TLACAELEL
            Two hundred years have we known only strife,
            Kept innocent of peace, to fortify
            Huitzilopochtli, our grand god of conquest,
            Who hoists aloft our death-denying sun
            And handsomely escorts him through the east.
            Such toil demands the selfless sustenance
            Of that most precious sacrifice, our hearts;
            Small, hot, red gems- we grant them gratefully.
            Our god need not stand waiting for affronts
            Or hissing disrespect to rattle arms.
            No, rather let us seek convenient markets
            Where our Blue Prince of war, when whimsy strikes,
            Might carve downed captives to refresh his plate
            And tie his bib with dead men’s winding-sheets,
            As if he strolled through cheap tortilla stalls,
            And clutched our legions for his currency.
            To this emporium shall we caravan,
            Procuring crocks of blood and priceless hearts
            By bartering to swap our solvent lives.
            Oh, let it be Tlaxcala, gentlemen!
            For if we pitch this depot to the north,
            The taxing hike to those unconquered tribes
            Should prove an inconvenience to our troops.
            Besides, the tough and stringy flesh of those
            Bare-bottomed grunts, rock-knocking savages,
            Must strike our god as stale as sandal-leather.
            Then let Tlaxcalans be his board of fare:
            Moist cutlets, fresh and steaming from the range,
            Shall furnish forth his sanguinary feasts.
            We must not waste these others totally,
            But make a handy pantry of this foe,
            For war- alone undying- must endure.

CUITLAHUAC
            Bravo. I’ll side with you to storehouse them,
            So that we hamstring their free trafficking,
            And thus declaw our sole belligerent.

TLACAELEL
            I’m pleased your verdicts are adaptable.

HUNGRY PRINCE
            Either to weaken or to waste this threat,
            You’ll have my armies at your hand.

TLACAELEL                                                   That's nice.

MOTECUHZOMA
            Now, Hungry Prince, let’s brace for weighty words. . .

MOTECUHZOMA
            My torch that does not smoke, your will be done.
            We’ll, with a clean-slate log, draft dignity.
            Yet what events may come to canonize?
            The wider our domain has stretched her range,
            The weaker our elastic hold becomes,
            As one half of our empire is employed
            With forceps to extract the other half.
            Our reign superimposes all the earth
            From the volcanic groves of Mayaland
            Up to the shifting wastelands of the North.
            But there is one last nest of brigandry,
            A murky pocket glowering in the east:
            That vile Tlaxcala, left to roam at large,
            And, as a single bed flea spoils my sleep,
            So does this fractious county drain my humor.
            Brother- What pesticide must flush these flies?

CUITLAHUAC
            We have the force to raze those traitors down,
            And what we might attempt, our might must crown.
            Our fertile empire rounds their toxic realm
            As healthy flesh imprisons cancerous rot;
            If eagles nursed a stranger’s egg to find
            Their warm embrace has thawed a rattling asp.
            We once did stalk Tlaxcalans for our sport,
            And prize their trophied hides like ten-point bucks.
            But these stray pups have hardened to coyotes,
            On crouching haunches, like a nightmare, hunched
            Upon a flowerlike land that should support
            A million civilized and happy men.
            Their population’s health should be no more
            Than called for by an enterprising nation
            For water-drawers and hewers of our wood.
            Let’s pinch this pest we coddle at our breast,
            And clip these hatchlings’ wings while in the nest.

MOTECUHZOMA
            So should we compromise our Mexico,
            By thus unpopulating her of men.
            What says our loving minister of war?
            Speak, Tlacaelel, and pronounce their doom.

HUNGRY PRINCE
            It is the year One-Reed, and on this date
            Lord Quetzalcoatl, from this earthly throne,
            Long, long ago departed for the East,
            And on One-Reed it’s known he will return.

PRIEST OF TLALOC
            One-Reed: It is a fatal year for kings.
            Our scriptures teach that when a murderous streak
            Finds black Tezcatlipoca, lord of chaos,
            On year One-Crocodile, he hunts our elders,
            One-Jaguar or One-Deer, he claims our children.
            But if he strikes on ominous One-Reed,
            Death swoops for princes.

MOTECUHZOMA                             On that jolly note,
            I open business for this syndicate,
            Myself presiding. All may find their seats.
            Now Tlacaelel, venerable friend,
            What progress on the state’s scholastic front?
            When last we met, the annals of our past
            Were deemed due for aesthetic overhaul.

TLACAELEL
            Lords, as you know, our eldest histories
            Have painted base and barbarous accounts
            Of our bewildered, wandering origins
            As meek and muddy natives, which- though true-
            Do not keep pace with our notorious present.
            Those earth-born tracts have all been commandeered
            And each one cast to char in heaping bonfires.
            Ah, what a purifying blaze that was!
            The inks of black and reds were rarefied
            To sheets of flame and wells of fluid coals.
            Now is our culture cleansed of heresies!
            So far from mourning that scholastic loss,
            The rabble whooped, and, singing rowdy reels,
            Made merry at that bedtime barbecue.
            And now, to re-devise those lowly annals,
            I move that we enlist our liveliest dreamers
            To craft extravagant and stately archives
            And claim the pedigree that we deserve.
            For what are histories but wrangling theses,
            Or dogma, but the darlings of a moment?
            So on this same authentic evidence,
            Let’s breed imaginary ancestors-
            Or ***** their deeds out- with a flourished pen.

Fisherman's intro, from "The Floral War."

FISHERMAN
            Well well, what have we here? Some field of view:                      
            The turquoise circle of the dazzling sea
            Blazes her setting of bright-banded sands,
            Where on this first, chill morning of the year,
            Our sun arises to peruse his course,
            And I, to tease my living from the deeps.
            Come, gilded fishes, hither to my net,
            You shimmering schools of perch, soft octopi,
            White-shingled shad, and jade-scaled terrapins,
            Plump, krill-fed dwellers of the pickling brine,
            Come now to me. To pray you have no fear
            Would shuffle with the truth, as I intend
            To angle for your lives, yet spoil me,
            For I who come to act unneighbourly
            Am poor, and strapped, and only bother you
            Compelled by leaky-seamed necessity.
            I have my wife’s own hatchery at home,
            And you, my friends, must make their maintenance.
            So, rush my meshes and forgive my faults.
            Whoa there! What vision’s this? Green goddess, say,
            What monstrous marvels wander on your face?
            This cannot be! I am awake, and sane,
            Yet seem to see a wading range of hills,
            A chain of dizzy-peaked and scraggy steeps
            Whose groundworks bob like buoys in the surf.
            Yet now this restless reef flows closer still,
            Resolving as spray-freighted citadels,
            Wave-buttressed towers romping on the breakers,
            Their canvas banners snapping at the breeze,
            Whose men wing down from ropes to pace the decks,
            And screen their eyes as if to locate me.
            I’ll hustle to my chieftains with this news,
            And let their cry of ominous novelty
            Alert each ear from here to Mexico.
            My life thus far was bright and fancy-free.
            Oh, why must change then come to quiet me?                        Exit.

MOTECUHZOMA
            Ah, Tlacaelel, ghost limb of my father,
            Who was a lord when I but governed dolls,
            The foremost man once more at our grave council.

TLACAELEL
            Those at life’s twilight like to rise at dawn.
            Good day, Motecuhzoma, emperor
            Of all the notable of known-of realms.

                                                        ­   Enter CUITLAHUAC

MOTECUHZOMA
            And here’s Cuitlahuac in his finest weeds,
            With darkened circles under bloodshot eyes.
            Well, little brother, you’re a paradox-
            My junior for a senior senator!

CUITLAHUAC
            Those two short years that separated us
            Must have profoundly aged and seasoned you,
            You point them out so often. But go on.
            Motecuhzoma, happy new year, sir.

TLACAELEL
            Good boy, Cuitlahuac. Stick it to the bully!

CUITLAHUAC
            Lord Tlacaelel, you’ve out-fathered Father,
            And middle age must curtsy to your years.

                     Enter a Priest of Tlaloc. Others trickle in, as many as may be.

MOTECUHZOMA
            High priest of Tlaloc, come. How fares our god
            Of fruitful springs and thunderstorm today?

PRIEST OF TLALOC
            He banquets with your captive warriors’ souls,
            And incense fumes his rosy breakfast, sire.

TLACAELEL
            Your grace, you know the judgment we have reached
            Regarding Hungry prince?

PRIEST OF TLALOC                               I have been briefed.
            But here Texcoco’s king himself arrives.
                                    
                   ­                                         Enter HUNGRY PRINCE.

MOTECUHZOMA
            Well, Hungry Prince! Co-sovereign of Texcoco,
            Comrade-in-arms, my true facsimile,
            Who’s shared the ruling of our empire, welcome.

HUNGRY PRINCE
            Hail, grand triumvir and my counterpart,
            A bright new year, you lords of Mexico.
            Our best regards from my side of the lake!
            And yet, it is a Triple Alliance we lead.
            Where’s brave Tlacopan’s king, our third accomplice?

MOTECUHZOMA
            That languid chief seemed spent and in decline,
            And, sadly, has been ordered back to bed;
            Our trident’s but a single spear today.
            But welcome all, and may we welcome here
            The first day of a new, uncharted year.

PRIEST OF TLALOC
            A New Year’s Day, which- due to the complex
            And interlocking gears of calendars-
            Comes only every fifty-second year.

my breathing hurts; without you i see stars.
brown eyes dilate and my warm heart boasts,
hardly focused and you’ve too many bars.
pushed away but you know that i care most

i roll over in the sheets you just spread
but you can’t even look me in the eye
so you decided love is buríed
and the idea of us must soon die

my heart is sick of putting up a fight,
ever since you held me i have foil’d.
the hardest thing is feeling very quite
of you, and with every sigh, i’m toil’d.

just know you’ll always be my beloved
and i’ll remember you wanted me removed

a.d