Long Barrio Poems

See problems they no worry Timothy
He was raised by his Great Grandmother
One day she taught him
Miho you can make life beautiful or ugly
Work hard, find a woman who has a strong back
Beauty fades it doesn’t...

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The Day After,

Day after day, I pray for our Father to give this demon peace
Adam, I want you to know he does not bother me so,
his rage is his own, not mine,
---tormented by a word,...

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Moonlight tango

It was a Saturday night, in Buenos Aires, 10:30pm, to be exact. It was a hot summers night, and you could see, and feel, the steam rising from the cobblestone street, here in La...

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The Universe is contained 
Not in a unlimited      vast    space
But in the street in front of my yard
My universe is magnificent
Blackholes in stomachs and cyclones of tortillas...

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If I Tell You, 2011
Vickie M. Ortiz Vazquez

If I tell you, Puerto Rican I am
What comes to mind?
Morena of “el barrio” or Blonde woman of “el barrio”
Better yet, pale skin-blonde from up north
That one, the...

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MANLY TROUSERS PRESSED INTO EJACTULATING SPATS THIS man of god large belly and buttons with a big gollywog voice \his madness of conviction for personal interpretation //behind psychosis and need for control.
ticks and rolls his...

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Growing up poor and Chicano in the barrio
parents working in the fields is all we know.
They tell us to go to school and learn all we can,
get educated and create a life master plan.
Knowledge and...

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In Cities in Flight
transformations are chronicled over generations.
It can make us cry
out for the genius occurring
now and in our past. How
the unseen, unknown participant
was made known to himself
through devotion to those outside himself. He
guides his...

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There is one thing that I surely know
God will be there no matter where you go
God's presence is in every single place
and in most every person in the human race
in God's kingdom there is always...

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AMERICA  -  THE MELTING POT FOR FREEDOM



I know, as you do, that there is no man who 
Wouldn’t trade his rice bowl empty and dry 
Or his barrio hut and the tse tse...

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No one laughs as loudly or as exuberantly as a child 
from the ghetto or the barrio.
I know, for I have worked with children 
from a ghetto for six years, and from a barrio for...

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Some Paris Hilton wannabe laughed
At my cell phone
(which was missing the battery cover)
As if to say
"How pathetic!"
As if to suggest
"He'll never get laid!"

The day was too gloriously
Autumn
For me to care
About the trivialities of some
Electronic set...

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Alguien marque el nueve once
pues mi corazón a recibido una sobre dosis
de un amor adulterado que ahora lo ha dejado
más atarantado que un balabarista en un alambrado

valgame Dios pues fue una simple voz
que le causo...

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Sleepless, half-naked
and thirsty
beside the river,
under constant moonlight,
waiting to feel 
the final impact
of the Sun.

I am
locked up,
dents
on red knuckles,
tears betraying
a fear I can't
hide.
Nose in a book, 
laboring
to be someone,
losing, regaining 
the world,
the charitable God
reminding me
of the...

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Once I found a snail
Slowly moving with its shell
Along the shores of Bacsil
White sand dunes hills.

Then suddenly the snail
Went out of its shell hollow
To look for a hole
But not let it in to huddle.

Another big-eyed
Protruding...

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He has no poetic garden to gaze upon
no outside to the inside of this room
Soft breaths of brothers 1, 2 and 3
like the breeze on the asphalt playground
of his tiny school, one mile away.

No light...

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Like nomad soul, he flew away 
Looking for a fine place to stay 
A deck of cards, full of aces 
He searched gold in far flung places

His great nickname means "rattan bag"
He's a packer, moved...

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Domingo
sitting in his chair on the walk
day after day
he's seen many days years decades

Teeth like a half eaten ear of corn
or an old halloween pumpkin
but with a smile just as large

Looking looking but seeing?
sitting sitting...

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Oh If Double You  
What can you do?    
Your salary is coming      
Time to pay the due     
    
You're...

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i woke
hard
ly notic
ing 
that she
she is
nude modeling
i am
crudely drawing
her figure
with words

refreshing my page
on my computer
on my paper
erasing
distasteful mistakes
taking away
layers of lost years
res
urrect
ing myself
in 2/4

cut time
asking the metronome
to slow to largo
so i can
dance
with her flames
the heart...

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