Your daily dose of Chicano poetry
"I write poems on walls that crumble and fall
I talk to shadows that sleep and go away crying.”
Luis Omar Salinas (1937–2008)
What is a Sentence? By Ray Gonzalez
It is the asking without favor or direction intended to make sense beyond what is felt and needed, what is retold to weave a corner of thought outside of the twisted raven hanging in the winter tree, as if this image takes care of insult and statement — a corner of thought hanging in the air just outside of reach of the swarming bees. Perhaps, it is a lie and a telling without really lying, fantasy transforming the idea into a powerful, yet silent dance that is aware of every fault and weakness inside its composer, the inquisition forgotten and the reply sought on paper. If this happens, there could be a novel. If it doesn’t take place, the poem is the horror of waking up in the real world.
When the sentence realizes the gangrene of shadow becomes the child of the open palm, it must end in a variation of itself…
Since Father Died by Reyes Cardenas
Since Father Died
Since father died last year,
the desert has all but disappeared.
The hundred degree temperatures
have fallen below zero.
A Century Plant’s
hundred years are up.
The San Jacinto Mountains lie so flat,
they’re dwarfed by dew.
All roads leading into Indio
are closed forever and day.
In the new Coachella Valley,
the once mighty sun is just a candle.
Xican@ Poetry Daily 