I choose to live life on my knees

I choose to live life on my knees

By Carlos Rodriguez 
From the "Poetry and Prayers to unite America" Collection. 
De la coleccion "Poemas y Oraciones para unir America".

I choose to live life on my knees, 

Kneeling as a sign

of reverence 

to the sacredness of it All, 

the sacredness of your story and mine, of your wounds and mine, of your joys and mine 

I choose to live life on my knees, 

Kneeling as a sign of reverence 

to the sacredness of it All, 

Kneelin, Opening, 

The heart as wide as the soul will stretch because from the bottom grace can be received not from the top

because from the bottom tears can wash over us all

But tears do not fall upward...there is such a thing as gravity 

"Blessed are those that cry..." He said 

I choose to live life on my knees, 

Kneeling as a sign of obedience 

to the deep secret of sacred within 

Knighted by the longing deep within All that we will work towards a world where we stop throwing miracles away 

I choose to live life on my knees, 

healing your broken feet- the only way I know 

with calloused hands 

Kissing the wounds of your journey, whatever "camino" you have walked 

Standing in awe of the God that encouraged you through so many massacred streets 

Psalm 23:4 

I choose to live life on my knees, 

Not because I cannot stand 

but because I cannot stand alone 

without holding on to your hands 

In this the great circle we are meant to stand together 

and yet so many are pushed down on their knees 

So I have decided that I will live life on my knees 

grasping for hands at either side of the circles of those pushed down on their knees 

Standing slowly. Overwhelmed. As we lift each other up. 

Until no one is left down on their knees. 

Poetry and Prayer to unite America.

My Friends (Compañeros y Compañeras,),

I hope you all are well. In part due to a writing related class that I will be taking during my last semester of graduate school here at NYU and in part because sharing my writing with you all does me well I will regularly be sharing a collection of poems titled Poetry and Prayer to unite America that I have recently re-discovered from my time in Chile and before that. I will also be mixing in new stuff that I write here in New York City.

(Espero que se encuentren bien. En parte por una clase de escritura que tomare en mi ultimo semestre de la maestria aqui en NYU y en parte porque compartir mi escritura con ustedes me hace bien estare periodicamente compartiendo una colecion de poemas nombrada Poesia y Oracion para unir a America con ustedes que he redescubrido de mi tiempo en Chile y antes de eso. Tambien mezclare cosas nuevas que escriba aqui en la gran manzana)  

I truly hope that this collection poems can resonate with some of you and help you process wherever you are in your life. We are all in this together after all. 

(Verdaderamente espero que esta colecion les llegue por lo menos un poco a algunos y que les ayude a procesar donde esten en su caminar. Al final estamos en este mundo juntos.) 

I also hope that the fact that these will be in both spanish and english can be a symbol of continental unity. Whatever higher being you relate to, and as Pope Francis so powerfully shared in his last video address (http://bit.ly/1TGJdMN) love and faith after all do make us one people. Finally, I hope that the billingualness of my work can add even a little grain of hope to the divisive public discourse going on in our country. Though walls might have their place, there is nothing like a good bridge to get you to the other side. 

(Tambien espero que estos poemas en ingles y español sean un simbolo de unidad continental. Sin importar con cual ser del mas alla se relacionen, y como el Papa Francisco dijo tan poderosamente en su ultimo video (http://bit.ly/1VJQr3R) el amor y la esperanza nos hacen un solo pueblo. Finalmente espero que al ser bilingues estos poemas puedan poner su granito de arena de esperanza en el discurso publico de Estados Unidos y todo el continente que se siente tan fragmentando. Aunque las murallas tengan su lugar, no hay nada como un buen puente para cruzar al otro lado.) 

With lots of love and yes even hope, 

(Con Mucho Amor y si tambien con mucha esperanza,) 

Carlos Rodriguez 

Prison Walls and Trembling Voices.

Here is a poem to honor the poetry of the past, present, and future that has inspired my trembling voice to find yours and allows our voices to dance together creating something beautiful. To Our Song, My Song, One Song:

Prison Walls

By Carlos Rodriguez

Spirituality as a process of integration

“You took a half swing at this, take a full swing”

You the great organizer

And the little one too

The ultimate creador

The power-poder

in skies

in trees

in tiny tears

in little country towns seemingly defying some capitalist logic

“Que locura hay en lo pequeño

que existe desafiando a lo infinito”

I said to my sharecropping grandfather on some ranch somewhere in Mexico in a time I wish I could taste when the city seems to eat me.

You the one that sings in prison

Songs that break down their prison walls

May your ancient wisdom seep into the very depths of my biologically powerful cells.

Rippling from my trem-bling voices  into other trem--- bling voices

A song

That one with the most hurting

Hurting

Paining

Killing

Kills the comedy

Like the insides of a flame

Of those that can act pretending that they can live

while ignoring the pain of others.

Cities (Written during my time in Chile)

On this morning

I sense that the city
did not sleep

The money machines
marched through the night

even as the twinkle of small stars
dissipates

ching ching ching

they come after me
with the dreams of their motherboards

They want to claim me for them

And yet they do not know
that I also had a dream

A most powerful of dreams

dreaming

I woke
to my
heartbeat
and my heartbeat

Dances to my dream

Dreams of life

where skin and soul

are

One

and cities instead of diminishing life

amplify it.

Migrants and Pilgrims.

Sometimes there are no words
And yet we find them

The vicar of Christ
Hablando español desde el capitolio en Washington.

The bishop of Rome
crowding New York streets that have seen never-ending dreams begin

Los rosarios de mi abuelita
"Ave Maria, Dios te Salve Maria...."

Prayers prayed tears of troubled hope
for my 16 year old father when he left his home

Another migrant, another story, another never-ending dream

Finally reaching New York
The unforeseen arrivals and goodbyes

The anonymous shadows of yesterday and today and tomorrow
holding the city hostage

City gasping for breath to contain the emotions of encounter

The tired and the poor and those
yearning to breathe free
One and the same stubborn ray of hope-

We are all scaling walls in the night
backpacks wet with tears

Wetbacks wet
in the ancestral waters of tribal hope

Tribes of poor peoples aching for a just Jerusalem

We all step foot off paper planes onto new lands
Migrants and Pilgrims
Pilgrims and Migrants

Ours is a spiritual promise- ready to engulf the world in all sorts of fires of different types of loves

Sometimes there are no words
but there are Fires

cold enough To refresh the World in the aching heat of all that has ever ached for justice
and all that has ever dreamed the fullness of love's full night

You know what I am talking about:
That loving look on the subway when your eyes dance with mine
The tired steps on nights when Mother simply wants to get home
The journey filled hope of the children that live in us all

Come to me my lovers---Popes, and Poor Peoples, Peasants, and Presidents
from every world, from every continent
Together our fires will refresh the earth
And wake it from systematic slumbers
Slowly finally embracing wordless utterly beautiful and wise ways.

"A Kind of Patriotism" by Russell Lum and "I Pledge" by Carlos Rodriguez

This site will, from time to time, be an original outlet for poetry by Carlos Martín Rodríguez and Russell Lum.  Some of these poems will take as their starting point (or as some sort of prompt or inspiration) a work by the visual artist Malaquias Montoya.  Whether utilizing Montoya or not, these words hope to respond to the reality of—and contribute to the making-sense-of—living in the urban desert.  This is the first pair in the series.

"A Kind of Patriotism" 

By Russell Lum 

There is
that one line in that one Atmosphere song. 
I love this fucking country.

Here’s what pleases me: New York, LA, Chicago. 
What’s more: open space, great plains, national parks.
 If that massive basin of red—Canyonlands—
is a national park, what is a park?
We have enough parking lots
and industrial parks
to belie and shame our fondness for wild parks.
A nation of parks.
(A nation of cars.)

There is
that title of that one book. 
Cadillac Desert.

I like Cadillacs and I love deserts.
Funny how “Cadillac Desert” can be an indictment.

I guess I’m a Californian?
Because I want to drive a Cadillac into the desert, vote to protect National Parks, and fly to Chicago or New York. 
How did I get so typical?
How did I get so patriotic?
(Don’t ask me my inclinations toward ball parks.)

Yes, I love this fucking country—
and my impetus in loving it is not purely environmentalist, nor environmentalistically purist.

So I’ve got an old worry and a new one.
The old: logging, drilling, species loss, parts per million.
The other: I’m accruing too many things in common with the people who not only love the country but love the nation.

Is that the winning distinction? 
between country and nation.

Hard on all of us (literally), it breaks us all up (literally)
that this country is subject to this nation.
Canyonlands deserves better than these United States.
The nobleness of Colorado’s mountains belies and shames that of the State of Colorado.

I want to ask but I know the answer.
My fellow lovers of our cities, of flying, of driving, of parks of several kinds,
will you love the atmosphere? 

'I pledge'

By Carlos M Rodriguez

I pledge allegiance to the tears and to the sweat and to the blood

Of those that united their human limit

And human ache

And human passion

To the mercenaries of the spirit

I pledge my soul

My flesh

My histories and my futures

To the soldiers draped in their mothers wet kisses from the heartland of America 

Valiant enough to connect their mother’s love to the love of tears of the mothers

Of Mesopotamia

Who saw their children’s futures

Destroyed in the palaces and huts and strategic war rooms

Of the powerful

I pledge allegiance to the Republic of those that still believe in a Republic

Brazen enough to walk humbly and reject a check

‘I will not be sold’  

they whisper to themselves in the little light

that still remains

I pledge allegiance to the one nation

of the earliest alarms

precursors of a future

working the land

opening the shop

assembling in the factory

this is my nation

the nation under

God

And beside God

Inside God

God inside

'I pledge'

God dead with us on a war zone or subway ride

who cannot help but remain

and whose biggest most tenacious obsession 

is 

to continue to pledge allegiance to us all.



"To see the original print this poem draws its inspiration from by Malaquias Montoya please go to this link http://www.malaquiasmontoya.com/prints27.php"

An Ode to my Little Sisters and to a Growing Movement

          Those who know me a bit know that I am a proud political nerd. If I had a dollar for the amount of times that I check POLITICO, a news site focused on U.S politics, I would treat each of you to a flight to New York City and a really nice meal and a savory cocktail afterward.

            And as much as I can be cynical in regards to the state of our Democracy and the influence of crony capitalism the other day I ran into a photograph that reminded me of the humanity still struggling its way out of some of our politicians and the hope-potential still very much present in the resurrecting social movements which our country and our world is capable of. If you have some extra time in between your facebook or instagram cruising I encourage you to hear me out for a tiny bit.

            Like most U.S Americans I have had some good laughs due to Vice President Joe Biden. Don’t get me wrong I like the guy, I just can’t help but laugh a little when seeing him run around the White House with President Obama encouraging all of us to workout or the times when his tongue has slipped and he has said something he clearly was not supposed to say such as when he told President Obama that the healthcare bill was a big ‘fudging deal’. To have some laughs at his disposal check out this great top 10 Biden Political Gaffes by Time Magazine (Time Biden Gaffes). And yet the other day as cheesy as it might sound I was left a bit inspired by a picture I saw of him and his grand daughters.

            Both the picture and the caption left me surprisingly inspired. In the picture the Vice President was hugging both of his pre teen grand daughters as they looked out into some fireworks. Clearly the picture was political but it was also something deeply personal. In the picture Biden says something to the extent of how “"I will not rest until my granddaughters have every single right my son & my grandsons have." In the simplicity of his statement our Vice President reminded me of something that I hope to be reminded of every single day and that I myself acutely encountered during my time back from graduate school while in Los Angeles.

            I have been engaging in conversations and strategy sessions around how we will take our Democracy back, in conversations about how we can confront some of the racism at the root of our criminal justice system, of how we can create the momentum to sustain and build strong foundations for a new progressive movement for the 21^st century- a movement that addresses the widening gap between the top .01% and the rest of us, and that finally engages all of us from all social classes and all racial/ethnic backgrounds in having the tough dialogue and action around the racism/sexism and other otherings still present in and still harming our society and our souls. For the most well thought out, bi partisan talk on this listen to Harvard Law Professor Larry Lessig speak to the need for this movement here.

            If this movement is to sustain us and be sustained by us it has to be both deeply personal and deeply universal. It has to have names that trigger our heartstrings and flood out our eyes. It has to cradle us to sleep at night and keep us awake on those early mornings on the way to work.

            Cornel West, professor at Union Theological Seminary, says that ‘Justice is what love looks like in public’ and if we are to be sustained in life long work for justice in the public square we must open our hearts to those names that flashing through our thoughts remind us of our deep desire to love the world with others until the day when ‘our swords turn into plowshares and violence is no more’.

            On Christmas Day I remembered that two of those names for me out of many where Victoria and Stephanie. My two little sisters, Victoria and Stephanie-11 and 10, where skipping around my mom’s apartment building with the joy of children imbued with the fullness of those special days that remind us of our need to love each other in simple and full ways. ‘Look at our cow jammies’ they said, with the beautiful subtle smiles of children who have yet to feel the weight of the brokenness of our world.

            My sisters had both received cow pajamas for Christmas and these two little cows completely filled my heart in an afternoon full of Disney and Home Alone and exploring worlds of new toys. As I made freshly squeezed orange juice Stephanie, the 10 year old, made sandwiches and I must say that no New York Deli and no Los Angeles hipster gastro pub can make a sandwich that tasty.

            As we played the afternoon away I could not help but re center my desire to work with all of you in the struggle for a more just world. Like Joe Biden with his granddaughters I want to ensure that my little sisters grow up in a country and in a world that offers them and all other children rich opportunities to engage the word of God aching to come out of their life-masterpieces and bless us all. And I am willing to offer my life to work with you all in confronting any systemic injustices in the public sphere that might limit their potential.

             Maybe part of the reason that our country is so polarized is precisely because the consequences are so personally felt even in the midst of the political. I hope that for the sake of our Stephanie’s and our Victoria’s and for the sake of those names that pull at your heart strings and make you smile as bright as the sun we can finally come together and think through ways and changes and a movement worthy of the deep love that we have for those whose smiles overshadow any of our cloudy days.

            Our country’s history and our world’s history has progressed forward in social movements composed of those beloved communities rash enough to hold on to this deeply personal, deeply universal hope and it is up to all of us to continue to sustain this spirit. I am excited to continue to engage with each of you in conversations around how this bridge building and this movement growing can happen.

            I have never been more hopeful that the love deep at the center of our human experience and of our human relationships will prevail over any cold economic/political theories that might pretend that profit growing can happen in a vacuum unwed from the relationship growing and love sustaining that makes us all human.

            And to those in the Oligarchy that resist and might call us childish and idealists we will hold up a mirror to remind them of the humanity that has been sucked out of them for there is nothing more idealistic then their notions that the system as it is, is working for all of us. And together we will sustain ourselves in new anthems and recycle ones of old proclaiming over and over the Rhyme and Reason in the way of John Denver, famous U.S American folk singer “ For the children and the flowers are my sisters and my brothers, and the song that I am singing is a prayer for non-believers. Come and stand beside us. We can find a better way”