SkateFate by Juan Felipe Herrera Read Free Book Online

THIS MORNING
    ON
    MY
    SKATEBOARD
    porpoisenosed
    cheetahpawed
    ancestralfinfinfin
    bluequiverriversilvers
    sawdust of awesome awe
    here
    i
    gooooooooooooooooo!
    gooooooo!
    goooooooooo!
    gooooooo!
    gooooooo!
    when you are dreaming you are dreaming
    that is when you are awake when
    French violet flower petals greet you like van Gogh &
    all the streets lead to where you are
    & there is no where to go you know you know
    blue green hills & dawny-light & hope fill your eyes &
    shake your heart
    when the A train rides you to the City of Sparkles
    & you call out
    â€œhere’s where i stop so i can start!”
    when each finger paints & each breath almost faints
    all the moony messages & sassy singers
    from all the fire escapes fly out it’s your turn! they shout
    it’s your time! they dance
    it’s your rhyme! it’s your chance
    in a circle made of infinite circles in a breath
    that breathes all our breath
    when your face is smeared with summer & winter
    autumn & spring sorrow & laughter what you lost
    & what you are after what is soaring &
    what sails under the sea
    your season is here you see
    it is near
    can you hear its freedom melody ringing
    it is you
    so skate a poem
    wherever you go & you & all will know
    you
    can be tragic you can
    be casual & usual & unusual
    1,2,3 put a poem on backward
    & it starts to spell Me
    are you listening-listening
    write it weak every week
    write it strong so every line can goooooooo looooooooooooooooooong &
    belong
    to your unexpected song
    that’s it that’s it—4, 5, 6, 7, 8, i said nine
    print it on an Abercrombie sign
    a BMX flying over Spider-Man bouncing sticky
    across time right in the skate-skate it right there with a flair
    right there
    for all the looooosers & all the wiiiiiiiiinners
    for those grounded for all those wounded
    in wars at home in the school yard unknown
    in wars far away in wars no one can say You're so gay
    when all is quiet in the foster home zone
    when every face & space in MySpace quivers &
    logs out for a thrilli-second of rhyme
    skate a poem that is your cue your sign
    wherever you go
    in a flurry in a hurry a textmessage w/o a worry
    text it there text it in your own
    magnificent mysterious texteriousway
    text it to the girl with wrists cut
    whose father storms into her room with the dust of Iraq
    gone so soon?
    text it to the boy with his mother so poor so lost under
    the liquor light moon
    text it to the girl-boy considering the angry gnarly rope cool
    hanging from the roof so solemn so hairy so early in
    that lonely shadow pool
    text it to the teen soldier
    ten years older
    than yesterday’s improvised explosive device duel
    get serious with it seriously
    get delirious with it deliriously
    get omnivorous with it omnivorously
    Â¡opalescentplasmathunderquake!
    ithappenedtome
    when i went flyin’ & cryin’ & dyin’
    for goodness sake i ain’t lying
    be with it
    be in it
    be for it & after it beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee
    the poem thass all
    be the song-song
    you are singing
    with ADD or
    stutter-free with acne & ghee & horchata on your knee
    with a bow-legged shape
    with crisscross eyes that can truly see
    with busted legs the color of eggs
    with freckles & dimples &
    heckles & Shrek-colored me’s
    going
    going
    gooooing
    further than your dreams & screams
    invisible & visible & visualized & televised
    in your high-def lows &
    your diggable-digital highs
    in the eyelash of hip-hop creation or
    in the woo-whoo of your own Claymation imagination
    skate a poem there
    do it pronto
    for your girlfriend
    for your self-fried
    for your boywhocried
    skate a poem crazy & lazy & wiggly & wobbly & brave
    ready—i said go!
    skate a poem wherever you goooooooooooooooooooooo
    blog it
    pog it
    ride it
    roo it
    goo it
    do it
    crew it
    brew it
    shoo it
    shoe it
    moo it
    blue it
    Sue it
    froo-fruit it
    10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, eighteen
    OMG—
    skate it
    on all the things
    that come from no things in sight &