quiet children behave this is a religious service
dona eis domine
requiem aeternam
lux perpetua
now Daddy Juan’s coffin is in the open grave let me bless it before the gravediggers cover it in earth and then seal it carefully and the world is left in peace because you youngsters don’t want your idol to be eaten by dogs or worms, isn’t that right?
locked up in makesicko seedy
drowning in the shit of the cow the muck
fuckin with the nuts the gland
dancing to the mock the zooma
you’re divine Daddy Juan you carry God on your back Idol, even though you are God
anathema let it be anathema
Ana the ma-le tit be Ana
Ana Ledibee
if you love Daddy Juan so much respect the ceremony girls respect the remains and the girls advance uncontrollably in an avalanche crying shouting Daddy Juan don’t leave Daddy Juan let me toss you my panties, take my bra, here’s my Tampax, sainted god, sweet little daddy,
only Juan said Jesús is God
before Mateo or Lucas or Marco found the courage
Daddy Juan is God
Daddy Juan is like the sun three things in one thing light heat and star
Ana Theme
Daddy Juan came like a ray of light into our lives
Christ Jesus is effluence protection and erection
Daddy Juan was created established and projected
God is the word
The word is Daddy Juan
God is the shepherd the door the truth the resurrection
Daddy Juan guide us open us tell us resuscitate
the mob at the grave passes beers from hand to hand to mitigate grief and augment goodbye singing the songs of Daddy Juan and pushing Father Silvestre let me officiate in the name of God quiet crow here there’s no other God but Daddy Juan
here is Mexico Makesicko City here where they burned the feet of Cow the Muck where they stoned Mock the Zooma to death here the city was founded on water and rock and thorn and dust storms with glands and woven baskets the city of rock and roll perpetually at twelve on the Richter scale
here there’s no other savior father but our sweet Daddy Juan surrounded by loose earth and irate dust and mute cypresses and leaden sun daddy-oh daddy-oh
until they push Father Silvestre into the open grave of Daddy Juan and the mob of fifteen-year-olds in miniskirts screaming and singing at the grave grabs the shovels away from the gravediggers and begins to shovel dirt into the pit onto the body of Father Silvestre mute now though openmouthed lying faceup on the cedar coffin with a silver guitar instead of a crucifix
it serves you right to suffer the priest murmurs under shovelfuls of earth, you sought out suffering my lord Jesus Christ, our lord Daddy Juan
when the lights go out they turn out the lights
I’m ready sings Muddy Waters in honor of Daddy John and Father Silvestre murmurs in response
it’s too late stray cats we’re underneath it all ghosts appear in the grave of the mob everything in a box, trapped in the case
I won’t stand in your way make way for death Daddy Juan stray cats tollin bells for whom the bells toll for whom the belles toil for whom the balls roll for whom the blues roll and rock baby in a deep grave death is grave from womb to tomb from the cradle to the grave the cradle will rock and roll
when the lights go out Daddy Juan it serves you right to suffer
amen Father Silvestre pulvis eris et in pulvis reverteris
Mater Dolorosa
José Nicasio: Who was my daughter? I don’t know where to begin. We all descend from someone else. We all come from somewhere else. Even the Indians aren’t from here. Not even the Indians. They came from Asia millions of years ago. Nobody was here. That’s why it’s so wonderful to sit and watch nightfall from the steps of the ruins of Monte Albán. To tell yourself the mountains were always there, welcoming the sun every twilight as it lies down behind them, sending out the light of a pardonable rest. It shone on us all day. Now it disappears. Not behind but inside the mountains. The sun makes its bed in those hills. It lays down a pallet that we call “twilight.” Capricious sunset. It changes colors every nightfall. It’s intense red one time, misty blue the next, orange one afternoon, gray and old later. And this has been happening, José Nicasio, since before human beings appeared. Nature was without any need to be seen. It saw itself, in any case, and celebrated in solitude. The mountains of the Sierra Madre had no name then. Today do they know they are seen? Do they know that a man and a woman sat down one afternoon six months ago to watch the spectacle of nightfall in Monte Albán? How could I not understand, José Nicasio, that a young man and woman, two human beings, would remain there, insensible to schedules, enraptured by the spectacle. The mountains in silhouette. The sun fading. The valley already submerged in darkness. And the high vantage point of the ruins, the steps of the pyramid. How could I not understand. Two young people, a man and a woman, forget about schedules. They ignore the distant routine voices of the guards. It’s time to close up. It’s time to leave. The ruins will be closed off. . Do the kingdoms of the past close, José Nicasio? The eternal monuments of a race, do they have schedules? The builders of the pyramids, were their comings and goings checked? Look, José Nicasio, look how I’m trying to understand. I’m trying to know. I think I know that the old gods are the guardians of their temples. The gods don’t charge an entrance fee to their sacred places. Why would my daughter and you pay attention to the guard’s whistle, it’s time to go, the Monte Albán site is closing, it’s time to go back to the city of Oaxaca, to civilization, to the roof and the bed and the struggle and the shower that waits for us. Leave the site to the gods. At least at night the temple will belong only to them, not to the intruders, José Nicasio and Alessandra. Tell me, why were you there?
Señora Vanina: Thank you for your letter. I certainly didn’t expect so nice a gesture. Really so generous, Señora. In my solitude I don’t expect anyone to communicate with me. Approach me. Visit me. Imagine what it meant for me to receive your very kind letter. Thank you for giving me this opportunity to explain myself. I swear to you there was no need. What is, is. What was, is over now. Have you noticed how we Mexicans use that famous NOW? NOW it was all right. NOW it was time. NOW I grew tired of waiting. NOW I’ll leave here. NOW he died. Only that afternoon I told myself: NOW I’ve come back. NOW I can return to this place with different eyes after so long an absence. Return as if another man had gone to the place I went to, the land where I was born. Señora, how could I not be moved, agitated, Señora. .? When I was a boy in the village, I didn’t even know there was such a place. In the village, we spent our lives growing what we sold on market days in Tlacolula. Have you ever been there? We all worked very hard so nothing would be missing on Sundays and Thursdays, the market days. If you stop by there, you’ll see that nothing is missing. Cilantro, espazote leaf, tomatoes, sesame seeds, cheese, tree chilis, anchos, chipotles, guajillos, parsley and plantains, sapodilla fruit, melons, turkeys, even the famous edible grasshoppers of our country, everything the Lord Our God has given to Oaxaca so that we can gather the blessed fruits and take them to sell twice a week.
“God has given us everything because we’re very poor,” my father would say.
Go to the market, Señora Vanina, and try to hear Castilian in that murmur of Indian voices, which are high but sweet. They are bird voices, Señora, Zapoteca voices filled with tlanes and tepecs. We speak Castilian only to offer goods to the customers who visit us, dear customer, two pesos a dozen, this cheese shreds all by itself it’s so delicious. . Señora, you say we all come from somewhere else, and that’s true. When I was a little boy, I began to play with colors and papers from the amate tree and then to paint on white amate wood and invent little pictures, then bigger ones, until my honored father said take them to the market, José Nicasio, and I did and began to sell my little paintings. Until the distinguished professor from the city of Oaxaca saw what I was doing and said this boy has talent and took me to live in the city (with the permission of my honored father) and there I grew up learning to read and write and paint with so much joy, Señora, as if I myself had been amate paper or an adobe wall that gradually is covered with lime and maguey sap until the wall of earth is transformed into something as soft and smooth as a woman’s back. . It wasn’t easy, Señora, don’t think that. Something in me was always pulling back to the village, the way they say a nanny goat pulls back to the mountains. My new happiness wasn’t enough to make me forget my old happiness as a boy with no literature, no Castilian, barefoot with no clothes except drill trousers and a threadbare white shirt and mud-caked huaraches. And another white shirt stiff with starch and carefully pressed black trousers and shoes once a week so I could go to Mass like a respectable person. . Now, in the city, I was a respectable person, I was being educated, I read, I went to school, I knew people who had come from Mexico City and friends who would visit the distinguished professor’s studio. But I swear to you that an enormous piece of my soul was still tied to the life I left behind, the village, the market, the noise of donkeys and pigs and turkeys, the straw sleeping mats, cooking in the fireplace, poor stews, rich aromas. . Except when I returned to the village on Sundays and feast days, it was like offending those who stayed behind, throwing it in their faces that I could leave and they couldn’t. I swear it isn’t just a silly suspicion. One day I went back out of sheer feeling, Señora, what you people call “nostalgia,” and at first nobody recognized me, but when word got around,