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as blahaj.zone and lemmy.blahaj.zone run on different servers, and both were unreachable at the time of my op, i really meant dead, not down
from the article:
From the Popol Vuh, or National Quiché History
[Excerpt from Part II]
“Brother, the bats have stopped moving. It looks like the sun has begun to rise,” said Ixbalanqué to Hunahpú.
“Perhaps. I am not sure,” answered Hunahpú, “Let me look…”
And when Hunapú stuck out his head, to see if dawn was breaking, Camazotz cut it off at the neck with a single blow.
“Hunahpú, is it morning yet?” Ixbalanqué asked. And when his brother did not reply, he yelled out, “Hunahpú! Where are you?”
Then Ixbalanqué understood the silence. […]
from the article:
I, Who Am Ignorant
I, who am ignorant Need to know If white is virtue true So I can go and bleach my skin
Asks this question, a loyal man Because he needs to know If the black man should not be baptized In the baptismal font
If there is yet another more pure
Going forward, going back Prettier, shinier Where the white man is dipped Will someone tell it straight For I, who am ignorant
Two men and one woman From whom we all descend While only the black man With disdain ought to be faced
The same blood it must be Though the black man alone Is placed forever Separate
If the black man is not baptized I need to know Black was St. Benedictine Black his paintings too And in the Holy Scripture I have never seen a single word writ in white ink
Black were the nails driven through the Christ’s hands Died, he, upon the holy cross Is it possible then, that down he came Not to suffer for the white man’s sins Only this way will I know If the color white is virtue true
When we have to account To my God for every deed How will the black man atone For the white man’s sins
If the black man is then found Without a crime for which to pay Will they say that it’s not true That the white man has no sentence That it’s all been misconstrued So that then I may go and bleach my skin
from the article:
Every time…
Every time I lift my foot, every time I lift my hand, I shake my tail. I listen to your voice come from very far. I am almost asleep: I look for a fallen tree to crawl inside, and sleep. My skin, my foot, my hand, my ears are scratched.
from the article:
Return to the Countryside
Women pounded the grain for a vegetable stew
night was imminent they had to hurry because lanterns were forbidden
when the gong called for dinner the soldiers did not share the meal with the peasants
the next morning half of them had denounced their parents the other half wore posters on their bodies condemned to certain death
the order was to climb the mountain to live up in the heights among the lowliest but the sky answered with floods
so they returned to the cities looking for carrion
that was my army ravenous crows
Rationing
In the line a woman shouts there’s flour
I think of warm biscuits
Soon I hear only rice is left but my happiness is futile
They’re bringing sugar Oh! miracle I will wait I hear words ricochet the sugar is gone
The line begins to disperse
I persist eventually they will bring something finally a hand offers me a chicken I leave with my treasure
In a bookstore nearby a friend has the nerve to read me a long poem the poet doesn’t know why I flee such an ordinary goodbye fills me with guilt
You must live in a country with hunger to understand how a poem’s symmetry can be broken by the slow drip of guts and blood
from the article:
Like Coal
And then you were born, girl with eyes so black. Black as the coal your father burns, like your mother’s skillet, like the burnt underside of her comal.
Like the eye of the well shot through by darkness.
from the article:
Retelling of the Flood Caused by the Mapocho River in the City of Santiago de Chile
“On June 16, 1783 the effects of torrential rains caused the river Mapocho in Santiago, Chile to flood its banks. At the time the small community of Carmelite nuns resided in their cloistered convent next to the river. The rains started in May, but became a deluge in early June and by the time of the great flood, it had poured for 209 hours straight. The nuns would have drowned, had it not been for some neighbors who broke a hole in one of the walls, leading twenty-eight women to safety. Sor Tadea de San Joaquín, a nun from the Carmelite Convent of San Rafael, retells their story in a 516-versed romance [ballad], wherein Sor Tadea affirms that it was God’s will that the nuns be saved by the three men (she does not leave out the ironic detail that they had to be sobornados (bribed).”
– Sarah E. Owens, Travels, Natural Disasters, and the Texts of Cloistered Nuns: A Case from Colonial Chile
from the article:
Indigenous Identity
Identity, it is not in my hair It is not in my face Reflecting in the mirror. Identity is not something to see, It has no form, it has no color But delicate like a flower it is Identity lies within the speaking force In the profundity of a look In the singularity of my place Identity is open hands and share Feel the earth’s echoes and Love and peace at heart. Identity is open arms and receive The brotherly affirmation. Identity is Union!
from the article:
The Man
When encircled by a thirst of soul man, a desert traveler, wishes to gather armfuls of laurels, having reached the gates of glory; “Stop right here,” however, he says to the woman… Returning, then, to his march, if he feels himself waver, and lose his valor, “Come, come,” he tells her, “You are my partner in the hours of combat and agony…”
from the article:
Foolish Men
Foolish men, eagerly accusing women without cause, seeing not that from you springs the very same, those very flaws;
If readily you do invite them to happily disdain you, how do you want them well behaved if toward evil you’ll incite them?
[…]
What temper could be stranger? Than that of he who, lacking counsel, fogs the mirror with his breath and then whines at blurred reflection?
[…]
How can she, who for your love longs, keep her wits and keep her center if she who doesn’t is a prude and offends and she who does is a slut and angers?
Though between the anger and the insult by all your liking forged, if there still be one who doesn’t want you, then joyous hour for complaint.
Your lovers hang sorrows on liberty’s wings for, after making them bad, you wish to find them good.
Whom, then, has sinned more in mistaken passion: she who falls to his begging? Or he who, fallen, begs her?
Or who has greater blame, though in any blame you’ll find, she who sins for pay or he who pays to sin?
How are you then startled to find guilt there in your heart? Love them as you make them. Or make them as you wish.
[…]
Now, with all my weapons your arrogance I battle, for in promise and petition you join devil, flesh, and world.