Aqui En Taos/ The Memoirs of an Anglo Tourist

[bicyclingfish]

Taos, New Mexico is a mystical place, not far north of Sante Fe. This is my recollection of the time I spent there:

Aqui En Taos/ The Memoirs of an Anglo Tourist

I. Places

Ca?on, Angel Fire to San Cristobal
Farmington; 666
La Venta?a in El Malpais
Clovis on I-40, Las Cruces by way of White Sands
Grants, Gallup and Quemado, to Wagon Mound, to Silver City
(I saw Magillion!)
Santa Fe, LaFonda, Paseo de Peralta
Bosque del Apache to Echo and Red Rocks
Abiuque, Pilar, Pe?asco and the Sangres to Chama
Through Magdelena, by Buena Vista (come home, come home)
Questa, come home
Arroyo Seco, Arroyo Hondo, Ranchos and Talpa, come home
The gravel road to the BLM to the cemetery to the ascequia
home, I?m home
Lucy and Heron and Jen and the Saint
I?m home

II. Things

construct furniture with nails
rough cedar, cheap pine, firewood
viga room and old ghosts(they?ve come home)
aluminum pans taste like fear
fragile alliances, allegiances, allies
close memories cautious laundry hung to dry
wood from fires better left unburnt
candles: a dozen for Jesus, the drums and a s?ance in July
wreathes woven in love; fur or hair covers bed sheets
adobe with plaster, wood floors and carpet
unavoidable bills, money untouched
slippers for colds, for snows unfell
prayers for tourists
names of thirty syllables coupled with unparalleled machismo
Joella, Alfie, Tonita are friends
home, I?m home- Lucy and Heron and the Poet and Katie, I?m home

III. Feelings

anxious anxiety wanting waiting hope
truth told- love felt
conscious calling kept keeping
caution callously close
frustrated anguish
withheld desire
withdrew dreams
without you
I?m let down
let down
let down guards
picked up, caught, catching
clearing cooling cold
so cold
actualized accentuated asking acquired
acquitted
I?m gone, gone; home, going home
Lucy and the Wasted and Jen and Katie
I?m going home

IV. Metaphors

I cleared off the table, and you told me to take off my boots.
Catholic cemeteries sit by the Rio and Penta churches hurt by the Faith.
Walk cautiously from the Pueblo to the Plaza (commerce carries your calling.)
Anglos ain?t got no apparent soul, their cravings lost in canvas and gold-
Where did Georgia go?
Why did they kill that Governor and that priest?
Land grants or lost cats?
A ?jita? scared as hell, running down calles.
Across the busy paseo, camino, she calls for her momma and her casa.
Walk past willows 300 years old and look past kivas (St. Geronimo did no good).
They said, ?Ascequias run better clean.?
Home, I?m not home- Jessica, where am I?
Call me, take me, because I want to come home.


[This message has been edited by bicyclingfish (edited 03-25-2001).]

 

[bicyclingfish]

Aqui En Taos, addition 1:

Oh the cultural voyageur!
Is this town the next on the road to fulfilling your dreams?
Your soul is an earthly flesh-covered trashcan.
Blood, puss, bones and junky organic crap fill it, like mine.
Will you escape the chains, the systems that confine us all?
Your parents spot you monthly for your VW bus expenses.
They bail you out of Seattle jails.
You want to do the right thing, join the right movement.
You are in the right moment and you are so cool.
You?re so free you wouldn?t ever wanna be me.
In my shoes the poverty is real, and not a chosen luxury!