Canto por una Salvadoreña

Blown free in this land without mangos,
You teach me, the gringo,
as you would teach a small child,
las palabras of your tongue… latino

Your gold-capped teeth flash
Como estrellas en un cielo amenazador…

A night lily
far from
your family,
your beauty
reveals itself
within the cover
of darkness
then droops
when your
kitchen lover
runs off
with the bleached
rays of dawn.

Nothing has changed, you pretend,
then pull your skirt high over your belly.

Confronted by the maître d',
you say, "dos meses mas, señor."

But you really mean, "dos semanas mas, señor."

Staring vacantly into the fireplace,
you freeze… you cannot respond…

How your school girl eyes had wept
When your teacher's eyes were gouged
By armed men in black masks
Before the eyes of the entire class.
How your school desk had rattled in fear…

With these garnets of grenadine
I string a necklace
to guard you against all evil!

Let their beauty shine through
your sorrow a long way
from the tart succulence of jacoté
the sweetness of nancé.

May this amulet radiant
radiate far beyond
the machete slashed fields
of Salvador

Como estrellas en un cielo amenazador
Como estrellas en un cielo amenazador.

Generalissimo: May You Cower In Sheer Terror!!!

(for Isabel L. and Miguel)

You must shield your butcher's eyes
behind dark glasses: you who
most fear the rays of the sun's illumination.
Your face writhes with the fury of the Minotaur
(more of a visage of a beast than of a man)
as the World watches you spit... then jab...
the barbed lance of the matador
into the trembling heart of a lamb.

You who have so blithely resurrected
the ancient curse of snake worshippers;
You—high priest of a counterfeit cult,
orchestrator of sacrificial ceremonies,
haughty conquistador of innocent peoples:
Behind your scarred bullock neck
glistens the anaconda's cupric skin,
its flickering tongue, and crushing grin.

You—the supplicant and sycophant
of the putrid gangrenous flesh
of swindled black market greenbacks:
How seductively you are infatuated
with the redolent and succulent songs
of the bilious bovines in trench coats!!!
Eunuch of Gringos—the World knows you prod
your prey with a prick of electric prongs!!!

May you cower in sheer Terror—
O Torturer! O Executioner! O Asesino!!!—
For no shock therapies will eliminate
the apparitions that haunt your temple gates:

THE MANGLED FISTS OF VICTOR JARA
STILL MAN YOUR MINES AND FACTORIES!!!
THE PULSING BLOOD OF PABLO NERUDA
NOW FLOODS THE STREETS OF SANTIAGO!!!