dre poetic: words by adrien salazar

there is something about being far away from the land i was born on

i am followed by the ghost of a life that might have been if circumstances were different and only by luck or by fortune that i live this instead

instead of wrestling every day in the streets of the city in the middle of the country rice grass confused about its city-hood as stray dogs and chickens walk the streets and the market sells fish caught only a few miles away sugar cane grown next door and everyone’s own backyard lansones

instead of heat breathing down my neck all my life wrapping me until i am the humid air and the sweat being born on my skin is the same flavor as the monsoon rains

instead of twenty peso tricycles to get to school or walking to my friends down the street where the jungle is still fighting the fresh asphalt

instead of a life of every day manilasong radiowaves and flyswatters and a night sky so dark so clear the stars seem to fall on top of me when i look up

instead of dreaming about some place called america that may or may not be real

instead
this place
keeps on me

some other history a kind of dream other life
a place on the other side of the world that may or may not be real

except for the pictures in old books and the way my belly button itches from ghost memories of humid salt air and tongue

for my love who i haven’t met yet,
or theory on the simultaneity of time and poetry

if this is true then
i already wrote this poem or i have not written it yet or it is in your hands already

i thought of you yesterday or i don’t know who you are yet or i am thinking of you tomorrow

if all of this is true then

we are already together
i am already in love or

i always was

open letter to economics students everywhere

Dear potential economists:

Change your major.

It’s not too late to save yourselves.

Sincerely,

Adrien Salazar

twenty years this august

always somebody keep tellin us to come

come here go there
how come we always gotta be someplace else
like my dad sayin he bring his whole family here
and for what

twenty years later we broke
our house a-crumble
he sad he gamble
now all he wan do is go back from where he come

and what did i get outta the bargain
a paper diploma which what in this economy
mightas well be a paper airplane

a future as improbable as the philippines
and democracy

still i gotta make it tough
tough as he

maybe our comin made some difference
i suppose

between
a-fightin for food
or other peoples wars
we came
made some kinna difference

so i can be fightin with poetry
stead of with fists
or the barrel of a gun
or sellin tricks

i suppose

sermon on da bench

The time had come when the writers and painters finished the work of the wall
They had packed their materials into the vans and now rested in view of their work.
On a bench the Master reclined with her disciples to admire their work.
As the dusk drew, multitudes gathered around the wall.

One of the writers whom the Master loved reclined at her side.
He who is called Tizz nodded at the writer, and he asked,
“Masta, for whom did we paint this wall?
Is it for us that our names may be renowned by other writers,
or is it for they standin there who may see our image and know our names?”

The Master turned to those reclining near her and said
“All day long we bin work on this wall
We work slow and long
Hidin in the bushes n behin cars
So none see us workin
For who are we but the ones
They would persecute n imprison.
For what crime?”

Tizz said to her,
“We are vandals.”
The Master answered, “So the police and the mayor say.
A-bras sistas I say I say to you,
Those who own these walls will call you vandals and criminals.
And so it may be we commit crime.

“But what is the crime upon these people here
A block away this half-way house
Two blocks down thaway a park I wouldn want my own daughter playn in
And the ones who call us vandals have built this wall
Around an empty lot that stay empty for two years.
Two years I have watched this wall grey
And the writers write and they paint it grey again.

“Tonight we have taken the wall into our people
Lo they bear witness to what bring them in blues and yellows
Visions of green futures and good works and food.
The painted faces of our prophets and children
Alight them.”

She called Lo-do spoke up “But Masta, how can a wall
change the weak spirits of these people?”

The Master answered, “The spirit of our people is not weak but
Concrete and glass cages built hea make
The air heavy for us.
No one wanna come hea to give them nothin worth havn.

“We bring hea some idea of somethin else that can be.
So we have don to show our people only a mirror to their own spirits.
So that even if they forget our names we have given them art.
We have fed their souls. An in our feedin we all are fed.”

love poem for the sanctity of marriage

thank God almighty
iowa and vermont

free at last

the day is coming
when not one bigot will
get between me

legal divorce

and my inalienable right

to fail in love.

for qpoc

we are so many things that are not supposed to be togetherinthesameplace

whips and coconut shells
speak in infrared and sinigang
tongues to crystal dildos and
lynch rope
we cry in ashes from palm leaves
wipe away each others breakneck
vespa dust with expensive cologne infused
kiffeyyeh and hair wax
only to find ourselves
across the midnight laughter
tragic loves who beat us to
deaths by grafitti can fumes
kimbab eyes painted in
technicolor hair dye and
our ummas dance oxleather and
silverpistols with our abuelos until
we have dug deep enough into our
redearthclay bamboolaced
ironcloset skins to find we all bleed
love and stories and pain and freedom.

train line

wait
five fifteen
stories
one
behind
the other
deep
buried into
reading our
transit lives
before the next
one
catches
sweeps away
from the end of
this life into
the blowing wind
tunnel and

out

the next.