Barrio Poet
Edward Vidaurre sings it like it is
“From the Dirt a Flower Must Grow” (2015), mural by anonymous street artist HiJack on the wall of the Snake Pit Alehouse, Melrose Avenue, Los Angeles, CA, 2015. Photo: Thomas Hawk
POET’S NOTE
Sometimes the barrio claims us, holds us by our feet like roots in its field of chalk outlines closed off by the screaming yellow tape being pulled from its soul.
I grew up in a barrio with stories that were made automatically with each breath. I grew up thinking that any day could be my last. We used to kid around, saying, “I think I will make it to at least 17 years old.” I never imagined my barrio life would amount to me actually writing about it. We were taught to not say anything about our lives, especially to strangers.
The silence and search for answers are the reasons I write now. I search for the connection between the answers and literature every day. I invent conversations with my father (whom I never knew), with my own life and actions, believing there’s something there that brings me closer to him. Same goes with me writing about God, nature, and love. There’s pain and revelation in this search that, in the end, I hope brings hope, inspiration, and healing to others.
I was told to stop writing about the barrio by a well-respected poet. She said, “You’ve grown beyond it.” But I took my barrio on a road trip, and everywhere I go, there it is. It is what conjures memories and survival; that barrio boy from East Los Angeles is a tattoo, a life sentence, an ancestral guide.
—Edward Vidaurre, October 2023
2018-2019 City of McAllen, Texas Poet Laureate
Publisher and Editor-in-Chief, FlowerSong Press
Arrival
By throat is how we arrived
A cradle in voice
A passion & command
By hands is how we arrived
A touch
Skin rising, cringing,
Churning of a bullet
By force is how we arrived
Scrapes & bruises
blood dripping & empty
By train is how we arrived
With prayer in our veins
With thirst & bloody lips
Trembling
By knife is how we arrived
A rip & tear
A cut & puncture
A sliced womb
By love is how we arrived
A fragrance & warmth
An acceptance, by chance
By death is how we arrived
A scalpel & trash bin
A plastic blanket lullaby
A rope
By miracle is how we arrived
A quiet river
A safe crossing
A push
“Arrival” by Edward Vidaurre, read as part of the 2022 Poetry Curator Series, Zócalo Public Square, Arizona State University, 16 September 2022.
"Made in LA" mural on the wall of the Cisco Home furniture store (closed 2019)—painted over by HiJack to read “Immigrants Made LA,” Melrose Avenue, Los Angeles, CA, 2020. Photo: M Accelerator
Father
you died entirely
without me, taking with you
the colors of your small town, its music
and dusty roads. Your hand swept the streets
from the tracks where you walked - and the sounds
of the deep shadowy night. I've grieved in front of
a mirror that reflects not, that only bounces off the echo
of my grieving heart. You picked your destiny, I
picked to wait for a sign from the prideful sun.
I stare, destroyed
—alone wearing your lips.
My Moustache Is Growing Into My Mouth
my moustache is growing into my mouth
like the crab grass is growing into the earth
like the tarantula diggin' into my grave
like a gun street girl smuggled in a brand new pair of alligator shoes
like a gallop poll saying seventy-seven percent of Americans say religion is losing its influence on American life,
like written words on a paper having a voice and that voice sounding like Dylan's harmonica
If a book fell off the shelf in a library when no one is around-will it make a sound?
like the screams of the women and children of Juarez?
like the mother as a soldier approaches her front door with an envelope in hand?
like the symphony of silence in the stomach of the children of Africa?
like the screaming yellow tape being wrapped around a crime scene?
My moustache is growing into my mouth
trying to escape the world
like trying to escape you, but wanting to escape with you
like seeing an infrared light over your heart
like walking in on an idea
my moustache is growing into my mouth,
and over my lips,
to silence them
to hide them,
to form new words for them,
to keep me from saying the wrong thing,
like, "what? I don't know what you mean by that!"
Life, a Sigh
I sin best during days of obligation. I pray for the neighbor’s mesquite tree to come crashing down on the lawn mower that roars on hangover Sunday. My favorite coffee mug has become the pool for the paint brushes my daughter uses to draw sad faces on recycled robots. Life, a sigh. I mourn the death of an unknown man, handsome with fists the size of watermelons and lips of bronze. My favorite t-shirt has become a dust rag. The vacuum has a bad cough and will not come out this weekend. Stop faking a smile, your lips will stay that way.
“We’re all in the same boat,” mural by Banksy, England, 2021. Photo: Adrian S Pye
Petrichor!
You feel like rain
Slowly I push you
In, like a hypodermic
Needle, slow and carefully
We morph into one love
You look like rain,
I can only tolerate your
Stare long enough to
Complicate the ideas
Going through your head
the gods are pissing
and the gods are generous
the gods fix things,
everybody knows that good guys lose
and that fights are fixed
You smell of dry earth
The spell may be over,
But the fight will go on
Fixed or not
Everybody knows
That a naked woman’s
Kisses are more complicated
Than that of a naked man’s
Petrichor!
Can you take it deep,
Let it go in deeper,
The gods are dancing
The gods are laughing
The gods fix things
The gods add you to their compost
Worm your way out of it
But don’t let the rain
Catch you cryin’
Don’t let the gods
See you laughing
The gods know everything
The gods are water
The gods are dry earth
The gods are faultfinding
The gods have diseases
The gods are cured
The gods have pains
The gods live in a queer street
The gods in vesuvian jam sessions
Make the dry earth smell just right.
Mural of woman hanging zebra stripes out to dry by Banksy, Timbuktu, Mali, 2008. Photo: BANKSY project by Alyssa Argento, Abdual Nadeem, and James Farley
What If Joy Harjo Knew the Secret to Healing
What if Joy Harjo knew
the secret to healing
& horses carried all the poems
In their throats, songs of native lands
Songs
Songs
Songs
The river gropes
the ankles of running steed
If a horse looks up to the sky
what forgiveness does it seek
As a child I wondered
what language was spoken through
their neigh, what music slices
through their hooves
A man painted horses in
reds and purples
the man set the stallions
against a New Mexico sunset
Is this what Joy Harjo meant of
them cutting into the edge of the sky
What strength
What speed
What if they kept running
What if Joy Harjo knew
the secret to healing
& horses carried all the poems
In their throats, songs of native lands
Songs
Songs
Songs
You can never bury the innocent
Sooner or later
Their blood will call
Sing
Sing
Scream through cheering greed
I stopped to watch glory in a brown body & a black mane somewhere in between my move from California to Texas, I was already feeling the heat of the border as it grazed quietly in thought
What patience
What beauty
What eyes watching me cry
The man who painted horses moved to Honduras without the color green
Now all his horses
Fly
Fly
Fly
Detail of “Swinger” mural by Banksy, now mostly destroyed, Lower 9th Ward, New Orleans, Louisiana, 2008. Photo: Infrogmation of New Orleans
Stray Bullet #3
Corridos play,
en la cocina
Mamá stirs el caldo
en la sala
la más chiquita falls into
her tea set: she serves
blood to her dolls.
Chicano Blood Transfusion
I got shot in the gut
and now I need
a Chicano blood transfusion.
Make sure the vials come from the underground.
Quick!
alurista is coming down the corridor and wants my hat for his collection
What for the rush and bloody pain
What for the blooming and the rain
Close the door! Put a sheet over my body and tag my toe.
My brown skin is hindered by the loss of blood.
Help! Minute men are looking for me,
la migra is banging on my door!
La chota has me surrounded
In hand, pistolas with hairline triggers,
I can hear them approaching with
their steel- toed boots crushing
the concrete up the piss stained staircase.
breaking out the chalk, ready to outline me
for being a Voice
Where’s the sangre?
I’m losing consciousness
strap Juan Felipe Herrera down
—take it from him
cause’ I can only come up with 180 reasons why a Guanaco can't cross the border.
Look for the descendants of
“Corky” Gonzales
who also is the blood,
the image of myself.
Ask a Chicana in the midst
with beautiful brown eyes,
to hold my hand during the
mezcla of Pupil y Maya
I can't write anymore, my pen is missing
along with my grandma's recipe for champurrado y chiles rellenos.
I need those to help me break
through the concrete wall mierda stretching from Califas to Tejas.
I worry about my citizenship/permiso para jalar/needing a haircut on Sundays
I worry about people that drive small cars/con placas vencidas/con placas behind them
STOP!
Alright I think it’s done
I feel the same
Chingón!
Guanaco!
Chicano!
Angeleno!
Tejano!
With the blood of
Mi gente del barrio
“Chicano Blood Transfusion” by Edward Vidaurre, read for Unfinished Chicano Business Vol. 2 (*956* 'The Valley' *RGV*, 2018).
The first compilation album of resistance poetry from 10 (Texas) Valley poets was recorded during the Trump era: ”families are being separated, kids are being traumatized and people are dying. Now he's calling a caravan of desperate people an invasion and threatening to send thousands of troops to the border. Here's what we have to say about it.”
In Search for the Saddest Song
rumi leaves early in the morning
Searching for the saddest song
He walks over to the river
He hears birds sing
Perched above
A tree
A tree
Sad, looming
He hears birds sing
He walks over to the river
Searching for the saddest song
Rumi returns late in the afternoon
Ramona puts out her hand for rumi
To hand over the melancholic lyric
He brought it from the river
Where birds sing, sadly
The saddest song
A long cry
A long cry
The saddest song
Sad songs the birds sang
From over by the rio grande river
A lyric so sad and melancholic both cried
Ramona and rumi cried into each other’s hands
Ramona and rumi cried along the river of El Rio Grande
After listening to the saddest song the birds sang
Perched above, sad on the anacua tree
Then they slowly came to a hush
The saddest song
A body
A body
A song on replay
Slowly rising from the waters
A small child, a belt, no shoes, one sock
All the birds flee, carrying with them the saddest song
“Passage des Postes” by Jean-François Perroy AKA Jef Aérosol, Latin Quarter, Paris, France, 2007. Photo: Wally Gobetz
In My City
Trees sway a slow dance
To the leg song of the chicharra
To the long stretched acordeón
To the hiccups of 2am taco truck party-goers
Tlacauches maraud at midnight
With handy footwork across lawns
Grappling the humidity, eating away at
The molding bananas and lettuce offerings left out in a bowl
as a thank you for snacking on mosquitoes and cucarachas
Dogs bark at barking dogs that bark at wolf
moons and the incoming fog, at wobbly tire
passing cars, stray cats and late night chatter
from insomnia stricken artists burning the midnight oil
I pass by a home with a chandelier hanging from a branch,
another with a year round yard sale, and several with red doors
with scattered leaves from anacua trees confettied across their lawns
The people in this city move about like ants,
carrying the weight of life and hard work,
grackles stretch their song in long verses like the summers here,
I set my car on cruise control over the expressway and park
on a lot to see airplanes descend while scraping the syrup
top off my chamoyada raspa
I look at my phone and my friend just posted another
photo of palm trees under the hashtag #rgvpalmas,
On Sundays we choose barbacoa or tamales
Or Menudo for the cruda after being rattled awake by the neighbor’s lawn mower
I’ve been stretching my bones across the RGV,
from San Benito to Mission and in between
But longed to settle in McAllen, where my poems
Found their muse, and my dog ages at my feet.
By Throat, By Miracle:
New & Selected Poems
by Edward Vidaurre
Luchadora Press, 2023
[In] By Throat, By Miracle: New and Selected Poems, Edward Vidaurre both praises and laments what it has meant to be a child of the barrio…The book approaches its conclusion by asking a central question: “what sustains you/glowing crucifix in the night sky?” (“Moonchrist”), and its more than one hundred poems propel the reader on a quest, and a journey of witness to the concomitant brutality of barrio life and the fierce resilience of the Latinx community…The divine in nature too offers consolation—god as tree, trees as god, or the voice of the Rio Grande whispering…These poems howl, they weep, they sing, they prophesy, that is, they carry within them the complex depth of what it means to be human.
—Robin Davidson
2015-2017 Houston Poet Laureate and author of Mrs. Schmetterling
