The Chicano/Latino Literary Prize (10 page)

                      in the deep

             darkness of my sleep

                  I wake

                      with a tenseness

in my arms

             and I follow

                      it from my elbow to

                               my wrist

and realize

             my fists are tightly clenched

and the streets come grinning

             and I forget who I'm protecting

and I coil up

             in a self/mothering fashion

                      and tell myself

it's o.k.

there were times

you and I

were hungry

in the middle of a city of

full bellies

              and we ate bread with

syrup on top and we joked

and said we ate dessert morning

noon & night, but

we were hungry—

so I took some bottles to the

store and got milk and

stole deviled ham because

it had a picture of the devil

on it and I didn't care—

              my favorite place

                        to climb

                                    and sit was

                                                 Devil's Rock,

                                    no one else

                                                 would sit there, but

                                                            it was the

                                                                highest place

                                                                             around—

taking care

of each other,

an old lady and a child

being careful

not to need

more than can be

given.

            we sometimes went to the

place where the nuns lived and

on certain days they would

give us a bag of food, you

and the old Mexican nun talking,

you were always gracious;

and yet their smell of dead

flowers and the rustle of their robes

always made me feel

shame: I would rather

steal.

            and when you held my bleeding nose

for hours, when I'd become

afraid, you'd tell me

                                                —Todo se pasa—.

after you died I learned

to ride my bike to the ocean

            I remember the night

                        we took the '5 McCallister

                                    to the ocean and it was

                                                storming and frightening

                                    but we bought frozen chocolate bananas

                                      on a stick and ate them

                                        standing, just you and I

                                          in the warm, wet night—

and sometimes I'd wonder why

things had to pass and I'd

have to run as fast as I could

till my breath wouldn't let me

or climb a building scaffold to the

end of its steel or

climb Rocky Mountain and

sit on Devil's Rock

and dare the devil

to show his face

or ride my bike till the

end of the streets hit

sand and became ocean

and I knew

the answer, mamacita, but

I wouldn't even say it to

myself.

grandmother to mother to

daughter to my daughter,

the only thing that truly

does not pass is

love—

and you

knew it.

Nedra Ruíz

First Prize: Poetry

Chessman is part of my childhood,

rumors of a man saying goodbye;

It is in my head that there was

a bright light on his smiles,

a light like a stroke

of a China brush.

Shadows cluster near the light,

a man with a rat up his sleeve

drops the trick in the bucket

and steps back to see:

The water boils with hair and shit,

spit dots the floor. The eyes turn

white as they look to the brain.

At such and such a time

this man, who wrote his life

on toilet paper, heaves his

guts into his lungs and begins to rot.

Mifune monkey young, a samurai,

standing in front of sparrow villagers:

His ass pulls down below his knees,

he jiggles their teeth as his

butt snaps

the white legs.

His cheeks grab the sky: dogs bark,

women hide.

Hired to kill, the ass walks the torso,

shoulders, head,

each bone set calmly,

swing of a man with no belly.

The ass spits a sword,

the ground thuds

with separate arms, heads.

His ass does all.

A cop, he wore white linen. Tall

folds of cloth hung from an ice cream butt.

He looked at suspects, his ass shrinking their

balls and sending a panel of sweat through his coat.

He spoke English, made race cars, dressed in a

kimono on an English lawn,

his belly skin tight to keep his butt in back.

Mifune walking the dirt, butt twitching to fleas

and stick drum music.

Women who've said,

“Toshiro. Toshiro.”

As they pulled the long strong distance

between their ass and his.

I'd strap my legs around your shoulders,

a cheek in each hand, and whisper,

                        cú

                                     cú

                                                   cú

All night.

I decided to go into the

world on yellow paper.

Dreaming of laughing conversations,

knowing the stopped clock lied,

leaving friends in foul weather,

I sat feeling my finger bones:

Remember when you gripped

the grass to keep from falling

off a spinning earth?

I brace my legs against the stall

             (feet in sandals, patas de india)

On the other side black pumps answer, “I'm fine,”

                                                              they leave.

Holding the lather off my shirt

I ease to the sink

                                 breathing my lunch,

those slimy hands slide round the sink.

It is your name that washes me.

green grimy soap / a thick sweet smell

As I laugh sideways the floor jumps Up,

            ready for the filthy whispers

                         I would tell myself.

Well, there's some-

one following me,

who

I don't know.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

She's a small dog

and called it Chickee

and every evening

she'd spoon out dog

food: “Here chick chick chick.”

Play your cards, write poems

and men will say “Hi”

as you walk

until you think

you're dripping.

I've never seen your belly button,

your cock's always …

I close my eyes

and kill a cop

with a shotgun.

There are so many ways

to spend a day.

I can make a day

a heaven

in any combination.

Morning:

              newspaper

              coffee

              sweet stuff.

Wandering past my rooms

              the radio takes me

              to places

              and leaping grace

              in the kitchen.

When I am not writing poetry;

I live in Woolworth's.

Wild as any boy in a cage

he threw his jacket out the window

to get past his mother.

He got in his father's car

and drove through a drugstore window.

Wanting an explosion

he match lit gasoline and paper

and only his sister's hands

saved his eyes.

The wind at my wet ears.

I've washed my hair.

The rags, the clouds, the sun

all out there.

My body bleeds and bleeds—

The sun out there—

My body heeds itself—

The sun out there—

My body heeds itself.

On some stations

you notice time between songs,

now it's twelve,

now 12:30.

The kitchen light

flattens my eyes.

Walking back

I thought:

We are the budgies;

that noise like tiny sucks.

True enough.

Then I must be grey.

You are green.

I am spiteful,

scare you from the millet,

bite your bill, your neck,

tell you in my cheeky voice:

We are rich.

I said

oh where are you

and she flipped a look at me,

talking to myself.

My God, she thinks I'm nuts.

Everyone kept saying Hi.

Oh honey I did it again,

she must think I'm out to lunch.

I stopped at a window,

let her feel safe.

But up the block

she peeked at me

as I walked by the alley

where she had been waiting.

Juan Felipe Herrera

Second Prize: Poetry

No existen personajes. El grupo acciona colectivamente e individualmente para desanudar la emoción, la imagen y la llama de una cierta esclavitud. Es posible utilizar varias representaciones directas del texto: ramas, M-l6, gaviotas, tuberculosis, secretarias, ancianos, abejas, pasto, candados. O se puede intentar algo distinto: ramasgaviotas, ancianospasto, abejascandados. Lo imprescindible es que el grupo se convierta en un líquido metamórfico; pastosecretariacandado.

El vestuario será la estrategia para construir, frente al público, un mural humando de frío. Todos se arroparán en diversos matices de azul. El uniforme: pantalones de talla grande (khaki) y camisetas sin manga. Un tono gris se aplicará alrededor de los ojos.

El texto de La Carta, así como funciona como materia maleable para realizar la obra, simultáneamente sirve como manual de dirección dramática. Estos aspectos forman las dos voces de La Carta (o una voz con dos mayores tensiones). Las dos se proyectarán individualmente y conjuntamente; el énfasis y la dinámica se determinarán por los integrantes. Lo imperioso es que la voz se desenvuelva entre todos: sintetizada (coral) en ciertos momentos, fracturada (individual) en otros. La Carta tiene mil voces y una a la vez.

Todo ocurre en una celda invisible. Sucede en una cierta ciudad / mente / persona / multitud / mineral / espacio. No existe el tiempo. La Carta es algo eterno. Su voz es azuloscura; ser testigo de la constante aceleración de su encarcelamiento.

El fin del antiteatro será proponerles a los integrantes del grupo así como a la communidad / público la mayor parte en la obra no como actores y oyentes sino como autores y creadores. De esta manera nace el antiteatro y su meta: crear / sostener / lanzar una electricidad vascular / acústica / visual; del interior de la frente / espalda; descifrar lo imposible; un sudor ronco en las sienes del mundo; el hielo ardiente del hierro humano que encarcela / descarna; La Carta.

Juan Felipe Herrera
Febrero 1979
San Francisco, California

Zumbará tu garganta /

voltearás hacia diferentes horizontes /

hincada / sentada / acostada / jorobada /

escribirás sobre un hierro invisible /

sobre la pared que encara al universo /

zumbará la pared: un océano vertical /

                                    Te escribo sobre esta mesa de mares