Stony the Road. Harold J. Recinos

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СКАЧАТЬ old bible school stories,

      imaging it a place like Mount

      Sinai, looking for miles in the

      dark for a revelation that would

      give me endless reasons to hope

      and dream. I walked down the

      Grand Concourse in shoes with

      holes, surrounded by people I

      did not know, smiling at the sweet

      sound of Spanish dropping from

      their tongues, sometimes stopping

      on the corner like it was a bank

      on the river Jordan where slaves

      wept for freedom, to cry like a

      captive eager for the Promised

      Land. I spent many hours alone

      in cities far, near and across a

      vast sea, waiting for the sweet

      rolling of the river troubled from

      above to see me and the earth’s

      despised children to the other

      side.

      Dead Friends

      I have survived longer than

      the violent nights that left

      me with mysterious gifts,

      laden with the sound of your

      voices that still haunt these

      streets and only your sweet

      traces know how to penetrate

      my darkness. I have spent a

      lifetime offering explanations

      for the broken worlds God must

      see, remembering the names of

      our streets, the building numbers,

      the public schools, the polished

      nails worn by the Puerto Rican

      girls, the smell of apartments

      with food slowly cooking on

      stoves, the Spanish words on cut

      paper placed on bedroom altars

      full of Saints with otherworldly

      looks and the nightmares made

      from hellish times. nothing is

      like having you roam about in

      my dreams, hearing you carefully

      tell stories refined in the afterlife

      and observing your lewd gestures

      for God who took you from these

      streets. I still hum the old tunes

      we listened to until dawn every

      Saturday on the stoop, sit quietly

      watching evening shadows sink into

      darkness and pray to make the

      flowers on the fire escape send

      touchable miracles.

      Holy Word

      the preachers of ancient texts

      are guiding their thirsty flocks

      to the nearest brooks in good

      faith. the ungodly campaigns

      in the changing hours, rejected

      beggars on the church steps,

      the forgotten poor with yokes

      around their neck, the children

      who stumbled away from mud

      floor dwellings, mothers at the

      gates crying for bread with infants

      on their knees, the dry bone voices

      filling the air, the innocent who

      wait for water to become wine, the

      tongues that mock the vulnerable

      from sun up till down, hear today

      from a preacher’s lips a holy word

      about infidelities in the world still

      delivering God to the cross.

      White Masks

      the children in the schoolroom

      with old inkwell desks whose eyes

      are bigger than curiosity stare at the

      neatly pressed white teacher at the front

      of the room. they learn to read history

      mostly in black and white, while the

      deep scars of weaving generations, the

      near pulverized first nations, European

      land theft, Mexican lynching, yanqui

      peasant killing and the politicians who

      looked away from black, brown, yellow

      and red women raped never appear on a

      public book page. the contract historians with

      English names, their hard of hearing college

      prodigies, never bother to put the bloody

      side of colored history in their texts, which

      infinitely overflow with grand white stories.

      when СКАЧАТЬ