sun rises / sun sets / moon makes bad judgments / rise fall run rise fall run

    cap it capulet & keep yr chin up lady

                                    hear them wolves circling la casa

               ¿how in hell cd one sleep w/ that?

                                                         salacity for our ancestors . . .  find yrselves religion

IT WUZ PART OF IT BEFORE

& NOW THERE’S   LITTLE MORE

& SO THERE IS MORE THAN BEFORE

darkness / death swerving dodging ghosts

& on the radio

tla tla tla tla xihualhu-hu-hu-huian an an an

tla tla tla tla macaz que que que que

tona tona tonatiuh iquizayan-ayan-ayan-ayan

tona tona tonatiuh icalaquiyan-quiyan-quiyan

ghosts of headless bodies w/ inscribed w/ threats

from Knights Templar protecting everyone

that good godly cartel

well Chaley & his primo felt no shivers in their bones

only drunken pleasure & Makesickened time

soy eres somos este futuro vuelto pasado todo lo que hubo hay haBRA

soy eres somos este futuro vuelto pasado todo lo que hubo hay haBRA

soy eres somos este futuro vuelto pasado todo lo que hubo hay haBRA

 

circled into one another three times

found a culebra & trapped it in a plastic jug

day before w/ Amaryca observing

all & planted some trees maybe they lived

just to have children & write that book she sd

wd make C’s life complete

had to nod to that

screaming down MEX 85 wind & rain

thunder & volcanoes

y if langwedge’s our roadmap of cultura

geographizing where its people come from & 

where they go--

three pieces of prized chicken fat

& a poblano chili wrapped in red paper

“This means war” President Wilson sd softly to himself

& for this Ysrael saw

Huitzlipocho & Tezcatlipocho intend to leave

this forsaken Messican desert

& once again native gods left Makesicko .  . .

& Loss [sic] Yropeos enter to take their teuleships . . .

¿what’s the significance of that?

¿& where do they go?

well Xochimilco—a huevo—they run first

to drink deep in ancestral waters

soaking up death / & catching

libations spilled from toppling drinks

& stopping off there down south

when born some few generations

Al Norte

to set asunder Amurka

& newer forms of migratory disasters

& failures of time / place / & name[1]

but first to Xochimilco to replenish his gods & he grew

greatly fatigued / tuvieron sed they sd

so out they set in search of water

& found:

OPERATION: “YNDIAN SHIELD” / by chingador chronoquistador

leaving field

 

wide open for

 

sufficient

 

 

& well satisfied

 

monstrous appetites

 

 

for this mission in Xst

for Xst as my

 

 

 

 

bridge to gold & slave

 

 

women & land

 

 

& by my faith these

 

 

 

 

heathens will learn

 

 

of our truest trust in

 

our lord Chuy Xst

 

 

in all our suns & all

 

everafter &/or before



[1] When Chaley read this he sd aloud mumbled “¿btwn Emyly Dickinson & Juana Ramírez?”

dwelt  in his cave

    T  U  L  A[1]

in complete chastity—fasting

/ sacred yerba—tumbleweeds—devoting his life

to meditation / duplicated as himself w/ his bro Ulises

       broken alone before returning / away alone

  snapping tumbleweed branches

& enriching culture of his wdbe extended brown brethren

   w/ births of his thoughts

—¡viva meXicanismo!

& in his visions he saw that womanborn ancestor[2]--

   observed Chaley Pancho Chastitellez / dead /

100 years in that future 4 Rain

Chaley murdered by sunkissed Xochitl

Flores / his corpse on its back / knees doubled

to its chest / his heart separated from body

detached by sd Xochitl

& Ysrael saw heartless Chaley ghostly board

a raft of serpents & set sail to the east

—Manhatitlán--

puro deseparecido

AY / YA / YYA / YN / YE / AN

            Y         N         /          Y          N         /          Y        N

Ysrael saw dew of Chaley’s pipi

a-sprinkled / showered / scattered / ‘pon Xochitl’s tumtum

música pagada toca mal tono O lo la lo  . . . O . . . o . . . O . O

& Ysrael weeping

& Ysrael sorrowing

sigh / his hermano / sigh . . .

sight of his brother Ulises & Dolores / Dolores qué dolores

waking w/ her

her breath

facebody upon

sudden sadness

saw her see her seeing

thinking seeing feeling

hearing sighing fatigue

remember . . .

& U’s face Chaley’s face

Ysrael’s prophecy of Chaley deeper sleep . . . 

& Chastitellez eating out his heart when acknowledging how he offended his own ghosts . . .

how wronging em / taking fright /

¡SHADES OF DON QUIXOTE!

¡ZÁS!

Ysrael snooked up head shake head shake

snao ueah & wind

his head / anguo ho / that boy thought

agringadooh

pitiyanquisquisquisquis     

no mamames

& ye see these /

100 years later

Chaley wd read Ysrael’s pocho prophecies

& timidly & absently pontificate to güera Llorona /

quote these

                        white walls / white folks’ walls

                                                                                                            el diablo es

                        ¿don’t you understand? unquote / she sez / all             rubio

                                    we’ve been around’s walls                               y en sus

     azules ojos



¡ZÁS!


                                      all our lives Chaley                                          dos estrellitas



¡ZÁS!


                                                                            encendió



¡ZÁS!


                                                                             el amor



¡ZÁS!


                                                                          con su corbata



¡ZÁS!


  ¡ZÁS!


                                                                            y sus calzones

                                                                           rojos

                                                                        el diablo me

                                                                        parace

                                                                        encantador

tattooed across her pale back the union jack

& Chaley read these same prophecies

as he lived them & wrote

them in his Pocho Codex of selfreckoned

“Santo” Ysrael & also his

mama Xóchitl of 400 children[3] mostly ‘xicanos

            —una nalgalita whose

            ass wd make anyone religious--

              in some accounts she was a prostitute--

but for Ysrael’s choice prophecies

he had no shame of documenting

his mother--

of fleshed mexicana:

absence of yr beat

pulses inside me

Carajo:

ye want to find

disease cut it from

inside & make this maldito

world right ye who

told me once numbers

of yr days—ye (Chaley)

cd be one to set

me RIGHT / (¿La Llorona?)

this pinche gentleman

solo

thinking of days

maybe this wd

be someone to

truly marvel

 

w/i one

who writes to make

his right write of

those reading like nothing

 

YE

alone

I brought ye

one drink of water bc

you

tired

needed some

fire in glass

w/ ice I breathe

into ¿ye

see smoke? I see

ye leave & that’s all

 

& so entonces my windows break /

leak /

 

bloody screams

new ghosts

prying again

/ as incense /

on altar             another day         cobalt smoke

here

sacrifice

her old hands rub

into C’s scalp

watching C sleep

such an adorable tortilla yes blue tortillas

—& Ysrael wrote all this over 100 years before C

—of C w/ Ysrael’s mother Xóchitl/Xochitl in loving rapture--

some space indeed /

& bequeathéd first his prophecies to his son-in-law

Pancho Chastitellez (i) who bequeathéd them to Pancho

Chastitellez (ii) who bequeathéd them to Chaley / Pancho

Chastitellez (ii) of course incorporated much of sd material

into his Pocho Codex: Piercing an Amurkan Poetic Historiography--

            blue tortillitas / which reminded Chaley of Nachos

& bloom of AZTLÁN sky’s light & not yellow light of New Yorb

& nachos w/ carne asada / yes / nachos / & X stood

& left Chaley alone / sometime later she returned carrying

a giant dish of Nachos Especiales / “these natch-os” sd X (¿Llorona?)

“will help you Chaley / ye will soon forget yr troubles

“for nachos make one romantic”

“I won’t sey no”

 

& out her building’s window they cd hear a dog speaking rough / rough / rough

 

“delicious”

 

“thanky”

 

“I will reverse that Mex’can curse: ‘may yr life NOT be filled w/ lawyers’”

 

“thanky kindly”

 

“¿think ye’re quite oppressed by the breadth of that knowledge eh?”

 

“as ye sey: ay cucúy”                                

 



[1] y ante tanto dolor tanta muerte / un conquistador conquista’o fuiste


[2] she where water meets skies / ce acatl / luminare coeli pulchra ut luna ut sol electa


[3] X’s lamentations / her fortune / hints of her aversions to all vices / & justified diversions a las Musas

Chaley sd AYE DIOS MIO / shit girl /

didn’t know you wuz Yndia Yndian & she

darknightsky hair / pointed & dignified--

daresay aristocratic nose—invited

him to dinner w/ her folks / all ate

fat chiles relleno’d w/ beef & golden Amurkan queso

& drank dark dark modelos & when her maMA asked

C what his folks worked to make

bread / janitors Chaley immediately thought

to himself best not say that:

pop mines / moms drives her

pinche bus he sd & at that instant

¡ C U M B I A ! y ¡holy shattered sequence!

¡great jumping chronotopes!

directly as La Yndia

grabbed Chaley by hand

pushing him to electric dancefloor

redpinkbluepurple lights spinning

shake yr hips my mariposa

mercy he thought tuya tuya TUYA

& EPA[1] aye mamita

chinga que   S      E      E

& like Ysrael & Ulises Solís-Freholerehy on one side

& LOS PANCHOS on that other

C cd only think tapping into all snapped mapped moments

of tranquilitated ‘flections such as this one “I know / huh . . . I can do ese”

sd to himself there’s not much to this

if I can’t do this

I lose all faith in myself as a man or future man

& yes he sd his folks didn’t clean offices

nope / no dignity in that for these Yndia Yndians

got papeles after all / not like

granddad Pancho or los Solís     

 so move made

& sitting afterward in their booth her parents back

question still hung in air / that bus / maybe

too pinche forward / well yes / pues yeah

cabrón & excusing himself

to hmphs from La Yndia’s folks

presumptive of his workingpoor

roots Chaley at the bar alone

w/ La Yndia (& thinking to La Llorona)

La Yndia rubbed

his thigh under leg of his wranglers she scratched

his skin w/ her nails she smiled & stared

into his eyes/ then down to her hand on his wranglers 

& back thru to his lips she’s beautiful & from her pocket

w/ one hand some sand & w/ her other hand rubbed

it on his ankle that’s for you she sd that’s all

for you you take it all all that sand

& you keep it it’s all here / all for you

I don’t care abt money /

that sounds romantic he didn’t know how

to respond ¿wd he say something sexy or flattering

or nice? / looked at her hand up his leg

“¿when they start a-mandatin pre-meddy

“future ped’tricians be poets?”  laughed

& she pulls her hand away

poetry & fire . . .

wide shot Yndia’s obsidian dark eyes / shimmers of lights

behind her outline / left dead center

wide shot of Chaley’s brow & brown eyes / looking down

away somewhere

& Chaley sipped his important ice-cold import draft

& yes yes he seemed to hear her think & sense

realized sitting near you think you wd see yrself in  . . . not

more than that that . . . saw bc yr body

simply body & how wd . . . not feel warmlight

near / constantly brushing limbs touching unison

intellectually no one touches / sorry / still

not unless you can provide new insight into

Paradise Lost somehow glossed then & yes then forever

well success / pues / & later in her parents’ home

when he started twisting her nipples

like grapes in a vise she found that onanistic

then phantasies (where she saw her father beating herself shamed

her into wanting him) / she cdn’t wait /

his breath stank of hops & instantly recalled

her gloomy memory

—her first--

in the New Makesicken woods / she was fifteen--

“don’t want to hear abt this” sd C

“first listen” Yndia sd

—& she continued bc if he was her lover

he wd know her--

. . . well . . .

 

she has

second thoughts / slaps her / she

kicks / he pulls / wrenches off her dress

& rips her down she twitches &

twists & squirms & bites & fights

but she’s small & that just makes

his slaps quicken anyway so she

just gives & cries & plays “garage”

he gurgled too . . . faster . . . & she left herself motionless

& he finished & pain sharp sudden pains

hard jerky kicked harder & more violent

& . . . stop . . . release . . . he fell

asleep on her / breath of

beer / snores hops on her face /

took her fifteen minutes

to roll out from under his body / sweat

lubing her freedom blood

running down her legs / btwn asscheeks

dripped down/ dirt

on her back & in her hair / sharp pains

she’s split from him & she rushed

from him & ran w/o her slippers

she ran

home thinking of how to tell her father

his brother did that . . .

“chingao / chingao / chingao”

. . . yeah / I know / & pieces of Jesus slipped

off her small mouth & covered

tan napkin draping

her chin & never /& for C ever /

had those eyes blacker

than night been more

radiant than that night but

maybe it was the wine

or maybe the Henry James

narration

making him go mad or

maybe hopelessness itself

romantically wiping that smear

under her left ear / pushing

up earring hanging silver square / wishing

to be there where neither

was wasn’t & wasn’t was either



[1] it’s hard to

find the sounds that sound the same /

sounds that give name

from the Codex Mojaodicus

7 HISTORY: legit copy, MS 57462f-4 Amatl paper screenfold fragment painted both sides [first draft] / Late August

shortly before the twelve

franciscans arrived in México

to covert those yndios to X

            Xian men o wisdom & Xian

men had discourse--

[1524]

Xianization not same

            operation as Hispanization

12 explain to nobles & Tlatoani their rules

            of god’s agents

            & his empire

y aquí senoresnuestras

& here our lords

[glyph]

            these teules who offer

      goods

the tail the

wing offer

          incense feathered serpents

           

[glyph / glyph]

WORLD KNOWERS

  blood letting

          night divided

divine water fire

               

                      precious breath world           they sd

robes from clouds the fog

from inside immense water--

struck off their heads & reattached them to their nalgas

Chaley’s spirit double / his nahual / sd

          & it responded “. . .”

[glyph]

smash his face w/ rabbit-jar

[glyph]

           

  bring book painting celestial

        western magic

“los que estan mirando”

            leyendo

  los que cuentan

todas las naciones / por barbaras / y de baxo metal

que ayan sido

 

                                               

 [glyph]

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. . . to develop within members of our race the best purest most perfect type of true & loyal citizen of these glorious Yoonaited Estaytes de Amurka acquisition of eenGLISH language official language of our hemisphere being necessary for joyous exercises of dignities & humanrights our imaginations & privileges . . . we pledge ourselves to learn & speak & teach our children this language of our ancestors . . .

 

YEAH: that knack for brown lack

of languages skills / of labor skills / of education

of cultural deprivation / economic deprivation

brown lack of economic opportunity / of educational opportunity /

brown flood a’colorin Colorado

Messican lack of recognition of its own citizens civil & human rights

WELL then beaner follow this recipe / spelled brownly for ye

BROWN acquisition of ENGLISH LANGUAGE

BROWN increase in educational attainment

BROWN bilingual education

BROWN compensatory education

BROWN elected officials

BROWN capitalists

BROWN political party (L.A. Brown RAZtlána Unida / La Bra)

BROWN landowners digging trenches into their own tierra amarilla

BROWN cultural pluralism

BROWN racial integration

BROWN judicial decisions

BROWN civil rights legislation

BROWN trade unionism

BROWN selfdeterminism / insert yr imagined autonomous Xicano state here fatso

BROWN voting rights legislation

Chaley: brown enough

but as descendants of fureños chingados

& not quite at that chingón level of those chingones

ivy leaguin their Xicanoismos

& as mexile’s wander wearies him / not wound gold

maybe his halted heart / but nay not earth’s honors--

remembers retainers & receiving treasures /

how when younger w/ his will

he followed & feasted . . . but all favors die

& he who must long leave his beloved will’s

wisdom discerns that sadness & sleep

simultaneously strains that secluded wretch--

in his mind he looks upon a likeness: as if he his will

again he clasps & kisses / as if on his knee he lays

hand & head—as when he beforehand

on thrones benefited / those Mexi-days bygone

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

words words we wear words words words worn worthy words

wormy words well worth worse / mmm / we wear words wrong words wear ways w/ words willing w/ words

  dicen que: always already

  or: fix’t fate versus freewill

[attributed to La Malinche’s efforts at reading the coded letters of Tío Pancho Chastitellez in order to discover his maddening artworks]

1          her voice rockdrills his soul

listen: grinds him into cornearth

down to brown bloody cornflour

enough poison to make his

head spin—chains him / pins

him down—makes him

pregnant & hungry

for meat . . .

& even if she . . .

                                    he dies

& if she breaks skin

                                    he dies

& if she gets in & does her stuff

                                    he dies

& if she touches him

                                    he dies

& as long as she stays out of his blood ¿what does he care?

she’s a fire he sets off . . .

a burning shadow . . .

but hotter than fire--

& I can’t stand in the way--

Xochitl yes—& she cuts--

she cuts / she cuts

cuts—rips—flays--

from his nose

                        from his temples

                        wears his skins

                        stringed on her ankles

                        & wrists

she slices

                        she cuts     /    she cuts

w/ that root of her tongue tongue

                        & thusly gone she tears him open

she cuts . . .  S O  L O N G  C H A L E Y

           

& he cries—drones--

booms—cries--

                        & she cuts deep--

breathes deep

& slices hard

                        & he staggers

                        & he yelps

& he staggers back stricken--

& she offers flores flores canta flores--

flowers strung together . . .

                        I cover him w/ flowers

                                    she sez

                        I destroy him w/ flowers

                                    I DESTROY him w/ deez flowers

                        I injure him w/ flowers

                        I incite him w/ flowers

                        I caress him w/ flowers

                        I seduce him w/ flowers

                        I induce him w/ words

                        & I murder himnz w/ my flowery wordswords

                        SNAP:

& his gaze lands

there

Pochtlán they sey

which as he sees & considers

effects no tears to rush

into his eyes--this time—no--

                        no hot sobs cut his throat--

& er / NO . . . no constructed tears

of smeared centuries gone

dripping down his

face & no not sorrowfully falling to stone

& certainly not piercing his heart--

                        & as he wipes nothing from his face no shadows

linger where his hands rest or ever rested

 

2

            & he wakes / ¿into another dream?

& who else but David Foster Wallace

appears to him

 

look up: banners reading “make it new / make it used / & fucking die you fucking die”

DFW sez you forget fast friend

when you saw me at Strand

& yr jealously led ye to say nothing

I’ve read yr story abt me[1] & frankly I don’t much like it:

it ain’t that all bad now

& Chastitellez sez slyly at this moment: “See Da—whoa / sorry

“I almost called ye Dad / I meant Dave / Dave

“see Dave I’m not un hombre

“to whom such orders cd or shd be given

“sir listen: besides it ain’t my wish to anyways

“& bueno fer yr fey wey: ni modo pues cabrón

“bc compared w/ you I can sey yr gringo pendejo

“make it brown / some wine ¡ho!”

& w/ that he unshyly dispatched Amurka’s greatest post WW2 author thoroughly w/ his fair & strong swordplay (again como

Xochitl’s cantos floridos)

wildly gritando SANTIAGO all the while

walkin back directly again to

Al Norte to AZtlán but first a small detour thru nopaled Cananea

& stories Chaley wd come to hear

of his grandfather Pancho Sr vagabonding for work

& readily searching for workboots & books

pues his own li’l piece

in a golden northern land of milk & money

see he knew Pancho Sr had got these here handbills /

up in Sinaloa / say’n that mines in AZtlán

were digging deep for hot copper güey

         



[1] Conversations with DFW by Chaley Chastitellez, B.A. 

1 December 1984 

I walked back from the New Yorb Café and confessed to D, whom I ran into near the mimosas outside the Modern Language, that I had successfully gained the waitress/actress X’s affection after engaging her in multiple sinuous discourses ranging from the capricious temperament in the critical works of a certain Russian chef, to the heroic striking unions, and dirty, dirty Mexico during her smoke break. “Think she’ll let you pork her?” D asked, one eyebrow raised, the other seemingly still in its scabbard.

“. . .”

He re-adhered his slipping signet to the scroll rolled tighter than an enchilada & this he held in the breeze. He continued in his aqueous voice: “Yes, but you see, love is the necessary thrombosis.”[1] Plaudits from an unknown source ensued. “You need not bowdlerize for me,” D said.

I blushed as he heard this all this

18 September 1990
    
After fabricating the cover wrap for the biography with a paper grocery sack at D’s unfurnished flat, I opened the text to page 173 and read to him the quoted passage from the author’s ex-wife that most exhilarated me: The aim of literature is the creation of strange object covered with fur which breaks your heart. D’s robot servant Ginger helped him off with his belt buckle, then rucksack, finally knotted his purple bandanna, and emptied the ashtray. He asked to touch the cover, rubbed his index finger along the fibrous wrinkles I left crinkled. A fascinating mediocre meta-quote from a proven alcoholic D said nodding, nodding.

“. . .” I said.

“True, but think more in terms of calipers.”

Of course, calipers I thought.

He turned toward Ginger. “And you, a Cosgrove-Cog pox upon ye and your dynamo-empty heart!  Just kidding. Babes, your sweet repoussé face makes my teeth sweat.” Ginger blushed.

“Consider this, Chastitellez: the aim of literature is the suction of the thick tick meant to tickle your tibia.”

“. . .”

“You’re right. He had the benefit of surreal sculpture before him, alas.”       

“. . .” I said.

 “I agree,” said D, “it is beautifully absurd that a robot named Ginger should blush.”

23 July 23 1991 

 “. . .”

“Yes, in fact, my LBJ story does not reprehend him, but, rather, is written in an unexpected, unforeseen pathos.  It’s quite strawdenarlly touching, in my opinion moving.”

“. . .”

“That’s right, I said strawdenarlly.” 

11 August 1995 
  
Q.  . . .

A.  A brief interview with a hideous man? Well, you’re no piece of lemon pie either, my friend. 

Q.  . . . Tuxson . . .

A.  No, my fiction did not do there. It did not do, it did not do. I remember thinking to myself, I shall grow old, wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled before these cats dig what I did, dig?

Q. . . . the sky a bluish gray . . .

A.   But you wrote about piss in jars; I was sketching the Incandenzas and parodying Barth.

Q. . . .

A.   Who’s destroying the way “we” tell stories? We? Look, I gotta meet a man about a horse, let me get back to you on this, cool?

Valentine’s Day 1999                 

I dropped by D’s place to bid him happiness for the holiday. Unfortunately I had had neither the time nor resources necessary to construct for him the intended shotgun shell wreath I had promised since Christmas. Nor the diorama representation of the AA scene from his upcoming Infinite Jest.

“Mmmmyello?” D answered over the intercom.

“. . .”

“Truly: a cybernetic organism, a hybrid of synthetic and organic machines: a creature of social reality as well as fiction. About 10% of U.S. citizens (I included) are cyborg robots. Artificial skin, boss. Come on up.” 

Inside his newly furnished flat, D introduced me to his recent acquisition of various swords: épées, daggers, cutlasses, rapiers, machetes, stilettos, pen knives, switchblades, scalpels, flyssas, kaskaras, takoubas, falchions, khopeshes, cinquedeas, sabers, döppelhanders, katanas, scimitars, tulwars, pulwars, nodachis, spadones, flamberges, kampilans—all laying there nice and gorgeously aestheticized on his newly purchased glass top table

D eats the pink of his Neapolitan ice cream first. Ginger hands me a Coors and tells me

“Cheers.  Klaatu barada nikto.”

“Kick back for a minute, I’m just putting the final touches on my manuscript. Let me finish then we’ll make like trees, then we’ll wage war with the discriminating public after first making an appearance at Che’s.  What are your feelings on pavement not the band?”