street market scribble scribe : tijuanagringo.com/poemas/strmkt01.htm

At the end of the street
they are parking cars .

Everyone wants to go to
the street market.

s o b r e r u e d a s
"on-wheels"

a diez pesos escogele a diez a diez

We plunge straight to the heart
then go out on its far side
yonder between our
here and their
flat there

Otay Mesa .

At the center of the bustling street market fair
chickens roast on an asador grill

45.00 says the sign

(ese es 4.25 en dolar)

clouds of sweet fowl meat fragrance float down the street
wreathing the thronging shoppers bob and weave
cliché heads that pivot, turn : Look! See?

across the way peoples crowd
tables under plastic tarps
for antojitos tipicos
typical goodies

si te antoja – if you like –

see that sign out front – el letrero – it says:

pozole
menudo
birria
flautas
sopes
quesadillas
tostadas
tacos d'pescado
aguas y sodas

at me this is all a text street full
public writing speech

the scribe walks at hand wrote
one end to another notes

no means justify
maybe means no

another booth a pizza joint

off to one side the factories

waiting for Monday to bring them
back
to work

Meanwhile back in Tijuana the man selling fruit salad
from his cart by the JVC factory gate
wears a baseball cap that

says

San Francisco

There's a rack of suits
a booth full of stuffed animals

a tiny, frightened Chihuahua dog
scampering under the tables

across the street
30 eggs for 20 pesos

deliciosos boles de rompope
from a little cart

Tejuino & Diablitos
painted words refresh
drinks from
another

then
a pool table with balls, cues, rack
sitting out on the street, for sale, of course....

( "pool cue stick" in Spanish = "taco"
["taco" comes from the verb "to stuff"] )

(Maria Teresa would tell me stop analyzing but
am walking by myself only my left hand,
my right brain, and you beside me
reading not this wilderness
oh city of no yes)

next door: used stoves, refrigerators, washers........

a fat girl/woman with enormous
breasts in tight sweater
passes by birdcages

tables full of shoes

tables, sofas, beds, baby stroller
speakers, stereos, computers, CDs

tools and toys and TVs

a man connecting the battery
on a tiny, driveable car

for the young boy, barely four
who waits at the wheel

the skittish Chihuahua with
his ears flattened back
trots quickly past
dodging the thinning crowd

we (you and I) are headed
toward the distant end
of this market

writing all the way

A man in orange T-shirt glances twice,
three times, at me scribbling
while I slowly walk

scratch scratch I can see my
feet carefully stepping through
the background beneath my notepad

look over there –
jewelry and fireworks

and there's that hard-mounted
Escher print of lizards and books
turning reptile life into drawing and
back again all over again around around

You know the one? Yes. I tell you
I've seen it before and again
here for sale besides

tons and tons of clothes
strung up along the white-painted bars
of a tall industrial steel fence

we pass along Sor Juana de la Cruz
far east into the last straggling fringes
of the sobreruedas market

people and booths thin out

scattered now, selling from
pickups and cars, spreading wares
across plastic cloths stretched upon cement
in the eastern extremities

on the right, the crumpled rumble
of half-crumbled one- and two-storey
cement architecture all crowded together
cubist nightmare I have grown to love dear
cliché brain cannot speak sans
rumpled purple words

r u m p l e s t i l t s k i n
my flesh is your blood read

these are the far regions of Modulos
this Mexican barrio
my home

on the left a huge, open expanse before the border

vast truck parking zone
half full of trailas – big truck trailers

waiting behind their tall steel fence

waiting for the tractas to come
and take them away, to give meaning
to their global life.

We're almost at the end, now,
where cars & minibusses circulate
freely here around the eastern extreme
Sunday sobreruedas, "our" street market

you decide what the quote marks mean between us, you, me
wrapped around this weekend city
t e x t

I keep on writing, on the street, on my feet,
breaking rules, shredding script,
scribbling in public

what you ain't supposed to do
I suppose

writing in public right out
in front of God & everybody

on the edge
where market turns
back into neighborhood

yeah there are many frontiers
and boundaries
to cross

like Rydra Wong from Delaney's Babel-17
(NOT the tv show)

– cuts across worlds

with words

in

my

p e r f o r m a n c e

of duty

"Go over-paper, Daniel"

my father once said to me in a dream
the year after he died

near thirty years ago too young.

He did not mean rewrite

I knew (as you know things in dreams) I knew
he meant something beyond paper,
like "over-drive"

over-paper uber-menschen

and I didn't know then what it might be
but I can only think

n o w

"Llantera" Diaz
MECANICO EN GENERAL
TUNE*UP
SISTEMA de FRENOS

hay tamales de elote de carne hay tamales

TAPICERIA
DE AUTOS Y MUEBLES
El teacher
PRESUPUESTOS GRATIS
AL TEL. 623.45.77

this is not an advertisement este no es un anuncio comercial
there be little Mexican businesses all along the street
facing across at international factories from

beyond the horizon
with their signs
of the times

hand-lettered against
big corporate
logos

be a good boy my boy and
we'll let you sub-contract
or even do our tuck & roll

d i g r e ss i o n
e d it o ri a l
b a b y l

I talk to you about the radio news
as nearer distance Otay Mountains rise
where immigrants freeze and die from thirst
while we kill and die and suffer torture Babylon

over there fight
fire with
fire

the United States officer and a gentleman
placed a sleeping bag over his head

sat on him and

covered his mouth while

" q u e s t i o n i n g "

h i m

he died of course
(swallowed a horse)

they do that here, too
druglords and the
kidnap gang
command
os

secuestro express ransom ATM

CLICHÉ death is E.Z. @ our OK.Corral crime
taped up in plastic, dumped from speeding car along
the proud, paved h i g h w a y
p r o g r e s s

according to Webster, "progress' is
a royal procession marked
by pomp and
pageant
-ry

so let us go then, you and I
out to c e l e b r a t e
that horrible truth we dare not confess each
other there where Elliot's evening is spread out against
the western sky decline like impatience etherized upon a time

of once to fight fire with fire? seek our/your own level, water

No Thanks. It's already old news on the border line
I'll just go to the market again and write

these lines = align-right & eyes left

no one dares to drink from any river anymore
silent spring

without chlorine no

n e v e r

same with my words
s a n i t i z e d
& s e l f - c e n s o r e d
at the very end the street goes on
between clunky collections of apartments and factories

a gated cement apartment community open gate
no one in the guard booth

come back now with me toward the center of the market
past the railed neighborhood balconies and barred windows

look, a pile of software CDs mmmmm yes
I am interested but can't buy today

oh no, look! not even those three
CHICAGO albums in fair condition....

and look at all the other "old" vinyl...

¿Eres del otro lado?
Sí pero vivo aquí en Otay.

I lied the records were at another booth far away
but the rhyme was too tempting and the time

"other old vinyl... del otro lado"

— ¡No puedes caminar tú solita dame tu manita!
a mother growls at her little daughter

"You can't walk around alone
give me your little hand!"

I break all the rules I am a lone
twice divorced, three times dumped
maybe by now I've learned... nah. Still in love

with la vieja Mexicana

sí, sí, hay que reciclar el corazon, ¿verdad?

no. no más tenemos un corazón. Es la
sangre, pués, que tenemos
que re-circular

Ijuaak kalaki tonalli nechkokua noyollo

a young woman handing out employment fliers doesn't offer me
as with a glance she knows I am gringo turista

follow brown threesome she handed two pushing baby stroller makes four
maybe they'll drop one the younger male has a pierced eyebrow

I shoulda studied anthropology
but I prefer poetic license yes

a couple of middle aged women come the other way
pass by bitching about something they heard

oyiste la mala educación de que estoy hablando
heardst thou the bad upbringing that I speak of

the pierced eye drops his flyer I snatch it up

Schneider Electric
COMPANIA AMERICANA TE INVITA A
QUE FORMES PARTE DE NUESTRO GRAN EQUIPO
American Company iovites thee to become part of our great team

"tastes crispy like fried"
T H E Y ' R E great!

here on the frontier where Americano
global consumer market meets ancient Maya Aztec
tianguis

new old postmodern medieval

this bastard hybrid is nothing new here cultural cross dressing
c o n t a m i n a t i o n counthenation LIGHTSACTION camera

there's a lot of meat and fish around here
this last year before the bird flu

especial de Winis de Pavo
$24.00 kilo

(special on turkey dogs [wienies] $1.10 a pound)

look at that bathroom sink-top blue ceramic good condition single faucet

(3 x 2 foot) 200 pesos (20 dollars)

But now look over there:

Wave to the man who helped me
rent my studio eight months ago

Whoa will you look at them

andale pues
wouldn't they be good in my studio yes

That's
ice cream treats
con fresa o chocobanana

and over there's young "crazy" plant boy – remember?
with a bunch of ladies ooooing and ahhhing
over his greenery

the constructing second storey on
a house gapes open mouthed doors and windows
upstairs of family with shiny black VW
whateverthehellisnow

and by now we have gradually come back into the heart
of it all

crowds thickening around us
fish fillets drippppping water

quiere pescado quiere camarones

across the street from
PLANTA DE AGUA La Sirena
with plastic tables and chairs all around the big filtration machines
converted every Sunday into extension of next door seafood restaurant bar

MARISCOS
La Sirena
ESTILO SINALOA

no advertisement just a design quotation from the street quotidian
two clowns selling balloons

a kid at a food stand whacks that bag
of BRASAS charcoal chunks

(people do not use "briquets" in Mexico, no, no way;

it's gotta be chunks of good carbón, buey...)

here before the steel skeleton of that abandoned
four-storey never built framework
something out of

Luís Buñuél : Los olvidados

en estilo Nueva Tijuana oil-boom 80s
before all went to hell
inflation and
devalua-
tion

I wish I had asked Chris to take a photograph of that metal shell
those rusting rectangular girders scream silence
beyond this bustling market fair

everyone all jammed together grumbling at a car
who dares to thread its way between us

PUT AWAY THE NOTEBOOK you tell me
it's too crowded here

but then that little kid rolls by
steering the tiny drive battery jeep

and here comes Papa guiding along behind him
while everyone laughs and sighs

I have to write that down
move off into TELNOR service driveway
between booths, out of the crowd

scribble scribble scribble no matter how weird it looks

and they are looking at me what is he doing

Mmmmmm you say, look at those strawberries

Toys! Die-cast aircraft carrier
reminds me of a dream at port last week

and then a table full of dancing battery dolls,
hula dancers, flipping dogs, old man on toilet

Batteries? ¿Baterias? ¿Pilas?

tacos lite, tacos de dieta, diet tacos

cough cough stop writing it's flu season

and we ain't even scratched the surface what's here

street market scribble scribe

tijuanagringo	poemas
street market scribble scribe from 22 January 2006 At the end of the street they are parking cars . Everyone wants to go to the street market. s o b r e r u e d a s "on-wheels" a diez pesos escogele a diez a diez We plunge straight to the heart then go out on its far side yonder between our here and their flat there Otay Mesa . At the center of the bustling street market fair chickens roast on an asador grill 45.00 says the sign (ese es 4.25 en dolar) clouds of sweet fowl meat fragrance float down the street wreathing the thronging shoppers bob and weave cliché heads that pivot, turn : Look! See? ¡Mire! ¿Ves? across the way peoples crowd tables under plastic tarps for antojitos tipicos typical goodies si te antoja – if you like – see that sign out front – el letrero – it says: pozole menudo birria flautas sopes quesadillas tostadas tacos d'pescado aguas y sodas at me this is all a text street full public writing speech the scribe walks at hand wrote one end to another notes no means justify maybe means no another booth a pizza joint says peperoni mexicana jamon hawaiana off to one side the factories sit waiting for Monday to bring them back to work Meanwhile back in Tijuana the man selling fruit salad from his cart by the JVC factory gate wears a baseball cap that says San Francisco There's a rack of suits a booth full of stuffed animals a tiny, frightened Chihuahua dog scampering under the tables across the street 30 eggs for 20 pesos (two dollars) deliciosos boles de rompope from a little cart Tejuino & Diablitos painted words refresh drinks from another next door then a pool table with balls, cues, rack sitting out on the street, for sale, of course.... ( "pool cue stick" in Spanish = "taco" ["taco" comes from the verb "to stuff"] ) (Maria Teresa would tell me stop analyzing but am walking by myself only my left hand, my right brain, and you beside me reading not this wilderness oh city of no yes) Khayam next door: used stoves, refrigerators, washers........ a fat girl/woman with enormous breasts in tight sweater passes by birdcages tables full of shoes tables, sofas, beds, baby stroller speakers, stereos, computers, CDs tools and toys and TVs a man connecting the battery on a tiny, driveable car for the young boy, barely four who waits at the wheel the skittish Chihuahua with his ears flattened back trots quickly past dodging the thinning crowd we (you and I) are headed toward the distant end of this market writing all the way A man in orange T-shirt glances twice, three times, at me scribbling while I slowly walk scratch scratch I can see my feet carefully stepping through the background beneath my notepad look over there – jewelry and fireworks and there's that hard-mounted Escher print of lizards and books turning reptile life into drawing and back again all over again around around You know the one? Yes. I tell you I've seen it before and again here for sale besides tons and tons of clothes strung up along the white-painted bars of a tall industrial steel fence we pass along Sor Juana de la Cruz far east into the last straggling fringes of the sobreruedas market people and booths thin out scattered now, selling from pickups and cars, spreading wares across plastic cloths stretched upon cement in the eastern extremities on the right, the crumpled rumble of half-crumbled one- and two-storey cement architecture all crowded together cubist nightmare I have grown to love dear cliché brain cannot speak sans rumpled purple words r u m p l e s t i l t s k i n my flesh is your blood read these are the far regions of Modulos this Mexican barrio my home on the left a huge, open expanse before the border vast truck parking zone half full of trailas – big truck trailers waiting behind their tall steel fence waiting for the tractas to come and take them away, to give meaning to their global life. We're almost at the end, now, where cars & minibusses circulate freely here around the eastern extreme Sunday sobreruedas, "our" street market you decide what the quote marks mean between us, you, me wrapped around this weekend city t e x t r e a d i n g I keep on writing, on the street, on my feet, breaking rules, shredding script, scribbling in public what you ain't supposed to do I suppose writing in public right out in front of God & everybody on the edge where market turns back into neighborhood yeah there are many frontiers and boundaries to cross like Rydra Wong from Delaney's Babel-17 (NOT the tv show) the poet – cuts across worlds with words in my p e r f o r m a n c e of duty "Go over-paper, Daniel" my father once said to me in a dream the year after he died near thirty years ago too young. He did not mean rewrite I knew (as you know things in dreams) I knew he meant something beyond paper, like "over-drive" over-paper uber-menschen and I didn't know then what it might be but I can only think n o w that that is what h y p e r t e x t m e a n s "Llantera" Diaz MECANICO EN GENERAL TUNEUP SISTEMA de FRENOS hay tamales de elote de carne hay tamales* TAPICERIA DE AUTOS Y MUEBLES El teacher PRESUPUESTOS GRATIS AL TEL. 623.45.77 this is not an advertisement este no es un anuncio comercial there be little Mexican businesses all along the street facing across at international factories from beyond the horizon with their signs of the times hand-lettered against big corporate logos be a good boy my boy and we'll let you sub-contract or even do our tuck & roll d i g r e ss i o n e d it o ri a l b a b y l I talk to you about the radio news as nearer distance Otay Mountains rise where immigrants freeze and die from thirst while we kill and die and suffer torture Babylon over there fight fire with fire the United States officer and a gentleman placed a sleeping bag over his head sat on him and covered his mouth while " q u e s t i o n i n g " h i m he died of course (swallowed a horse) they do that here, too druglords and the kidnap gang command os secuestro express ransom ATM CLICHÉ death is E.Z. @ our OK.Corral crime taped up in plastic, dumped from speeding car along the proud, paved h i g h w a y p r o g r e s s according to Webster, "progress' is a royal procession marked by pomp and pageant -ry so let us go then, you and I out to c e l e b r a t e that horrible truth we dare not confess each other there where Elliot's evening is spread out against the western sky decline like impatience etherized upon a time of once to fight fire with fire? seek our/your own level, water No Thanks. It's already old news on the border line I'll just go to the market again and write these lines = align-right & eyes left no one dares to drink from any river anymore silent spring without chlorine no n e v e r same with my words s a n i t i z e d & s e l f - c e n s o r e d at the very end the street goes on between clunky collections of apartments and factories a gated cement apartment community open gate no one in the guard booth come back now with me toward the center of the market past the railed neighborhood balconies and barred windows look, a pile of software CDs mmmmm yes I am interested but can't buy today oh no, look! not even those three CHICAGO albums in fair condition.... and look at all the other "old" vinyl... ¿Eres del otro lado? Sí pero vivo aquí en Otay. I lied the records were at another booth far away but the rhyme was too tempting and the time "other old vinyl... del otro lado" — ¡No puedes caminar tú solita dame tu manita! a mother growls at her little daughter "You can't walk around alone give me your little hand!" I break all the rules I am a lone twice divorced, three times dumped maybe by now I've learned... nah. Still in love with la vieja Mexicana sí, sí, hay que reciclar el corazon, ¿verdad? no. no más tenemos un corazón. Es la sangre, pués, que tenemos que re-circular Ijuaak kalaki tonalli nechkokua noyollo a young woman handing out employment fliers doesn't offer me as with a glance she knows I am gringo turista follow brown threesome she handed two pushing baby stroller makes four maybe they'll drop one the younger male has a pierced eyebrow I shoulda studied anthropology but I prefer poetic license yes a couple of middle aged women come the other way pass by bitching about something they heard oyiste la mala educación de que estoy hablando heardst thou the bad upbringing that I speak of the pierced eye drops his flyer I snatch it up Schneider Electric COMPANIA AMERICANA TE INVITA A QUE FORMES PARTE DE NUESTRO GRAN EQUIPO American Company iovites thee to become part of our great team "tastes crispy like fried" T H E Y ' R E great! here on the frontier where Americano global consumer market meets ancient Maya Aztec tianguis new old postmodern medieval this bastard hybrid is nothing new here cultural cross dressing c o n t a m i n a t i o n counthenation LIGHTSACTION camera there's a lot of meat and fish around here this last year before the bird flu especial de Winis de Pavo $24.00 kilo (special on turkey dogs [wienies] $1.10 a pound) look at that bathroom sink-top blue ceramic good condition single faucet (3 x 2 foot) 200 pesos (20 dollars) But now look over there: Wave to the man who helped me rent my studio eight months ago Whoa will you look at them bookshelves andale pues wouldn't they be good in my studio yes What? Oh, that! That's ice cream treats con fresa o chocobanana and over there's young "crazy" plant boy – remember? with a bunch of ladies ooooing and ahhhing over his greenery the constructing second storey on a house gapes open mouthed doors and windows upstairs of family with shiny black VW whateverthehellisnow and by now we have gradually come back into the heart of it all crowds thickening around us fish fillets drippppping water from hidden ice quiere pescado quiere camarones across the street from PLANTA DE AGUA *La Sirena* with plastic tables and chairs all around the big filtration machines converted every Sunday into extension of next door seafood restaurant bar MARISCOS La Sirena ESTILO SINALOA no advertisement just a design quotation from the street quotidian two clowns selling balloons no, three a kid at a food stand whacks that bag of BRASAS charcoal chunks (people do not use "briquets" in Mexico, no, no way; it's gotta be chunks of good carbón, buey...) here before the steel skeleton of that abandoned four-storey never built framework something out of Luís Buñuél : Los olvidados en estilo Nueva Tijuana oil-boom 80s before all went to hell inflation and devalua- tion I wish I had asked Chris to take a photograph of that metal shell those rusting rectangular girders scream silence beyond this bustling market fair "my lady fair oh" everyone all jammed together grumbling at a car who dares to thread its way between us PUT AWAY THE NOTEBOOK you tell me it's too crowded here but then that little kid rolls by steering the tiny drive battery jeep his father made run and here comes Papa guiding along behind him while everyone laughs and sighs and steps aside I have to write that down move off into TELNOR service driveway between booths, out of the crowd scribble scribble scribble no matter how weird it looks and they are looking at me what is he doing Mmmmmm you say, look at those strawberries Toys! Die-cast aircraft carrier reminds me of a dream at port last week and then a table full of dancing battery dolls, hula dancers, flipping dogs, old man on toilet Batteries? ¿Baterias? ¿Pilas? tacos lite, tacos de dieta, diet tacos cough cough stop writing it's flu season and we ain't even scratched the surface what's here from 22 January 2006

tijuanagringo	poemas
copyright 2006 daniel charles thomas