Selected Poems              

                     

                           somnámbulo, no se puede 
                           cantargritar, sólo 
                           crear un dream 
                           in the midst of realization . . . 
                           2:00 a.m., Tuesday, July 13, '76 
                           El Chuco, Te(de)jaslum.  

 Casi Gato AKA Carnedechivo née Ricardo Sánchez
                 (Sometimes!)

  a string of acronyms 
  courses its serpentine way 
  after my name, 
  quetzales and locuras 
  merging
  in the chiaroscuro 
  of reality and fantasy, 
  defining
  barrio barriers, army, 
  prison, more barrios, 
  prisons, movement involvement, 
  scars of/by universities, 
  legions of boudoir fancies 
  and happenstances, 
  soixante-neufing fandangoes, ay, 
  i laugh
  in my solitudes 
  at real and/or imagined 
  credentials 
  and doing so 
  uptights
  an already uptighted menagerie 
  of academicians, 
  and though i laugh 
  when i write out my name 
  and its acronymed convolutions, 
  realization hurts 
  when i hurl out past/present 
  in the whimsy
  of half jokingly saying
  i am
  Ricardo Sánchez, CDD, GED, BL, MD,
                   PhD, SV, CS, PPJ,* 
  for in the cábula 
  of survival
  as a Chicano from barrios and prisons 
  exists
  the anomie and desolation of
  numberless nights/days and even years
  when light and darkness
  were one and the same ...
  marked, like many another invisible person, by almost not
                            realizing my existence,
  i travel light years into nebulous and hopeful futures,
  sutured
  by need
  and buoyed
  by hope,
  life and poetry merge
  into politicized primal (s)creaming 
  brought on by urgency ,

  roads of life pocked by death and hectic loving,each caress 
                          by wind 
  etches meaning on brow,
  while each view of hunger in my barrios unfurls fury in mindsoul.

  forced to survive
  within a seemingly foreign world, 
  culture becomes the only weapon and shield left 
  with which to defend/protect 
  whatever cosmicity might beat 
  its primordiality in being-ness . . .

  looking back  
  from being
  a phd from union graduate school 
  to having experienced 
  a one to twenty-five year sentence 
  in California (soledad) when but 19 
  to a twelve year sentence

  in texas (huntsville and ramsey one farm) 
  when 25 and out by 29, 
  now 36 and still questing 
  after publishing canto y grito mi liberación 
  and hechizospells, 
  having been poet in residence via 
  national endowment of the arts at epcc, 
  i still realize
  that like all humanized or dehumanized beings 
  i carry the scars and the caresses 
  of my experience: i yearn and hope and strive to love 
  beyond the shoddy confines 
  of societalization,

  and still the question rises out 
  from a heap of happenings, 
  culling out of memory and awareness 
  the awryness of just being:

                       WHO/WHAT the hell is this 
                       protoplasmic, gelatinous, 
                       fragile and mortal thing 
                       programmed and named to be 
                       ricardo sánchez?     i cringe 
  in my fears (inwardly!)
  while outwardly pose in guises 
  which assure me the timespace to survive 
  until my human frangibility can no longer hope 
  nor strive to continue surviving . .   .

  alleged poet, writer, ex-con, doctor of philosophy, scholar,
                        lover, husband,
  father, son, brother, friend, militant, activist, community
                        organizer and a
  panoply of other labels,
  i merely labor
  to survive
  just long enough
  to learn and understand
  how to live and love
  whatever timespace i can share 
  with peoples and environments,
  tired of hate and hurt, sickened by blood, gore and madness, 

  and angered by our callousness, 
  i seek to rectify
  a past of wantonness
  and find myself frustrated . . .

  there does not exist
  a way to quench my thirst 
  to love all that i wish to,

  ay, each living thing i see 
  i want to understand and love,
  each child, every person, 
  all differing lifeforms,  
  each form of land and cloud, 
  each tick or tock of time, 
  each salient word or thought, 
  each woman that i see, 
  each moment of awareness, 
  ay,
  the process gains momentum, 
  and life continues on, so 
  onward shall i go 
  to quest and realize 
  that answers only live 
  within my struggle's process, 
  i live, i love, i sing, 
  i dance, i shout, i laugh,
  i hurt, i joke, i hate,
  i am a retinue of beings,
       a mirror for reality.


  *CDD:  Chuco Del Diablo

   GED:  Gitano Erecting Daydreams (or High School Equivalency?)

    BL:  Bato Loco

    MD:  Macho Dog (or Marihuana Doffer?)

   PhD:  Pinto Highly Demented/Developed (or Doctor of Philosophy?)

    SV:  Se Vale

    CS:  Con Sapos (or Con Safos?)

   PPJ:  Poeta Pedagógico Jodido (or Pinche Pinto Jodido?)

    ps:  pinto means ex-convict or convict; cábula means jive ...