Time

Time has no shape, it has no form
Not dates on a calendar to scratch
Time can not be slowed or latched 
It is not a straight line to scorn
As we age, and become more worn.
Life is something to live and survive
Live happy as we can and thrive
Time may be a circle we walk
Measured in minutes on the clock
Time, the love of being alive

Honor Song

To honor you I play a song 
With our ancestors listening
At dusk, your dark eyes glistening
Here life is large, nothing is wrong
Very happy you came along
My heart's music is just for you
Love wafted up in notes I blew
Late afternoon or night for jazz
Music, all the best this world has ~
You woman, the best I have too.

Children of Water

We are all children of water
Born from a river of bright stars
Water, sacred blood from afar 
A birthright, no one can alter. 
No commodity to proffer,
Life that we all share equally
Not to be taken greedily
More precious than any jewels
We can not waste it like we're fools
Water, survival's necessity

We All Have A Right

Now by blood she is forever linked
To a nation of people whole
Who ripped from their mother land, their soul,
Endured boundless tortures, each distinct
Humans enslaved, now not extinct
Only through a strong will to survive
Did their descendants live to thrive
Though the hate and fear continues
The people bring forward these issues
We all have a right to be alive!

When Evil Prevails

Do you think you're a big strong man
With a boot on a child's small chest
Your gun pointing at her head lest 
You decide to kill her, and her clan.
Deep hatred, we don't  understand
How you, a human, can be so cruel
You are not superior to
This young child who's ready to die
A challenge that makes us ask why
Your people have become evil's tool 

Israeli soldier threatening a Palestinian child for protesting.

This could be any soldier anywhere, and any child...
We must stop the wars, stop the hate!

Sabotage of Self

Her endless search for replacements
Of the man she loved is futile
Loved him more than anyone alive
Genuine love has been absent
Since her heart became abstinent
A pack of crows caws its message
Only self love can end your bondage 
But she is deaf to good advice
Lives the consequence in silence 
Hers, a world of self-sabotage

The Beauty of Life

Delicate petals remind me
Of your tiny toes when you came out
You didn't cry, you did not shout
Perfectly formed, my new baby
Content to be in the world and free
I checked your body, kissed your head
Happy for all the prayers said
Answered in your beautiful eyes
I knew you would grow to be wise
A miracle born, ancestor led 

Hommage to Kage Neko

It is splendid, the feel of you
In my two hands, you never flinch
You trust me that much. In a pinch
I'm there, and you are for me too
Always been like that, when I'm blue
You are the first one smiling up
Or liking me, with that tongue rough 
To let me know you are still mine
Despite who comes and goes in time
You at my side is simply enough  

Living The Gamut

Oh lapis lazuli night sky
Creator holds our galaxy
In a big star fist so tightly.
We do not stop to question why
Just sit and watch the stars and sigh
We're content, on our home planet
Tiny seeds of a pomegranate
In an infinite galaxy
Trying to live life happily,
Experiencing the whole gamut

Poets of National Poetry Month

April's, a poem for every sun

To honor National poetry month

A blank page each day to confront 

To write down our love, or to have fun

Something that can surely be done

Poets, a special kind of breed

Form word flowers that go to seed

They are songs of hopes and of dreams

Flown on air, so they can be seen 

Poets, of good word and deed

The Promise of Moon

Moon, pregnant with promise of summer
Decides to multiply, divide
Tonight, watching the Spring night sky
There will be at least two lovers,
Blessed because they found each other,
Who'll see the moon as if it were two.
Shawl of sky, so uniquely blue
Wrap your arms around them so sure
May they continue to endure, and
Their love always grow like the moon

Wanting To Throw In The Towel On April

She feels like throwing in the towel
Fly it up until it tumbles
back to the mat in a rumple. 
Having to rhyme makes her feel foul
A challenge that's not for her soul
So if inspiration finds her -
Maybe the muses will be kinder,
Send her some poems to lighten
Up this Spring sky's darkest nights
Or help April pass quick as a blur

Silence This!

You can burn and ban peoples words
Their truths and lives written down in books
You can lie about all you took
But know this, your fear grows inward
And you can not take us backwards 
No amount of talking to your Lord
Will absolve your hate and rancor 
We continue our traditions
Poems, songs, and stories, our mission 
We will be silenced - never more!

In Not So Sleepy Towns, With or Without Lagoons ~

                        4


The Servicemen wanted trouble
To flex that hate, for enemies here 
Best to attack people they feared.
Looked for Mexicans to pummel
Riots broke out on the double
For days civilians and soldiers both
sought out Zoot Suiters who they loath
Many are hurt, and some are killed
The mob allowed to act at will
Police never exercised their oath


In a city, that was once called
Nuestra Señora de Los Angeles
Our Lady of the Angels
Racial profiling? We're appalled! 

In Not So Sleepy Towns, With or Without Lagoons ~

                     3


Nineteen forty-two, the big war
raging over in Europe and
back home people's heads in the sand -
scapegoated, Mexicans and more.
Japanese put behind locked doors,
Though it was Germans who murdered
Millions, just because of who they were.
Our people, loyal to Country
Served in the war, then treated badly.
Not the last time this would occur...

During the 1940’s the print media played a big role in sparking the fire of hatred towards Mexicans. The imagery in the newspapers portrayed Mexicans as disloyal foreigners, murderers and Zoot suiters. As a result many young Mexican American males were killed in L.A. These riots got really big after some time when around 5,000 civilians and servicemen attacked the Mexican Americans. World War II saw the Mexican Americans working together with the general American population as around 300,000 of them served in the US armed forces. Unfortunately this did not deter the Mexican American discrimination as many of them were denied medical services on their return to the U.S.

In Not So Sleepy Towns, With or Without Lagoons ~

                        2


What are we to think, of ignorance ...
We Indians, like anyone
Must defend from people so dumb.
Is it just plain belligerence,
Or a deeply sick intolerance
For all of us who are "other".
When they came, we called them brother,
Their plan: gold, land, and genocide
Too late, our ancestors recognized
The killers they later discovered.

Racial profiling and discrimination was so prevalent that in an excerpt from the Sleepy Lagoon Murder Trial, the director of the Los Angeles Sheriff's Department, E. Duran Ayres stated, in his testimony before the Grand Jury, "Mexican-Americans are genetically predisposed to violence because they are descended from Mayan Indians".   (The Court of Appeals Case, People v. Zamora, 1944)

In Not So Sleepy Towns, With or Without Lagoons ~

                      ✿


In a city, that was once called
Nuestra Señora de Los Angeles
Our Lady of the Angels
Racial profiling? We're appalled! 


                    1


Racial profiling America
To stop young, red, yellow, black, and brown
Same racism, so many towns
From New York, down to Florida
The racist South, to Nazizona
Aqui estamos, no nos vamos
You won't hear us saying, adios
Our ancestors hearts, buried here
This land to us is just as dear
Democracy? Not even close!

Intro to Water Woman ~

                      ✿


This is a story of a long life
Of a woman who flew far away
From a home full of sadness and strife
There, where she learned how to survive ~

Water Woman ~

                       5

She was born a water woman

With oceans and rivers on her side

From strife and hate, she learned to stem tides

Mother to many, hate towards no one

Far from perfect, she got her work done

Learned 'bout injustice as a young child

It plagued her family, something wild

Ugly outside life, it seeped right in

She learned sadness early, from her kin

But she set out to change that sad style

Water Woman ~

                  4

A dream deferred comes into being

When the people who dream it can see,

Vision the best possibilities 

No reason to give up hoping

If we pass the torch onto the young

Yes, the struggle for justice is long

Keep on marching, singing out your songs

A new world is possible now 

The answer's in love, that's how we grow

Together in struggle, we stay strong

Water Woman ~

                            3


She found people who felt the same
Who wanted a world for the better
Committed to the people, forever 
To struggle for justice and for change
for the positive, for the estranged.
It was a dream, for the masses  
From Dr. King to Cesar Chávez.
Many say that dream's been deferred
She believes the dream's just been blurred
With our young, it's rising from the ashes.

Water Woman ~

                       2


A water woman has to cry.
The world is a hard place when your poor, 
Worse, once you walk out your mama's door.
The state of life went straight to her eyes
And cry she would, and always ask, why?
Why is this world so cruel and mean,
Can't people love, not hate and scheme.
She'd always thought she was on her own
But out here people were hard as stone.
Then one day, the world got a new sheen...

Water Woman ~

     
                  1


She was born a water woman
with only red earth in her chart
A life map with tones deep as her heart
So lonesome since her life began
She watched as the days, months and years ran
Always with a plan for her escape
On that day she walked into her fate
While crying the loss of her siblings
In the background freedom bells ringing
Though life was hard, she was no mistake.

© Odilia Galván Rodríguez, 2012

Letting Love Be

She refuses to be chained down
Being married is not the same
as just trading your family name
It's a commitment, not a crown
He listens quiet but wears a frown
She explains, you can lose what's yours
No fear, I ask for love, nothing more
I'll always return from my journeys 
Know I am yours for eternity 
She kisses him and walks out the door.

© Odilia Galván Rodríguez

9/11 ~ Conspiracy Theorist, or Calling It As She Sees It

That morning he called hurriedly
Come here, look what's happened, do you see. ...
She just stared in shock and disbelief
A plane crashed, and crashed repeatedly.
No turning away from the TV
They couldn't speak for a long time
In horror, knowing people had died 
He comforted her. She shook her head.
How many more innocents dead?
Then she said, We committed this crime.

© Odilia Galván Rodríguez, 2012

Jesus, Judas and the Miracle of the Grey-Black Swallows

How many know, that as a child
You and young Judas used to play
and on one particular day
As you both fashioned mud birds in style
Judas seeing what you'd done, went wild
He broke and flung his to the sky
then dirt and mud fell in your eyes  
You didn't know what was the matter
couldn't believe he'd made his scatter
In a wave of your hands, mud birds fly.

© Odilia Galván Rodríguez, 2012

Décimas Para Las Almas Sin Alas / Décimas For Souls Without Wings

           
                     5        

                  finale


I'm going to sing you a story
It's so horrific, yet it's true
Be warned, these words will make you blue.
Parents guessed from very early
These killers for sport, were dirty
Police, or at least on their payroll
Will they pay for the lives they stole? 
Families demand their daughter's return
From where killers have them interned
Not one more woman! End the death toll!

One flower for each woman disappeared or murdered...