A poem provoked by the death of the Chicano poet Ricardo Sanchez on September 4, 1995, and dedicated to film maker Robert Rodriguez. Townes Van Zandt and other real Texas poets/writers/musicians/characters appear in the dreamscape. In 1986, Ricardo was the only U.S. poet invited to the first meeting of the Poets of the Latin World which met at the Palace of Fine Arts in Mexico City.
by
Nada Mas
Seize the moment,
este momento,
with the word,
with the thought.
Put it on paper
before we forget,
before it's too late,
before the dust
covers up our pages,
before there is no one left
to remember to remember
or take the books
off the shelf.
Ricardo was so good at it
this poetry business.
You wouldn't believe
how good he was
if I told you.
True, his anger was like
a storm upon the waters,
a hurricane in the brain,
but his laughter
was like laughter ...
I wish I could laugh on paper.
Hey, carnala, Barbara!
This brother is current.
He is current like the ocean,
like hydrogen and oxygen,
electric and present in every wave,
flashing turquoise and silver,
disappearing
and reappearing.
¡Un hombre muy malo!
¡Un hombre muy macho!
¡Un hombre muy bueno!
Southwestern scenario:
We hear Ben Tavera King's
Desert Dreams.
We see bare feet
Walking along the water's edge.
Ricardo's been body-free now
these last six or seven days.
He is in the sunlight;
he is in the raindrop;
he is in the moonbeam;
he is in the air we breathe
and listen to
as we wake up in the morning.
They wrote about him
in The Dallas Morning News
last year
when he was here
and this week when he died.
From a GED to a PhD
in seven years,
They said
on the early morning
Latino news program.
You should have seen the kids
when he read,
They said.
I write about him this morning
from a distance,
closer in death, now,
than in life.
So maybe it's not over.
Maybe it's just beginning, amigos.
All that other stuff
is just scenes before the titles.
Maria Teresa said,
"If you really knew him
like I know him
you would want everybody
to be like him."
¡De veras!
Now that was Ricardo.
¡El mariachi de los poetas!
He made a movie once, Now, here's a scene for you, There is a small table, big enough for He is still there at sunrise. He looks at LittleDog "Yes," he says, LittleDog nods her head. She waltzes off into the desert Zoom in on Dissolve back to Ricardo, He is lost in thought, Ricardo is getting ready to write. We hear Lucinda singing We are all in the world's best bar Ricardo is in a good mood, In this scene there is plenty Now there is another lightening swift change I say I think we should ask Time passes. It is before the Spanish language The ghost of Julie Ryan appears, Ricardo wonders, perhaps, The desert is quiet. "Cleveland's cold ," Ricardo is not dead. Julie moves gracefully For a moment we see her Cody is wearing "Well then it should have!" Picasso, who is sketching Gertrude Stein, We see Ricardo laughing Chuck, Cody and I pick up my guitar case Some say our paths are destined In this one, my hair is long and dark. And me? THE END
you know?
You didn't?
I saw it at a festival in San Antonio.
It was like something by Frederico Fellini.
That was many years ago,
muchos años que pasados.
Robert Rodriguez
should make a movie about Ricardo.
Stop all that machine gun
in the guitar case shit
and seize the moment.
¡Este momento! ¡Ahora!
While he's got the power
¡Y el dinero, también!
Work Selena in, too, somehow,
in the sound track, near the end, maybe.
And hey, if he has to have it,
to keep him happy,
let him have a machine gun
in a guitar case.
I could live with that.
for those of you who like scenes:
maybe only four hombres at most,
yes, a small table, square, and of wood,
planted in the middle of the desert.
Ricardo is seated, alone.
His shirt, a brilliant white,
is loose and simple in design
but lavishly embroidered
with brilliant threads.
He touches a bottle with
the fingertips of his left hand
feeling the moisture
condensed like sweat.
He rubs his thumb and fingers together,
drying them as he makes a fist
and looks at it before
taking a deep breath
and relaxing again.
His forearms rest on the table.
He closes his eyes
and the long, hard wrinkle
cutting his forehead
and the angry, familiar scowl
dissolve into a sea of tranquility
lit by a three quarter moon.
He is there, still,
searching for the words
that will make language
liberating.
whose frizzy halo
is now flame red
and wilder than ever before.
"That's the only hope.
Our only hope ....
if there's no hope
in language
there's no hope
in anything
and I refuse to believe that!"
She has experienced the
redemptive quality of song
and verse.
She rises from where she
sits with her
accordion in her lap,
her fingers ready
on the buttons and keys.
"I know what you need,"
she tells Ricardo, laughingly.
"What you need is some
tonics and teas,
herbs and spices
strawberry shortcake
and Mexican ices!
Which is to say,"
as she plays a little riff,
"it's finger popping time!"
gauzy shirt and long skirt
billowing behind her
to the tune of Pentecostal hymns.
a good writing pen
on top of
a small stack of paper.
from a distance.
pen in hand.
The text of his poems
scrolls down one
side of the screen.
He puts pen to paper.
El sol de Tejas glints and flashes
off the silver and turquoise
that he wears.
This scene is very bright.
Full sun.
Blue skies.
There is an impression of
a fast passage of time
and distance
before the camera zooms in on
the eyes of El Chicano.
He meets its stare and does not blink.
... something about
the lines around your eyes ...
Suddenly it is another time,
another place.
in Austin, Texas.
LittleDog sits with her autoharp
in her arms, like a baby.
Townes and Mickey are on stage.
Trammell , somehow, is at the table
saying the best Texas poets
have always been songwriters.
It gives us something to talk about.
a very good mood.
A smile begins in his eyes
and spreads across his face,
breaking out into
the biggest laugh in the world,
as if God
is on the other side of the table
and the drinks are very, very good
and very, very cold.
He looks like Rod Steiger, but happier.
"Hey, Dagoberto!"
he calls across the room.
of money,
of time,
of love,
all the good stuff ...
Robert Rodriguez and Jayne Loader
talk to Roxy about the next shot.
Judy's still pissed off at Cody
who needs to leave
before she becomes a dangerous woman.
She has her paint and feathers on
and has been drinking fire water.
of time and place,
a swirl of names and faces.
Lines of poetry merge
into a surge of shrill voices
and unpleasant sounds ...
On a Packard Bell monitor
a mushroom shaped cloud
fills the screen.
Jayne Loader
does her Public Shelter thing
in the cutting room.
Ken Harrison
if we're still on the track
or if it matters if we're not.
Tommy Sikorski says
"Don't worry ...
we need the chuckles."
We all laugh.
Dust settles.
Ghosts of ancient Indians,
our grandfathers
and grandmothers
dance
in the desert.
came to the Americas,
long before Mexico or the USA,
emerged as political entities,
maybe even before Earth
coalesced from cosmic dust,
or
perhaps
so long after
that the whole concept
of time
bends back on itself
and is lost in the dance.
and we hear her voice,
"A sweat map of the Americas,
charts itself down his back."
if he has read too many poems,
or not enough.
He mutters to himself
and scribbles,
writing fast,
racing against the clock
which begins to melt
and run down the wall.
Townes says,
and Roxy and Ricardo laugh
and laugh and laugh.
¡No está muerto!
Yeah, amigo. This I know!
No bullshit.
Would I bullshit you?
to the table.
We think we can trust her.
She lifts the bottle to her lips
and takes a drink.
"Thanks," she says,
"I needed that."
Her voice is soft and southern.
There are tears in her eyes.
in a perennial garden
near a table
piled high with books
and her own writing things.
We hear her voice,
"For as long as we have the words,
for as long as we have the books ..."
the robe of a high church official
and a beaded headband
with a feather stuck in it.
"That didn't happen,"
he pontificates,
taking a drink of holy water
before emptying it
over his head.
He tosses the cup away,
David Letterman style,
and adjusts his headband.
Ricardo pronounces.
says, "Oh, but it will! It will!"
Anthony Hopkins smiles.
at and with the world.
In this scene we all know
it is all
one big fucking cosmic joke.
Juán de los Libros
materialize.
They look like
desperados waitin' for the train
as they join Ricardo at the table.
and walk off into the desert,
pausing, for a moment, to look back.
There is only earth and sky.
to cross and cross again,
that death is just another scene.
Now we are all young and lean,
hungry, too, like coyotes.
Out on the horizon a dust devil
spins itself una canción.
Ricardo writes the words.
Outside, Teresa dances on the patio.
Juán? Well, you know,
he runs the bookstore.
LittleDog has just come back
from the springs with good water.
Leadbelly sits up on his hind legs.
Well, I have
a machine gun in my guitar case,
and I can't stop laughing . . .
