Jaime Garza

My brother died, unconscious for 31 days and alone in a hospital bed in the ICU. He died of COVID 19. And so did my two cousins, a nephew and my wife’s uncle, leaving devastated families behind, with memories, funerals, slide shows, burial grounds, tears and empty chairs. All around us, life goes on, families protesting the fact that their living children cannot go to their live school classes, desensitized to the human toll happening all around. And what happens with the dead?

For many millennia, there have been invaders destroying, plundering, earning land, raping, murdering. Many of these invaders have been part of great empires. When growing up I learned about many great invasions and I thought that these people were the problem in the world. Spanish conquerors came to my land to destroy and decimate my people. Before that, there were invasions in Europe itself, with the Visigoths invading Spain from their nomadic way, which started at the north of the Black Sea. There were the hordes of Franks from the north. Portuguese were not only conquerors but dealt on slaves for centuries. English created the greatest empire in history, subduing many native people on the way. These conquerors and imperialists were the problem. They decimated the Indian populations of my ancestors. We even call Columbus Day as Día de la Raza, or day of our race as a celebration to both our Indian roots and our mestizaje.

Poesía en P y S, solo porque me gusta como suena.

Paso por la peña sola.
Profundo pasado profuso del sur.

photo under creative commons license, courtesy of Diogenes el Filosofo at flickr.

Entre más camino más regreso al jugo de naranja en bolsa de mi pasado, y la fruta con chile en el colegio, momentos que son lugares sólidos y palatables con una sonrisa y un descubrimiento que ya nunca jamás, y sirveme otra mi rey. O talvés muero de una infección en la memoria obtenida en el paredón de mi suerte inmunda. Sea como sea, muero allá porque vivo aquí, y este hoy es un momento latente y vivo, y no solo un lugar fugaz, que será digno de nombrarse en el día del colesterol fatídico. Como dicen en mi tierra “sube vieja gorda con canasta y bola de hijos!” o hacedme un pedacito de cielo en mi sillita de palo, suelto como aquel banquito movil y vibrante utilizado en los colectivos de mi tierra, por tan solo un méndigo peso mas. Moved el trasero ahora estadounidense para este nalgón que vive y revive ya extranjero.

I

When you say no
your face barely moves.

When you say yes
your soul barely smiles.

Tonight,
when you say maybe
your body barely
and suddenly
shivers.

II

Your bed is cold and
I sleep over your mark.
Your mark is here and
I sleep over your memory.
Your memory transcends and
I sleep no more.

Your day is tomorrow and
I dream wide open.

Your new day is
when your closed honey
will sleep over
the imprint of my bare night.

I now tremble.

I must lay down tonight
with all my strength
so when your turn comes
tomorrow night
you too will shiver
knowing that my body was
so close to yours
off by a single day.

I don’t know why
but in your side of the bed
I still tremble.

So, at the end, did you ever find Waldo? My Waldo took 47 years to find. When you are trying to find him outside of the page, it becomes quite interesting. In my case it was “her” that I was looking for. Let me explain the situation. In 2007 I decided to join eHarmony to look for a possible partner. I also joined Yahoo! Personals and Match com, but those were a little too much for me, especially Yahoo! Personals. People there knew what they were doing and I was just a new guy trying to make sense of it. Overwhelming.

In the New World there is a man, never the same, depends who looks at him. He is strong and weak, thin and fat, tall, but always short. You see, he never did grow so much, because if he did, little girls could not see him in the eye, and everyone could see him in the eye.