Word Simple. Harold J. Recinos

      Word Simple

      Copyright © 2017 Harold J. Recinos. All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in critical publications or reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without prior written permission from the publisher. Write: Permissions, Wipf and Stock Publishers, 199 W. 8th Ave., Suite 3, Eugene, OR 97401.

      Resource Publications

      An Imprint of Wipf and Stock Publishers

      199 W. 8th Ave., Suite 3

      Eugene, OR 97401

      www.wipfandstock.com

      paperback isbn: 978-1-5326-1947-2

      hardcover isbn: 978-1-4982-4575-3

      ebook isbn: 978-1-4982-4574-6

      Manufactured in the U.S.A. July 10, 2018

      Look

      look,

      at me from

      where you

      live,

      laborer, cook,

      dishwasher, housekeeper,

      nanny, cashier,

      janitor, trucker,

      farm hand, brick layer,

      carpenter, and retail clerk.

      tell me you know

      our Spanish tears,

      the noise

      they make,

      and the

      insolvency we

      hardly ever

      escape.

      look at me

      in the day’s

      tired hours,

      leaning against

      the wall

      on the corner,

      waiting to

      sit with

      you

      to talk

      of things.

      Shout

      I imagine there are a thousand

      ways to pour discouragement

      out, to see light rise from ashes,

      or find the other side of sadness

      come up from watering eyes. when

      I went up to ring the church bells,

      to scare the nighttime ghosts down

      the grieving streets, far from the

      two old men sobbing, beyond the

      aged cemetery now covered with

      lilies, and past the piteous hearts

      of children with hope turned to

      dust, I wondered about the best

      way to wrestle with this world

      that prohibits us? surely, there are

      a thousand ways to end these days

      keeping us thirsty, hungry, hardened,

      and afraid. if you come close take hold

      of our hands, the dreams we make, and

      have a look at the blood and bones that

      moves when called by name. at

      midnight, dash to the rooftop with

      us to shout, enough!

      Apologize

      what time are the politicians

      coming back to apologize for

      ignoring the transparent truth,

      the whimpering on the streets,

      the apartments full of corpses

      leaving behind a landslide of

      grief? when will they shiver

      in our imprisoned cold, kneel

      with the martyrs of the Bethlehem

      star, and sit on the stoops in the

      August heat? I worry they have

      not learned to say the right things,

      spend their time boiling our tears,

      and work in deep sleep. today, I

      plan to send these letters written by the

      dead that are full of sentences to make

      them simply see!

      Other Shores

      those voices you do not hear,

      faceless through all the years,

      beaten down by batons, political

      speech, angry cold stares, left

      with festering wounds on the

      filthy streets are newcomers here

      who pushed from your dreams

      mirror a overlooked history. the

      grieving maids in your homes, the

      gardeners who help your flowers

      grow, the brick layers putting up

      the fancy neighborhood mansions,

      the wounded who sob emptying

      the rubbish bins in the offices that

      make this country rich, the children

      who long for their deported parents

      from unimaginable depths are like

      you in the settling night searching

      simply for a place to call sweet, sweet

      home. in the ordinary days when you

      cannot find time to listen to the words

      shouting of another world, when you

      turn away from dark hands that offer to

      set you free, in the silences across

      this earth, the revelations of detested

      refugees, remember these lives and

      all their other tongues more than the

      management’s present inhumanity.

      Say

      the children

      cry justice

      beneath

      heaven’s

      dimming light,

      a thing in

      cruelty past

      so many did

      see. the older

      generation with

      near forgotten

      dreams reaches

      with the darkest

      hands