Esta vida, a collection of poems by Danny Romero

Esta vida
a collection of poems

by Danny Romero

Contents
1. My Father’s Friends
2. Ode to Willie’s Burgers
3. autobiography of a latino male suspect
4. Por Vida
5. This Life
6. Esta vida
7. el gigante

My Father’s Friends

My father’s friends are my friends now,
older men, round and gray.
They stop by after work,
a beer or two, smoking frajos
and speaking words in Spanish
and English in the same sentence.

My father’s friends are my friends now.
They stand outside and laugh loudly.
Some are long haired still,
family men all in their 50s, 60s,
married and divorced and
all the places in between.

We pull over with the kids
when we see each other on the street,
stop and chat for a minute still.
“Say hello to Mr. Salas, mijo.
He used to live in L.A.”
“Say hello to Mr. Torres, mijo.

He is a teacher.”
My father’s friends are my friends now.
They use words like “mota” and “chota,”
“cuete” and “filero,“ “vato”
and “ruca” and “carnal.”
I can see the resemblance clearly.

Ode to WiIlie’s Burgers

Gracias, señora for all
the years at the griddle
making hamburgers for us
on Friday night

How many other fathers
and sons have you satisfied?
with just a few simple ingredients
burger and bun lechuga y tomate

queso maybe the secret sauce
I trust the night
like it was your own kitchen
and we your own people

I have no doubts about my money
nor inevitable return
señora, muchas gracias!
todos sus hijos tan afortunados

autobiography of a latino male suspect

the county sheriffs want to
lock me up all of my life I
have been illegal no matter
where I was born brown and
poor that has made me a
criminal through the years…

I am a zoot suiter in the
night can you pick me out
of a line up? behind my
Pancho Villa mustache
my face lined and cracked
scarred as the life of
the outsider…

images traveling over the
AP wire 1 May 1992 newspapers
across the country show a 12
year old face like my own
down in the broken glass and
asphalt of los angeles laying
prostrate near my brother our
hands cuffed behind our backs
by a dark deputy while his
superior (and ours too I

suppose) stands over us with
a shotgun pointed at our
heads (light finger on
the trigger) though there is no
evidence of our crime there
should be no question who
is in charge…

Still later as a street
corner teenager long haired
dark with crooked teeth and a
glazed look in my eyes I talk
to a reporter and television
crew asking questions to barely
articulate answers to questions
difficult to answer…

as I grow older can you see
me running through that
trashcan alleyway at night?
helicopter buzz above lights
shining down on me as I dodge
and scramble to make my way
each day I live in this
country of my birth.

Por Vida

One

I live in a barrio
in my head never very
far from a taco truck
on the corner of Florence
and Holmes Avenues

It makes no difference
if I stroll down Rodeo
Drive the surrounding
opulence worlds away
from el remate on Saturday
afternoon where families
with five or six or seven
children each sweat for
the ninety-nine cent
bargains and afterwards
una raspada de limon

Still I live
in a barrio in my
head never very far
from my mother’s
tortillas hot off the
fire and the little
ones she made especially
for me when I was

just a boy

Most every meal in my
house now comes wrapped
en harina o maiz warm
as memories and as good
as life get (it seems
just about at times)

I will never forget
houses too small for
families too large
enchiladas de queso
on Fridays during Lent
comida made with love
and kindness in my
grandfather’s kitchen
nor the smell of crude
oil in the Wilmington air

Two

I left Los Angeles in a
flurry of rifle shots
from a passing car
18 years old and high
on Angel Dust I followed
those railroad tracks
into the world ready
for life or death

I will never forget
Sunday morning drunks
Mexican men on horseback
galloping through the
back alleys of our
lives I can still hear
KGFJ radio from the
heart of Watts Angeles
pinche chota chase me
home at night stop
me search me “to
protect and serve”

So I live in a barrio
in my head always just
an arm’s length from
jail it makes no
difference if I walk
across Independence Mall

these stolen streets still
stained with blood of
slave and Indian before
me I hear the air still
filled with their screams

Murals of La Virgen swirl
‘round this barrio in my
head not Capitol Hill
those seats of power so
far from my reach standing
at this end of a long and
unyielding American night

This Life

My mother made tortillas
each morning while
I watched from her hip
together for the day

before school before
friends and enemies
before sorrow and death
I watched from her hip

a world unfold
beneath palote
comal fires
always burning

day and after day
like indios in the sun

Esta vida

Mi madre hacía tortillas
cada mana mientras
yo observaba desde su cadera
junto con ella todo el día

antes de la escuela antes
de los amigos y los enemigos
antes de la tristeza y la muerte
observaba desde su cadera

un mundo abrirse
bajo un fuego
de palote y comal
siempre ardiendo

día tras día
como indios bajo el sol

el gigante
for Frank Sapien Sr.

Olmec heads outside my door
watch the night

lines on your face
tell a 10,000-year-old tale

you have grown so
over these years

you carry us along
shuffling barrio streets

to Mass each day
before the sun comes up

whatever you may
call yourselves

the first people
throughout this vast civilization

Biographical Note

Danny Romero was born and raised in Los Angeles. He
earned a BA from the University of California at Berkeley and
an MA from Temple University in Philadelphia. His poems and
short stories have been published in many anthologies and
journals. He is the author of the novel Calle 10 (Mercury House)
and a book of poetry Traces (Bilingual Review Press). He
teaches at Sacramento City College.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I would like to express my appreciation to Jamie B. Rosa who
contributed the Spanish translation.

These poems, at times with different titles, have appeared in the
following publications:

“Ode to Willie’s Burgers,” Sin Fronteras / Writers Without Borders 25
(forthcoming 2021).
“My Father’s Friends,” Paterson Literary Review 44 (2016): 236.
“Esta vida,” Traces. Traducción de Jaime B. Rosa. Tempe: Bilingual
Review Press, 2012. 24.
“el gigante,” Drumvoices Revue 13.1-2 (2005): 183.
“This Life,” Paterson Literary Review 31 (2002): 153.
“Por Vida,” (as “P/V”) in P/V (chapbook), Berkeley: The Chicano
Chapbook Series #13, 1997.
“autobiography of a latino male suspect,” Palanquin/TDM 8.4 (1995).