Tag: Tori Cárdenas

Fourteen Reasons to Love America the Beautiful

By Tori Cárdenas

 

  1. Worn flags fall and burn / as bumper stickers / beer cans /
    boardshorts / truck nuts / red visors and head coverings /
    and hearts purple-swelling with pride / beneath twisted
    knuckles
  2. Paint your storm windows / with razor wire / and the
    blessed blood of the unborn / seal out / pungent spices and
    peppers / from your doorways / restrooms / defend your
    borders
  3. It is her fault / their fault / his fault / someone else’s
    problem / Reduce to the common denominator / it is the
    restaurant on the corner / serving anything but a burger and
    fries
  4. Bring your boots / your pipes / your fatigues / bring them
    into the town square / to wage war on people who call it a
    ‘plaza’ / no room for foreign shit here / isolation is survival
  5. Grab ’em by the pussy / treat ’em like shit / fuck their
    daughters / they’re begging you / unless their chests are flat /
    those ain’t the raping kind / lock them up / uptight lesbians
  6. Circle one: true or false / if follow-up: false / if red: true /
    false: blue / no news: good news / the best news / no news
    to speak of here: true / not: false / don’t read all that fake
    shit
  7. They’re bringing drugs / they’re bringing rape / they’re
    bringing crime / and sin and pestilence and parasites / Gas
    their children begging at the nation’s bottom / and fuel the
    swampy top
  8. And yea, the Lord said, “Shoot the snowflakes / the
    women / the children with brown skin / for they displease
    your Lord God Almighty / on his golden Mar-a-Lago”
  9. Cover your assets / for the end times are coming / store
    your gold beneath the eaglet down of your pillows / when
    your coffers runneth empty / a street of walls will meet you
  10. You can survive on nothing / you’re still buying SPAM,
    aren’t you / what about the dollar menu / it may not nourish
    your cells to overthrow this epidemic / but you can still
    make us money
  11. It’s all a hoax / this climate shit / make it warmer / so we
    can bust heads on the beach / blow up the schoolhouses /
    teacher bullshit / gimme a pencil / sos I can black there eyes
    out
  12. Bring back the hanging / decorations / bamboo shoots are
    the new manicure / Full page ads of black brown blue
    babies / withered elders / toss them into the rivers / erase
    them
  13. Hey bro / got a job for you / the boss lets us drink and fuck
    anything we want / don’t forget your golf clubs / got a seat
    for you right here / with a guzzler helmet / and two cold
    Coors Lights
  14. Vote / your voice matters / we’re listening / psst / we want
    to know what you think / it’s your right / pass the earplugs /
    you fought for it / don’t you want it anymore / pussies /

 

Poetry editor Tori Cárdenas is a queer Tainx/Latinx poet from Northern New Mexico. In 2014, she graduated from the University of New Mexico with a dual Bachelor of Arts degree in History and English, with a concentration in Poetry. She returned to UNM in Fall 2017 to earn her MFA in Fiction. She served as Blue Mesa Review‘s 2018-2019 Poetry Editor, and serves currently as the 2019-2020 Editor-in-Chief. Tori’s work has appeared in Conceptions Southwest, VICE, Pantheon Magazine, Writers Resist online journal, and Writers Resist: The Anthology 2018, and it has been nominated for the Best of the Net anthology and a Pushcart Prize. Her works were also featured as finalists in the 2018 and 2019 Rabbit Catastrophe Press Really Good Poem Prize contests. Tori lives with her dog Sophie in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

Editor’s note: The photo of the U.S. flag pistol is used for purposes of noncommercial commentary, satire, and education under the Fair Use Doctrine.

 

Farewell and Welcome!

Laura Orem is retiring after almost two years as one of our dedicated volunteer poetry editors. Farewell, Laura!

While we’ll miss Laura—and her sense of humor—we’re delighted to welcome our newest poetry editor, Tori Cárdenas.

Tori is a queer Tainx/Latinx poet from Northern New Mexico. In 2014, she graduated from the University of New Mexico with a dual Bachelor of Arts degree in History and English, with a concentration in Poetry. She returned to UNM in Fall 2017 to earn her Master’s of Fine Arts in Fiction. She served as Blue Mesa Review’s 2018-2019 Poetry Editor, and serves currently as the 2019-2020 Editor-in-Chief.

Tori’s work has appeared in Conceptions Southwest, VICE, Pantheon Magazine, Writers Resist online journal, and Writers Resist: The Anthology 2018, and it has been nominated for the Best of the Net anthology and a Pushcart Prize. Her works have also been featured as finalists in the 2018 and 2019 Rabbit Catastrophe Press Really Good Poem Prize contests.

Tori lives with her dog Sophie in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Please join us in welcoming Tori—and celebrating her poem. …

White

upon buying a new car for visibility, practicality, and functionality,

the car and insurance salesmen convince me white is the best color—

it’s functional, keeping it clean is as easy as keeping the dust off of it.

at night, you will be easy to see, less likely to get pulled over or questioned,

folks will stop to help you with flats on the shoulder. on long road trips,

bugs splatter every color across your grille, red and brown and yellow—

won’t it be pretty

 

Why Poets Aren’t on TV

By Tori Cárdenas

 

Poets aren’t on TV because they cry when they are asked about their feelings.
Poets are messy.

Poets will tell it like it is. They will tweeze out the words you meant from an argument
& divinate the heart of you by casting your dry fingerbones.

Poets are easily distracted. They will not settle for limited omniscience
and will write a poem from the bottom of the ocean or a planet orbiting a distant star.

Poets are old deep wells with trolls still living in them.
Poets refuse to read from the teleprompter.

Poets will only read aloud with the dangling vocal chimes of generations before them,
the infected & murdered; the drugged, the persuaded, and the robbed.

Poets rewrite erased words.
Poets only own black clothing, and so are hard to fit into certain studio sets.

Poets will not sit through hair & makeup.
Poets are oblivious to commercial breaks. Their ribcages pulse with broken rhythms.

Poets are lie detectors. They unstarch anchors’ shirts with sex & politics & blood.
There is no script for poetry. Poets are still trying to translate it into the vernacular.

Poets aren’t on TV because they are hard roles to cast; they are mirrors.
Who would want to watch a blank screen?

 

Tori Cárdenas is a Tainx/Latinx poet from Northern New Mexico. She is currently working on her Masters of Fine Arts in Poetry at the University of New Mexico. Follow her on Twitter at @monsoonpoet and on Instagram at @toritillas, and visit her website.

Photo credit: Tina Rataj-Berard on Unsplash.