Jimmy Santiago Baca Poems

I see Senora Sanchez
along the river.
Black catfish
pop the silver
...

Padilla unloads mangy herd of Mexican
cattle in the field.
Meaner, horns long and sharp
for bloody battle, lean from a diet
...

Is cut close, blades and bones,
And the stench of sewers is everywhere,
Blood-sloshed floors,
And guards count the dead
...

The blackbird sits
On a bronchial limb
Ready to
Squeal his guts
...

to a dark stage.
I lie there awake in my prison bunk,
in the eye-catching silence
of prison night.
...

My hands the Hook thunder hangs its hat on,
My breast the Arroyo storms fill with water,
My brow the Horizon sunrise fills,
My heart the Dawn weaving blue threads of day,
...

It is windy today. A wall of wind crashes against,
windows clunk against, iron frames
as wind swings past broken glass
and seethes, like a frightened cat
...

Twenty-eight shotgun pellets
crater my thighs, belly and groin.
I gently thumb each burnt bead,
fingering scabbed stubs with ointment.
...

Winter
throws his great white shield
on the ground,
breaking thin arms of twisting branches,
...

Listening to jazz now, I'm happy
sun shining outside like it was my lifetime achievement award.
...