Xavi Burgos is an Afro-Puerto Rican and Dominican born in diaspora poeta and educator who currently makes his home in La Area Bahia.
Viva Puerto Rico Libre!
The Ghetto Brothers
Barrio kids in the iron Leviathan
sitting atop catacombs of death and regurgitation
Singing of a famed tropical paradise
imprisoned by a demonic imperium,
Incensed that they were the ones to be forced to be born in the depths of the entrails of malediction,
of the murderous,
of monstrosities of monstrosities
of modernity’s manipulations.
And not in
sweet Borinquen,
Which is also a land of genocide,
molded by insular hands,
with its tres razas multicultural
representational pero mostly blanquito
colonial bourgeoisie gripping fanatically onto the
Gringo banner of death
50 stars imploding in the impending explosion
of neo-fascist spawn.
Viva Puerto Rico Libre
Nuyorican kids sometimes get brief mentions in the
commercialized commerce for liberal liberation,
How
to be
free
Cookbooks
Handbooks,
Workbooks,
Guidebooks,
Travelogs
for the self-consciously curious
cannibal citizenry
devouring exotic accouterments
to admonish the guilt of living in an empire
that not only
kills
my people
and pollutes
its land
But snuffs out the voices of exiles
refugee adventure seekers
architects of new homelands
and children of allá afuera
la guagua aérea
De
Tra
Tra
Tra
Excess population
to buy time for the criollo elite’s sandbox games of
But
I
Am
A
Legitimate
Government
Viva Puerto Rico Libre
One state?
Two state?
How about no state?
Pero what do I know?
I never lived in Puerto Rico.
Only cried for Puerto Rico.
Don’t cry for me
Estamos bien
Puerto Rico
A mulatito,
trigueñito,
tierra adentro
mar afuera
Belong nowhere
Everywhere
Elegua
All roads
Four corners
Ancestors from across the globe.
Escaping
Remaking
On and Beyond the Planet of the Sea
A Nuyorican lost and found and bound to empire.
Always singing the question,
Would Puerto Rico’s liberation
mean us too?
