National Poetry Month
Thank you for all your poetry submissions, BL poets! Here are the last two poems for our celebration of National Poetry Month. Hope you enjoyed it.
Love as it is Today
by Antonely Molina
People seem to find themselves in confusion
Confused over the word L.O.V.E.
A word so powerful but yet, so empty.
It was once a feeling, an emotion, now just a word.
At other times it was the pavement that conducted others to happiness.
Over time, Humanity has converted it into a mockery.
Now, it’s just a simple word…
A word that is as common as the most common verb yet I ask,
what is to love?
You tell me… You tell me your vague significance of this word.
You tell me what you have distorted it into.
Some claim to know what love is,
But fail to tell me what is enamored.
Not the definition of the damn word,
But to be truly enamored!
To as a man lose yourself in infatuation,
Being in constant thought of that significant other,
Questioning yourself if she can be the wife you ever wanted,
If she would be the perfect mother,
Thinking of her in every single heartbeat.
Shortage of breath with just her image,
Looking into her eyes with an unstable glance,
Because you are unable to keep composure,
It is to be inflamed by a flame that never ceases
A passion that never dies out…
Yet,
To feel love is confusion
It is mind over matter.
It is throwing yourself into an unknown pit,
Expecting someday to find some ground to hit.
It is to find a companion with your eyes,
Without ever using your ears to listen
And your tongue to express what’s bottled in
It is to never let that person see the depths of your soul
Due to pride and ego.
To love is to be willing to someday,
Let go…
That is what we have done.
The word love is now just an abomination,
We made it into an emotion we may control,
In order to not self implicate pain to our ego
Yet we lost the feeling of escaping reality
In the madness of the emotions triggered
When just touching her hand; Ecstasy!
It was ecstasy with no foreplay needed.
Intercourse being the escape to a land of fiction,
Where every minute with her,
Stretches out to seconds.
And where every day with her,
Makes everything Worth living for.
That is why all of us know what is “to love”
Yet the term itself, IS OBSOLETE
Census Sensibility
by Camila Garces
And the question on the census says
‘How would you describe your national identity?’
And without a moment’s thought
I add my pencil scrawl
And tick yes
Next to the word ‘British’
But my blood and my flesh
Set off the urge to rebel
To scream no!
I am L A T I N O
(which is strictly speaking, grammatically incorrect
but I didn’t think they’d really notice unless
someone got really anal about gender agreement
And everyone knows that gender can be a real can of worms)
I am half-and-half to tell the truth
But my body never seems to want to
With my freckled, pale face
And blue, bloodshot eyes
It’s pretty hard to pretend
And even harder to disguise
That I look like the typical English rose
Who blushes like a traffic light
Burning rather than browning
Wilting face and freckles on my nose.
And yes, I share my skin with the slave-traders of old
With conquistadores and those
Who sailed half around the world
To steal a land and a people and a time
I am blanquita and una gringa
With my dishwater blonde hair and my ink-stained fingers
The white ghost, the sore thumb, the stranger.
Even standing in the picture
Next to my sister
I look like I’ll never belong.
But I can dream in turquoise and copper and gold
I like the sound of Spanish on my tongue
Even more the feel of Quechua
Even more the taste of Mapudungun.
If you cut me open I could sing
Of the beauty of the mountains, of the finest cooking
Of the sugar and the fat and the chili
Of the avocados that are shaped like me
Of the Valley of the Moon, of the soil-baking sun
Of the blood spilt, the trees split
Of the money and the drugs and the guns.
I soar like a condor
Above the glowing screens and the paperclips
Where they sit carving out the answers
With their graphs and their statistics
And where I fly, only I will know
In my pockets la Santa Muerte, St. George, Chango
With flags and banners
Over desert and snow
And the earth of the Earth between my toes.
About Being Latino Contributors
nice!!!!