Month: December 2021

Yearend episode 2021

Here we are at the end of 2021. Another year of the pandemic. When this pandemic started, it was a time to reflect. Reflect, I did and now in the second year–I’d like it to end. I’ve been vaccinated and boosted and, to be honest, I don’t want any more vaccinations, but it’s not about me—it’s about those around me. I want the pandemic to end.

These last two years have been a challenging and trying time. I had a friend die this year of covid. I’ve had a scare with my elderly parents and I’m grateful they’re okay. I feel blessed that everyone and I are healthy. I was hoping the pandemic would have ended with herd immunity, but we never got to the 70% vaccinated to have that occur. I wish I had an answer to what is happening; I don’t think anyone knows.

My year in review.

I started a second podcast called Chica and the Man with podcaster and friend Alex Greenwood of the Mysterious Goings On podcast. It’s so much fun to just talk about anything that comes to mind. The subtitle of Chica and the Man is As Unscripted as it Gets. It’s different from the Poetic Resurrection podcast. Doing this podcast has been slow in editing as my computer crashed and it’s taken me about a month to retrieve my information. I was shocked but can’t complain the computer lasted seven years.

I’m on vacation now and I’m working on my fourth book—Inspire Me: In Time of Need, still. I have a new editor; Ruben Rodriguez and I’m looking forward to the release—early next year. Fingers crossed. I love writing poetry and the last two years have put a slight halt in writing. I guess the pandemic has affected me more than I thought. So many deaths, sending blessings to families for your healing. The dichotomy of this nation and others. This is a world healing time and even though we would like to get back to normal, what is normal anymore?

I’m an avid researcher. I feel exhilarated when I learn a new concept, belief, or skill, and yet I’m exhausted this year. I used to feel I knew what I wanted and now it’s all in question. Do I want to continue acting? I love being on the set, so if it comes up, I’ll be happy to do it. I had two photoshoots this year. One was headshots with Mark Atteberry, which I also use for my podcast, and the other was an artsy shoot with Ken Sawyer. I had a great time doing both. I booked a print job and have auditioned for many shows.

Poetry, another passion of mine since childhood, still exists but it’s changed what I want to write. I’ve gone from writing about acceptance and life to a surreal style. A style I find challenging to write since the reader needs to visualize and understand it.

The Poetic Resurrection Podcast has reached over fifty episodes and has over 1500 downloads and as Alex Greenwood informed me, that’s fantastic for a podcast without an advertising budget. I’m on season three of the podcast and I want to say thank you to all the guests for honoring me with your presence and knowledge.

I meditate every day and decided to become a teacher on the Insight Timer app I have talks and meditations.

The poem for this week is Love and Blessings, recorded in 2020 and is available to see and hear on YouTube. It’s from my upcoming book Inspire Me: In Time of Need.

When thoughts
Overwhelm your being
Send love

When worrying about the family
And wanting to care for them
Send love

When sleep evades
When thoughts repeat
Send love

When finances diminish
And needs remain unmet
Send love

When feeling defeated
When feeling alone
Send love

When feeling fear
That life isn’t fair
Send love

Sending love
Doesn’t cost anything
Sending love
Brings us to the present

Happy New Year–love and blessings.

Music by: Bensound.com
Song: Love

This week on Poetic Resurrection we have the Puerto Rican poet Luivette Resto. We discuss her poem Living on Islands Not Found on Maps. How growing up bi-culturally and using Spanglish or as I like to call it “fusion of words”.  We had a great time conversing about Puerto Rican culture. I love guests I can laugh with and laugh we did.

Luivette Resto was born in Aguas Buenas, Puerto Rico, but proudly raised in the Bronx. Her two books of poetry, Unfinished Portrait, and Ascension were published by Tía Chucha Press. Her third collection of poetry is from FlowerSong Press.

Living on Islands Not Found on Maps
I live on an island not found on maps. Growing up in the shadows of one of the most popular surnames: García. I speak Spanish to my abuela on Sundays but rely on Google to help my children with their homework because the accent rules never stuck. Stress or unstress? Penultimate syllable? Took the paradoxical college course: Spanish for Bilinguals where every Tuesday Prof. Cruz de Jesús would shake his head with indignation at my use of the familiar tú versus usted. No me conoce, he said. He was right. He didn’t know me and I didn’t know him or the proper word for bus or orange juice. What I did know is summers in Puerto Rico, eating quenepas as relatives asked, ¿No entiendes lo que dijo tu primo? And my abuela defending my tongue. This tongue. Colonized not once but twice. Leaving me isolated at family reunions.
Feeling inadequate for my inability to conjugate on command. Sounding out store front signs while riding the #42 bus on the way home from Kindergarten where I concentrated to understand Mrs. Farrell’s lessons about the seasons. But I finally found a home between Bronx bodega aisles, code switching with my homegirls about how many times Juana beepeó that boy we saw
standing in front of él building. This became the island where I belonged. Unfettered and absent of red pen corrections. Juana didn’t care if I used the tú or the usted or if my yo was about me or an emphatic reaction to her crazy story. This island didn’t care if I rolled my r’s or ever got the purpose of vosotros. An island where our bodies translated feelings: pursed lips, a raised brow, an aggressive eye or neck roll. We were bilingual neologists, inventing new lands we could carry in our Timbs and bubble coats. Here, language, like us, wasn’t disappointing or broken.

“Living on Islands Not Found on Maps”
first published on The University of Arizona Poetry Center’s website
Nov. 2020. Reprinted by permission Luivette Resto

https://www.luivette.com/

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This week, we are honored to have Luis J. Rodriguez back on the Poetic Resurrection Podcast. Luis reads his poem, Always Running. This poem describes the hardships of poverty, love loss, and how Luis dealt with his experiences. We discuss the difficulties of growing up in the hood, living in tenements full of roaches, rats, and despair. His episode aired  November 27th and after I posted his episode my computer died so my blogs are behind.  Hoping the audience understands.  Here’s his poem Always Running from Concrete River 1991 Curbstone Press.

Always Running
All night vigil.
My two-and-a-half-year-old boy
and his 10-month-old sister
lay on the same bed,
facing opposite ends;
their feet touching.
They looked soft, peaceful,
bundled there in strands of blankets.
I brushed away roaches that meandered
across their faces,
but not even that could wake them.
Outside, the dark cover of night tore
as daybreak bloomed like a rose
on a stem of thorns.
I sat down on the backsteps,
gazing across the yellowed yard.
A 1954 Chevy Bel-Air stared back.
It was my favorite possession.
I hated it just then.
It didn’t start when I tried to get it going
earlier that night. It had a bad solenoid.
I held a 12-gauge shotgun across my lap.
I expected trouble from the Paragons gang
of the west Lynwood barrio.
Somebody said I dove the car
that dudes from Colonia Watts used
to shoot up the Paragons’ neighborhood.
But I got more than trouble that night.
My wife had left around 10 p.m.
to take a friend of mine home.
She didn’t come back.
I wanted to kill somebody.
At moments, it had nothing to do
with the Paragons.
It had to do with a woman I loved.
But who to kill? Not her–
sweet allure wrapped in a black skirt.
I’d kill myself first.
Kill me first?
But she was the one who quit!
Kill her? No, think man! I was hurt, angry. . .
but to kill her? To kill a Paragon?
To kill anybody?
I went into the house
and put the gun away.

Later that morning, my wife came for her things:
some clothes, the babies. . . their toys.
A radio, broken TV, and some dishes remained.
I didn’t stop her.
There was nothing to say that my face
didn’t explain already.
Nothing to do. . . but run.

So I drove the long haul to Downey
and parked near an enclosed area
alongside the Los Angeles River.
I got out of the car,
climbed over the fence
and stumbled down the slopes.
A small line of water rippled in the middle.
On rainy days this place flooded and flowed,
but most of the time it was dry
with dumped garbage and dismembered furniture.
Since a child, the river and its veins of canals
were places for me to think. Places to heal.
Once on the river’s bed, I began to cleanse.
I ran.

I ran into the mist of morning,
carrying the heat of emotion
through the sun’s rays;
I ran past the factories
that lay smack in the middle
of somebody’s backyard.
I ran past alleys with overturned trashcans
and mounds of tires.
Debris lay underfoot. Overgrown weeds
scraped my legs as I streamed past;
recalling the song of bullets
that whirred in the wind.

I ran across bridges, beneath overhead passes,
and then back alongside the infested walls
of the concrete river;
splashing rainwater as I threaded,
my heels colliding against the pavement.
So much energy propelled my legs
and, just like the river,
it went on for miles.

When all was gone,
the concrete river
was always there
and me, always running.

Luis Rodriguez, “Always Running” from “The Concrete River,” 1991 Curbstone Books

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