July 10, 1988-San Antonio Express-News
Adios, Mikey
It is in the wee hours of the morning as this column is written, and there is a film of aguite - a bluesy kind of sadness upon the fine filament of joy at spending the day and evening celebrating with artist friends.
There is a delicate "adios" riding upon the mind, for death has claimed another friend, a fellow writer.
Miguel Piñero of "Short Eyes" fame and "Miami Vice' scripts and acting died of cirrhosis of the liver at the age of 41 on June 21.
José Antonio Burciaga came to town to participate in the TENAZ (Latino theater) festival organized at the Guadalupe Theater, and he brought joy along with the sad news.
Burciaga - a friend from those years of turmoil and movement activities has come out with a new book: "Weedee Peepo," Pan American University Press, Edinburg 78539.
There was the usual catching up on many things, as Nephtalí de León, Burciaga and I wended through the years.
We were joined by the camaraderie of San Anto artists Victor Tello and Jim Valdez, then we went to Tello's studio where artists painted images while poetry flowed.
A tertulia came into being, and the ideas flowed. In the background hovered the news of Piñero's death.
There was a palpable sadness in Burciaga as we spoke about an obituary for a Nuyorican poet/playwright, as we rode to drop him off at his hotel
Compañero de pluma
Recollections of Piñero were many, for he had been a compañero de pluma for many years.
Burciaga spoke of New York City readings and "Canto al Pueblo" poetics in Corpus Christi.
My mind traveled to the early 1970s when Sal Mineo was on a late night talk show talking about a powerful play making the rounds, "Short Eyes."
A raw prison play, one that cut across niceties and expressed a deep and searing anger, an outcry against our all-too-often-human response to chaos by the application of even rawer anger.
There was a completeness to Piñero, to the brutal rage of tenement reality and New York prison gestalt ... anomie was evident, as was a stark hunger for meaning and daring a truth sparking others to question.
While Tello, Valdez and Buricaga were skillfully jamming with pastel and oil sticks, creating glimpses of the images that danced in their minds, I heard the urgency of de León reading from one of his many manuscripts.
The face of Piñero danced within my mind, making me feel that New York City had lost a goodly bit of the celebration of ghetto life that leavened space for me in the big Apple.
Piñero had never been a furtive being for me, for he was an evanescent yet carnate symbol of the Lower East Side barrio where the Nuyorican Poets' Café celebrated the empowerment of the word.
The Mexican song - Las Golondrinas- caroused within my thinking as recollections of Piñero doing poetry years ago in a NYC high school auditorium tintinnabulated.
There is a stirring feeling within to pay tribute to a cultural carnal, to reach out with a chuco embrace and say "Gracias, Mano, for the plays and poems!"
There is also a sense of the angst, the powerful emotion of incarceration eating at his guts as he lashed out stark images of pain, while lines of human hunger and caressive ideals reached out to younger bards and artists.
Kept dream alive
The Puerto Rico of poets' dreams was alive in Piñero, and it throbbed with a salsa caribeña akin to a joyous menéalo, a tropic dance to life, to survival upon the mean streets that Piri Thomas has so eloquently described.
The Miguel "Mikey" Piñero spoken of with unabashed pride and love by Miguel Algarín left many an imprint upon the literary/ theatrical cultural-scapes of the Borícua-Chicano world.
Life is such an arbitrary thing, as people come and go, leaving their tracks upon our thinking.
There is always an "adios' lurklng somewhere, the going of a loved one, whether family or friend.
In our culture of hectic activities, of often times not taking time out to celebrate those we respect, it is news of death that forces us to reflect.
I would sometimes see Piñero's name in the credits of some program or publication, and I would think of giving him a call or writing him a note, to thank him again for creating works that gave me so much to question, as well as appreciate for the depth of feeling and the inspiration to struggle.
I feel the loss, and then see my friends in the throes of creating art. A smile dances about in my mind as I realize the rare privilege of seeing people create beauty from raw sheets of paper and oil pastel sticks.
The manusrcipt pages begging to be published and shared with the world seem to sing out their own poetica as Burciaga and Nephtalí share their magic, words that glide and slide, pirouette and caress the senses.
The easels glisten with the images of Tello and Valdez, and it is the power of culture, of human creativity helping us touch base with each other's mortality and creative dreams.
The word "adios" resonates in my thinking as it merges with "gracias, Mikey" for those works, for sharing the beauty of an intellect moved by passion and will, undergirded by a deep belief in the value of humankind ... even in the face of brutality and oppression. Descansa en paz, poeta!