Love poems are stupid,
Because in only a few months time
They’re likely falling to pieces;
Out of juice, out of line.

However, I’ll still write in my spare time,
But would rather focus on cacti,
Because no one gives them
Their time to shine.

I love you, sweet cactus
How you love when the sun shines,
I love you, sweet cactus
Your agave so devine.

I’d rather write about a cactus
All prickly up it’s spine,
Because that cactus is alive,
That cactus is mine,
That cactus will last
Longer than you and I.

Stop being such a cacti.
I’m only trying to move you into sunlight,
to let you learn, grow.

You were such a cacti
because you peirced me with your blunt needle.
yet I still bled,
because it still peirced me through, and skimmed my bloodflow.
I didn’t cry
because I realised that is just simply you.

You were such a cacti
when I tried to water you, my dear.
I only wanted to keep you alive
keep you radiating.
Keep you, as you.

This time,
your dagger imapled me.
From my finger and gushed into my left chest.
I now understand you
because you won’t hesitate to grow without my nurture,
and won’t hesitate to peirce with my love.

She hated her mother's voice, her strong accent thick like champurrado.    Her defiance, her identity.    

  She didn't fit in, and her mother's voice was a reminder why.
A constant reminder.   She hated the moment she crossed that border, maybe “I would have been the popular girl at school with a mother in the United States”. But here she was just an illegal.  

  So many postcards, pretty pictures of tall buildings:   “Las Vegas, city of lights”. She dreamed of one day being a tourist,   like them gueras on TV,   with their flashy credit cards, ordering coca light and rare steak. But here, she was just an illegal.

  Her resentment grew like a cactus: green, slimy, tall and filled with thorns. Each microagression a thorn,   each mispronounced word a bullet.

  She remembers that one day   when her English teacher made her read. She caught her as she was about to leave the classroom,   “Miss Cuellar, it's your turn!”   “Dang this pinche vieja is slick!” she thought...   For cacti can't speak, much less read. But they remember. They remember each day they went without water, so their roots grew deep and profound in hostile ground, and they kept themselves strong, they hid themselves,   they stood tall and vulnerable in the middle of nowhere.

  “I am a cactus” she wrote as the first sentence of her English paper about identity, she then deleted those words, what the **** was her teacher going to think? Now this crazy *** illegal thinks she's a plant   so she wrote her name instead. But deep inside she knew she was a cactus in the middle of hostile lands, far away from that precious lake of healing waters where the wind sings and hills are green; far away from that country of dreams, colors and stories. Stories where her existence made sense, stories where she belonged. But here, she was just an illegal.

  So many things would trigger her, the sunset, the heat, people starting conversations,   “don't talk to me, cacti don't talk”   they grow thorns, they grow green, they like to be left alone. But she knew that that was not her natural state, she wanted to be free. Her spirit wanted to run out of that cactus. Why couldn't she be a bird? Un tzentzontle or a humming bird, even if they didn't live as long, they at least get to fly.

But instead there she remained, rooted, guarded and defenseless, no matter how profound her roots were, she was still an illegal: wrong countried, wrong bodied,   multispirited.   One day her skin began to cry,  a deep beautiful wound  from which a flower sprouted.  She had found poetry and realized that while cacti didn't speak they still flourished.
  To be continued..

Quietly and alone,
a flower blushes
in the cactus garden.

Viciously and slow,
the flower is pricked
by the venomous spines.

Here in the desert
it's been raining
on and off
            for days
making the succulents and cacti
glisten with wetness
their thick skin sparkles
and catches nature's ironic eye
flowers and plants shine
so much better in the half-grey
Here in the prehistoric depths
Of rocky whitewash and silt
             flash floods rush through
flushing out all guilt
         And inside
a raging storm commences
and I feel so blessed
to be a part of this celebration
my lungs expanding in my chest
I breathe in deep
that fresh purity of air
let it cleanse right through me
from my toes up to my hair
It rushes in my body
taking no prisoners in its force
flows through every vein
cleansing poisons in its course
its power flows into me
washing out this stubborn pain
Turning the confusion
                     into clarity again
From inside subconscious thoughts
           realization thunders
rinsing from my mind
                 the emotional strain
and replacing it with euphoric wonders
Come, my raging desert tempest
Bathe me
       penetrate me with wet
restore and purify
my being
take over and disinfect
let me feel my own strength
until it pours out from my cells
into the space inside my heart
where love and lust still dwell
My tears mingle with the sweet drops
                as I fling arms open to the sky
releasing strikes of lightening
for every word I cry
as I summon, pray for lightness
mixed with the sturdiness of earth
Let joy rise up and bubble
within my being
as rebirth

The rumblings of traffic resonate muffled behind me I sit in my century old chair accompanied by my century old mind. A ding of the magic bell follows the crack and jolt of the muffled horn – muffled by the palpable self-ignited tension that a choice is near or already washed-out. The toot of the train tempered by the windows and drapes yanks me out of the cloud I sit upon watching myself perplex about a choice an unfamiliar choice. Which is it, the flower for me, or the flower that waits? Which cactus do I drink the water from – both will ***** me, but ripped from their home the cacti will cry inconsolably. Vague metaphors faced by a conundrum that isn’t humdrum my veins filled with uncertainty until I look to the cacti again

i remember when my mama took me up the mountain,
she told me,
"now, you are ready."
and pine and oak softly fluttered their leaves at my arrival.
there were yellow flowers,
growing wildly,
strangling the delicate blue blossoms,
made of flimsy roots and spindly bosoms.

i was the youngest in a tribe of
golden skinned people;
dreadlocks, tattoos,
moon cycles on the sides of their eyes,
and hair like cattails whispering in the dark.

with my stomach churning,
i entered the tall, dimly lit tepee.
the medicine man sat churning the ashes
in an empty fire-pit,
and women stood around me scattering
flower petals like
soft skin
all over the red-dirt earth.

his eyes twinkled,
and told me things that he would only let the
dusk unfold.
i took my seat on a white sheep-skin,
settling myself.

as the night grew older,
the fire grew larger,
shapes elongated on the fair skin of the stretched
tepee,
the flames dancing wildly,
smoke drifting up into the
starry dark.

the fire keeper stoked the raging
yellow and orange tongues,
and the medicine man sat with a bandanna on,
his waterfall nose moving,
and his leather brown skin creaking,
as he told us stories of the sacred medicine.

and we sat,
somebody started singing.
my mothers warm frame was close to mine,
and my step-father next to her,
shoulders touching in the close proximity,
intimate, smoky air.

they beat the deer-skin drum,
badum badum *** badum badum ***
in native languages like
roaring rivers,
they sang songs to the medicine,
for the opening of the heart;
their swift and strong voices
rising like smoke and flame.

when the drum was passed to me,
i didn't know any songs,
wasn't aware that i had to know any.
i started to hit the drum with the padded
stick, and
closed my eyes,
feeling the sticky sweat of my perspiring forehead
drip down upon my licked lips,
tasting of wood and dirt.
i sang something lilting
sounds coming from the deepest
crevices of my throat,
being gently pulled from the grasp of my ribs.

the medicine man put pine on the fire,
it sizzled and breath was filled with
sweet and sharp.

when the air was right, and
the night was thick with song,
he uncovered baskets of small,
green and ridged fruit-like shapes.
"buttons,"

the medicine was taking her form, and was cradled
as a native man took it around the circle,
along with oranges.
i'd find out soon why.

i took two, small and light in my fingers.
i closed my eyes and took the first bite.

my mouth was struck, eroding teeth
and erupting tongue
my face contorted from the bitter juices the small fruit
held within its delicate skin,
my stomach churned and i swallowed it down
biting into the orange, skin and all
begging for a shock of zest to take
down the intense flesh of the medicine.

i looked around,
some people were on their third, fourth.
the beat of the drums was constant,
along with the quiet,
restful crackle of the sighing fire.

the second bite was less of a surprise,
and i finished my first one.

it was only at the third bite of the second button
that my stomach refused to go any more without
heaving,
the astringent juices of the
small fruit working its magic on my stomach.

i closed my eyes and embraced what was around me;
slowly swaying in the deep voices of my
family,
mi familia,
'ohana,
and the heartbeat of the
mountain drums.

soon, i felt weary.
my mother rested her hand like falling rain on my shoulder,
and i lay in the warm arms of her
shawls,
twisting around me like snakes.

a traditional rollie was passed around,
made of corn husk and hand grown tobacco.
my eyes grew slow and drooping,
and i fell into the waiting arms of sleep
while listening to the music of
tobacco and wood smoke, hushed voices,
wilting night,
dancing fire, and alive laughter.

my sleep was deep and dreamless,
my body carried to other places by the medicine,
leaving my mind behind.

i woke to rough feet on the red dirt,
and my mother and father intertwined like red roses,
sleeping below the tepee's watch,
my mothers white skirt fanning out like
soft sheets in the summer
walls.

there were goodmorning smiles,
light spreading from one set of a skin to another,
as my family embraced me,
told me they were proud and grateful to me
for sitting with them.

a bowl of chocolate was passed around, along with a crate
of juicy, pink, dawn touched strawberries.
i dipped them in the dark, sweet and rich paste
and one after another,
felt myself expand into the universe even more.
only when my mother awoke,
to sprinkling flowers,
and lifted sky,
she told me that the chocolate held the medicine too.

i made my way across swaying, long grass,
and sat in the sun, sipping tea with a sliced lemon,
making art with twists and curls of my pencils and pens,
listening to the experiences of last night,
the enlightenment,
the sense of overwhelming love,
that was not quite drowning.

i basked in everything,
let the heat soak into my flesh,
the lilting laugh.
somebody handed me a guitar,
and i sang with my chocolate tinted lips,
and let my voice float within and around the mountain,
filling the tepee and the empty fire pit
once more,
with the sweet and bitter tastes of
the medicine
*peyote.

In all seriousness, looking woebegone in a plight to chase hyacinth in a pile of snow,
regardless of synecdoche of your embarrassment;

In a four-wall Angry **** soul of doom,

We are laying on a pile of Cacti,
Fibonacci sequences of nature adding thorns
To miniature quilts and houses,

You dig and get more cacti,
And you bury yourself beside it.

The origin of spiritual sustenance is defined differently by each person. Most attribute it to a divine power or some God incarnate that helps us, limited corporeal beings that we are, relate to a deity or to the infinite. Like billions of other sentient souls, this is a way of "seeing" or believing that I have embraced on some level. However, when I ask myself what sustains me beyond this, I am taken down another path.

That path leads me to the crumbling adobe dwellings or sometimes to the freshly painted stucco buildings scattered across the great southwest. That path leads me to something more tangible or palpable than I can glean from traditional halls of worship. I am led instead to a simple yet profound vision--the sight of a hot plate of Mexican food.

Here is where a slight or perhaps dramatic shift in the way one thinks about the spirit is required. This is not necessarily a new concept but merely my take on it. You have all heard of "Soul Food" as it applies to the cuisine of the African American community or more generically in recent years, "comfort food". Also, some of you may recall me saying at one time or another, truly good junk food bypasses all vital organs and goes straight to the spirit. Let me clarify that last line--it is not that I believe the physical laws of the universe are suspended when one eats certain kinds of food—calories will still be consumed, the food digested and metabolized, etc. Instead, I believe, like so many things spiritual, eating Mexican Food transcends the natural laws of the universe as we know them.

This begs the question, why Mexican food as opposed to some other fare like Chinese or good old fried catfish, a southern favorite? The answer is simple. Some people, because of where they were, who they were, and when they were, are Christians, some are Hindus, some are Muslims and some are witches. I am a worshipper of Mexican food.

My sustenance, therefore, comes not from those in polished marble and stone palaces, clad in clerical garb and carrying holy texts. Instead, it comes from humble servants scurrying about hot kitchens doing what they do perhaps simply to feed their families—from my point of view, a noble endeavor in and of itself.

From the time I see a Mexican eatery through a bug-splattered windshield, I notice its energy or aura. When I open the door and see the gaudy but somehow authentic colors on sombrero covered walls, and hear playful Mariachi, and smell the frying tortillas, I know I have entered one of the houses of the holy. Truly, the colors, the sounds, the sights and the smell all take me to a higher place.

This sounds strange to most readers I am sure, but if I were speaking of a nature walk in dew covered grass among the scent of lofty pines, listening to the sound of songbirds, all could relate to its transcendent quality. We somehow place pristine nature above nature sculpted in a way for human benefit. I do this myself, except when it comes to Mexican food or perhaps a beautifully restored VW van, but that is another story.

To return to my original premise, the spiritual value of Mexican food—when the hot oblong platter is placed in front of me, I first notice its colorful array on the plate. Imagine a platter with red and blue corn chips, gray/brown frijoles covered with white cheese, orange rice, chili verde (green), a golden cheese covered enchilada, olive green guacamole, red ripe tomatoes with rich green cilantro and snow white onions, and last of all deep green jalapenos, forming a colorful tapestry and visual feast. (Contrast this with a hunk of brown steak, pale green peas, and a white glob of mashed potatoes.)

The scent of this feast immediately attacks my olfactory bulb and like so many smells, has the power to evoke startlingly clear memories. For me, I am taken to a place where the door opens to a moonless starry sky. I am in the desert, perhaps for the first time. I am in the desert, being courted by the dark desert lady who still haunts my soul in the night. I go back there so many nights, when all is quiet and my long day’s journey into night is finished. This vast, dark and inhospitable land that has called holy men to it through the ages calls me, a man as common as the cook whose labors unwittingly took me there. I huddle among the cacti, creatures who ask the earth for so little. I feel the endless winds that carry the remnants of a thousand ancient souls across the black Sonoran sky and rattle the door from where I came, as if still asking for entrance to a place where they can no longer dwell. Long ago, they returned to the desert for a final time, and now, a thousand nights and a thousand miles away, they mix with the holy night air as only desert dust can, and for a moment tempt the living, but then return to the black night. I do not yet join them—the door still opens to me. I can still see the colors, hear the sounds and place earthly but heavenly morsels in my mouth, and ask for more salsa.

Outside, in the dark desert, the night waits for me, but I have a few more bites to take, and a few more words to write, and to borrow a line from another, a few more miles to go before I sleep—thus, the spiritual value of Mexican food.

Aztec in arts
Spanish in conquest
The Mexican breathes
And lives
Taking control
Controlling the taken,
Our blood hot
Like the chile we eat
Don't expect any less
Outside we are strong
Desert cacti
Sharp unforgiving and rough
On the outside
But the inside
Water flows
The love flows
For la raza
Death envies our vidas
So rich and full
Fearless
And feared
Tattoos cover our skin
Like they did
Our ancestors
Soon we will rise
Soon we will unite