ROTATED

by Richard Garcia

AI-generated graphic by Shutterstock for The New Verse News.

You will be rotated. You will be rotated in ways you did not foresee. You will be walking casually away in one direction and then find yourself walking casually away in the opposite direction. Do not be alarmed this will only be a test. If this were the real rotation you would not be able to read this because your eyes would be rotated. Do not attempt to curry favor by accepting your rotation—your acceptance will be rotated. You will find yourself in a line of concentric circles that spiral along the border. You will be rotated toward checkpoints where tall, broad-shouldered men wearing military caps and mirrored aviator sunglasses, with belts cinched below their bellies and pistols strapped to their hips are waiting to inspect your papers. You will be rotated into newly constructed barriers where bullhorns will declare, Y'all git along now, you folks gonna be rotated and all your people gonna be rotated, your children gonna be rotated and that's how it's gonna be now and forever. 

Richard Garcia's poetry books include The Other Odyssey (Dream Horse Press, 2014), The Chair (BOA 2015), and Porridge (Press 53, 2016). He has received a Pushcart Prize and been in Best American Poetry.

GO BALLOONS

by Richard Garcia
                        from the Democratic Convention, 2004  

No confetti. No confetti yet. No confetti. All right. Go balloons. Go balloons. We need more Balloons. All balloons. All balloons. Keep going. Come on guys, let’s move it! Jesus, we need more balloons! I want all balloons to go, goddammit! More balloons! No confetti. No confetti. No confetti. I want more balloons. What’s happening to the balloons? Jesus! We need more balloons. We need all of them coming down! Balloons. Balloons. Balloons.  What’s happening! They’re not coming down. All balloons. What the hell! There’s nothing falling! What the fuck are you guys doing up there? We want more balloons coming down. Go balloons! Go balloons! Go balloons!

Author's note: This is a found poem gathered from versions of an unintentional international audio transmission at the Democratic Convention 2004.


Richard Garcia's poetry books include The Other Odyssey from Dream Horse Press, The Chair from BOA, and Porridge from Press 53. His poems have appeared in many journals and anthologies. He has won a Pushcart prize and has been in Best American Poetry. He lives in Charleston, S.C.

NAKED WOMAN CONFRONTS FEDERAL TROOPS

by Richard Garcia 

 I have been granted immunity from my dreams. Just let them try and testify against me. See how far they get on their own. My wife's tribe has begun their journey toward the promised trailer camp. Surely they shall be received and granted a plot of eminence. My wife has been sentenced to remain behind. We shall be protected by Sheela na gig, the naked goddess of history. Surely her maw of origin and its gnashing teeth will frighten away the storm troopers. Just a young woman really, sitting on the macadam with her arms and legs spread open in welcome, a garter snake wrapped around each wrist. But how the soldiers and their attached mob drop their banners in the clouds of teargas and run—they, who had cried out loud in the plaza, Long live death, Long live death! For creatures not accustomed to paradox, this was quite an achievement. Or would have been, if they knew what they were saying. No one knows who distributed the signs and banners. It was long ago. When these people could speak. When they could read, and listen and learn. When I began this testament I still thought it was tomorrow. But I know better now.

Richard Garcia's poetry books include The Other Odyssey from Dream Horse Press, The Chair from BOA, and Porridge from Press 53. His poems have appeared in many journals and anthologies. He has won a Pushcart prize and has been in Best American Poetry. He lives in Charleston, S.C.

ROOSTER

by Richard Garcia

Hand carved & hand painted rooster by Avelino Perez from Oaxaca, Mexico

Ricardo the rooster
only crows at dawn
or at 3 a.m. or noon.
So you never know.
Tonight he might crow
especially loud at the full moon.
Really loud.

             Ricardo
              the rooster  lives on the border.
so his papers, passports, birth certificate
                         like his crowing skills
are quite in order.
 For first he climbs
                         the fence of Colossal
& from thence
                         greets El Sol in Spanish,
Then he bows & greets
                         the sun in English:
 Coo-coo-rico!
                         Cock-a-doddle-do!
Coo-coo-rico!
                         Cock-a-doddle-do!
 Ola, Señor Sol,
                                    How are you?


Richard Garcia is the author of The Other Odyssey from Dream Horse Press, The Chair from BOA, and Porridge from Press 53. His poems have appeared in many journals and anthologies. He has won a Pushcart prize and has been in Best American Poetry. He lives in Charleston, S.C.

EN EL DIA DE LOS MUERTOS: A VISIT FROM MY AUNT

by Richard Garcia

The author's Titi Rosa well before her passing.

Titi Rosa came to visit me last night. It was about time. How long? Sixty-five years? Phosh, she said, That's just yesterday. She brought me a fruitcake, the kind everyone in our mean family would make fun of. She always reminded me of one of those maiden aunts in A Child's Christmas in Wales, that sat on the edge of their chairs with their teacups in hand, alert, just in case someone would speak to them. Our old house was quite nice now, with loft-like rooms, and big windows that looked out on the river that used to be buried under concrete. We stood at the window and admired the houses of the wealthy across the river. But these wealthy people were nice wealthy people. One house was like a palace make of sea foam, and seaweed, and palm fronds and driftwood that resembled formations of pelicans. Another had a pile of boxes on its roof seemingly random, but not if you studied it. They looked like cardboard but were really a sculpture of presents yet to be opened. They spilled over the front of their house as if they were falling, but they were not. And there was a skyscraper made of toothpicks by a blind man in prison for shooting his wife. It was justifiable homicide was what he had always claimed, she was a mean wife, and would not stay still when they played William Tell in the backyard. Now you are being silly, Titi Rosa said, and pinched my cheek, which I used to hate. But it felt so nice, to see Titi Rosa, and have her pinch my cheek. Now you eat the fruitcake Richie, she said, all of it, except for one slice. Wrap it up tight in cellophane, and put it in your icebox. It will last you forever, or for the rest of your life, which, according to her, is the same thing.


Richard Garcia is the author of The Other Odyssey from Dream Horse Press, The Chair from BOA, and Porridge from Press 53. His poems have appeared in many journals and anthologies. He has won a Pushcart prize and has been in Best American Poetry. He lives in Charleston, S.C.

THE COME-ALONG

by Richard Garcia

  

For you will be lifted up. For you will be thrown down.                                                                   Frank X. Gaspar, 'September Tropical'

The eye of the storm is turning towards us, the wheel of Biblical wind approaches, and my wife is watching a YouTube video, instructions on how to use the come-along, and she says, Come along with me, watch this, and don't place your forehead down on the table and roll your head back-and-forth, as if you were saying, What has she done now. And the tall man in the plaid shirt says, don't get your fingers caught in the gears of the come-along. And I get it: what if you have to drag the water-logged sofa across the floor of your living room and it's too heavy? You have the come-along. What if your generator, filled with gas and potentially explosive, is too heavy to lift over the flooded lawn and plug into the mysterious socket? You have the come-along. So this is how the Egyptians built the pyramids. They had Hebrew slaves and many come-alongs. This is how the Aztecs built those temples. They did not have wheels, they did not have gears, but they had tortillas and they were round, and the bite marks along a crusted edge of tortilla would suggest to them the gears of the come-along. The come-along—this is how we will ride out the storm, my love and I. This is how we will drag ourselves, drag our house, drag our dog Max—one chain attached to a tree, one chain attached to our house, both chains attached to the come-along—click by ratchety click, across the swirling, god-driven hurricane, to higher ground. 

Richard Garcia is the author of The Other Odyssey from Dream Horse Press, The Chair from BOA, and Porridge from Press 53. His poems have appeared in many journals and anthologies. He has won a Pushcart prize and has been in Best American Poetry. He lives in Charleston, S.C.

WRITTEN ON THE FOURTH OF JULY

by Richard Garcia

Image source: The Navage Patch

On this day I say Happy birthday Mom. She died a long time ago. But she was always dying. You'd say Good morning Mom, how are you? I'm dying. she would say. What's for dinner? You'd ask. I'm dying, she would answer. She died so much that when she did die we hardly noticed. Of course, she had a long life since she was born a long time ago. She was the cleaning lady at The Continental Congress in Philly in 1776. She did such a good job cleaning up, all the dirt and dust and ashes and spittoons and bathrooms, that the founding fathers gave all their slaves that were working the concessions and greeting the carriages and grooming the horses and cleaning up, their freedom. My mother was from Mexico and much cheaper than the slaves, and all they had to do was feed her pancakes, which she thought were Yankee tortillas. The founding fathers were so happy with my mother's work that they named Independence Day for her birthday, the Fourth of July. The slaves that had been freed that day were really spies for the English. They were happy too and went back to England and became butlers and grooms and were paid for their work, not a lot but the English had good pancakes and lodging and the workers had insurance and a retirement plan.

Richard Garcia is the author of The Other Odyssey from Dream Horse Press, The Chair from BOA, and Porridge from Press 53. His poems appear in many journals, including The Georgia Review, Poetry and Ploughshares. 

LETTER TO DONALD DUCK FROM SPIDERMAN

by Richard Garcia

Hey Donald, where have you been?
I haven't seen any Donald
Duck Part II movies. And what happened
to that uncle of yours,
Scrooge or something, used
to swim in his swimming pool full of
money? Some people say he just one day
disappeared, and now you have enough
money to sail your yachts across oceans
of money. I know, they're grown up now
and working for you, but I always
wondered about those nephews of yours,
Huey, Dewey, and Louie. How did they
just show up like that one day? And who's
their momma? Do they both have the
same Momma? Did you adopt them from
some Iron Curtain country? What
happened to Daisy? And I never could
understand about that dog of yours. I
mean, if Pluto is a dog, just who or what
is Goofy? He's got the feet of a clown,
body of some lanky oaf, face of a buck-
tooth bloodhound and talks like some
stupid alien. Is he human or some kind of
DNA experiment gone wrong? Donald,
I'm worried about you. You hiding out?
It's not enough to be a comic book hero
anymore. You have to be a franchise, a
package, several  blockbusters, T-shirts,
hoodies, action figures. You've got to
keep up, Donald. You know, I heard about
that flop of a Clark Kent. He doesn't even
know there's no newspapers any more.
He was seen running around skid row in
that same business suit. And guess what,
he was still looking for a phone booth.
Just a word to the wise Donald, get your
spidey sense going. Maybe get yourself
a mask, a costume or something.

Richard Garcia's recent books, The Other Odyssey from Dream Horse Press and The Chair from BOA, were both published in 2015. His recent book Porridge was published by Press 53 in 2016. His poems have appeared in many journals, including The Georgia Review, Spillway, Poetry and in anthologies such as The Pushcart Prize and Best American Poetry. He lives in Charleston, S.C.