POETRY / Gregg Barrios : 'El hijo de Frida y Diego'

Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo. Photo from Yoreme's Weblog

See Video of Gregg Barrios reading 'Chale Guerra,' Below.

El hijo de Frida y Diego


I am the promised root born through artful insemination
I am the manchild borne through prehysteric supplication
I am the mestizo torn within and without la sierra madre
I am the collision of ancient magic and modern sorcery

In 1940, the virgin and the warrior rewed
the last time, the first time, para siempre
I am a paradox slouching to be reborn in rebirth
I am a plumed serpent of mated eagle and snake

I am the son of Diego and Frida
colossal giants in the land of myth
gods exiled from the starry heavens
smoking satellite into violated earth

a saucer of atole, my mother's dowry
a bowl of frijoles, my father's gift
mi madre, the doe, the wounded one
mi padre, the frog, the insatiable one

I watch the buddah frog on the lilly pad
waiting as the hummingbird draws near
that which must be, will come at last
I learn the future through my past

I am amphibian in my mother's watery tomb
swimming spermatoid to tadpole twitching
tossed from a sea of joy into the mystic
I am the tender shoot on the broken bough

I am the child beating upon a war drum
I sound the cadence, announce the fall
I plant foot and banner firmly on the shore
I am inheritor of a brave new world

I am the body of Adam and the soul of Eve
I am the separation of Darkness and Light
I am Cristobal Unborn, Quetzalcoatl Reborn
Soy el hijo de Rivera y Kahlo.


Gregg Barrios / The Rag Blog

San Antonio, Texas
Posted June 4, 2009

[San Antonio writer Gregg Barrios, who wrote for The Rag in 60s Austin, is the author of the award-winning play Rancho Pancho. "Frida y Diego" is from his latest collection La Causa, to be published by Hansen Books in September. "El hijo de Frida y Diego" was also published in the San Antionio Express-News.]

'Chale Guerra' by Gregg Barrios

The following reading is of an anti-war poem that Gregg Barrios wrote during the Vietnam era that was featured in the anthology, "Vietnam and Aztlan," published by University of California Press. It was presented as part of an “anti-war/pro-peace” reading in San Antonio in 2008.

The Rag Blog