¿A Dónde Vas?

She asked watching me
float farther away through
the Great Lakes as I crossed
rivers in Mississippi… Rios
Grande, passing through oceans
Atlantic, in France it was all
about the Seine even the Salton
could see… I would drift further
inside every time with every wave
hoping with each low and high
tide, I could finally find the current
flow of my own rio. Although
I would sail alone, I felt her stirring
aviso’s as I rowed, I always paddled
deeper rippling to create surges
of poems skin pruned, frio waves
her treasured reminders always
carry me sailing towards
home. When I was embarking
there were momentos in times
I felt like sinking astray,
I would ask myself, what if
I strayed? But then evening
noches would carry me
my skin luna eclipsed this
deep end despite my fears,
within splashes and lágrimas,
que lloro all my tears, would
you believe, I embraced
every guidance gift, a regalo
I unwrapped your map
in the present, mi estrella
direction— always oyendo
Mami’s voz—sigue
moviendo hijo through each
transiting connections, en esta
viaje, and through all these
journeys, remember—
I always waded for you.

 

 

On the Road Towards My Own Mañana

More than just another
la bibloteca libro with crinkled
pages inside from the volume
of this beatnik reflejando
mi voz, my own accent
once kept silent oscuro
dark skin en mi sombra,
that shadow resounding
a different lengua, mañana
more than just another palabra,
this lovely word probably
means el cielo, heaven speaking
back to me, I was no longer
alone, solo, I had Moriarty
and Paradise beside me
between las líneas, a voice
from this 1950s clásico
more than another book,
I found the keys holding
this passport of páginas,
traveling within this novel
journey, driving me to thumb
through these chapters,
gloriosos for the first time
leaping inside, On the Road,
this story en la carretera
sounded like one I could
finally call mío— reading
my own tongue.

 

 

Why is it When Driving…

…on long and winding
FLA carretera road trips,
Dios is all you ever find on
el radio? On almost every
dial you will never overhear
the Lord but some Baptist charmer
el pastor Southern preacher
claiming to be your Savior but all
we ever hear is estático, who
needs a map, direcciones
to revelations when following
these rueda wheels to the horizon
seeing el sol setting above
your head with la ventana window
cracked el viento wind is speaking
the most beautiful gusts—embracing
the vision of verde green branching
húmedo trees with Everglades
fingertips dedos almost touching,
reaching past radio airwaves—
why redial antenna connections
manjando when you can feel this
inner highway voz driving towards
the next mountain peak, escucha
listen to the speeding concrete, each
Key West causeway interstate ascent
always resounds like salvación instead.

 

 

Adrian Blue Wall Desaturated sized

Adrian Ernesto Cepeda is an LA Poet who has a BA from the University of Texas at San Antonio and a graduate of the MFA program at Antioch University in Los Angeles where he lives with his wife and their cat Woody Gold. You can connect with Adrian on his website: http://www.adrianernestocepeda.com/