hour

over the soft shores rippled waves return

and power of the creation fire coursed

fused to a stem as  flowers that grow

and parted pain from sorrow when as it flowed

lit in its wick by a flame- lightning force

so gains a purpose the soul a life source

bends toward its origin goes over

to the union of a wholeness, reverts

as death brought together so ominous

love gives no escape at that departure

but honors in its passage its fervor