Nancy Mercado
On My Return From Puerto Rico to the U.S.
Or (The Idleness Of It All)
It's yesterday wasting away behind our backs
ducking at our every twist
imploring us to return
from this cold casket where time flies robbing youth,
an alienating stare,
a decrepit course of a life time
shown through the eyes
of a middle-aged black woman,
through a young Puerto Rican man
riding the subway arguing with some imaginary figure,
an ice box shuttling people nowhere for years
sending them off to their graves before time,
icicle days fooling us,
mesmerizing even the keenest of minds
into believing time does not run out.
rows and rows of steel and concrete,
chemical plants and train tracks
laughing at our misplaced sense of life,
a shivering view of barren trees
snd soot-wrenched grass, defying all odds,
standing there, daring man,
a bad joke leaving us here
in knee-deep oil slicks
with barb wire memories of childhood ignorance
joys of family life almost forgotten.
We're misplaced in this lifeless machine
trying to construct homes out of straw pieces in the snow,
speaking foreign languages to those
who run off on their way to work
to contribute to valleys that lay in waste,
we're dangling from a noose
between epochs and conversations never begun
and, dressing up wrong,
and using chopped up words: manufactured phrases
invented to describe a manufactured life,
we're the living dead
idly speaking, mindlessly racing through our existence,
aimlessly hurrying from one stage to the next
like volunteer slaves onto the auction block
donating to their own demise,
supporting toxic dumps and empty faces
combing playground sides
in search of future O.d'ed addicts,
withering away in housing projects:
neighborhoods used as toilets for the rich.
It's MTV across America!
Delusions of stardom!
As you side step all those crack vials past your doorway
your mother, suffocating on a baseball field, a landfill
approved for little league games
where your little brothers play
all their days away,
a cold solitude, mute and still
like everything beyond that sheet of ice covering your window,
a bird's petrified song in the wind,
a frozen tear stopped in its tracks.
It's haunting memories of an era abandoned:
the dazzling sun on mother's tiled-kitchen floor
adding the final touch to our afternoon meal,
father's laugher just beyond a caress,
mother's last kiss,
my nephew's bewildered glance,
Will I return again—
Nancy Mercado, a distinguished figure in contemporary literature, has garnered notable acclaim. She was named New York’s New Generation Beat Poet Laureate, (Lifetime Award) by the National Beat Poetry Foundation and received the esteemed American Book Award for Lifetime Achievement, presented by the Before Columbus Foundation. Her impact has been further recognized by the Frederick Douglass Family Initiatives and the Antiracist Research and Policy Center at American University, which named her among the 200 living individuals embodying the spirit and work of Frederick Douglass (The Frederick Douglass 200) in celebration of his bicentennial. More at: nancy-mercado.com