Tag Archives: poetry writing

Behind the Poems: The Greatest Show on Mars

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This next installment of Behind the Poems, “The Greatest Show on Mars,” originally appeared in Latino Book Review.

generated Mars landscape below a galactic sky looking at Jupiter with a human-like android and the words "The Greatest Show on Mars"

Come one, come all to see the amazing automaton woman.
See how she never cries, not a single tear in those eyes.
Step right up, prick her skin. Slice straight through.
See how she does not bleed. The wound gapes wide
open but not a single drop of red seeps through. Come,
come see the wonder of the new world. Come one, come all.
Come and see the greatest show on Mars.

Gaze upon the amazing android lady. Try her out for yourself.
See how she does not even flinch. Slap and smack her
top to bottom. See how she remains still as stone. Ladies, gents,
kids of all ages. Come see her: The Lady of Steel and Cold.
Come try to break her bones, sticks and stones, they have no hold.
Come one, come all. Come and see the greatest show on Mars.

Come see She Who Never Screams, tweak and tap her as you please.
See how you use and abuse her, and she holds still and quiet.
Marvel at her resilient shell, though she appears as you or me, behind
those open and empty eyes lie nothing more than a head to be filled.
Come one, come all, and see the amazing robot woman.
Come and see the greatest show on Mars.

My love of Janelle Monae and her music highly inspired this poem. Monae’s character of Cindi Mayweather, an android, showcases the familiar literary trope of science fiction alluding to real-world issues. I wanted to portray a similar story with a figure who never gets named but stands in as a woman.

The constant repetition of “Come one, come all,” mimics that of a circus ring leader calling an audience to see a spectacle. In this case, the spectacle, a seemingly artificial woman, never cries, never bleeds, and never shows any signs of pain and emotion. Of course, only an android could endure so much torture without ever reacting.

The expectation for flesh and blood humans to do so is unrealistic. And yet, in real life, when the world pokes and prods women, they expect us to just take it. God forbid we show anger and hurt, for if we do, they label us hysterical.

I imagined “a new world” out on Mars where this automaton woman exists and a man puts her on display. Because that is not a new world at all, but rather a reflection of our own world already in existence. Humanity’s macabre obsession with violence constantly feeds the vicious cycle of having a victim to put on a show. And the show goes on and on as the ring leaders calls “kids of all ages” to come see the amazing android. In the end, the greatest show on Mars just mirrors life on Earth.

For anyone who has not listened to Janelle Monae’s discography, I highly recommend it. The music alone is incredible, but the story that runs through every album shows just what a master they are at their craft.

Behind the Poems: Weeknights With Walter

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This next installment of Behind the Poems, “Weeknights With Walter,” was originally published in Resurrection Magazine – La Ley Del Karma, an online publication that I can’t find a working link to anymore.

It’s the evening ritual with mom. Every night at 5:30, after she came home
from a long day at work and I had finished my homework, we’d climb
into her bed together, laying side by side and turned on Telemundo.
Or was it Univision? Whatever, it was time for Walter y las estrellas.
I sat and listened to his astrological predictions, never quite catching
all of it. His Spanish was too fast for me. But Mami always translated.
We listened for Tauro, my mom, the symbol of Earth and wisdom.
Next came Libra, my brother, the bearer of truth. Then Escorpio, my father
and abuela, born under hot blood. Of course, Mami listened for Capricornio,
for Ricky, our favorite singer. Mine always came last, Acuario, the water bearer.
I don’t remember any of his predictions. What I do recall is how alive
and himself he always seemed. The grand, theatrical atmosphere.
Spectacular, shining garments like better versions of what the ministers
of the church wore. Graceful hand gestures as he excitedly told you to expect
the best, because the best was always yet to come. But it’s his voice
that sticks to my memory. Almost raspy like a smoker’s. The musical trill
as he rolled his R’s. And always, full of mucho, mucho amor.

Many Latin American kids who grew up in the US probably know who I’m talking about here. Walter Mercado is a legend and an icon in Latine communities. He became an integral part of our many cultures.

I don’t remember much of what he predicted in his astrological readings. I actually couldn’t follow most of them because my Spanish has never been particularly good. But it’s part of what brought my mom and I so close together. She passed on to me her beliefs in the stars as she translated this stranger’s love in words I could understand.

For me, that’s what always stood out the most about Walter. He exuded love in every way. Love for himself, love for the viewers and love for the universe, despite the controversy surrounding him.

I was always aware of it, this flamboyant horoscope reader who never claimed any specific identity that satisfied the newscasters and pop culture fans. I think perhaps seeing this strange spellcaster thriving on a TV show within a culture that sometimes felt so stifling struck a chord with a part of myself I hadn’t come to define yet.

There were always the rumors about his sexuality. Always the whispers about him being gay (and other more derragotary terms I often heard said about him). But I still found him magical. I loved the way he always ended by sending out, “Mucho mucho amor.” I felt a more genuine, spiritual love emanate from him than I ever did from so-called religious authority figures.

Looking back at this, it’s easy to see how I became interested in things like tarot. Walter just always made it feel like the universe could hold so much more than we give it credit for.

Behind the Poems: Hollywood Living

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Originally published in the Avatar Review, Issue 21 (an online publication that is now defunct), this next installment of Behind the Poems is a love letter to my hometown.

It doesn’t matter where I go in SoFlo. Palm trees always follow.
Lush green to decaying brown starburst fronds exploding from a
trunk of taupe rings so skinny I can wrap my arms around. Like frozen
fireworks that got caught halfway up from the ground.

And then there’s the ducks. Ugly birds with black and white mottled
feathers and wrinkly red beaks like a saggy soaked old rag. Still,
their signature waddle makes me giggle, if not menacing
when coming toward me. Walking away though, it’s like the white rabbit
urgent with places to be.

It’s really the water though. Lakes, ponds, oceans, even still puddles after
a freak rain cloud passing. It’s everywhere. From micro bacterial inky black
to Crayola sea foam green, but it all reflects back the light with shimmying
waves made of thousands of liquid scales rippling under the slightest breeze
and shines with shadows of skyscrapers, their windows refracted in the wet mirror.

This is Hollywood living. It’s dirty
and it’s paradise
and it’s home.

People give Florida a lot of shit, and I’m the first to say rightfully so. I give my home state a lot of shit for all its flaws and shortcomings that I won’t get into here. But there is also so much to love about it, especially in my hometown of Hollywood.

I did a nature workshop once where we discussed how I never realized how much connection we have to nature here in Florida. So often, nature is depicted solely as wood forests out in the mountains, most likely somewhere in the Midwest. While I did grow up in a city, there is still a thriving natural ecosystem in between the concrete.

I’ve always had so much love for palm trees. I consider them the flamingos of the tree world. They’re goofy, whimsical and fun looking. To me, they look like the life of the party, and what’s more South Florida than a party?

Anyone who knows me will tell you I have no love for birds. But the ducks, like the palm trees, feel kind of silly. That’s the thing about Florida. Nothing and no one around here takes themselves too seriously. Even the wildlife seems like it’s laughing at itself half the time.

Living on the East Coast of a peninsula, I practically grew up on the beach. Water has always called to me in all its forms. Even the dirtiest puddles invite me to come jump into their shallow depths for a moment of pure, childish joy. Meanwhile the salt sea of Hollywood Beach soothes with its steady ebb and flow against the shore.

Florida has quite a lot it needs to work on, but despite that, I still love it.

Behind the Poems: ex

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Originally published in the Avatar Review, Issue 21, this next installment of Behind the Poems is an ode to writer’s block.

Cross it all off and don’t look back. Like a long
languid breath, to draw that X over words that no longer
work because you no longer work the same way.

X marks the spot, so tape it to the wall and let the arrow fly.
Let them go. Let them fade into smeared ink and crinkled
yellow pages. You’re not bound to old texts if they are no longer bound
to you. Cross them out with a big black X stretched from corner to

corner. Start a new page—hell, a new book—and leave that X in the old spiral
notebook with the Happy Bunny cover to collect dust as all the others before.
It’s well-worn and you’re ready to move on. Let this set of college rule lines
be a new love affair to be filled with today’s thoughts and tomorrow’s voice.

One day, after months of working on a story that I could not get to work, I finally decided to call it. Out of frustration, I took my pen and drew a big X across the page, scratching at it over and over again until the pen nearly tore through the page.

I sat at my desk, letting my fingers run over the pages of the used-up notebook. Feeling the lumps of raised letters and indentations on paper soothed my annoyance at having to give up on a story. I flipped the pages and listened to the crinkle, ASMR before I knew about ASMR.

As I took in the details of the notebook and my failed tale, this poem began to form. I started with the image of the big X on the page and moved into the wordplay of an ex.

To me, leaving a work unfinished felt like giving up which felt like failure. But I started to look at it from the lens of a breakup and realized sometimes giving up is really letting go.

I also wanted to bring forth the imagery of the Happy Bunny notebook. I had bought it from Hot Topic in my middle school days. At the time, I was writing a story as a college undergrad. Noting that I was moving on from that childish notebook felt like making a choice to move away from that narrative, the kid that I was.

Behind the Poems: Battle of the Billboards

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My next installment of Behind the Poems was first featured in the Avatar Review, Issue 21.

I was inspired to write this one on a road trip I took driving up to Orlando with my best friend. The poem below is the result.

On the drive up to Orlando through the 95, we saw billboard after
billboard. Our favorite of course, Café Risqué, the strip club with
the motto, “We bare all,” and a sensuous silhouette of a voluptuous
vixen. And don’t think we didn’t notice when they put up a shiny
new ad. Business must be good, said Cat. Good for them.

The billboards changed from curvy ladies and shadows of lions about
to get it on to calls for salvation from unholy abortions and impending
flames of hell. Gator territory. It’s a strange battlefield, the line between
sin city O-Town and self-righteous Gainesville. Like 95 is the road to fight
for our very souls. In the end, gator jerky and fireworks win.

I found the juxtaposition of the different billboards seen the most in Florida fascinating. It all felt so quintessential to what makes Florida so…Florida.

The constant tension between conservative Christian values and what some may consider hypersexual behaviors always plays out on the state’s highways. As the content changes, you can always tell what part of the state you’re entering: the zealously religious or the fun and so-called trashy.

But in the end, it’s all about a niche cuisine and how much trouble you can get yourself in with gator jerky and fireworks. There’s a simultaneous feeling of pride and cringe knowing that this is how my home state is known.

Some days it’s funny to see the Florida Man headlines and feel shameless. On other days it hurts and infuriates to watch hateful people tear down what could be a place of beauty if they’d only look past the caricature and see the humans behind it.