N a p a l m H e a l t h S p a :
R e p o r t 2 0 1 3
: S p e c i a l E
d i t i o n
L o n g P o e m M a s t e r p i e c e s
o f t h e P o s t b e a t s
JESÚS PAPOLETO MELÉNDEZ
Photo of Jesús Papoleto
Meléndez by Elena Mamarazzi Marrero.
Against
The Threat of AIDS
(for
So Many Friends)
Death Discriminates Not,
Against The Living!
:Death Kills All
Living Things!
Death Kills
Your Life!
IT, ends, IT
:HERE
, on
this Earth
as(wE KnoW
of)IT!
That’s
It!
But Disease!... O! But
Disease Discriminates,
Disease
is Selective
of Its Victims:
Some Are Children
, Whose eyes have yet to wander
through their lives
Who we’ve seen before
starving to their deaths
at the floor
of our dinner tables
:!Bombed Upon—
Burned!
Broken Dolls;
Massacred!
Mass Murdered!
Crying with their open mouths…
Unheard above the dancing crowds!...
Old Men!
, After their lives;
Their children&their wives
their affairs,
their cars&cares
Die,
wrinkled
among the unknown sheets
of strange hospital beds
, No One
not even
the shadows of their wives
showing their heads.
On
Colorful Posters,
Children
, unable to
take a playful step
into this world
without the aid
of the iron-exoskeletons
into which they were born,
elicit our
poor sympathy (unlike
The Attitude Assumed Against
This illicit misery
which now
lays its peril
Across
the whole of society)!
...O!
Our tears are endless
for the lithe less,
reaching the depths
of our wallets,
where wallow our hearts
lost
in deep debt
“To Give Support!”
...as we so poorly know how.
How Is It?!... THEN!!!
That so many of my Friends
Have come to meet their End
Without Even,
the Government
A Relative
or Friend
There!
, at that last moment
in their lives
To let a tear come to their eyes,
To send a friend
a kiss Goodbye,
a hug
Or give a reason why?!...
Young
men, in their prime
Die,
as old wrinkled men aged with time;
From the moment of their first breath
, Babies born
doomed
to their death;
While Junkies
, still in
ghetto streets
nod & leap from window sills
in one
last
wasted
haste
to leave this hell
they’ve lived to hate!!!...
...in this Society
, where all that melts into its pot
comes out asplasticpiecesofshit
thatRepresent,IT
Having Lovers, making love like this:
with plastic tubes
between their bliss
, unsure
of ThemSelves
, embraced
in True Love
wearing surgical gloves!
Why Is It?!... THAT!!!
This Disease
which kills with such great ease
goes on
, unnoticed
as
if a subtle breeze?!
Could it be, That Our Great Society
has Acquired
an acute Immunity to the needs of its
own community,
a
Deficiency in humanity;
a sickly Syndrome of insanity!
Why else would IT go ignored
by Those
Whom we implore
to convene
on the floor of Humanity
And allow Science
to explore
an End
to this Dread Disease
–
Instead of mixing Bombs
with eyes designed against You&Me!
I can only wonder:
...“How lonely Death must be?”
... any Death must be!
,
a lonely destiny
Reserved
for Every
Living Being!
O! But To Go!!!... O! BUT TO GO!!!!!....
Through the Door of Life’s Great
Mystery
, unblessed by Society
, unlike a Soldier
, without Regality
now
Scum,
now Filth,
Diseased
Debris!
This...
This...
, said
of a fellow
Human
Being!
I do not think of my Friends, like this
To
me, They are Beautiful;
my Friends! my Family!
My
Brothers & Sisters
of Mother Earth:
THEIR DEATH WAS NOT THEIR FAULT!!!
NOOO!!!!!!
You cannot blame their Deaths
on Them!
My Friends, as Yours,
tried to live their lives
as Full
as the Brightness
in their Eyes!
– THAT IS WHAT EVERYONE TRIES!
My Eyes will meet Their Eyes
in the bright glaze of Another Sky!
We
will be Friends again,
My Friends,
And
We Will Be Whole,
without
disease,
... Far
Far!!!
,
from this Society’s Hypocrisy!
[Used by permission of
the author.]
Jesús Papoleto Meléndez is a visual and performance poet, and one of the
remaining original founders of the Nuyorican Poets’
Movement, a cultural and intellectual movement involving poets,
writers, musicians and artists who are of Puerto Rican descent and who were
brought up in New York City during the late 40’s and 50’s, as a means to
validate the Puerto Rican identity and experience in the United States. With
the publication of his first volumes of poetry, Casting Long Shadows (NY, 1970), Have You Seen Liberation (NY, 1971) and Street Poetry & Other Poems (Barlenmir
House, 1972), Meléndez’s poetry emerged at the
inception of this movement. His play, “The Junkies Stole The Clock,” (1974)
was the first production of the NY Shakespeare Festival’s Public Theatre’s Nuyorican Playwright’s Unit. As a
performance-poet, Meléndez has distinguished himself
as a dynamic presenter of his works in the oral tradition. While in California,
he formed the musical group “Exiled
Genius,” with Eugene Mingus on piano, and M’Chaka Uba on bass, a trio that
combined the tradition of jazz spontaneity and precision with the natural
melody of the poetic voice in poetry/jazz collaboration. Exiled Genius performed at several
festivals throughout San Diego, Los Angeles and Baja California, Tijuana,
México and has opened for such artists as Tito Puente, Urban Bush Women and The
Art Ensemble of Chicago. He also
formed “Nuyorican
School – Original Poetry Jazz Ensemble” in 1997 with Americo
Casiano in New York City.