Tag astrology

* pennies counting with wolfgang wright

José Angel Araguz Leave a comment

Remember, words are the enemy of poetry.
– Russell Edson

Sometimes what’s being said has little to do with the words saying it.

This week’s piece – “Pennies” by Wolfgang Wright – is a flash fiction that develops its emotional pull subtly. The word “pennies” gathers weight throughout the short piece until it literally comes alive.

* it's all about the abrahams, baby *

* it’s all about the abrahams *

*Pennies – Wolfgang Wright

When the boy began collecting pennies in order to build a statue of his departed mother, Penny, his father did not object. When the father decided to join him, adding pennies from his collection, his friends implored him to see a psychiatrist. When the friends brought over glue to hold the statue together, they told their wives that they were going to watch the game. And when, together, they finished the statue and it came to life, sounding and behaving just like the mother, wife, and friend who was dead, they all knew that what they had done was good.

(* found in the Nostalgia issue of 5×5 – check out the rest of the issue here.)

***

Quick sidenote: Much of the fun I have writing this blog comes out of finding relevant images to juxtapose with the pieces. Here’s one I found fascinating and that kinda works as its own art piece. It’s a British coin from during the Suffragette movement era:

Happy pennying!

Jose

* new anthology: Goodbye, Mexico

José Angel Araguz 2 Comments

We Are Of A Tribe – Alberto Rios

We plant seeds in the ground
and dreams in the sky,

Hoping that, someday, the roots of one
Will meet the upstretched limbs of the other.

It has not happened yet. Still,
Together, we nod unafraid of strangers.

Inside us, we know something about each other:
We are all members of the secret tribe of eyes

Looking upward,
Even as we stand on uncertain ground.

Up there, the dream is indifferent to time,
Impervious to borders, to fences, to reservations.

This sky is our greater home.
It is the place and the feeling we have in common.

This place requires no passport.
The sky will not be fenced.

Traveler, look up. Stay awhile.
Know that you always have a home here.

***

* new anthology! *

* new anthology! *

Happy to announce the recent release of Goodbye, Mexico: Poems of Rememberance, a new anthology edited by the illustrous Sarah Cortez. The anthology includes CantoMundo fam’ Celeste Guzman Mendoza as well as Martin Espada, Jim Daniels, Larry D. Thomas, and Alberto Rios, author of this week’ poem.

I also have a poem in it 🙂

Along with poems, the anthology includes statements from each of the contributors on their relationship with Mexico. Here is mine:

My relationship to Mexico is one of leaving and looking back: my mother left my father in Matamoros and crossed the river into Texas to raise me, but would wonder aloud about him to me. My father, his mother, my mother’s father – each has died in my lifetime in Matamoros, and left in that way. My childhood was visits to Mexico, until the drug trafficking made travel dangerous, and so I look back in my writings at what is left in those visits.

To learn more about the anthology, check out Sarah’s site here.

Happy remembrancing!

Jose