Hasta La Madre
para Javier Sicilia, inspired by Michael Barajas
"No puedo escribir mas poesia...
la poesia ya no existe en mi."
Poetry's no longer in you
you say
So I write for you
the atrocities
we are responsible for
the loss of Juan Francisco
your pain
I do not know
can only imagine
Imagine peace
hasta la madre
I hear tia Sony's
y mi tia Carmela's
stories
de Nuevo Laredo
of bodies strung up
lynched for all to see
They bring us the local paper
as proof of the horror
two months later
my tias return
tell of bodies being burned
alive
so close
they can hear their screams
as they perish
in a blaze
of the worst kind of violence
This war on drugs
es puro pedo
so full of shit
filled with holes
big as US arms shipped to Mexico
big as insurmountable drugs
flowing into the States
all along this border we share
we share death, destruction
damned blood shed in vain
innocent blood shed, we disdain
veins take in the toxins
taking lives
innocent and not so innocent
lives lost
fleeting as a hummingbird
scared off
by any one of us
as we try to touch
the untouchable
the peace
we seek in despair
yet with hope
hope for change
in policies
legalize
what comes from the Earth
Sweet Mary Jane
simply soothes and heals
hundreds of thousands
lives transformed
de-criminalized
taking off the edge
on this God forsaken
"War on Drugs"
cartels
will lose
some power
every bit
they lose
lives spared
70,000 people and counting
We can not allow
this injustice to prevail
Javier, we can not
lose your poetry
which serves
to save lives
line by line
by line
by line
