BIO
Pablo Cuzco is a Latino-American poet and writer. Born in Puerto Rico, he spent his early years in France and Germany. In his twenties, he traveled across America with a guitar, keeping a journal of songs and memories. Now living in the Southwest with his wife, he has time to reflect and share those stories. His works can be found at Underfoot Poetry, The Big Windows Review, Califragile, Contemporary Haibun Online, and The Wagon Magazine, among others.
Blog: pcuzco.wordpress.com
Twitter: @p_cuzco
PACK MY BAGS
A ‘56 Studebaker blows smoke rings
down a dirt road near Truth or Consequences.
Lost in its own vortex, it screams the piston screech
of oil-bathed lubrication—needle to the red
—a savage, foot stomping, mad drive
thru the pillars of eternity
and the singing cicadas
of the desert night.
::I am the driver.
To reach the end of the walled earth—where the light
is squelched by the steel and rust that
hides misery, the broken rancho
dreams that embrace America’s southern
coast—the ports of entry
where we are detained, kept hostage to
a two-sided misery:
On the one side hatred—jealousy and wrath.
On the other—desperation.
I travel the wasteland of the “other” America
—its third-world, secret child—hidden
behind the dunes,
the hills and flatlands—to the Texas
high country,
green Oklahoma pastures, the red buttes
of Utah,
and the Golden Eternity of Kansas
—to where the Rockies break the belly
of the country,
and see firsthand,
the Great Divide.
i.
The reservations
where we were driven
—the Sioux, the Lakota, the Creek. Our
land stolen
by a ‘manifest destiny’ contrived of
thieves who coveted our home.
Our lives forsaken, our sorrow tossed
to the wind like arrows
—broken by savage contracts
sworn on the promise
of death,
coerced by gunpowder
and deceit.
ii.
From a far off land
—packed like the spines of fish on the
lower decks,
chattel to market—to replace those
whose blood watered the plains
where America now worships its God. To
build the capitols,
plantations and arteries of commerce.
On an endless road.
Never repatriated, never compensated.
Captured for an eternity
—or until we come to
our own—
full circle to
freedom.
iii.
Lured across the
Pacific with the promise of fortune.
—Shanghaied to San Francisco, Seattle
and a barbaric coast.
To work the railroads, the gold mines.
To build the backbone
of the West—a dream for the cowboy and
the steer—
Chicago and the meat packers ::beaten down
in coolie camps, deprived of family—celibate
by law
—to limit integration into an America
kept white
by self-determinism
and fear.
::I am the driver
Into the glare of a
sunset-tinted windshield, I seek home
—I search the sky but find only the
ghettos and the barrios,
where my people are segregated into
diversity.
The aroma of manteca, red sorghum, white maize,
beans and rice, and the sound of
children, fill the air.
Our future, to be determined. Our past,
a long line
of contradiction—freedom in
captivity—prosperity
in relative
poverty—equality,
measured by our
ability
to remain
silent.
::I am the driver
...but my wheels
spin.
With my compass
stolen,
I turn circles in the
sand.
::I am the driver
...who looks ahead from the past—
to see if this dirt road might lead to somewhere
beyond the pillars of eternity
and the singing cicadas
of the desert night.