– after Jay-Z
They call me Karlitos Slightly-Off-the-Marx.
El ‘Pocho Villa.’ America’s Next
Top Modelo Drinker. The Mexican-
Cuban Mistletoe Crisis.
MF Cumbia. Barrio Baroque.
He who made an ICE agent sweat.
Fuck an infographic — where’s the paper?
Operation: Get Paper to hand out paper,
‘cause all my people needed was their papers.
I body a poem. Prayer it. Wafer it. Wash it down
with a gallon of holy water fresh out a coconut
in sombrero, vaquero denim, and boots.
Say “que bueno es lo bueno,” spurs on my cuero.
My cowboy hat smiles, and so do I.
My people are magic. A camera can’t capture it.
This ain’t a movie, dog — it’s an album.
Self-produced. Lo-fidelity Castro.
Historian of Zapata with no taste in zapatos
even after mom and I spent whole days in Payless aisles.
I make the freshest playlists, though. Have since diapers,
switching mariachi cassettes in the deck,
mic in hand. Vibe in veins.
Hov ain’t Guevara. A book of poems, neither —
if you fuck with this, pay your local organizers.
Love those who dream no cops, to replace them
with reparations; nothing clever about it
except getting clever. Learnt that
from migrations of ancestors who allowed it,
who are sponsoring this public service
announcement.
