Did You Hear?

Tear down the bollard fence, brick by brick,
Unravel the chain link fence, from the Pacific
Through the chest of Aztlán.
Arrest our mayors and our jailers.
Tell them their human rights will be spared.
These are the first things we'll do
Now that we are free.

Did you hear? Did you hear it on T.V.?

Tell Victor to put down his picket sign.
The Centro is ours again.
Tell Mario to erect the Eyes of Picasso
And to paint murals along the streets of
Our newly constructed Historic Gaslamp District,
We are free.
Tell Tato to stop running from our memories
Soon to be forgotten,
A blood-stain between cracked slabs of cement,
Officer Shepard will be tried.
Tell 3,000 migrants to rise from the dead,
Lying in deserts, suffocated, silent and decayed
Along the border walls; they are free, too.
Come see! Come see! Saddam is in prison
And they say we are free!

We Will Go

I believe that we fight for freedom
And that my brothers and sisters will go
Along with our mothers and fathers
Who will with their grandchildren
Go and fight for freedom,
Like my next door neighbor
Who speaks broken English
And was almost drafted back in '97
Then married his girl because
She got pregnant, on accident,
But was about to go anyway
Because there wasn't much to stay for
But the neighborhood and everything in it,
Other homeboys, police, the hustle,
A midnight job that wouldn't leave him
Any time to sleep, especially with a baby on the way
Because his girl got pregnant on accident,
And there's me, too, his neighbor
Who thinks that if a war breaks out,
We'll fight for freedom,
But that won't happen
Because when my neighbor's lawyer,
Who was appointed by the Army back then,
Told him that the recruiter made him sign
A false-mandatory application,
He wasn't too upset,
Because the recruiter also told him
That the idea of imminent war
Was implausible.

© 2004 Raymond R. Beltrán. From the Red CalacArts Publications chapbook ¿Under What Bandera? AntiWar Ofrendas from Minnesota y Califas.