Matt Sedillo (United States)

Por: Matt Sedillo

Pilgrim

See, some were born to summer homes
And palatial groves
Where pain was only to ever unfold
From the pages of Secret Gardens
Where the Red Fern Grows
But not I
See, I come from the stock
Of starry-eyed astronauts
Who greet the night sky
With big dreams and wide eyes
Always Running
Down the Devil’s Highway
Through Occupied America
On the way back to
The House on Mango Street
And all those other books
You didn’t want us to read
Raised on handball
Off the back wall
Of a panaderia
Born
East the river
Post Mendez vs Westminster
One generation removed
From the redlines
And diplomas signed
That those dreams
In that skin
Need not apply
See, I come from struggle
And if my story offends you
That is only ‘cause you made the mistake of seeking your
reflection
In my self-portrait
See, this
Well this may not be about you
Because while some were born
To the common core
Whose reflected faces
Graced the pages
Of doctrines to discover
And ages to be explored
Where old world hardships
Crashed against new shores
New England
New Hampshire
New Jersey
New York
For others pushed off
Turtle island
Aztlan
Do not call this brown skin immigrant
Child of the sun
Son of the conquest
Mexicano blood
Running through the veins
Of the eastside of Los Angeles
Do not tell him
In what native tongue
His song would best be sung
Do not tell me
Who I am
‘Cause I was raised just like you
Miseducated in some of those
Very same schools
Off lessons and legends
Of honest injuns and Christian pilgrims
And a nation of immigrants
All united in freedom
That is until they pulled aside
My white friend
Pointed directly at me
And said “Scott
I judge you by the company you keep
And you spend your time with this”
And that’s the same old story since 1846
The adventures of Uncle Sam
The stick-up man
Hey wetback
Show me your papers
Now give me your labor
The Melting Pot
Was never meant for the hands
That clean it
The American dream
Has always come at the expense
Of those who tucked it in
And you don’t know that
‘Cause you don’t teach it
Could write you a book
But you won’t read it
So you know what
This is about you
And 1492
And the treaty of Guadalupe
California missions
And Arizona schools
And these racists
That try to erase us
As we raise their kids
In cities that bear our names
But you’re going to learn
Something today
‘Cause from Ferdinand
To minuteman
From Arpaio
To Alamo
From Popol Vuh
To Yo Soy Joaquin
To the Indian that still lives in me
From Mexico 68
To the missing 43
They tried to bury us
They didn’t know we were seeds
From Cananea mine
To Delano strike
From the Plan De Ayala
Emiliano Zapata
Joaquin Murrieta
Las Adelitas
Brown Berets
And Zapatistas
From Richard Nixon
To the Third Napoleon
From Peckinpah
To Houston
From Lone Star Republic
To Christopher Columbus
All the way down
To Donald fucking Trump
We didn’t cross the borders
The borders crossed us
Who you calling immigrant
Pilgrim?

I, Chicano

A Chicano poet 
Sits at a desk 
Attempts to pen 
An anthem 
A classic 
A grand sweeping epic 
Of economics 
Demographics
The fear of a Brown nation 
On a bronze continent 
The motive engine 
At the beating heart 
Of the Mexican Question 
The Chicano condition 
Now somehow lost 
In land of confusion 
American neurosis 
And Hispanic
Serving Institution 
A Chicano poet 
Sits at a desk 
And attempts 
To dive into ink 
Into parchment
An open letter 
An honest ledger 
Of wins and losses
Martyrs 
And marches
The Mothers 
Of East Los Angeles 
Crusades for Justice 
Justice for Janitors 
The Justice 8 
Los Siete
De la Raza
The Boulder  6
The Vasquez Rocks
The Silver Dollar 
A Chicano poet 
Sits at a desk 
And attempts 
I, ranchero  
Vaquero
Bandito 
Goro Blanco
Bracero 
Pachuco 
Brown Beret 
Inmate 
Cholo 
Vato loco 
Pocho 
No sabo kid 
Son and heir 
To all I have seen 
But been taught to forget 
The crimes they commit
Then omit from the text
How they changed the law 
When they stole the land 
How they taught our kids
They held no claim 
Took up too much space
Had to change their names 
That they had come a long way
To nowhere 
I saw a Chicano poet 
Sit at a desk 
And attempt to pen 
A hope 
A dream 
A prayer
May I spend my days 
And nights 
Scouring the archives 
Of a lost tribe
That stitched together
Every thread of history 
And culture they could find 
And called it home 
May I carry the movement in my heart 
Where my heart on my sleeve
And enshrine our heroes
In these poems 
I, Corona
Acuna 
Tenayuca 
Ceasar 
Dolores
Gomez-Quinones 
The plan de Santa Barbara 
San Diego 
Catalina 
La Tierra Amarilla 
I, Tijerna 
Alurista  
LRU
UDB 
CSO
ATM 
A rifle 
And a press
A pen 
And a sword 
Yes I, Flores-Daniel Gang 
Y Flores Magon 
Yes I 
500 years
Then I 
500 more
I, Betita
Cortina 
Jovita 
Modesta 
Morena 
Barrera
Cabrera 
Ayala 
Carrasco-Cardona 
I, Munoz 
Muniz 
Ruiz 
La Raza
La Cronica
Regeneracion 
Yes, I lucha 
I sique 
I Cintli-Rodriguez
I return
To the corn 
I, Corky 
I, Joaquin 
And I look the same 
And I feel the same 
And I have survived centuries
Of genocide 
And war 
Racist politicians 
Right wing militias 
Pseudo intellectual academics 
Calling our good name into question 
I, Movimiento 
Estudiantl 
Chicano 
De Aztlan 
And I shall endure

Tinemiz Was Here 

First up
Shadowbox
 To break the dawn 
Step jab
 Step back 
Feint right 
Check left 
Hold the phone 
Get low 
Now dig to the body
 Dig to the body
 Dig to the body 
Moves in silence 
Jogs in place 
In a house of four 
Fast asleep 
And slow to wake
In broken sweat 
Palms his head
 Freshly cut 
Freshly done 
Fresh from 
The demands of each new day 
Reaching for the next 
Reaches for the machete 
Reaches for the hatchet 
Just for the backyard 
Just for the cactus 
Man of the house 
Ever since the accident
 In a small town 
Where everybody knew 
That boy had hands 
Throws breakfast on the counter 
And cans and a blackbook on his back 
And the sky has not yet fallen 
And the mountains 
The color of deep ocean 
And the wind carries 
All the dreams
 Of this place 
That the light of day has broken
And its red dirt roads are his 
And its gray cracked forks are his 
And the side streets, the back alleys
And all that there is here of heaven 
Belongs to him
 And if he could
 He would take all that burns in this book 
Pages of Nahuatl 
Sketches of Calo
 Older than his years 
Bigger than his time
 And bomb the sky 
Of this town
 This house 
This life 
That grows 
Smaller by the day 
Returns home 
To the smell of fresh nopales 
And a hot plate 
To his name around a table set 
To the averted eyes 
Of his pregnant girlfriend 
To his sister 
Wheeling in on cracked linoleum 
To his mother’s lament 
About a government check 
That doesn’t quite stretch 
The way that it used to 
To her clasped hands 
Of undying gratitude 
To the good lord above 
For having sent the extra income 
Of a good son 
Who turned out to be a good man 
Just like his father before him 
And the sun has risen
Morning has broken
 Pack it in kid 
The day has now begun 
And it’s round two
Round two hundred miles 
To Los Angeles 
Where his uncle 
Currently lives 
Same man 
Who taught the kid 
To slip a jab 
To rack a can
 That rivals don’t rest 
That nothing was handed 
That any mark left 
Would have to be taken 
Same man 
Who once taken away 
Entrusted a name 
Because he could not stop 
Or outbox
 The demons within
And sometimes
 Yes sometimes 
When the kid closes his eyes
He can see him
In the distance 
His uncle
Tio 
Tocayo
Out in an ocean of mountain 
Shadowboxing the night 
And in that 
Mystic act 
They are one in the same
 And in his fists 
Live 
Myth 
Legend 
Tradition 
The ancient 
The sacred
 And if he could
 He would take all that burns in him 
And carve
 Our legacy 
Our lineage to the stars 
So no one who came after us 
Could ever mark us out 
Or deny we were here
Throws an extra bag 
A change of plans in the back 
Could be a one way trip tells no one 
Eyes peeled
 Hands on the wheel 
In the driver’s seat 
Thinking long and deep 
He recognizes the writers 
On the trains 
And he begins to dream 
And when he dreams
 He is praying 
And when he prays 
He is dreaming
 Running and screaming 
And the red dirt road Is sinking 
Dear father 
Who art dead and buried 
Does anyone 
Anywhere 
Ever survive anything 
Or are we all just passengers 
To the end 
Prisoners of guilt 
Circumstance 
And regret 
Old man 
How easy it must have been
 To have died young
 Before you could fuck it all up 
Let them down 
Walk on out 
See how far your hands could carry you
And by the time
 They reach Los Angeles 
Twin Towers 
Correctional Facility 
Where his uncle 
Currently hangs his head 
No explanation is expected or given
 The prison is on lockdown 
Guests are to be turned away 
They will leave
 He will stay 
Spend the rest of the day
 Out in front of that towering dungeon 
Hoping against the odds 
His uncle will catch a glimpse of him 
Shadowboxing the dusk
Step jab
Step back 
Feint right
Check left 
Bob and weave
Cut the ring
Now dig to the body 
Dig to the body 
Dig to the body 
Now dig to the body 
Now dig to the body
Dig to the body
Dig to the body
Now dig to the body
Dig to the body
Dig to the body  
That night he will seek out a trainyard 
Fall to his knees 
Close his eyes
And begin to dream 
Of his mother 
His sister 
His lady 
The child she is carrying 
Of the story 
He will one day become 
Should he choose to run
And he will see
For the first time 
He has spent 
His whole life 
Chasing fathers 
Figures and shadows 
That were never
There to begin with 
At least not 
The way we cast them
But none of that matters now
See we are myth 
We are legend 
And it is now up to him 
To reach into this bag 
And do right 
With what he has been 
Entrusted 
That night he will sleep 
In the park 
Next day 
Board a bus 
Return to the family 
He so deeply loves 
And these trains will leave their station
 Some ocean to ocean
 Carrying the name 
He was given 
Tinemiz
Meaning you will travel 
You will live 
And the starlit skies are his 
And the open planes 
The cityscapes 
The uptowns
The downtowns 
The small towns 
That live in canyons 
The backs of yards 
And the hillside villages 
The east sides
The south sides 
The west sides
The  north sides 
The roaring metropolises
 And all there is of heaven 
Belongs to him 
And anyone anywhere 
Across this land 
Where trains cross tracks 
Could see
 That boy had style 
That boy had hands

Matt Sedillo was born on December 18, 1981, in El Sereno, Los Angeles, California. His poetry was compared to that of Amiri Baraka's by the Hampton Institute, He has spoken at the San Francisco International Poetry and the Texas Book Festival. He was featured on C-SPAN at the 2016 Left Forum and has had numerous international speaking engagements including Casa de las Americas in Havana, Cuba. At Re/Arte Centro Literario in Boyle Heights, Los Angeles, California, Sedillo facilitates a writers workshop every Wednesday. He is currently the literary director at the dA Center for the Arts in Pomona, California.