WEBVTT

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All right, I did this
reading with the kids

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today in the high school.

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And we got into these poems.

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And they really--

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I think they never really
heard poems like that.

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And I think that's amazing
that people can grow up and not

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know what poetry is
or what poetry can do.

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Most of the time,
they think poetry

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is very boring and tiresome.

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And mostly it is.

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[LAUGHTER]

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But it could be alive,
if it's about real things

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and real issues.

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I want to read a poem
that is very serious.

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And it has to do with a
near-death experience I had,

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when I was about, I
guess, 15 years old.

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And it's called,
"The Concrete River",

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which is the name of the book.

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How many know what
the concrete river is?

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That's right, the LA River.

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And there's concrete
rivers here,

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and there's concrete
rivers all over the place.

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But it's funny because
I always thought

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that a river was
nothing but concrete,

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whenever they said river.

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When I went to
Chicago again, there

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is a river with
water over there.

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And I was amazed that
there was actually

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a river with water going on.

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But as you know,
for a lot of people,

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especially like in LA,
the LA River and all

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these different canals,
people hang out there.

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There's graffiti, they would
get drunk, make love, fight,

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do whatever-- it was just
like a little hangout.

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And we used to do--

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I did a lot of different drugs.

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And one of those
things, of course,

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was sniffing, which
a lot of our kids do.

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One of the things
that happened is,

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I've been covering the story of
Salvadorenos and LA immigrants,

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who have come there from--

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recently joined barrios
there, joined gangs there.

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And then they get deported.

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And they go back to El Salvador.

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And there, they don't
know the country anymore.

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They came when they're children.

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So now, in El Salvador,
there's alley gangs.

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And there's drive-bys.

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And there's graffiti.

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And there's low riders.

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And there's cholos.

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And all these things are
happening down there.

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And I went down there
to talk to people.

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And I even went to the prisons.

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And all these alley
homeboys are in the prisons.

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"Orales", said, they come
up to me and talk to me.

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I was like, could
have been in LA.

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There's a Hollywood
set in San Salvador

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now, of the Mara Salvatrucha.

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So they have transported
the gang culture

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to Mexico, Guatemala,
Honduras, and El Salvador.

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It's the whole idea that
if you get rid of them,

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the problem is over with, right?

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It doesn't work that way.

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Because the problem has
to do with something else.

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And anyway, when I was
walking through the capital,

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I saw these little kids.

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And all over Latin
America, there's

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all these homeless
children, thousands of them,

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with no shoes, literally
walking the inner cities.

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And a lot of them are
called "wilipegas".

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They're the sniffers.

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And I saw two little
kids, 6 and 7 years

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old, crossing the street,
holding each other,

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with the bag.

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And it brought tears to my eyes
because that's exactly what we

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did in East LA area.

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That's exactly what
I went through.

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And it's amazing how that's one
of the links to our children.

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It goes all the way
down the Americas.

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It's this damn glue or
whatever it is, spray.

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Look, it's there.

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I want to read this poem because
it was a near-death experience,

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in which I had actually
stopped breathing,

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actually went through the
tunnel, saw the light.

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And the people talk
about this now.

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Because I didn't know
this, that you're dying

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and you're going
through a tunnel.

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And you see, I went
through all this stuff.

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But one of my homeboys saved me.

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And I was really pissed
off when it happened.

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Because I didn't want
him to bring me back.

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I was really pissed
off at this guy.

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So let me read you the poem.

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It's called, "The
Concrete River".

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"We sink into the
dust, Baba and me,

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beneath brush of prickly
leaves, Ivy strangling trees,

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singing our last
rites of locura.

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Homeboys worshipping God
fumes out of spray cans.

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Our backs press up against
a corrugated steel fence,

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along the dried banks
of a concrete river.

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Spray-painted
outpourings on walls

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offer a chaos of
color for the eyes.

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Home for now, hidden
in weeds, furnished

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with stained mattresses
and plastic milk crates.

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Wood planks thrust in the
thick branches serves as roof.

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The door is a torn cloth
curtain, knock before entering.

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Home for now, sandwiched in
between the maddening days.

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We aim spray into paper bags,
suckle them, take deep breaths.

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An echo of steel
sounds grate the sky.

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Home for now, along an urban
spawned stream of muck,

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we gargle in the technicolor
synthesized madness.

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This river, this concrete
river becomes a steaming,

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bubbling snake of water, pouring
over nightmares of wakefulness,

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pouring out a rush of birds,
a flow of clear liquid

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on a cloudless day, not like
the black oil stains we lie in,

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not like the factory
air engulfing us,

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not this plastic death in a can.

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Sunrays dance on the
surface, gray fish

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fidget below the sheen.

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And us looking like Huckleberry
Finns, Tom Sawyers with stick

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fishing poles, as dew
drips off low branches,

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as if it were
Earth's breast milk.

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Oh, we should be novas
of our born days.

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We should be scraping wet
dirt with calloused toes.

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We should be flowering
petals playing ball.

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Soon water, fish, dew wane
into a pulsating whiteness.

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I enter a tunnel of circles,
swimming to a glare of lights.

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Family and friends beckon me.

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I want to be there,
in perpetual dreaming,

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in the den of exquisite screams.

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I want to know this mother
comfort surging through me.

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I am a sliver of
blazing ember entering

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the womb of brightness.

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I am a hovering specter
shedding scarred flesh.

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I am a clown sneaking out of
a painted mouth in the sky.

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I am your son, ama, seeking
the security of shadows,

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fleeing weary eyes bursting
brown behind a sewing machine.

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I am your brother, the one
you threw off rooftops,

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tore into with rage, the one
you visited, a rag of a boy,

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lying in a hospital
bed, ruptured.

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I am friend of books,
prey cops, lover

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of the barrio women selling
hamburgers and tacos at the P&G

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burger stand.

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I welcome this heavy shroud.

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I want to be buried in
it, to be sculptured

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marble in craftier hands.

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Soon an electrifying hum
sinks teeth into brain,

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then claws surround me, pull
at me, back to the dust,

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to the concrete river.

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Let me go, to stay entangled in
this mesh of barbed serenity.

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But over me is a face,
mouth breathing back life.

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I feel the gush of air, the
pebbles and debris beneath me.

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Give me the bag, man, I slur.

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No way, you died,
man, Baba said.

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You stopped breathing and died.

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I have to go back,
you don't understand.

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I try to get up
to reach the sky.

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Oh, for the lights,
for this whore of a sun

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to blind me, to
entice me to burn.

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Come back, let me swing in
delight to the haunting knell,

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to pierce colors
of virgin skies,

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not here along a concrete
river, but there,

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licked by tongues of flame.

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[APPLAUSE]

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