The Universe Divine
Daniel García Ordaz, ‘The Poet Mariachi,’ presents luminous poems
Homemade shrine featuring Our Lady of Guadalupe, Staten Island, NY, 2014: “The guy who built it told me he started working on it nine years ago…He also invited me to his annual party here in December. He said there would be a mariachi band and that everyone would be welcome, Mexican or not.” Quote and photo: Matt Greene
Time Is Manna
Time is a sustenance that cannot be hoarded.
The end of time will never be recorded.
Time soothes the aches that
come from great mistakes.
To spend time is a virtue.
To waste time is human.
To give time is divine.
Time can’t be bought.
Time can’t be sold.
Time is ever on
the horizon.
Time
is
Love.
Time has
No heir, no care,
Absolutely no despair.
Time is a harsh extorter.
Time is a gentle exhorter.
Time cannot be recreated.
Time cannot be destroyed.
Time is always never late.
Time is karma’s incubator.
Time is the rarest jewel to behold.
Time is Manna, a providence of Heaven.
Xcaret gift shop, Playa del Carmen, Quintana Roo, México, 2012. Photo: josullivan.59
Heaven Sent
Days of old
Prophets speak.
Babe foretold.
People seek.
Shepherds slept. Angels sang. Promise kept.
Behold the Lamb!
Virgin-born. Wise Men seek. Star-adorned.
Born so meek.
Dove soared. Heaven sent. Called the Lord.
Knees are bent.
Truth restored. Folks repent. Crowd adored.
Lame men leapt.
Demons warred.
Cup accept.
Crowd roared.
Mother wept.
Maimed and gored.
Christ crept.
Mocked and scorned.
Silence kept.
Nailed to board.
Skin torn.
Christ forgives.
Crown of thorns.
Thief lives.
God disowned.
Angels mourned.
Sin atoned.
Christ entombed.
Darkness ends.
Third day rose.
Christ ascends.
Living prose.
Creation
in seven days, God
made the universe divine:
nature in its prime
The Houston metropolitan area–called the "energy capital of the world" due to its role as a major hub of the petroleum and other energy resource industries–photographed at night by an Expedition 22 crew member on the International Space Station. Houston, Texas, 2010. Photo: NASA
Numbered Days
I see
The crashing hours
Upon the sands of time,
The crested days and
Weeks and waves
Ending with a sigh,
The roaring months
And rolling years
Waving their goodbye,
Tossed in metronomic pace—
Empty as they lie.
And on that calm horizon
Where God threw down His rock,
Where tidal ripples started,
The end of time is nigh.
Bendición En El Sillón
Qué fregado de mí
Ya que hoy amanecí
Sin tortillas, sin pan, sin café.
A la calle salí
Casi de hambre morí
Y a la casa de empeño yo fui.
Puse en empeño
A un jalapeño
Y un níquel me dio el señor.
Con el níquel compré
un taco al pastor
Que sin chile no tenía sabor
A la casa volví
Y con gran frenesí
De rodillas le oré al Señor,
Y el Señor contestó,
“¿No te he dicho que Yo
Seré tu Proveedor?”
En el viejo sillón
Me hallé un tostón
Y de pronto a la tienda corrí.
Qué dichoso de mí
Ya que tengo aquí
Mis tortillas, mi pan, y mi fe.
Blessing On The Couch
How miserable of me
For today I awoke
Sans tortillas, sans bread, sans coffee.
I took to the street
Almost starving to death
And straight to the pawn shop I went.
There, I pawned
A lone jalapeño pepper,
And a nickel the man gave to me.
With the nickel I bought
a barbecue taco
That, sans chile, much flavor lacked.
To my house I returned
And with a great frenzy
On my knees I prayed to the Lord,
And the Lord answered,
“Have I not said that I
Shall be your Great Provider?”
In the shabby, old couch
I found a fifty-cent piece
And then hurriedly ran to the store.
How lucky of me
Now that I have with me
My tortillas, my bread, and my faith.
Photo: Dyu-Ha
The Beginning and The End
In the End
I will want nothing,
for I shall have it all
In the End
Everything I now own
I shall never need again
In the End
I will love perfectly
and be
wise,
beautiful,
holy,
complete
In the End
I shall be your child
and you shall be my God,
and therefore,
My Beginning
Securing The Blessings
I vote in the land of the pilgrims’ pride,
land where my father‘s died
without voting
‘cause you can‘t vote with a green card.
You need a voter registration card,
a “Don‘t touch me!
I‘m an American citizen!” card,
and he was not a citizen,
he was in limbo,
just passing through,
kind of in-between, you know?
But for him, though,
I vote.
I vote in the land of the “Free at last, free at last!
Thank God Almighty we are free at last!”
to vote
without paying a poll tax,
without having to prove our knowledge
of grammar and syntax.
I can just stand in line,
stay on my side of the no-campaigning sign
and just relax.
I just show my I.D. and I vote
in the land of “No Mexicans Allowed”
inside the restaurant,
in the land of “Order your ‘chicken-in-a-
basket’ and a Coke
through the window in the back!”-burner
of 1950s…
Victoria,….
Texas,…
America.
America, the Beautiful
for spacious skies and crowded urban streets
for amber waves of grain
maintained
in perfect rows
by azadones and pesticides,
for purple mountain majesties
of Columbine shootings
in classroom settings
above the fruited plains
where the deer and the buffalo and the
Native American Indian roamed
before we became a burden and
they said we couldn‘t vote.
And before them it was the Irishman
and the Chinaman
and the German
and the Russian
and the Hungarian and the Jew
and the poor men and women who
couldn’t vote.
I vote in the name of liberty,
in the name of the land of opportunity,
in the name of freedom for our posterity,
paid by the blood of the volunteer citizenry.
I vote ‘cause I served in the Navy
to protect all the rights of you and me.
I vote because it is free.
I vote because I am free
to vote in this country.
And I’m tired of you voting for me.
And I’m tired of you voting for me.
I Shall Not Be Broken: COVID 19 Lockdown
(Matthew 5:16)
They say it takes seven-hundred
twenty-five thousand pounds-per-square-inch
at temperatures above
two-thousand degrees Fahrenheit
for the universe
to create a diamond out of carbon.
It takes heat. It takes time. It takes pressure
To truly take the measure of a woman or a man.
Will you be a forever diamond?
or just another flash in the pan?
The weight of the world can
turn a bright, sunny day
into a pillar of shade
that turns luster into fade,
but I shall not be broken!
When I trip and fall and fail,
I won’t sit and wallow and wail.
My mistakes won’t be repeated,
and my dreams will be completed.
When life leaves me brokenhearted,
I’ll just remember what I started.
Life will try to beat me,
but life will not defeat me.
When life ties me down
with the weight of a boulder,
I won’t simply be bold:
I’ll show life that I’m bolder!
Our mothers and our fathers
did not raise feeble sons,
did not raise frail daughters,
but, like a tree that’s planted by the waters,
with God on our side,
we’re strong enough to bend
with the turning of the tide.
We push forward, we
move ahead, we
venture onward, we
won’t sleep until we-
’re dead-
certain that the fortress of our dreams has not been breached,
that our goals have now been reached,
until the next adventure calls,
until the next hurdle falls,
until the diamond of our lives
finds the perfect ring
on which to shine and sing.
See I’m a diamond in the rough,
and life has made me tough,
but this shall be my token:
that I shall not be broken!
So I’ll shine bright
like a diamond in the sky,
And I’ll illuminate a path for others—
my friends, my neighbors,
my sisters, and my brothers.
Read Until You Bleed:
funny & thoughtful poems for funny & thoughtful children
Daniel García Ordaz
El Zarape Press, 2023
Cenzontle/Mockingbird:
Songs of Empowerment
(YA Edition)
Daniel García Ordaz
El Zarape Press, 2018
Cenzontle/Mockingbird:
Songs of Empowerment
Daniel García Ordaz
FlowerSong Press, 2018
You Know What I'm Sayin'?Daniel García Ordaz
El Zarape Press, 2006
