Art Inspired by Poetry

She Had Some Horses

She had some horses.

She had horses who were bodies of sand.
She had horses who were maps drawn of blood.
She had horses who were skins of ocean water.
She had horses who were the blue air of sky.
She had horses who were fur and teeth.
She had horses who were clay and would break.
She had horses who were splintered red cliff.

She had some horses.

She had horses with eyes of trains.
She had horses with full, brown thighs.
She had horses who laughed too much.
She had horses who threw rocks at glass houses.
She had horses who licked razor blades.

She had some horses.

She had horses with long, pointed breasts.
She had horses with full, brown thighs.
She had horses who laughed too much.
She had horses who threw rocks at glass houses.
She had horses who licked razor blades.1

She had some horses.

She had horses who danced in their mothers' arms.
She had horses who thought they were the sun and their 

bodies shone and burned like stars.
She had horses who waltzed nightly on the moon.
She had horses who were much too shy, and kept quiet 

in stalls of their own making.

She had some horses.

She had horses who liked Creek Stomp Dance songs.
She had horses who cried in their beer.
She had horses who spit at male queens who made 

them afraid of themselves.
She had horses who said they weren't afraid.
She had horses who lied.
She had horses who told the truth, who were stripped 

bare of their tongues.

She had some horses.

She had horses who called themselves, "horse."
She had horses who called themselves, "spirit," and kept 

their voices secret and to themselves.
She had horses who had no names.
She had horses who had books of names.

She had some horses.

She had horses who whispered in the dark, who were afraid to speak.
She had horses who screamed out of fear of the silence, who carried knives to protect themselves from ghosts.
She had horses who waited for destruction.
She had horses who waited for resurrection.

She had some horses.

She had horses who got down on their knees for any savior.
She had horses who thought their high price had saved them.
She had horses who tried to save her, who climbed in her 

bed at night and prayed
as they raped her.

She had some horses.

She had some horses she loved.
She had some horses she hated.

These were the same horses.

Ambidextrous Tongues

My existence does not rely on one language to tell its story.

Off my tongue, two cultures dance Merengue for the right to be heard.

In a world that is Black and White, sometimes Brown is the color of the sore thumb.

I remember listening to mis Abuelitos code switching like computer passwords between idioms.

English, when talking to us,

Spanish when talking about us,

my ears were trained to the tune of two languages.

Songs of survival sing from my Grandmother's accent,

wisdom passed down en los dichos de mi Abuelito. 

We have been taught to serve as the hyphens between two lands,

our roots, we hold onto in the palms of our hands,

an assimilation attempts to shake one.

Our influence, like our presence is evident.

Our culture, like our people is crossing over,

and our language, like good memories is here to stay.....

In a nation that preaches multiculturalism, but teaches it mono-lingually,

we are linguistically well-endowed.

Ambidextrous tongues slinging Spanglish leaves sectors of society skeptical.

It's como like, sirens ring out from our syllables as we're speaking bilingual sentences.

I, like Jehovah's, have witnessed people rolling their eyes

at the sound of us rolling our R's as they ask the age old question........

"Can you speak English?"

Realizing that their use of the word "can" connotatively asks the question

"do you have the ability," we reply......

"yes, we CAN"!!!!!

....pero a veces  preferimos hablar en Espanol porque,

my existence does not rely on one language to tell its story.

They continue.... eating their enchiladas which they ordered in English because,

to order Mexican food in Spanish would just be weird, right?

We Latinos have learned that Spanish is not America's favorite subject.

Mathematics is.

And they are attempting to use it against us. 

Lately it appears that America wishes to divide our multiplication by adding a wall along the border

with the hope of subtracting our numbers because we are now looked at as the square root of America's

problem where Maria2 + Jose2 = America scared.

We have replaced terrorism in the scope of America's gun.

Aim has shifted from one Brown people to another,

from kufis, Qur'ans and praying to the east,

to "illegal aliens," and wetbacks poisoning, and the Southwest.

We don't need bullets bearing the face of hate shot at our feet to dance,

we will do it anyway.

We don't need their permission to speak,

we will do it anyway.

So I ask mi abuelita to tell me a story in the spirit of the past so that it does not die.

She replies, "Mijo, it will only perish if you choose to murder it."

So I speak of the past in present terms so my people will understand me.

Rotating between hip hop slang in English,

and Calo en Espanol.

Our existence is far too complex to place us in any boxes,

we still refuse to mark the one that says "White" on our applications.

We are burning the melting pot.

Mi poesia es mi grito,

an SOS in the sands of two languages,

porque,

My existence does not rely on one language to tell its story.

My existence does not rely on one language to tell its story.

Off my tongue, two cultures dance "Merengue" for the right to be heard.

In a world that is Black and White, sometimes Brown is the color 

     of the sore thumb.

I remember listening to "mis Abuelitos" code switching 

     like computer passwords between idioms.

English, when talking to us,

Spanish when talking about us,

my ears were trained to the tune of two languages.

Songs of survival sing from my Grandmother's accent,

wisdom passed down "en los dichos de mi Abuelito." 

We have been taught to serve as the hyphens between two lands,

our roots, we hold onto in the palms of our hands,

an assimilation attempts to shake one.

Our influence, like our presence is evident.

Our culture, like our people is crossing over,

and our language, like good memories is here to stay.....

In a nation that preaches multiculturalism, but teaches it mono-lingually,

we are linguistically well-endowed.

Ambidextrous tongues slinging Spanglish leaves sectors of society 

     skeptical.

It's "como" like, sirens ring out from our syllables as we're speaking 

     bilingual sentences.

Night Sky

Cento of Joy Harjo's moon lines

Remember the moon, know who she is.

Naked such beauty.

                                Look,

We are alive. The woman of the moon looking

at us, and we looking at her, acknowledging 

each other.

I see the moon as I have never seen the moon...

From the moon we all look the same.

The stars who were created by words

are circling over this house

formed of calcium, of blood—

to continue the web of the terrifyingly beautiful cosmos of her womb.

Under our ribs, our hearts are bloody stars.

There are stars who have names, who are 

dreams. The moon came up white and torn at 

the edges.

—white bear moon, cupped like an ivory rocking chair,

tipping it back could go either way

                                                        all darkness

is open to all light.

Where someone else has also awakened,

the night thrown back and asked,

“Where is the moon, my lover?”

And from here I always answer in my dreaming,

“the last time I saw her was in the arms 

of another sky,”

silver

   is the shell of black sky

   spinning around inside

   my darker eyes.

Praise the Rain

Praise the rain; the seagull dive

The curl of plant, the raven talk—

Praise the hurt, the house slack

The stand of trees, the dignity—

Praise the dark, the moon cradle

The sky fall, the bear sleep—

Praise the mist, the warrior name

The earth eclipse, the fired leap—

Praise the backwards, upwards sky

The baby cry, the spirit food—

Praise canoe, the fish rush

The hole for frog, the upside-down—

Praise the day, the cloud cup

The mind flat, forget it all—

Praise crazy. Praise sad.

Praise the path on which we're led.

Praise the roads on earth and water.

Praise the eater and the eaten

Praise beginnings; praise the end.

Praise the song and praise the singer.

Praise the rain; it brings more rain.

Praise the rain; it brings more rain.

The First Day Without a Mother

In the hour of indigo, between sleeping and wake--

A beloved teacher sists up on the funeral pyre--

He smiles at me through flames that are dancing as they

eat--

I will see you again, is one of the names for blue--

A color beyond the human sky of mind--

One third up the ladder of blue is where we sit for grief--

I was abandoned by lovers, by ideas that leaped ahead of

time, and by a father looking for a vision he would never

 find--

Do not leave me again, I want to cry as the blue fire takes my

teacher.

His ashes cool in my hands.

I’m too proud to let go the tears; they are still in me.

I keep looking back.

Maybe I have turned to salt. It burns blue, like the spirits

 who have already

Started to call me home, up over the last earthly hill broken

through with the stars of blue flowers that heal the wounded

 heart.

Chickadee sings at dawn.

I sit up in the dark drenched in longing.

I am carrying over a thousand names for blue that I didnt

have at dusk.

How will I feed and care for all of them?

Remember

Remember the sky that you were born under,
know each of the star’s stories.
Remember the moon, know who she is.
Remember the sun’s birth at dawn, that is the
strongest point of time. Remember sundown
and the giving away to night.
Remember your birth, how your mother struggled
to give you form and breath. You are evidence of
her life, and her mother’s, and hers.
Remember your father. He is your life, also.
Remember the earth whose skin you are:
red earth, black earth, yellow earth, white earth
brown earth, we are earth.
Remember the plants, trees, animal life who all have their
tribes, their families, their histories, too. Talk to them,
listen to them. They are alive poems.
Remember the wind. Remember her voice. She knows the
origin of this universe.
Remember you are all people and all people
are you.
Remember you are this universe and this
universe is you.
Remember all is in motion, is growing, is you.
Remember language comes from this.
Remember the dance language is, that life is.
Remember.

Eagle Poem

To pray you open your whole self

To sky, to earth, to sun, to moon

To one whole voice that is you.

And know there is more

That you can’t see, can’t hear,

Can’t know except in moments

Steadily growing, and in languages

That aren’t always sound but other

Circles of motion.

Like eagle that Sunday morning

Over Salt River. Circled in blue sky

In wind, swept our hearts clean

With sacred wings.

We see you, see ourselves and know

That we must take the utmost care

And kindness in all things.

Breathe in, knowing we are made of

All this, and breathe, knowing

We are truly blessed because we

Were born, and die soon within a

True circle of motion,

Like eagle rounding out the morning

Inside us.

We pray that it will be done

In beauty.

In beauty.

Speaking Tree

I had a beautiful dream I was dancing with a tree.

—Sandra Cisneros

Some things on this earth are unspeakable:

Genealogy of the broken—

A shy wind threading leaves after a massacre,

Or the smell of coffee and no one there—

Some humans say trees are not sentient beings,

But they do not understand poetry—

Nor can they hear the singing of trees when they are fed by

Wind, or water music—

Or hear their cries of anguish when they are broken and bereft—

Now I am a woman longing to be a tree, planted in a moist, dark earth

Between sunrise and sunset—

I cannot walk through all realms—

I carry a yearning I cannot bear alone in the dark—

What shall I do with all this heartache?

The deepest-rooted dream of a tree is to walk

Even just a little ways, from the place next to the doorway—

To the edge of the river of life, and drink—

I have heard trees talking, long after the sun has gone down:

Imagine what would it be like to dance close together

In this land of water and knowledge. . .

To drink deep what is undrinkable.