Singing at the Gates

by Jimmy Santiago Baca

  and beneath my feet the granite shudders,

  and dry bits of cement mortar squeezed

  between the granite bricks begin to crumble under the jackhammer

  and I see our washbasins crack off the wall

  and dead bugs begin falling from windowsills

  clouds of dust sunset everywhere

  bits of rock fly everywhere

  ten feet away and they act like there ain’t nobody here

  scribbling out this poem in the dust

  collecting on this page

  and ten feet away they’re jack blubbering granite

  spitting dust in my ears and chips of rock graze my cheek,

  and I carry on rejoicing in my humanity, singing.

  *

  86

  my pulses like spent bullets burn in my breath gradually

  87

  so many faces in me lie dead

  and so many untruths crawl without arms and legs

  88

  I sit here now

  and watch the many faces of men

  scuttle up from their black dark dens

  I see so many come from hiding places

  and now that I have finished my spiritual battle

  and am strong enough, have survived my own weaknesses

  I sit here at the portals of a destroyed being

  and everything is calm, a tender lawlessness rules

  and now my first step is a step of a breathing man

  who has the grace of a wild beast

  and I sit here, watching the world, the prison

  and find I am richly blessed with

  so many things to find out, to touch and hear

  with so many men in rags and broken souls

  who crawl up with dusty shoes from gutters

  and carry blades in their pockets

  but they are flowers that have survived their thorns

  in dry baked ground

  and I see them and I am strong enough to hear them

  and I raise myself from contemplation and walk

  toward them, to learn their language of sorrows

  that hold songs like stars in their heart

  songs that tell of lives and feelings that have been stomped on and drowned

  songs are the magic that keeps men alive when nothing else will

  I begin to sing to them

  and my song is that they must sing

  as I step forward, onward

  through a throng of thorny men

  leading them, taking them with me.

  89

  I carried the vulgar and wrinkled truths

  I had found in the badlands of the cursed and exiled

  and fingered them like old coins

  and found they were worthless in this land

  that loved money and chained children with lies

  90

  I have silenced my poetry and tongue to hear the clear

  screams in the night of men slicing their throats

  of victims being beaten by men I know,

  of the clanging of prison gates and voices of tyranny

  while writing my poetry I have met dark eyes.

  91

  someday the muscles of the universe

  shall convulse into orgasm and beauty

  92

  And like a cat when streets become empty

  in the darkness I sprang silently

  through broken windows to sing what I learned

  *

  107

  woman, your letters are like those rocky streams one meets on a long journey

  and I open the envelope as I might brush aside a bough of heavy branches

  and come upon a clearing of flower and soft grass

  108

  how your voice runs clambering over the smell of my sweating male flesh

  *

  112

  I will tickle you and tell you secrets of strange lands that shine in me

  and you will caress my muscles as if they are wings

  and I will place feathers with leather strings in your hair

  and the lock of hair you have given me I will wear around my neck

  my pendant made with eagle claws

  and pieces of wood that click and clatter softly lifting against my breast as I run

  and run and run

  a singer with flights of birds

  113

  I am a little boy gone mad on the aromas of earth

  enchanted by women whose bodies are like deep bass drums

  that call me to sing and dance, my tongue the sun’s spear

  114

  I would have known me in my disguise

  115

  the first green sprouts of corn jutted upward

  in the dry dirt of my flesh

  116

  dreams flew into my fields

  of my heart like great green-plumed birds

  with dark eyes burning burning

  as they pecked at strewn kernels of corn

  and I climbed the temple steps

  to the open square below where creatures gathered

  and I reached the altar

  where I lit the four torches

  that threw light to the four directions

  I blew away the ashes on the stone,

  placed my heart there and when the sun touched it

  it struck up, bursting in high flames exulting in their renewal

  and with the holy fire I molded myself feathers

  like the prophets made themselves scrolls and wrote holy words

  so I made myself rich green and red and blue plumes

  and golden light sprayed in me

  and spreading my wings I flew and in my flight

  were the holy words, alive and each moment was a holy one

  like a temple with its fires

  and I was the fire of sky and flaming as the earth

  117

  if only I could open my palm and show the world the diamonds of my heart

  *

  130

  I will be leaving this place

  where mad hermits laugh from yellow teeth

  and crush black bugs between their fingers in the middle of the night

  where convicts scout the silence like wicked pirates

  their scarred faces, some have lost an eye or half a finger

  tattoos on their arms and legs and back and breast—

  spider webs, skulls and the Reaper, always the reaper

  and screams of the long dead still night

  still hang here like webs in the corner of the ceiling

  and pulses crawl like black spiders with a red diamond on the belly

  life times are spun from silk that burns easily in the moonlight

  where so many condemn themselves for the sin of being born

  131

  I would like to rest, by a stream

  take off my bandana and wet it, then dab my brown rough face

  and place it again sopping wet around my neck

  by a stream where one could hear the church bells beat deeply

  and where one can hear birds take off through the branches.

  For a long time I watch a line of red ants crawling up a tree.

  I lie naked and sleep so very long

  the farmland turns to city

  the quiet into car horns

  the stream into an asphalt road

  and whoever I might have been

  must know who I am, a man behind bar
s.

  *

  138

  Inside the letter was a lock of your hair,

  taped to the sixth page.

  I caressed it

  as though it were alive,

  I smelled it

  and ran my lips across it,

  then gently

  with my forefinger

  caressed the hazel strands

  and now I understand how

  an enchanted young man is led off into the woods

  by secret voices of tales.

  I understand how he might have encountered a woman’s hair.

  *

  141

  Your letters arrive, holy, bounding with claws into the heated earth

  tearing free of the valleys, they rise into the mountains,

  snarl from branches, sniff at the high ascents of rock and crawl the crevices

  and scrunch through crisp leaves newly fallen,

  through rivers newly gushing

  then shake their fur and tramp, tongue loose, in long strides they push through the night and bound over ravines

  they come here to me, the letters

  they arrive and place their paws upon my chest

  they curl next to me

  while I listen long into the night

  142

  small birds whistle to me as I go hunting

  143

  Sunday morning.

  Only one thing matters.

  I wait like a small rabbit hidden in a cluster of bushy leaves.

  I wait, there is nothing to do but wait

  in the transparency of the days and sip the nothingness slowly

  as I grow toward that day

  as I’m carried toward that day.

  In the blue depths of night I kick off the damp sweaty sheets

  and lie awake, waiting

  with taut readiness to spring for the day

  I wait for the day when I will leave.

  That day is a seed, yet to bloom.

  But tell me, someone.

  What is one to do waiting for a day

  that is likened to God? How does one meet it?

  144

  I wear the moon like yanked out roots glowing orange

  in my heart’s fangs as I search for secrets in my life

  145

  By the black gates of each night

  I sit, glancing at the lights of the city

  listening to night talkers

  and pick up the scrapings of their lives

  146

  the day comes

  and each morning I look off

  searching the ground

  for its coming, checking the walls and clouds

  and sense how the sun becomes hotter

  how the sidewalks crack hair-thin

  and grass tips forward in the breeze

  everything seems to crawl out of hiding

  in the death of who I was, I sing

  the highest notes I reach, singing as never before

  a bright blooded fervor

  incanting in my silence

  the burning wreckage as an offering of my past

  in this waiting that has become a temple

  *

  169

  I talk with old haggard veterans of prison

  and looking at their wrinkles and tired eyes

  and think how much I love you

  I talk with warriors here who live by the knife

  and as they speak of death and danger

  I think how much I love you

  I pass men lying on their bunks and say

  hey Reggie, hey Marvin, hey Clifford

  and think how much I love you

  Ole Willie sits quietly on this bunk next to mine

  and makes little cards for me to send you

  I share my cigarettes and coffee with him

  at forty years old he is still afraid to sleep

  and stays awake with me late until the night

  under my night lamp I write you letters

  and think of Willie and how loneliness keeps him up;

  we say nothing all night in our little worlds

  and I think how much I love you

  and feel your arms around my shoulders

  your hands rubbing my neck

  I close my eyes and your face appears

  and no matter where I walk

  nothing changes

  I think how much I love you.

  *

  183

  I pause to unbutton my shirt, looking into this paper

  as if readying for a long walk

  184

  Mondays in the joint take on a different tone than other days.

  Mondays the laundry lines seem longer

  and those in line more apt to play and fuck around

  Monday is the day when you look into your podner’s face

  eyes meeting, and for a second gazing searchingly those eyes

  and wondering what really they are saying,

  and you both seem to see a hint of softness break the surface like a rippling shadow then it sinks again

  185

  I’ve been looking at the sky as though I too were a sky

  186

  two guards standing with metal gadgets in their hands

  begin to search me

  going beep-beep at my metal belt buckle

  and at the silver of my cigarette pack, beep-beep

  lifting my legs one at a time

  he checks my soles

  and I slide through and at last come to my bunk

  lie down and think about you baby, my bitch, my puta, my clown-girl,

  my woman, my Mariposa, my friend

  and I think how I hand each of these women-selves in you

  prune them with my love or let them fly wild in heat for me,

  healing me with love.

  187

  Sitting here, a foot in front of my head is a fence

  then a slender corridor where the guards walk

  then another fence, then a space where men sleep

  then window with gray and rusty bars

  then a thick wall, then outside pebbles, treeless dirt,

  then a granite slab of thirty-foot wall

  and barbed wire, then behind the barbed wire, sunglassed guards

  pace like clocks, tic-toc, back and forth

  always ready to trigger the last minute of a life

  that rings with too much freedom.

  *

  194

  You’re with me Mariposa and I’m feeling like a million

  because we are together, we stand in line together

  and get shook down with the electronic wand searching for shanks

  we get shook down about five times a day, coming and going

  and you were with me when the guard runs his hand down my legs

  under my belt and you and me smile cuz he doesn’t even know

  you’re here and you sticking your tongue at him

  and make funny faces, you were with me today

  195

  Now my Mariposa, I am going to lie back in the night

  under my night lamp and read your moon talking poem,

  and fly to you, over fields I haven’t seen in five years

  and streets sprinkled with lamps of nodding light

  and turtle small cars in distances crawling long lonely night roads

  and I’ll listen to the wind

  and go sniffing here a
nd there and take large strides

  your way, through tingly night air

  passing over sleepy blue rivers

  slightly above hordes of night crowds and flashing neon signs

  and keep moving over mountains brushing my hands

  along their different leaves and tree lines

  over closed shopping centers and state houses

  and long deserted streets and small cafes and trucks on the highways

  over cows in pastures and fences and ranch houses

  pass through spring showers and over happy frogs splashing below

  over telephone wires and cables and gaunt steel structures

  and now smelling dust mingled with sea salt

  now heavier green smells and the moon closer now

  and now see deer below, a few stray dogs grappling for homes in alleys

  see there a stranger walking down a ditch

  and the black swamp water glimmering sparkles

  and pass over dark homes one window full of light

  and I keep flying, keep coming

  until I sense your breath along my neck

  and I reach out for your arms

  and without a second gone I enfold you

  belly, legs, hair

  as your hands begin rubbing warming me

  and I whisper Mariposa, aqui soy tu hombre, to Colibri

  196

  Oh, people, I am in prison but do not give me sympathy

  I sit here watching the dusk and dreaming of love.

  197

  It’s Saturday morning here, some of the men

  are up at the cage rapping with the guard,

  some writing letters home, some lying

  on their bunks, awake, thinking on small things

  that in prison loom large as ever, the rest

  sleep because there is nothing else to do.

  198

  I have picked the seeds out of my rotting life

  199

  the greatest wisdom is found in darkness

  DECEMBER NIGHTS

  The sky like black paper

  drying in desert heat after the rain,

  and this prison sitting like a run-down shack,

  on the outskirts of everything,

  where people stop only when they must.

  I reached up a long time ago, and tore

  that black paper away from the sky,

  and saw the clear stars like dimes scattered

  on my bunk after an armed robbery:

  I keep hitting the heavens when it’s dark

  with a 45 magnum dream, and someday I’ll hit it big,

  blast the moon wide open, and on the other side,

  just sitting there, will be freedom.