Ode to the land

I found this lovely poem, is so similar to my life that I like to share it with you:

Our house was built with rubber cement and plastic walls
and sticks of fallen trees.
Our residency resembles tumbling dice and burnt matches.
We are the citizens of an idea that never arose,
laughing at the next man as he grabs a rose and bleeds from the thorns.
Our oxygen is laced with humility,
while the heads twist and shout and spin until they
snap, crackle, and pop

The children cry and run their tin cups across
the cyclone fences of the town.
Movement doesn't arrive in action but in thoughts.
Comfortable in our daily routine,
ceremonious virtue that labels us alive.
Freedom is not a right, freedom is only allowed.
My machete breaths deep every night and watches the twitching eyelids,
while the statues of past heroes mumble in drunken slurs.
Our love is a turbulent flight over the desert and our hate has been bottled up,
sold conveniently at the local market

My glasses are scratched from political jargon,
while our house has been On Sale for two hundred and thirty years.
Native reservations have transformed from wastelands to toxic wastelands,
teenagers sniff glue and coke side by side
the elite money makers.
Junkyard dogs of the neighborhood sniff the air,
for the times they are a-changin'

The carnival has long overstayed their welcome
and won't leave town.
At midnight we citizens march with pitch forks and torches in hand,
prepared to drive out the demons.
But our weapons melt and disappear and we stand still,
frozen in time.
Aching spinal cords slouching into another day,
digging up the earth and scattering the new era.
The wildest seeds are thrown by even wilder beasts.

Our house was built on sand and water
and sways in the winter.
Making us sick and tired and weary of the sun when
it finally does arrive.


Originalmente publicado aquí: http://www.othervoicespoetry.org/vol26/estrada/pills.html

Los Mandamientos del Iphone

1. No usarás tu Iphone en vano.
2. No acercarás tu Iphone a la poceta.
3. No dejarás tu Iphone cerca de un perro cachorro.
4. Amarás tu Iphone como tu laptop misma.
5. No se te caerá.
6. No lo dejarás sobre el techo de tu auto.

7. No caminarás con él afuera por el Centro de la ciudad.
8. ¡Tu Iphone siempre tendrá saldo!
9. Después de comer pollo frito, no enviarás SMS.
10. Nunca lo tengas sin una carcaza, goma o protector.
11. No lo llevarás a la playa.

12. El iphone no es un nokia.
13. No lo uses de apoya vasos.
14. No contestes los twitts de extraños.
15. No abras twipic desconocidas, la mala suerte abunda.
16. Cuando saques fotos con tu Iphone asegúrate de no poner tu pulgar atravesado.
17. Péinate antes de posar para las fotos con el Iphone.
18. El Iphone no es impresora, ¡no seas toche!
19. ¡Nunca protestes con tu Iphone en la mano!
20. Y no lo tengas en Vomistar, eso es un insulto para tan maravilloso celular.