50 Years of Heart of Aztlan
- rolling
cigarette
pulse of the barrio slowed
- “¡Levántense!
¡Levántense!”
Dead man [bites] dreams
- Ia India
[bit] for roots
He [bit] the city
- Basketballs
looping on a Saturday afternoon[.]
Only the emptiness remained[.]
- Cindy’s the blonde all the vatos were trying to score with[.]
stare ahead at the warm
lights of the barrio
- the vatos at
the park
with clouds of marijuana
- Everyone in
the barrio sells junk
A man is lost in a foreign land, yet
a woman is never lost if
her familia is around her
- In Aztlan,
the land is latent with power.
- the pachucos
and the stompers square off
the whole chingadera’ll be there
- Trails of
his golden sperm turned the mountains red and gold …
bring me some holy water, and two fresh eggs—
- Both life
and death came to the barrio.
The cars crept slowly across the narrow
Barelas Bridge.
- South of
Aztlán the golden deer drank his fill and tasted the sweet fragrance of the drowned man’s blood.
the velorio was a reaffirmation of a simple,
common humanity which they all shared.
- I AM AZTLÁN!
- if we are
not to become like the americano, then the soul of the people must rise above that hell of individual alienation!
- They’re
nobody’s people[.]
I trust my people[.]
- Maybe we
saved the world from communism, but it didn’t do us any good.
- A strange
but welcomed peace fell over the barrio. they laughed in the light rain which was changing to wisps of snow.
- Time had
stood still in the light of her soft, brown eyes
- all they
want is peace and quiet, time to take things slow … it’s good for business—
let’s have a drink of wine before you get me drunk
on words
- Wisps of
snow and ice froze on the car windows.
- Did he
sleep in the lands south of Aztlán
¡Adelante!
Many lines in this found piece are exact words
from the 1976 novel. Some are paraphrased.
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