Hymn to Vatos Who Will Never be in a Poem

I realized that I didn't post any poems this year for National Poetry Month. So here is a beautiful piece by Luis Alberto Urrea that a friend just shared with me through email. Thanks, Melissa for the beautiful Sunday morning poem!  I read it to the sounds of mariachi trumpets blaring from the church across the street.

Hymn to Vatos Who Will Never be in a Poem
                                                   by Luis Urrea

All the vatos  sleeping on hillsides
All the vatos  say goodnight forever
All the vatos  loving their menudo

All the vatos  faith in la tortilla
All the vatos  fearing the alarm clock
All the vatos  Wino Jefe Peewee
All the vatos  even the cabrones
All the vatos  down por vida homeboys
All the vatos  using words like ranfla

All the vatos  who woke up abandoned
All the vatos  not afraid of their daughters
All the vatos  arms around their sisters
All the vatos  talking to their women
All the vatos  granting their foregiveness
All the vatos  plotting wicked paybacks

All the vatos  sleeping under mota
All the vatos  with tequilla visions
All the vatos  they call maricones
All the vatos  bleeding in the alley
All the vatos  chased by helicopters
All the vatos  dissed by pinches white boys

All the vatos  bent to pick tomatoes
All the vatos  smoked by Agent Orange
All the vatos  brave in deadly classrooms
All the vatos  pacing in the prisons
All the vatos  pierced by needle lightning
All the vatos  who were once our fathers

All the vatos  even veteranos
All the vatos  and their abuelitos
All the vatos  proud of tatuajes
All the vatos  carrying a lunch pail
All the vatos  graduating law school
All the vatos  grown up to be curas

All the vatos  Jimmy Spider Tito
All the vatos  lost their tongues in Spanish
All the vatos  can't say shit in English
All the vatos  looking at her photo
All the vatos  making love till morning
All the vatos  stroking their own hunger

All the vatos  faded clear as windows
All the vatos  needing something better
All the vatos  bold in strange horizons
All the vatos  waiting for tomorrow
All the vatos  sure that no one loves them
All the vatos  sure that no one hears them

All the vatos  never in a poem
All the vatos  told they don't belong here
All the vatos  beautiful young Aztecs
All the vatos  warrior Apaches
All the vatos  sons of Guadalupe
All the vatos  bad as a la chingada

All the vatos  call themselves Chicanos
All the vatos  praying for their children
All the vatos  even all you feos
All the vatos  filled with life eternal
All the vatos  sacred as the Sun God
All the vatos  Flaco Pepe Gordo

All the vatos  rising from their mothers