I'm sure a lot of you guys are familiar with the dichos
that your abuelitas might have told you.
And this is a very short poem that's called "Un Poema en Tres
Dichos."
"'Ya te conozco, mosco' is rumored to have begun
as Pachuco slang.
Finding the cops' rat, seeing through the bad deal.
Knowing already the truth behind the layered lies.
Ya te conozco.
I already know you.
I've already known the venom of recognition.
You're caught like a fly in a web of my own fly design.
Mosco.
The taunting rhyme.
I know you.
I know.
Two.
'Más sabe el diablo por viejo' is what you said to me when
I'd been out too late and smelled of cigarettes and booze
in the morning.
The wisdom of age is always one by living
through your own misdeeds.
You don't expect I'll listen to some dicho.
No tengo juicio.
Have some courtesy.
Have some sympathy and some taste.
Knowledge has always been a fruit worth biting,
worth the juice running down my throat, my chin.
Three.
'El hombre prevenido vale por dos,' you would say to me
and nod.
Forewarned and forearmed.
Be prepared.
Dig the trenches.
Lay defenses.
Militant in its original design.
But here it is also about foresight.
Which is to say, the ability to account for contingency.
Everything hangs by a thread unraveling like the seconds
before the cops and the protesters begin their riots.
That dance of broken glass and broken teeth.
Careful, I am worth both of you."