Myth-day,
he walks
through rain-soaked
streets
coated in deliverance,
drained
of chances,
relieved of
sentimental freedoms.
Improbable nights
punctuated by
mocking, razor-close
insults
spur his deliberate
pain,
crated and shipped
to tender 3am
howl-sessions.
He runs
naked,
races
angels-in-high-heels.
Buys
his last heart beat
w/buffalo nickels
and mythic faith.
(originally published in my 2nd book of poetry, Native Instincts by Sun Arts Press)
http://voicesdelaluna.org
Although it’s been almost a month since its publication, I’d like to once again thank
Voices De La Luna for choosing me as the featured poet in their November
2016 issue. I am very honored!
a lighthouse sings of liberty
Give me your
brown, your black, your rainbow,
all oppressed masses
yearning to shake free
the wretched yoke
of racism, discrimination,
teeming from shore to shore.
Send those racists, those homophobes
back to the bowels of hell
from whence they came,
banish them to tempest-tossed
seas, while I lift my lamp as
a welcome to all who
embrace equality beside
the golden arch of love
and freedom.
by
Rod Carlos Rodriguez
Night has plunged
my sky so terrifying,
fractured into infernos
of fear, dread so deep
my freedom shivers,
it waits for the chains,
again,
to scrape and bleed
my wrists raw,
my voice screams
even as white-hot
bullets tear through
vocal cords, to force
my silence, my compliance,
I will not.
I WILL NOT!
Silence was enforced
as manifest destiny
as Native People died
for gold, land, conquest.
Minds were colonized
as White-Man’s-Burden
to ensure the status quo
at the cost of culture,
of language.
Lives were lost
in Selma
by southern white devils
demanding racist-policies,
revenge against a King,
an X, a Chavez.
Night has plunged
my earth into sorrow
so full, the oceans
turn emerald, jade, olive,
in sweet aspiration,
we drown,
gasp for the reasons
this horrid jester
rapes us, kills us,
laughs at our folly.
We MUST light
this night,
dispel its death
upon the sky, the ground,
the air we all breathe.
Embrace dissent,
fracture the jester’s
smile, pour
the soul of justice
down its throat!
…fight.
…Fight!
FIGHT!
We will not be
silenced!
ever. again.
by
Rod Carlos Rodriguez
We run
through the chicory
fields and pine needle forests,
flaming tongues reach
for Alpha Centauri and Orion,
witnesses to this evening’s
crime, it winds,
drives, screams
through herds and squirrels and
scrambling, hairless apes
too slow to heed
the nose-crinkling
heat and smoke,
brutal to any
house or fence or swimming pool,
boils, burns, chars
in equal measure despite
armies of firemen, planes
bombing rain on
forests emblazoned,
Still we run…
cough silk-smoke,
the fury, lungs seared,
legs stumble,
not ready to shake
that soundless mortal coil
to the fire,
not ready to offer the body
to this angry rage,
a shouting inferno, licking
fingers, hair, tender skin.
running…still.
by
Rod Carlos Rodriguez
Damn these butterflies,
headlong into traffic,
each other,
and for what?
A morsel of amor,
a glimmer of Elysian Fields
soon made caricature
of the blues,
backbiting themselves
for cliché or an ideal,
failed dramas waged
despite Death tapping
on shoulders, crust-filled
newborn eyes to rheumatoid-laden
grasps, deep-bone sure
these efforts guarantee
a shared litany played in repeat,
a Bourbon Street parade
of Elysian Blues.
by
Rod Carlos Rodriguez
This is a follow up to my original poem, Death and Butterfly Kisses. If you’d like to read it, it’s included in my book, Native Instincts (under my previous pen name, Rod C. Stryker), available here
homo poeticus
a sliver, a whisper
slides under my notice,
digs deep in dark soil
fresh, moist from
last night’s quieting
rain, until the first
seed cracks through
grains, flashes lightning
and peels thunderclaps,
drives other seeds to
crack and explode
over mountains,
heralds forests to blaze
over cities and deserts,
sparks a wave of
birds that crash and flood
battle fields
and war machines,
the earth is
drowned in Mother’s arms
singing a lullaby for
a singular species,
homo poeticus
by
Rod Carlos Rodriguez
The Heart of the Earth
One more poet
points the finger
at blooming flowers
that jiggle and shake
inside green boxes
resting on window sills.
They outrank
the birds who caw
at continuum’s
injustice,
shaped in Plexiglas.
Continuum fights
off the holy, clinched fingers
attached to hands,
attached to arms
of Madre de Dios
who cries and begs
humanity with such questions as:
“What do you want today?”
“The world,” we say.
“We’re just civilians
who pour syrup in the Cheetos.
A weakness we find
very comfortable.”
Madre cries,
sobs,
implores
Her children
for help,
for release
of our toxic fumes,
poisonous hate
we clothe Her in,
force Her
to wear,
ill-fitting as these
vestments are.
Soon,
She’ll grow tired
of the rags,
that poison.
She’ll shake it off,
the infection,
humans.
by
Rod Carlos Rodriguez
falling poetry
Poems the size
of legal paper
are pelting
innocent pedestrians
and causing traffic jams
as drivers exit their
vehicles just to read
the falling poetry.
Eyewitnesses on the scene
indicate most of the
doggerels are in free verse
and couplets,
but some are as large as epics.
This station advises
listeners to stay in their
homes and apartments,
or risk being educated,
or worse connected
with another human being.
Block windows and doors!
Whatever you do,
don’t read the falling
poetry!
We thank you
for listening.
by
Rod Carlos Rodriguez
A river gurgles and sputters
on the way to event horizons
lousy with dawn and dusk,
the pale brook paints
itself amid deserts and scrub brush
fighting fisherman
thirsty for flounder, petrified,
oriented towards twilight’s
deep reds and faint yellows.
November coddles the stream,
bursts through country dams,
groans over urban rapids
clouded with flowers drowned
by last night’s downpour
of favors and drought.
The trickle remains
friends with angry clouds and
crazy fog, dribbles
lazy in its walk past
city parks to parched,
summer pools.
Rod Carlos Rodriguez
Rod C. Rodriguez (Stryker) 