The Collected Poems

The Negro Cemetery down a road just outside of town between two rows of skeleton trees lies the Negro Cemetery where the dead slumber segregated a white marble Jesus keeping watch. Spanish moss sways in the muggy wind and a lone raven preens itself on a white fence. Outside of town even the sky is white - yet Whites won’t come here, except on dares - dares to sit quiet at the base of the white Jesus till they can hear the murmuring from the pitching earth.
North American Free Trade Agreement A Poem in 2 Parts Part 1 1958 "Latin Americans are too content with living on their small farms, these backward and uneducated populations do not realize that they are not happy,the role of the United States is to educate them of their unhappy state and their need for modern conveniences that we can and will provide them." ( National Security Council Report 1949) Jacinto wakes to the green sweating morning, the birds are awake dancing waltzes in the trees. Jacinto walks the length of his wife's brown legs and stops at the fork in the road. Jacinto washes his face The orange yellow circle around the wash basin reminds him of his mangos. Jacinto walks up the path to his trees, he looks back and the clouds are like angels sitting on the roof of his house, Jacinto smiles. Jacinto prunes his trees. His trees are those who died for love in past lives. He tends them and sings to them the songs of his fathers. Jacinto returns from his trees, his wife cooks tortillas, the scent draws him home. Pablo, his son plays in the dust on the floor drawing angels, Jacinto holds his son on his lap and smiles Part 2 "The NAFTA treaty will mean new opportunities for the peasants of Latin America, freeing them from the difficulties of subsistence farming." (Time Magazine Feb, 1994) Pablo sees the rusted rim of the bus, it reminds him of the color of mangos. He steps onto the bus for work. The bus is overcowed. It drives past the Chapel of Our Lady of Guadeloupe. The angels are ashen, flightless. The bus stops. Pablo gets off and steps past a mother begging for money her legs cut off, she begs for a dance. Pablo goes to work, he stands at the counter, and a fat man approaches. He is sweaty and sweet smelling, he orders a Big Mac and a Coke. Pablo ignores him, and draws angels in the air.
Sister Ignatious Loyola Sister Ignatious Loyola hated poetry and she hated me for writing it. She had a homemade ruler 36 inches long, with "Righteousness" engraved on the backside. She would take her ruler and walk the halls with her Grey steel eyes looking for inquisitions, dream in young heretics burning at stakes, fueled by the very books they had written. Sister Ignatious caught me writing poetry in my Latin book, and the Measure of a Man cracked across my hands and my hands swelled with poetry. I stopped writing poetry when I was young, it hurt too much, and Sister Igantious stood behind me as I wrote Latin exercised on the chalk board, smiling piously, her teeth cold worn tombstones. Sister Ignatious Loyola died last year, died in a retirement home for washed up nuns and priests. Her room was filled with plastic Marys Josephs Jesuses and Judes. Some glowed in the dark some were lit my small bulbs, all of them burning with electric prayers. From Ceiling to floor her room was covered by a Holy congregation of saints. Those who found her dead in her chair, noticed a small leather bound book in her hand. The book had no title. The old priest that lived next door, pried the book from her hand. He opened the cover and on the first page was a faded inscription: "To my love, Pearl" the old priest scratched his head, "Does anyone know who Pearl is?" The old priest turned the pages of the small book and found page after page of poems. The undertaker politely knocks on the door and every one moves aside. I went to her grave. I left 42 poems for every wack that swelled my hands with poetry. There were no flowers at her grave, just poems from all the poets she tried to beat poetry out of. A gust of wind came, and the cemetery was covered in white scrapes of paper, a thousand poems left for Sister Ignacious Loyola