![]()
MIGUEL ALGARÍN
SURVIVAL
the struggle is really simple
i was born
i was taught how to behave
i was shown how to accommodate—
i resist being humanized
into feelings not my own—
the struggle is really simple
i will be born
i will not be taught how to behave
i will not make my muscles vestigial
i will not digest myself
A MONGO AFFAIR
On the corner by the plaza
in front of
the entrance to González-Padín
in old San Juan,
a black Puerto Rican talks
about “the race”
he talks of Boricuas
who are in New York on welfare
and on lines waiting for food stamps,
“yes, it’s true, they’ve been taken out
and sent abroad, and those that
went over tell me that they’re
doing better over there than here;
they tell me they get money
and medical aid
that their rent is paid
that their clothes get bought
that their teeth get fixed,
is that true?”
on the corner by the entrance to González-Padín
I have to admit that he has been
lied to, misled,
that I know that all the goodies
he named humiliate the receiver,
that a man is demoralized
when his woman and children
beg for weekly checks,
that even the fucking a man does
on a government-bought mattress
draws the blood from his cock
cockless, sin espina dorsal
mongo—that’s it!
a welfare fuck is a mongo affair!
mongo means flojo
mongo means bloodless
mongo means soft
mongo cannot penetrate
mongo can only tease
but it can’t tickle
the juice of the earth-vagina
mongo es el bicho Taíno
porque murió
mongo es el borinqueño
who’s been moved
to the inner-city jungles
of north american cities
mongo is the Rican who survives
in the tar jungle of Chicago
who cleans, weeps, crawls
gets ripped off,
sucks the eighty dollars a week
from the syphilitic
down deep frustrated
northern man—
viejo negro africano
Africa Puerto Rico
sitting on department store entrances
don’t believe the deadly game
of northern cities paved with gold and plenty
don’t believe the fetching dream
of life improvement in New York
the only thing you find in Boston
is a soft leather shoe up your ass,
viejo, anciano africano, Washington
will send you in your old age
to clean the battlefields
in Korea and Vietnam;
you’ll be carrying a sack
and into that canvas
you’ll pitch
las uñas
los intestinos
las piernas
los bichos mongos
of Puerto Rican soldiers
put at the front to face
¡sí!
to face the bullets, bombs, missiles
¡sí!
The artillery
¡sí!
to face the violent hatred of Nazi Germany
to confront the hungry anger of the world
viejo negro
viejo puertorriqueño
the north offers us pain
and everlasting humiliation
IT DOES NOT COUGH UP
THE EASY LIFE: THAT IS A LIFE
viejo que has visto la isla
perder sus hijos
are there guns to deal with
genocide, expatriation?
are there arms to hold
the exodus of borinqueños
from Borinquen?
we have been moved
we have been shipped
we have been parcel posted
first by water, then by air
el correo has special prices
from the “low island element” to be
removed, then dumped
into the inner-city ghettos
viejo, viejo, viejo
we are the minority
here in Borinquen
we, the Puerto Rican,
the original man of this island
is in the minority
I writhe with pain
I jump with anger
I know
I see
I am “la minoría de la isla”
viejo, viejo anciano,
do you hear me?
there are no more Puerto Ricans
in Borinquen
I am the minority everywhere
I am among the few in all societies
I belong to a tribe of nomads
that roam the world without
a place to call a home,
there is no place that is ALL MINE
there is no place that I can
call mi casa,
I, yo, Miguel ¡Me oyes, viejo!
I, yo, Miguel
el hijo de María Socorro y Miguel
is homeless, has been homeless
will be homeless
in the to be
and the come
Miguelito, Lucky, Bimbo
you like me have lost
your home,
and to the first idealist
I meet I’ll say
don’t lie to me
don’t fill me full of va...
