Art: Nikosono, @zebranude

STAR SPANGLED MEXICAN

“Come on, you sons of bitches, do you want to live forever?”
Sgt. Major Dan Daly

You are the exterminators.
We are the cockroaches.
You can shoo us.
Step on us.
Spray poison in the air.
Chase us out.
Build a higher wall.
Delay dreams,
But we breed with each other
We multiply
We come back the by thousands
You plant your seeds;
We plant ours.
You will never win.
We will live forever.

#Revolutionaries are trending,
Taking a knee for justice,
for peace,
for people of color,
(shot to death on Facebook)
(on camera for the masses to see)
Cracktainment.
Police are pardoned for murder

People say, “Don’t look suspect”
-Don’t be black or brown-
Teary promises from politicians.
“We have to work together—peace, harmony, unity, votes.
Prayers from false prophets.
We eat it up.
God has a plan for us all,
Even for the priests who suicide
From their decaying conscience.

A divided country that longs to be “great” again.
It’s all a meme on social media.

Locker

room

talks.

When was this country great?
What year was it cleansed of the blood of slaves?
When was it absolved of erasing the indigenous and Mexican?

You say every country has its bad memories
And if you don’t like it…get the hell out.
(You, get out of the country of my ancestor’s)
When, in our time, do you speak of this great America?

I’ll answer that for you.
It was the time when gays were beaten to death
Shot up in night clubs
It was the time when women knew their place

stayed in the kitchen.
BANG!
ZOOM!
TO THE MOON, ALICE.
It was the time when statues were erected
for the Confederates to be remembered as legends.
#Colonialism.
#Never Forget.
It was the time Segregation.
It was the time of Tammy Fay Baker and Jimmy Swaggart
It was the time of
actors becoming
President.
Corporations made trillions of dollars
on products made in China and Mexico.
It was the need for slavery
It was the time when A.I.D.S. meant you were a gay sinner.
It was the time when Mexicans lived the American dream of cleaning toilets and mowing lawns
It was the time where schools only taught the white man’s pain.
It was the time when pilgrims were admired for Thanksgiving.
Kids drawing outlines of their hand for Turkey feathers
Brown and black people wanted their skin to be lightened for acceptance.
It was the time when Chicano’s stayed in their barrios
now they’re suckers for cul-de-sacs in suburbia
It was the time before the internet ruined your heroes exposing their sexualities.
The times we simply did what we were told.
America, you are missed.
Where are you?
In Charlottesville? Or a theater in Colorado?

Come back please.
We now have millennials running amuck
Damn kids keep eyes glued to smart phones and tablets
Instead of tools to fix cars or repair pipes
Women of color acting like they are equal
Gay/Les/Trans/fluid – rainbows with pride

A Confederate flag lowers
Robert E. Lee monuments removed
Heroes of the racist south

How can this be stopped?

People Say, “I attended Robert E. Lee High School
I don’t want the name to change because some people are too sensitive.”
Rifles have sensitive triggers too
Please, somebody on Fox news
Doc Brown/Marty Mcfly
Take us back to a time when America
Wasn’t the most embarrassing country in the world.
Take us back to Taco Bell summers
Coca-Cola Christmases
Tell me in five years everything will be back to that normal
One nation under a white God
Indivisible with white liberty and white justice for all.
Tell us the bombs bursting in air
Is our president wiping out North Korea
Please tell me
The amber waves of grain can endure the phony claims of climate change

Another ice shelf breaking off
Pray that our children don’t breed with brown, black or Asian- God Forbid
Pray for our military men and women who sacrifice their time
And lives for barbecue Sunday funday’s
Pray for the wall to keep drugs and guns from Mexico away
But let their women stay
So we can breed with them
Meeting at bars strategically placed near military bases,
To call them whores,
And leave them single and pregnant

It’s not a new concept of people of color wanting to be more than a maid
The rebellion is in Universities and Sky-Scraping Corporate offices
Media stirring up controversies

Where was all this before?
I never heard them complain before.
Why now? After all these years?
Statues? Flags? Senseless murders.

Mexicans are lucky they can be here in America
Taking our jobs,
Inflating welfare,
Being frontline military,
And they still complain.
It’s never enough.
Mexicans are so spoiled.
So many killed to make Texas happen
.Don’t mess with Texas…even if it was Mexico.

The people that think like this are 50 percent white
40 percent self-hating Chicano’s
And 10 percent uncle tom’s

If you’re a Chicano
Act like a Chicano.
The American dream belongs to little blue-eyed Johnny
And Suzy the blondie.

Who wants the American dream?

You do.
You’ve been told all your lives,
In schools, at home, at work
That the American dream
Is scratching lotto tickets

an actress/waitress in a chic Hollywood restaurant,
Hoping to be discovered

At the Superbowl
When Whitney Houston sang
The Star Spangled Banner
People cried.
People called it the greatest rendition ever.
Snot dripping from her coked up nostrils,
Stealth bombers swooshing above,
Sending love out to those dying in the Gulf war;
Oh America…Where did you go?
Come back please.
I promise we’ll get rid of Planned Parenthood,

So women can deal with their mistakes.

This is why white supremacy must die.
Not be negotiated with.
Not educated.
Not a calm conversation over a glass of Merlot
Not intellectuals flashing college degrees,

Not peace talks or demonstrations.
They only want to kill you
They only want to rid you of their lives.
They only want you to not exist
In the American Dream.

Wake up. If you’re Hispanic you’re already wrong.
You’re a Chicano;
Act like a Chicano.
We Chicanos must act physically and take back what is ours;
By any means necessary.
Remove the art work along the border wall,
Tear it down
Brick by brick
Come on Chicanos
Do you want to live forever?
Tear it down.
Blow it up.
Don’t stop until it’s all gone.
No more borders.
No more walls.
No more lies.


About the author:

Vincent Cooper is a Xicano poet living in the west side of San Antonio. His chapbook, Where the Reckless Ones Come to Die, was published by Aztlan Libre press in 2014. Cooper’s poetry can be found in several literary journals, such as Huizche, La Casita Grande, and Latin@ Literatures.

Art: Image from The Zebra Nude Experience photo series by Nikosono, @zebranude, nikosono.com

In the artist’s words:

Over a major part of my life spent in France, I have built up my portfolio with black and white analog photos printed into a dark room. I have been an assistant at the Rapho Agency in Paris (home of famed photographers Doisneau, Ronis and Boubat). Then I moved to Australia a decade ago. I have received an extensive list of accolades. My photo series Australian Biotope has been exhibited during Photo LA 2016 and at Art Basel 2015 (Switzerland). It has been published in the magazines PHOTO, The Eye of Photography, and Profession Photographe. My conceptual work on abstract aerial views of the Australian environment has been featured in exhibitions in Tokyo and at the Kanazawa Museum of Contemporary Art in Japan, but also in UK, France, and Italy. I have now sought to innovate across a project like “The Zebra Nude Experience” in photography using natural lights, stripes, and bodyscapes.

Some Exhibitions prints can be acquired from the saatchiart.com/nikosono gallery page.

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