One of many: Last breaths in San Francisco

This was written in response to the "black robot butler" marketing campaign earlier this year.
I was honored to have been given the unique opportunity to read this poem privately to a group of artists and poets in Tony Avala's office during the tenth annual Poems Under the Dome pre-party at City Hall. Amongst the party were Alex Nieto's parents. It's a moment I will certainly never forget in my writing "career".

Viva San Francisco...


*****************

You disgusting black butler robot marketing scheme

When will it stop

The shoving in our faces 

that you've enforced a reconciliation amongst our city's people XX 

that we have lost so many of our good 

That our walks home from work XXwe have to be reminded that something absolutely inhuman has taken over the steps of the library where I go to read about the world because school is too expensive

That this kind of reasoning for widening the gap between the rude greedy slobs and the ever hungry is a blasting cardboard sign of the 

Times

Insensitive to the displaced

You know!

the ill, poor, fucked up, unacceptable subhuman

Beautiful freaks

My friends

All the millions

That you claim to be cleaning up

Are still here

And you dont even care

But maybe one of your boxes will turn into a home for somebody in the L's

Tonight my cab driver told me about a shooting he witnessed around 14th 

In the mission

So recently.  

And not on the news because if you idiots XX 

from bumfuck wired hashtag no where USA knew about it you might not be as keen to take over somebody's home who lived there some twenty or thirty years before you 

And so many of those who step on the streets new to the places we worked hard to claim,

Just as we got comfortable,

Something you might translate as satanism XX

And I see

As many sins

Under a nation you claim to be under god

You became greedy of the pavement 

Greedy of the foundation

Turning our bones into useless garbage XX

turning our politicians and your  self righteous phone version of yourselves into perverted masturbations of a rectangle version dollar sign capable of obliterating a whole city's soul

Just so you could go to sleep at night 

Rest in peace

I wanted to say the other night drunk and tired from working hard 

During the Day of the Dead procession in the mission october soothing air

In a place i dont recognize anymore

To the businesses and people i have lost within the 49 squared 

and aching 

and nourishing 

miles

I have called my home 

But the peace wasn't reacher at the end of the night when I realized I looked around at the sloppiness of a drunk that can only come from Silicon Valley ignorance 

RIP

 To the ghosts inside walls that had the intentions of feeding our brains a piece of gorgeous life whether it be booze or a pair of ben davis

Rest in peace to my battles and rants against the techie convenience and all of its faux pride

Rest in peace the moments in time in which my family 

Had in a big blue house on harrison

And an apartment on Dolores where my mother had to move my then eight year old sister because of the color of their skin and its association to gangs

So that i could grow up in a racist republican town that bred kids who are probably just now moving back in

Did anyone know that Burlingame got sued for a billion or something dollars for dumping human shit into the bay illegally?

http://m.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Burlingame-being-sued-over-sewage-3295262.php

Rest in peace

The presence and dreams of the last 40,000 students who got pushed out of city college of san francisco since the last time I attended in 2010

Live in peace to the Flowershop.

Rest in paradise

Too many homies

Its usually

Drugs

The game

So called

Life and 

Maybe on some gang shit

Suicide or heroin

An d sometimes it freak

But what can we do but stay

Outcasts together

And keep on

Keeping on?

RIP

Mire

Jade

Artem

Vote

AKO

And my best friend, Regina. 

I miss you so much.

Rip to the nation's lonely children

Alex nieto

Taryvon martin

Oscar grant

Michael brown

To all the people the cops killed unjustly

Maybe I knew you in person or on some lonely yard or cracking jokes psycho and drunk

Maybe we slept and dreamt dreams that died along with the verdict meant for hanging on a tree.

Maybe we will grow past the walls set up for detaining into long vines of freakishly strong fruit to be rained on the growing number of people who move to this country in hopes of finding where to lie their heads a night

In peace

Maybe we will be remembered

In peace

Or there after.

When I was a kid my moms used to say

You have to love all people

I said

Moms if i married a woman would you still love me?

She said to me "Mija,

i'll love you no matter what"