Selected Poems           

                           

                         In Exile:
                         The Only Chicano outpost 
                         In the Olde Commonwealth 
                         Of This Here Virginny ...    

                         Thoughts/Poems                                  
                         June, 69 to January, 70

    Sojourns in Virginny . . .


  it is by way of definition that i
  now write this short introduction of myself,
                       a chicano, 
  lost in the wilderness of the deep south, and 
  very perplexed am i about this place . . .

  my thoughts go back
          to east and south el paso, texas, 
  a brown speckled, non-honey-dripping 
  sort of place
  where i grew up
  in the welter of texas ranger hates 
  and idiocies . . .
  to be a chicano in the state of texas 
  is likened to being black or jew 
  or you-name-it in any auschwitz type of place:
          not an ideal place for a sojourn . . .

  my life reeks
  of the hates
  inculcated in me by
  a blind, yellow-haired, blue-eyed, 
  de-humanizing culture . . . 
  my chicano blood
     boils
  and i strive only to express myself 
  in order to determine my own course . . . 
  and this then is my aloneness, 
  my being confronted by a vacuum 
  and

  i write of my people-LA RAZA!
  with pride, love, and out of need... for

        i am indelibly CHICANO.
        to justice, freedom, and humanism.....
                                      viva la causa!