To stand as tall as my Name

I paint my name
Across the face of a freight train
Fuck mtv this is some street fame
Never been out of Cali but maybe
My name can travel past this alley
On the tongues of others
I concentrate on my can control
As I hold the krylon
With a smile on
You see
My spray paint transcribes
The sea’s waves
ebb and flow
On the walls of corner liquor stores
On the walls of santa sacred holy private
Property
A blasphemy on city walls
Nothing feels better than the
strokes of my letters
Flowing from a fatcap
In fact
My mouth waters
When I see the words “Ultra Flat Black”
I Carry 10 in my knapsack


On the bus
I read the propaganda
“GRAFFITISTS HAVE NO RESPECT FOR PROPERTY AND LESS RESPECT FOR THEMSELVES. DO YOUR DUTYAS A CITIZEN. REPORT VANDALISM IMMEDIATELY.”
Plastered on the 120
The 53 the 108
As I scribe my name
on RTD windows
I duck from the view of the driver


My eyes soak in the Malt Liquor ads
Like pickles floating in yellow liquid
in liquor store jars
The ads command my attention
As Bikini women ride tigers
Over a background of sweating beaded
Bottles of fermented fever
Sold by the overpowering forty onsas


The fumes from my black magnum marker
Often veils the acidic scent of urine in the air
or sweat
or fire or gunsmoke


I listen to the hiss of spraypaint
To drown out the drone of freeway traffic


I am the native son
of Tomas and Olimpia
I was born with a torn tongue
Dipped in the history
Of sugar cane and Christo


I would tell you more
But you don’t even know my name
Cannot even pronounce it
You take for granted the equality
Of syllables
Spoken in truth


I write on walls
To teach you the intricacies
Of my name


Fuck the 40 ounce of liquor
I’m quicker to pick up
12 ounces of aerosol freedom


I live the word
And the word is god


I once sat
By force
In an office room
Asked to confess to the crime
Of writing my name


Officer Bernard
Was the puerco’s name
Trained in gang culture
A hispanic vulture
A modern day Inquisition
Against the heathenous practices
Of inner city indios
He snarls at me
What’s your graffiti name
Which scrawl on the wall is yours
I sit in silence and imagine
The air to be my bullet proofing
Shielding me from the shots of his threats
I never confess


the king’s men
Can’t read the writing:


Book of Daniel Chapter 5 Verse 8
 Then came in all the king's wise men: but they could not read the writing, nor make known to the king the interpretation thereof.

The king’s men drink wine
praise the gods of gold
and silver, of brass, of iron
of guns of bombs


I am the words on the wall
And I will make known to you
Their meaning


In 1987
When I was seven
I walked to the corner store
To buy cilantro for my
Mother
And the store clerk
Acted like I didn’t exist
My accent got me
dismissed
As a I fumbled with
The white way to say my name
How do I twist my lips
I think to myself
So misshapen to
Deform my name to the
Mundane “Alberto”
That kills the music of my name
The music I learned from my mother’s
Canto de mi nombre
El canto de mi ser
My mother sang me into existence
But the Weros
Massacred me every time they
Proclaimed “Alberto”
Take your seat
Their nasal voices mangling
my name
Left me muerto


Pero como dicen todos
Yo soy bien terco
And in my mind I know que
yo soy el beto
mi mama me quierre
y mi papa trabaja
I am not Alberto even
if
say….
The King of England
stood before me
backed by his royal court
menacingly surrounding me
The King
What King?
What’s his pinche name
Henry or George
Or Washington
Or Shakespeare or T.S. Elliot
Or Police Comissioner Darryl
Gates and the Rodney King Freedom Four
Or one of those pinche Weros
Held
a sword
or an army issue pistol
or an LAPD standard Glock
nine millimeter
or some other fucken heat
or steel
or their cock
or a fucken hydrogen bomb
and they threatened do me like Nagasaki
they’d cut me
cut my
Vocal Chords
With a jabberwocky-like strengthed vorpal sword
And threaten to slice me like a
Jicama soaked in a blood of chile and
Limón
Cut me if I don’t
Say my name nice and obedient
With the Lips of an English peasant
I’d look in his eyes
And defiantly pronounce
“yo soy el beto”
Yo soy EL beto
Not just any fucken Beto
Yo soy el Beto


When has anyone heard my story?
You can never know me
When you don’t know my name


So I help you.
I write my name
In any space I claim


Beto Palomar