TODO BUENO?

by Andrés Castro

from Macmillan

New York City continues to grow and grate on me.
     Being born at Coney Island Hospital the summer of ’58, 

     after my family arrived from Puerto Rico—Borikén 

to the Indigenous—should make me a Boricua, but no.

Mi familia on the island often says I am from Por Allá, 

     especially those claiming bloodlines to native villages—

     chiefs rabid in their gatekeeping—when calling 
the post-Columbian colonizing label, Taino, inauthentic. 

My genté, speaking from por alla/my over here—

     just call me Nuyorican. My ancestral archipelago remains

a natural wonder; but why erase my mainland city tribe. 
     My adolescence was blessed with a South Bronx block 

of modest homes owned by Black, brown, and white 

families that mixed—no matter the surrounding chaos 

of the sixties. My transplanted island roots took root 
above and below concrete. So what I was born too late 

to be an OG Nuyorican—say The Young Lords or outlaw

poets Pedro Pietri, Miguel Algarín, and Miguel Piñero, who

founded the Nuyorican Poets’ Café to welcome everyone. You
can’t grow up where I did and not be Nuyorican—this one, 

given my nature, still needs activism and revolutionary poetry.  

     The stakes are too high now: the world is being set ablaze 

with the U.S. the head arsonist—aren’t the U.S. bombs that made 

Gaza a wasteland and suddenly dropped on Iran enough proof? 

     I only wish my roots were not drying out so quickly. My mother

would say, “Cuídate, de los buenos quedan pocos,” if still alive.

I have gone from little boy to brittle—taking care and being good 

in 2025 is old as analog. The robotic other side is evil and reckless—

signing the Doomsday Clock will strike midnight in my lifetime—
whether I practice Yucayeque rituals in Borikén’s central mountains 

or rattle downtown on the Lexington Ave express. What I really

need to talk about is the genocide of Palestinians given the chance.  

Andrés Castro, a PEN member, is listed in Poets & Writers Directory and keeps a personal blog,
The Practicing Poet. Andrés is currently working on Militant Humanist, a project for poets, 
writers, artists, and others.

TWILIGHT ZONE CHILD’S PLAY

by Andrés Castro

Otherworldly, Rod Serling was
                                                 ahead
of his time,
     foreshadowing
an old fleshy Trump
                                with a skinny blonde boy
who tortured family and neighbors,
                                                        turning
     on a sadistic whim,
          anyone
                     into a grotesque
                                               creature,                       like a sprung jack-in-the-box
                                                                                    with a dunce-capped head,
before planting them
     in his homestead cornfield.
     No one dared to look at this boy
the wrong way.

This 60s episode,
     It’s a Good Life
in black and white,
                                                     flashes forward now
                                                                                      to 2025,
                                                                                           in bleeding colors,
                                                                                      where Trump rules
just like that boy,
     with unpredictable tantrums.

     Except,                                                                           our boy
                                                                                       would love to rule the world
if he could;
     Except,                                                                            now he has a cast of commercial
                                                                                        to mercenary flying monkeys circling
                                                                                        around him.

                                                                                                            His Hail Caesar!
                                                                                                                 Heil Hitler! moments
                                                                                                            have begun

on our way past cornfields                                                             to crucifixions
                                                                                                                 to revolutions.

Andrés Castro, a PEN member, is listed in Poets & Writers Directory. He keeps a personal blog, The Practicing Poet: Dialogue to Creativity, Poetry, and Liberation.

ALL ABOUT YOU ON DECEMBER 12, 2023

by Andrės Castro

A rare astronomical event will be perfectly positioned in the night sky on Monday (Dec. 11) for some parts of the world. On that evening, an asteroid will pass in front of the curious red star Betelgeuse, eclipsing it from our vantage point here on Earth and blocking it from view for up to 15 seconds in an event known as an occultation. The asteroid is known as 319 Leona, a main belt object that orbits the sun between Mars and Jupiter. Shaped roughly like an egg, 319 Leona measures some 50 by 34 miles (80 x 55 kilometers) in size. Such an event occurring to a well-known and bright star is an uncommon occurrence. Astronomers are calling the event "an extraordinary and unique opportunity" to study Betelgeuse's photosphere, the star's visible layer from which it emits most of its energy. The Virtual Telescope Project in Rome, Italy will host a free livestream (see below) of the event starting at 8 p.m. EDT on Monday, Dec. 11 (0100 GMT on Dec. 12). —Space.com

You are certainly inspiring Betelgeuse, so brazenly out there

in the night sky, especially for a poet like me, closer to leaving 
the earth than ever before. It must be amazing to be a supergiant
red star burning away in the night sky in your old age, before your 
shrinking, puffing up even larger. You may have been the red giant
in a poem I wrote about my estranged younger sister, who I see again
on your burning surface, standing like a queen, surrounded by flames, her 
arms outstretched, waiting to embrace me. I wrote it as a lamenting love poem,
one asking for forgiveness for not being a better big brother and falling short,
not knowing how to grow our love as we got older, not doing enough 
to protect her, seeing her lose all her potential to fly as she was
lured into a cage with empty promises, only to lose herself,
lose her potential to fly so sadly young. I have grown
to be a feminist raising my daughter; at least
I protected her, even with my mistakes. 
Enough about me and mine and not
mine: this poem is about you.
Thank you. Fuck that
asteroid, Leona,
coming round
to eclipse
you.

Andrés Castro, a PEN member, is listed in Poets & Writers Directory. He posts work on his personal blog, The Practicing Poet: Dialogue to Creativity, Poetry, and Liberation.

KINESIS

by Andrés Castro

For Julian Assange

Under a falling red sun, 

     in the stench of decomposing

leaves and muddy 

dark earth,

     He turns over a stone. See!

     Circling white centipede—

Dancing black spider—

     Tangle of worms

 scrambling.

 

Andrés Castro, a PEN member, is listed in the Directory of Poets and Writers. His work appears in the recently released anthology We are Antifa: Expressions Against Fascism, Racism and Police Violence in The United States and Beyond and he keeps a personal blog, The Practicing Poet: Dialogue to Creativity, Poetry, and Liberation. 

BYE, BYE, ST. PAT'S PARADE

by Andrés Castro

When organizers of the Staten Island St. Patrick’s Day Parade again decided to bar members of the borough’s LGBTQ pride center from participating, Madison L’Insalata decided to take a stand. L’Insalata, this year’s Miss Staten Island, came out as bisexual in the New York Post and the Staten Island Advance on Saturday. She told those newspapers that she planned to wear rainbow clothing while marching in Sunday’s [March 1, 2020] parade to show support for the LGBTQ community. —The Washington Post, March 3, 2020

Pressed on why the Island’s Pride Center was denied permission to march openly, a parade organizer with the fraternal order, Larry Cummings, said: “Here’s the deal, it’s a non-sexual identification parade and that’s that, no, they are not marching. Don’t try to keep asking a million friggin’ questions, OK?” Cummings continued when asked if the Ancient Order of Hibernians would ever allow the Pride Center to march in the future. “The fact of the matter is that’s what it is, OK? And that’s that.” —The Staten Island Advance, February 19, 2020

Silly Rabbit.
They are marching.
They are watching too.
On the street. At home.
In Iraq and Afghanistan.
Look! That one’s wearing
a blue uniform and a fucking badge!
Holy Shit! They’re everywhere!

Baby.
Hold on to your Lucky Charms.

Andrés Castro, a PEN member, is listed in Poets & Writers Directory and regularly posts work on his personal blog, The Practicing Poet. He lives in Queens, NY.

FACES OF MARIA

by Andrés Castro

“We found many children in Utuado living in these conditions. No roofs, water, power, and little food.” Tweeted by Antonio Paris‏ @AntonioParis 


Who in their right mind would name a hurricane Maria?

Only the diabolical would wrap death in Mother Maria.



As Boricuas die, our Commander and Chief Drone tweets,

plays golf, calls the begging Mayor of San Juan, no Maria. 



My grandfather, Don Manolo, an Independista until the end,

cut cane as a young man, hoping to marry sweet sixteen Maria.

Titi Carmen, the Santera in the family, would take her old
grandmother and introduce her to the spirit Orichas as Maria.

In Don Pablo’s basement church, sacred African-Cuban drums
conjured my favorite Changó by the statues of Virgin Maria.

Don’t substitute your prayers for baby food, water, electricity,
give your money to crooked Priests and Pastors, Ave Maria.

We know this is a man’s world, a white man’s world, a rich
white man’s world, I am a poor Nuyorican, loving Maria.

The trees, birds, little green coquis will come back in time,
fathers and mothers with faith will name their babies Maria.

Andrés Castro is a PEN member/volunteer and is also listed in the Directory of Poets and Writers. His work has appeared in the anthologies Off the Cuffs: Poetry by and About the Police and Close to Quitting Time, as well as in print and online journals including Left Curve, Counterpunch, The Potomac, Mobius: The Journal of Social Change, Long Shot, Acentos, Pilgrimage, Montreal Serai, and ImageOutWrite. He also regularly posts work on his blog The Practicing Poet: Dialogue to Creativity, Poetry, and Liberation.