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Incamos a sonidos
recreidos entre
páginas y plumas,
feathers spray painting walls.
We are the music of stories
rippling from pens
that send bassy vibrations
from floor to tambor,
refracting brass sensations
like grid-iron light,
sliding down strings
that cut the edges of night.
We rise over two-flats,
skyscrapers, liquor stores.
Our acrobatic musical scores
jump, dodge, skip in plurals
like niños playing hopscotch
in front of murals --
a graffiti of limbs. They are
satellites with their own
songs and prisms of flight.
We are caught
between cornfields and prickly pears.
We swear ink bleeds and sounds
that last for centuries
waiting to be found.
Somos un sonido inquieto
(inquieto, inquieto, inquieto).
Our own urban corridos
buscados y prohibidos
whisper from sewer caps,
steam rising to a snap
and hiss. We kiss anxious pitches
flip the switches,
never wait
for permission to wake our dead,
make sure they're fed,
bellies filled with empanadas
coaxing carcajadas,
bones cracking and cackling
in a hip ska, noisy Norteña,
a funky punk, punky funk
that refuses to be sunk
beneath anyone's foot.
Our roots are resltess
clciking across kitchen floors,
pounding on doors to our own
streams of consciousness.
Somos gritos reclaiming mitos
-- our central axis --
que nos enseñan andar
-- truth our praxis --
in a world that wants to spin
without us, lose us in the vortex
of inequity, passivity.
But we mix bilingual syllables
into bass and treble decibels,
drink vasos de ink
and bowls of sound
to feed the beat
that scorches the quiet of defeat.
We are boisterous and loud
so the clouds can hear us
shout Jade and Mayan swirl
unplugged or turned up, electric,
brought to you digital or hi-fi.
Create and stay alive,
inkreible, nunca invisible
inkreible, nunca invisible
ink(quieto), ink(quieto), ink(quieto).
- Brenda Cárdenas and Aidé Rodríguez
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