dedicated to the boys at YDDC Detention Center
Folding future memories
Into modern codices.
Honoring ancestors by giving old graffiti glyphs new life.
Slicing time
With our tongues like a knife
From the center of the Quinto Sol.
Obsidian blade cutting through silence
Making our new language whole.
Huitzilopochtli hummingbird hovers
Over the flower of life, and
Drinks life’s nectar, and
Tastes the sweetness of infinite symbology,
Breaking up tags into
Graffiti numerology,
Counting the signs
Searching for direction,
But the subtlety of images
Breaks away from artistic preconceptions.
<#>
Allowing imagination to run free.
<#>
Manifesting mystic messages,
Hoping to see
The next codex
Recording history.
<#>
To be burned in the fire.
<#>
But like a phoenix from the flames
It’s time to give ourselves new names.
Returning to the beginning.
Putting Coyolxauhqui back together.
Trying to remember
The significance of the womb
The magnificence of the moon
And the inevitability of the tomb.
<#>
Muerte makes mortality meaningful.
<#>
Amazed at the ways the soul plays with the page
Creating symbols of sorrow and rage.
While tattoo teardrops take time to fall.
Permanent pictures of pain
Can’t be washed away by the rain
Or incinerated by the flame.
Needing someone to blame
We incarcerate creativity
Keeping kids quiet
Silence their poetry
Hiding their identity,
<#>
But ancestral knowledge is genetic.
Can’t forget it.
It’s in our DNA.
These spirialing scrolls hold
Wisdom old.
Tezcatlipoca spoke of smoking mirrors.
Mysteries hidden but
We’re making vision clearer.
Sight turned inward to see spirit
Soul can be dark
But there’s no reason to fear it.
<#>
It’s visceral and mystical
Full of magick and messages
To be seen in dreams
Ollin Mexica
Making a movement
El Movimiento Estudiantil
Ayotzinapa students kidnapped and killed!
Igniting a revolution
Burning down old towers of oppression
<#>
Of sins against self
Redefining wealth
Exploring the possibility
Of salvation through self-expression.
<#>
Journeying with Mictlantecuhtili
Laughing with our mortality
Knowing there’s more to reality
Than what can be seen by the eyes,
It’s like that life-changing moment
When we first realize
That the heartbeat is the rhythm of the universe.
Se we write a verse to express that connection,
And make
Time
Rhyme
With
Mind
Seeking the sensation
Of meditation.
Kissing Kundalini
While our chakras are spinning into infinity.
We write our own histories.
Making new creation myths
To birth a new ideology.
The codex was burned
But we already learned
The symbology
Blood and bones
Tears shed alone
Yearning for home
Words written in stone
<#>
We honor ceremony and ritual.
Daily devotions become habitual.
The discipline it takes to journey to the other side.
Where we’re exposed with nothing to hide
We can take control of our own stories
And begin to heal.
We heal from the wounds that scar the spirit by
Drawing a picture of our pain and
Painting a portrait of what makes us proud
Because when we leave this place
All that will be left will be
That face on the shroud.
From Duende de Burque: Albuquerque Musings by Manuel González (University of New Mexico Press, 2021). Copyright © 2021 Manuel González. Reprinted with the permission of the author.