Jorge Argueta: California Poets Part 6, Three Poems

Jorge Argueta

October 18th, 2023

California Poets: Part VI

Jorge Argueta

Three Poems

19

Los super heroes

Hoy ví a Superman tirado en la calle

La capa que le sirve para volar estaba rota y vomitada le había crecido la barba

Tenia las botas rotas, y el pelo alborotado

Lo reconocí por la camiseta, ahí decía claramente Super Man

Super Man esta jodido ha perdido sus poderes y hasta sus dientes

Agarro el crack y ahora no tiene casa

No tiene amigos, no tiene nada, ni a nadie, ni país que lo quiera

Los demás super heroes también están todos igual de jodidos

La mujer maravilla, ya no hace maravillas

Apenas puede caminar arrastrando sus tristezas

Apenas puede empujar su carrito donde amontona bolsas y ropa vieja

La mujer maravilla es la más triste de todas las mujeres, es una virgen María que va llorando

Batman y Robin entran a robar a los centros comerciales

Roban y venden lo que roban para comprar su droga

Batman y Robin andan perdidos por las calles

No manejan, no hablan, caminan como zombis por las calles, son muertos en vida

El hombre araña, ya no trepa edificios, se arrastra por las calles

Vive en las cunetas, vive doblado escondido debajo de una sabana

Se inyecta heroina y fuma crack, el hombre araña

Se ha quedado sin poderes se le ve solo por las calles llorando, quejandose, hablando solo

El Capitan America empeño su escudo

De justiciero para comprar fentanil,

Cansado quiso rentar una noche en un hotel,

Lo encontraron apuñalado en la calle 16

Ayyy ayyy ayyyy claman

Los lamentos de los super heroes

Y de los heroes y heroinas de toda América

La America del Norte, donde acaba de pasar el invierno

y aun hay en las nubes gotitas de lluvia que de vez en cuando lloran como cuando llora el invierno

19

Super heroes

Today I saw Superman sprawled on the street

His cape torn and streaked with vomit, stubble of a beard

Holes in his boots, disheveled hair

I recognized him by his T-shirt, it clearly said Superman

Superman is fucked, he’s lost his powers, even his teeth

He’s into crack, he’s got no home

He’s got no friends, he’s got nothing, nobody, no country that cares about him

The other super heroes are just as fucked up

Wonder Woman can’t make wonders anymore

She can barely walk, dragging her heartaches

She can barely push her little cart piled-up with bags and old clothes

Wonder Woman is the saddest woman of all, a weeping Virgin Mary of the streets

Batman and Robin steal from chain stores

They rob them and sell what they rob to buy drugs

Batman and Robin wander the streets lost

Can’t keep it together, can’t talk, they walk like zombies, living dead

Spider Man doesn’t scale buildings now, he crawls through the streets

He lives in the gutter, crouched over, underneath a sheet

Injecting heroin and smoking crack, Spider Man

Has lost his powers, you see him alone on the sidewalk, crying, moaning, talking to himself

Captain America has pawned his Shield of Justice

To buy fentanyl

He’s tired, he wants a night in a motel

They find him stabbed on 16th Street

Ayyy ayyy ayyyy

Ring the laments of the super heroes

And the heroes and heroines everywhere in America

North America, where winter is over now

And still little droplets of rain in the clouds sometimes weep the way winter weeps

Tr. EB

20 Canción de amor

Amor que estás en las alturas

Y por todas partes de esta hermosa Madre Tierra

Amor que siento en mi pecho cuando al despertar en las mañanas

Tun tun mi corazón tun tun me dice que estoy vivo,

Y que soy tan bonito como el mismo amanecer

Amor que ama como ama mi madre a sus 96

Yo conozco ese amor, yo que sé de ese amor

Madre que a tus 96 años tiemblas y dices disparates y olvidas todo y a todos

Menos que soy tu hijo y me amas y me das tu amor sin olvido, sin tristezas,

Me das tu amor con vivienda y sin vivienda, me das tu amor desde un asilo

Me das tu amor sin asilo, me das tu amor que cruzó fronteras para dar amor

Amor y madre mía que estás en todas partes

Quien degolla una gallina a cualquier hora del día, quien hecha tortillas desde el amanecer

Quien se desvela y corre y vende en el mercado y cocina y limpia todo el día

Madre que se alegra con la radio y le ruedan las lágrimas al escuchar una ranchera

Madre que lava y plancha y va a misa y su rezo es el rezo más sincero y lo escucha Dios

Amor que va por las calles y es amor de anochecer, amor illegal y amor el más legal de los amores

Amor de pájaro amor de las nubes amor en vuelo, amor de agua y amor de estrellas, amor de arbol

Amor en llamas amor de puro fuego, amor silencioso, amor a gritos amor de viento de mares

Ayyy amor de amor, amor que entras por las venas amor a besos y amor de abrazos, ayyy cuanto amor,

Amor encachimbado, amor que va empujando un carretón, amor que vive en las calles

amor de todo amor a todo, amor indescriptible solo amor, shhhh, solo amor, shhh, amor, solo amor…..

20

Love Song

Love in the highest heights

And all over this lovely Mother Earth

Love I feel in my chest when I wake in the mornings

Tun tun tun my heart tun tun tun tells me I’m alive,

And that I’m perfect as the dawn itself

Love that loves like my mama loves at 96

I know this love, what do I know of this love

Mother who at 96 years old trembles, speaks nonsense and forgets everything and everyone

Except that I am your son and you love me you give me your love without forgetting, without sadness,

You give me your love with home and with no home, you give me your love at a shelter

You give me your love without shelter, you give me your love that crossed borders to give love

Love, mother who is everywhere

Who chops a chicken’s head off any time of day, who makes tortillas at dawn

Who stays awake and runs off to sell at the market and cooks and cleans all day long

Mother who’s happy listening to the radio, tearful when you hear a ranchera

Mother who washes and irons and goes to Mass and whose prayer is the sincerest prayer God hears

Love that wanders the streets, nightfall love, illegal love and the most legal love there is

Bird love, cloud love, love in flight, water love, star love, tree love

Love in flames, love pure fire, silent love, screaming love, wind and ocean love

Ayyy love, love, love that goes into the veins, kissing love, hugging love, ayyy so much love,

Raging love, love pushing a shopping cart, love living in the streets

Everything love, love of everything, indescribable love, just love, shhhh, just love, shhhh, just love, just love...

Tr. EB

La ciudad próxima al verano

En la ciudad próxima al verano

El sol quiere brillar, pero las sombras no lo dejan

El dia sigue siendo helado, hace frío en las mañanas,

Frío al medio día y y frío por la noche

Está tarde de mayo en la ciudad próxima al verano

Una niña sonríe en los brazos de su madre, se chupa una paleta

Las gotitas de fruta se deslizan por su carita

Y la niña brilla, es tan feliz, es una flor

Por ahí va un hombre comiendo una hamburguesa,

Otro lleva una silla de plástico en el hombro y fuma su mariguana

Un perro le lame la mano a su amo

Y en la cuneta duerme un hombre su sueño de dolores y de latas de aluminio

En la ciudad próxima al verano el sol quiere brillar pero no brilla

En la esquina unos hombres venden ropa nueva y usada café y detergente

Por ahí se escucha un predicador, a regaña dientes

Quiere salvar al mundo y a todo aquél pasa frente a él

Camino por las calles de la ciudad próxima al verano

A veces la siento mia, a vece me siento de aquí

A veces me duele un poco su dolor y soy triste como sus inviernos

También aquí he envejecido lejos de mi patria El Salvador

Yo no sé si lloran los puentes, los edificios o las calles

Solo sé que los amaneceres lloran sangre

Y que los atardeceres se arrullan en el viento mismo

Que va cargado de voces, cantos, gritos, música y lamentos

La ciudad próxima al verano tiene rota el alma

Esta tachonada de pordioseros de drogadictos

De desempleados de hombres y mujeres

Que estan llorando desamparados sin esperanza y tiritando de frío

En la ciudad próxima al verano retumban los tambores

De la Danza Azteca, las plumas de guacamayas son rayos de luz

El olor a copal, savia y cedro vuela como las gotitas de agua regadas

En el piso, como las voces de los niños que rezan y sonrien cascadas

Como los ayoyetes como los pajaritos que vuelan, cantan y se van

The city next to summer

In the city next to summer

The sun tries to shine, but the shade won’t let it

The day stays chilly, cold in the mornings,

Cold at noon and cold at night

This May afternoon in the city next to summer

A little girl smiles in her mother’s arms, licks a popsicle

Iced fruit melts on her little cheeks

The little girl beams, delighted, she’s a flower

Here comes a man eating a hamburger

Another man lugs a plastic chair on his shoulder, smoking pot

A dog licks its owner’s hand

A man sleeps in the gutter dreaming of his sorrows and aluminum cans

In the city next to summer the sun tries to shine, but it can’t

On the corner men sell new and used clothing and coffee and laundry soap

Across from them a raging preacher shouts

That he wants to save the world and everyone he sees

I walk through the streets of the city next to summer

Sometimes I feel it’s my city, like I’m from here

Sometimes I’m pained by its pain and as sad as its winters

And I’ve grown old here, far from my country, El Salvador

I don’t know if the bridges, the buildings, the streets are crying

I only know the dawns weep blood

And the evenings wrap themselves in the wind

With its cargo of voices songs screams music moans

The city next to summer is a broken soul

Peppered with panhandlers, addicts

Jobless people, men and women

Weeping helpless hopeless shivering with cold

In the city next to summer drums sound

In the Danza Azteca, the guacamaya feathers are rays of light

The scent of copal, sage and cedar hovers like the sprinkled

Water, like the tinny voices of children praying and smiling

Like the clack of ayoyotes, like little birds that fly in, sing, and are gone

Ayoyotes are rattling shells from the chachayote tree worn on the dancers’ wrists or ankles

Tr. EB

Interview

September 6th, 2023

California Poets Interview Series:

Jorge Argueta, Poet, Author, Educator

interviewed by David Garyan

DG: Your recent work has concerned itself with people living on the fringes, specifically those living on the street. You have described this endeavor as “writing portraits of life on the street.” Can you speak about the poems that came about as a result of this enterprise, and what you learned during the writing process?

JA: I wrote these poems because I’m a human being and it hurts me to see people in so much pain, and the sad thing is that I don’t see them getting much help. These poems try to raise consciousness a little, so people could have more compassion. One guy I talked to, he had owned a house but he lost it, and he lost his marriage, too, then he had a van and he lost that, everything was taken away, his kids—like in a flash it’s all gone. People see him and they don’t know if he’s crazy or not. You learn people’s lives, and it comes out as poetry.

DG: You’ve written poems in Spanish that have been translated into English. Does the awareness that your poem will be translated affect how you approach a piece, and has there ever been a time where the translation ended up being closer to your vision for a particular poem?

JA: I’m happy to have a friendship with the person who translates my poems. We meet together and talk about things, and the English sounds good. A few lines maybe stronger, just because of the way English works.

DG: You were born in El Salvador and have a Pipil Nahuat heritage. The immigrant experience features heavily in your writing. A country like the US has not always been receptive to bilingualism, much less to immigrants. Can you touch upon some of the challenges you’ve encountered and how poetry has guided you through these difficulties?

JA: I was sitting in a café, other people were there too, at different tables, and a woman comes in with a dog and tells me to watch her dog while she goes shopping. This really happened. She finally was told to leave with her dog, and she was annoyed, she didn’t understand why. Another time I was on my way to a bus stop, and as I passed a playground, a child looked at me with horror and ran to his older sister, crying, like I was some sort of monster. It went to my soul—what had this boy been told at home, to fear someone who looks different? It hurts, too, because kids should enjoy playing, not be filled with fear. Poetry is like medicine, to help me and help others feel proud and honor who we are and what we represent.

DG: The creative scope with which you work is wide. Apart from tackling very serious topics like social injustice and street despair, you’re also a prolific children’s book writer. Is it difficult to work with such a divergent audience, or do you find the creative transition between age groups easy to make?

JA: There’s no real difference. My words are simple words, the way people who maybe don’t read or write often talk about things and it comes out sounding so original, so beautiful. I write humble words to express beautiful things.

DG: Let’s stay with the topic of children’s books. So many of the works deal with the topic of food—arguably the most universal experience, since food is a ritual we must all partake in. More so than poetry, even, it ensures our survival and brings people together. Do you see yourself ever writing a poetry collection revolving around food, culture, and unity for adults?

JA: A tomato is a poem, an onion, a cabbage are poems. Maybe someday I could have a collection like that. We eat poetry.

DG: Let’s return to your birthplace—El Salvador. Though you live and work in San Francisco, the sense of belonging to the place of your birth is ever-present, both in personal and creative terms. They say writers are both a product of their upbringing and environment, but for you, personally, which one is stronger? When writing, do you “think,” as they say, in English or in Spanish?

JA: I mostly think in Spanish, sometimes in Nahuat, and sometimes even in English. Writing brings me back home—by home I mean my birthplace, the place I sometimes wish I had never left. But what’s sad is to realize that the place where once I knew so much love, sadness, anger, happiness is gone, it’s there, but it’s no longer there. I might not be so sad if I felt the decision to leave was really mine, but circumstances forced me and thousands of other Salvadorans to leave. Now, after almost 50 years, that place is still intact in my heart, even though the people I loved and who loved me are all gone. Sometimes I wish I’d never left. I’m happy I can go back when I’m writing—that’s how I go back to that place that still smells like young corn and where a man pushes his cart to sell paletas every afternoon.

DG: For many years, you’ve been visiting classrooms and holding creative writing workshops not only there, but in a multitude of settings, such as children’s hospitals and homeless shelters. How have these activities informed your work, and is there a difference between how people in each setting perceive poetry, or is the experience universal?

JA: I love to do poetry workshops, wherever and whenever. Poetry is a tool, the softest and most powerful tool, the simplest and most sophisticated one. I find it everywhere, every day, it is the spirit of the creator, it is life itself.

DG: From the Gulf of California, all the way down to Tierra del Fuego, there is an incredibly rich literary tradition, both in Spanish and in the respective indigenous languages. Who are some of the voices you grew up reading and who influenced you most?

JA: To find your own voice you imitate the sunset, the trees, the wind, the rivers. You’re helped by the voice of people you read. For me, Rosario Castellanos, Claudia Lars, Roque Dalton, César Vallejo, Pablo Neruda, Borges, Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, La Sombra del Viento by Carlos Ruiz Zafón, and I loved Walt Whitman, Byron …

DG: For someone who’s never tried Salvadoran food, which dish would you recommend?

JA: Chuco (corn soup with beans), and pupusas

DG: What are you reading or working on at the moment?

JA: I’m finishing a book called “Mis primeras palabras en Nahaut,” My First Words in Nahuat. It’s in all three languages, Nahuat, Spanish, and English.

Author Bio:

Jorge Argueta, a Pipil Nahua Indian from El Salvador and the 2023 Poet Laureate of San Mateo County, is a prize-winning poet and author of more than twenty children’s picture books. They include Una película en mi almohada / A Movie in My Pillow (Children’s Book Press, 2001) and Somos como las nubes / We Are Like the Clouds (Groundwood Books, 2016), which won the Lee Bennett Hopkins Poetry Award and was named to USBBY’s Outstanding International Book List, the ALA Notable Children’s Books and the Cooperative Children’s Book Center Choices. His Madre Tierra / Mother Earth series celebrates the natural world and is made up of four installments: Tierra, Tierrita / Earth, Little Earth (Piñata Books, 2023), winner of the Salinas de Alba Award for Latino Children’s Literature; Viento, Vientito / Wind, Little Wind (Piñata Books, 2022), winner of the Premio Campoy-Ada given by the Academia Norteamericana de la Lengua Española; Fuego, Fueguito / Fire, Little Fire (Piñata Books, 2019); and Agua, Agüita / Water, Little Water (Piñata Books, 2017), winner of the inaugural Campoy-Ada Award in Children’s Poetry. His poetry collection, En carne propia: Memoria poética / Flesh Wounds: A Poetic Memoir (Arte Público Press, 2017), focuses on his experiences with civil war and living in exile. The California Association for Bilingual Education honored him with its Courage to Act Award. In addition, Jorge Argueta is the founder of The International Children’s Poetry Festival Manyula and The Library of Dreams, a non-profit organization that promotes literacy in rural and metropolitan areas of El Salvador. Jorge divides his time between San Francisco, California, and El Salvador. Poet Laureate of San Mateo County, California.