claudiapena.com

Via JRG. Not that a gal has to wait long before receiving enough attention from Spammers, but after 400 of these daily, this chick decided there was no other choice but to take a lyrical fight. Taking a swing at these e-polluters and inspired by her website, Spam Poetry.com, here’s my piece:

Simplicity is so complicated to achieve.

We want, we want, we want:
we want the story on the abusive teen from Argyle, TX
we want to see the nasty girls in Carolina fishing
We want bigger and better and longer lasting luxury cars
and pictures of Francine Prieto nude.

Its gotta, its gotta, its gotta..
It’s gotta be free, fast cheap and easy!!
barely legal, down loadable, and spinning
gotta be the latest and greatest celebrity’s porn video
with a Celexa facial to protect
the 15 million and counting US patients with GAD
that can’t go out, can’t feel good, can’t breath easy,
wanting to see the big a** heaven…?

Does this seem ridiculously complicated to anyone else?
It’s like screaming, “bring our troops home!” and
driving an empty SUV home on your own,
It’s like wanting world peace,
and scratching the serial number off the gun in the closet,
When all thoughts don’t coordinate with actions,
whatever option chosen, is always a lie.

So I wonder, whatever happened to simplicity?
walking around the world loving a good vegetarian dinner
whatever happened to a boy and a girl?
and a quest for happiness, honesty and respect?
holding hands and kissing on couples lane,
or just the smile of happy playing children.

This simple girl of bright orange purses,
banana glowing shoes, burnt red rosary beads
and black rice ice cream palate
in jeans with green white flowers
knows how words get sticky with thought and need
a card to say I care is vulnerable to at least 3 rewrites
and it takes time figure out reality and desire
but I still don’t understand,
whatever happened to simplicity?“There has never yet been a man in our history who led a life of ease whose name is worth remembering.” –Theodore Roosevelt

I am WOMAN,
I am Latina,
I am immigrant:
I AM birth and soul of this land,
hear the brown power strike,
hear the chants of my Aztec god,
hear the African drums of my dance,
I am fire under justice,
And inspiration for volumes of poetry!!

I AM WO-MAN!
I want to travel the world,
And be the next Marco Polo,
(the one history never knew, accepted or placed in the kitchen,)
I want to know the 1,000 worlds
that lie behind the 1,000 rivers
I’d live every thousandth of a second
All to know what it takes to be me.

I ain’t no Mammy, I ain’t no slave,
And all the living I’ve read;
I know it takes a history of struggle,
to say I am me…
incredible, just woman me
And at the end of every rainbow,
in the last chapter … of the last page … of the last
paragraph … of the last line,
there’s LOVE,
LOVE to say, feel, act, and accept
that I am woman, incredible, ‘credible woman me.

I never knew bad until the good had left
I never knew what living was until everyone around me started giving in
I never knew joy had a sound until the music went away
I never needed a poem until I felt the sadness of no words

I never felt longing until I fasted from your side
I never knew my friends until I dropped down to my knees
I never called your name until I found myself alone
I never felt your warm hands until I wished death upon myself

I’ve never been so at peace, as when I gave it all to you
I never felt so close to you until I needed to be held
In the quiet of the solitude stretched out on the cross
I felt your never ending love for me, just me

You are a healer, a friend, my everlasting light
the peaceful island in a stormy sea
hallelujah means thank you, praise you, I love you…
I never knew that faith is being there for me,
stronger than I can ever hope to be

I never knew your love until I needed to be held

Inspired by “San Diego Serenade”

April Instigating on May

April, April,
what am I paying for here?
you left me salivating
At Costa Rican jungle and blue shears
Rebuke and offer New York,
You know that wasn’t what I had in mind

Oh April,
You’ve wrung me over and flattened me out
I smell the death all around me
I know I’m paying penitence for some crime
I now know I’m doing my time
Just what have I done or been caught for?
What can I do and tell me my worth?
You know, if I wasn’t so vain I’d go away
But the cosmos and the cigarettes are keeping me here

April your poem won’t let me be…
May comes and it offers me Seoul
Bloody April,
Your last name is May
And your middle well, it’s Instigating
‘cuz ain’t nothing here you’ve finished
And every major hope you unwished

April May,
April you are threading on May,
May and April
God, you are one in the same
You know I hate goodbyes,
But one of us has got to get right out of here…

Based off TW “Depot, Depot,” pic from the Art Car Show.

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I carry my roots
like an Emerald inside a cave
light and strong
bright and unmistaken
if forgotten
I’ll fall to my feet
swept away, woohoo!
with the first wind’s whim

I use it as my lullaby
how many times have I heard,
“Portate bien,”
family fearing corruption
as I travel to a place
where women went loose
and morals ran wild
they all sung the lullaby

I wear my roots
like a visible corset
on a long checkered skirt
detail all the beauty there is to know
barely pick up my feet
as my hips campanile
to a cumbia beat

And I whisper my name
It carries my roots
brown and strong
beautiful and flexible
challenged and challenging
rolled up in the pillow
where I lay my head to sleep

Thai dancers at my local Buddhist temple.

Monday in the Neighborhood

Three o’clock in the morn argument
make-up 3:15,
ah, they both sound like squealing pigs running in glee
one just has better timing than the other
–You called the cops? WHY? WHY?–
Gone by 3:45 as the pickup truck
revved Harley engine screeches out
from the neighborhood
the neighborhood
My lulling sweet neighborhood.

7 cooking in the incubator
Lard dripping chorizo orange egg tacos
and the broccoli in the back smells like wet sneakers
Lasagna spaghetti vegetable surprise
that the cafeteria lady wont touch
unless its with a wooden 2ft spatula
it’s just another Monday
unventilated
cow chattering
lowly Monday

5:30, workout
A blind men runs behind me
circling the ten that run in front of me
the symphony of bodies slamming
from 6ft up is music to my ears
and depending on who throws you
the fall can feel like 200ft
from way above the airy mist
to way below in the deep blue sea

Few know how to really say my name
the way my soul would jump and ache
and in the Tao of Claudia
everything changes
but the music stays the same
the men are still God’s gift to sight
as they move along the wave
claiming a square cut turf
of my neighborhood
of my neighborhood
of my sweet magnolia
and cut zacate lovely neighborhood

A scene from my deep blue sea: