- poem:
- To a Cholo Dying Young
- by Victor Payan
- & to think
- I could have been you
- in another decade
- in another neighborhood
- in another bunch of friends
- & you who they call yourself cholo
- muy cool y muy smooth
- con safos y qué
- could have been me
- could never have known
- the joint, your pinto brothers blown
- away & the whole pinche enchilada.
- but I am you, mano...neither of us escaped
- the other, brother, though
- we spit contempt with our
- eyes like angry frogs because we know this to be true.
- You are chained to me and I to you
- only I never been in prison and you
- never been to school
- & every needle you took from me
- was an insult I took for you
- You got high for my sins, ese
- you who they call yourself cholo
- & you will not die in a warm bed
- & I will not die with the warm
- brown liquid heaven swimming in my head
- & yet we will die together
- like our grandfathers might have
- died together
- in another country
- in another century
- when they called it revolution
- but neither of us will know
- if we play this frojolier than thou
- bullshit mas joaquin que la chingada
- never pretend to never care
- never admit that the other one's there
- lurking under clothing and a cut of hair
- my reality was never so hard
- & my dreams you will never share
- we are standing on either side
- of midnight the border
- between night and day
- which is yet so close & only
- heartbeats away
- but neither of us is running up to the other
- shouting pleading demanding
- won't you be my neighbor
- instead of won't you stay a stranger
- because a cholo is a person in my neighborhood and
- after all aren't we talking about dignity jack
- noone gave it to you and noone can give it back
- here's a little secret I've got to tell:
- no one goes to heaven and no one goes to hell
- it takes more than cool to stay in school
- & more than a teardrop to earn respect
- sticks and stones and broken holmes
- and names designed to keep you down
- you who they call yourself cholo
- before you leap you better look down
- before you come out shooting you better look around
- we are not the cowboys in this town
- together we swim or together we drown
- you are me and I am you
- and both of us are brown.
-
-
- © 1994 Victor Payan
|
