Spicaresque:

A Spanglish blog dedicated to the works, ruminations, and mongrel pyrotechnics of Yago S. Cura, an Argentine-American poet, translator, publisher & futbol cretin. Yago publishes Hinchas de Poesia, an online literary journal, & is the sole proprietor of Hinchas Press.

Wednesday, July 24, 2019

JACARANDA TAKEOVER

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Jacaranda Tunnel.

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What it is is two Jacaranda Trees
planted along the same longitudinal
on the south side of Inglewood Blvd.

They post up fifty feet into the air,
dusky, purple billows, that tumble into
a momentary tunnel over sidewalksides.

It's their takeover factor, sheer spectacle,
dueling cumulus branches, that toggles my awe
into something more feral and focused than zeal.

Except, I've come to put my infant son to sleep.
And, stumbled upon this enormous lavender aberration,
and, now, have to keep from erupting in the sharp sun?

Under the trees themselves, carpeted mauve wilt
that stains paint jobs and tinges the makeshift tunnel
drawn by the two Sumo jacaranda trees straddling Inglewood.

The mid-management palms grow away from las Jacaranda gemelas.
In fact, you won't find a plant not perturbed by the brightness
of their tasteless display, vegetation can be so shameless.

In the middle of the Jacaranda tunnel is a mail truck.
It is parked at the mouth of the tunnel on the other side
of all this purple, but there is no mailperson in sight.

Saturday, May 11, 2019

IMMIGRANT CROUPIER by YAGO S. CURA

Immigrant Croupier
by Yago Cura


My great, great grandfather was a Lebanese ocean croupier.
Rolled the dice on Argentina as payout with my tatara abuela.
Debarking Buenos Aires, tongues calloused by Spanish knots,
they handsplained their way through racist-ass aduanas.

Teleported themselves to the middle of the country to secure dough.
Raised a family flanked by immense grass deserts of desiccant wind.
Without their gamble, my parents don’t ante on that freight ship’s hold.
They don’t overstay tourist visas, or buy a house in Brooklyn to fill with din.

If neither I nor my sister are born, the junta wins, and my parents lose.
The existence of this very poem becomes ensnared in red date stamps?
Relax, I make it to California because my tatara abuelos establish abuse
of odds as their hedge in the face of exile, erasure, and military gavels.

It is not luck which brings me to the brink of this continent
to commune with my predecessors, and polish the wilderness
of their bruise.