 We'll begin by showing you some wonderful poetry readings by some great poets. We'll have Anthony, the poet, Lois. I'm very happy to have just finished my fourth year as one of the judges for the Santa Tony Public Library's Young Pegasus Poetry Contest for young kids and adults. So, it happens to be that every time right around this year my poetry gets a little bit silly and nonsensical and it comes back to rimey stuff. And I don't care about anything except having fun with language. And I thank all the kids from the ages of three to eighteen who submit the most amazing poetry. We had about two thousand poems from all over San Antonio this year. And yeah, give it up for the kids who put out the music for me out there. And so, a couple years ago they inspired me to write something called a punk rock poem called Webos Rancheros which turned out to be something very popular. And they've been moving me toward a lot more fun, looser, freer stuff. And so, again, this is where this came from. It's a love song, I think. Yes. I don't know to who. I don't know from where. Don't be scared, it's just poetry. By the way, this is just recently finished, so it's another thing that I like to do every now and then where some people just like to bring out their polished stuff like I used to do sometimes in stuff that is not going to fail. This one might just suck. It's brand new, so this is the world premiere. Of I am wanted in four different galaxies. I'm wanted in four different galaxies for refusing to give in to the lies and helping to perpetualize the fallacies. I decoded their story, beliefs, rewrote better beginnings and broke the yoke of their holy mythologies. I resisted to hate and insisted on speaking love against their immeasilities and vitalities. I kicked the floor with a belly flop to rescue the mic they shot up, though it dearly killed my knees because microphones should never become pride's casualties. I rose up from my fall and challenged them all to a cosmic duel of metaphors and similes and with relative ease I raised the roof and shook the ease and I brought the house down around the Fracophonian Pharisees. I stared straight into the eyes of the surrounding stone set authorities and with my usual verbal abnormalities and trademark amorphous formalities I called them out under blind atrocities and other human dignities ignored and forgotten by the most feared and highly revered dignitaries. It was like the syllables and sounds had been device gifted unto me by the most benevolent and poetic deities like they graciously handed me foreign knowledge of this moon, this sun and the play in these trusted me with fire in my palms instead go ahead my child and just play with ease. With the kindness of eulogies I showed them and told them that all false legacies are doomed to their own cold mortalities and that even the greatest of biographies when built upon pure vanities are destined to become nothing more than dusty and unread obituaries. Check this out. Bunched in four different galaxies for deciphering the whispered subtleties of serpents wrapped tight around the roots of ordinary entomologies and so I split my soul up into multiple dualities I kept my calm as I moved along writing the song of a million forbidden seas of tranquilities and they, like gods, infested with these scratched at the surface of every dimension searching for me throughout the universe as outer extremities but I, like you, carry in me the secret angular momentary infinities and so I left their mouths to gate as I made my escape by speaking eloquent open sesamis and swirling three Sanskrit spiralities at the yopping gates of wormholes and other space-time anomalies That's how I ended up here surrounded by the people at home most dear sending love poems to my city beneath the Sanantho atmosphere We are poets and we strive from the day of our birth to speak words that shine without chemical worth but we are blessed with this gift of life and time on the planet Earth I've got about ten times those words stuck in my notebooks They're scary, they're frightening but I'm going to go home tonight and watch this bird's beat upon eye the pandan turn of lasers and I'm going to try to continue editing that poem Thank you for having me here We have some awesome, awesome poets I don't know who's going to introduce the next poet but I appreciate that My name's Anthony Flores I'm so known as Anthony the Poet I've been wonderful with all this Andrea, but we have ten minutes Happy St. Patrick's Day everyone I hope you're doing well Shout out to the Irish folks in the room You! I'm not one of them but I would I would greatly happily with my very hoods So, they said we have ten minutes I'm going to take all of my ten minutes I'm going to start with a song Bingova to a poem I work at juvenile detention center which is aligned in my poem but last night a young lady came in when I got to work she was sitting in the lobby shivering and she had been sitting there for two hours already She was a runaway she hadn't committed any crimes so she went and found a bag of wheat from somewhere and she came to juvenile and she said I want to turn myself in and here's a bag of wheat because she needed a place to sleep because she was hungry and tired and I looked at that little red-headed girl and I walked in and I was like where's the little girl going here and I just kept walking but when I got to my post and I sat down and they called me and they told me can we get a blanket for her something in the lobby and it took till after midnight for an officer to show up just to arrest her to bring her around the back of the building but it broke my heart and I sat at my desk and I cried for her and so I want to read a poem that I wrote my only word poem and she may get a word poem now too off of that situation but it starts with a song and this poem is a prayer but it starts with a song she's walking the streets although she's cold she's so big she's a cold she's chilled it's just a oom prostitution prostitution her soul means a preservation destination unknown she ran away from home intoxicated by the cologne of death and destruction functioning marginally on the verge of 15 she is all toxic pregnant and AIDS-positive doing whatever she can to live give the world a brief all alone I only hear suffering when she speaks her shoes are pink and they lay prostrates on the door number 8 as she sits and waits for processing the third shift the juvenile detention center and every time I enter that building I get the distinct feeling of childhood burdens peeling away the weightlessness of my personal life I thought I knew striping hard times until I saw these teenagers facing hard times with a Quincy of their screams I shift responding to routine checks there's officers inside and our job ain't done until someone comes to relieve us so I just sit all night search the silence around me fight the sleep that astounds me trying not to feel as caged and enraged as the youth we supervise mostly the girls cry the boys seldom do but the agony and desperation in their faces always holds true and you've never seen brokenness until it's reflected through the soul of a child and you've never seen tragedy and ruthlessness gone wild until you've seen the faces attached to the files on these hardship cases and when I sit in menu control when juvenile officers patrol I see their souls stacked up two by two but I want to take their shoes and throw them back in the face of every dilemma that brought them here this center is like the Noah's Ark of Dejection and Fear gathering shoes two by two hurting them in we try to provide shelter from the storm outside but sometimes we merely help them survive tell me is there really shelter inside when their moms torture them with guilt and circumstance rehabilitation is a luxury can they be afforded a second chance and some do a dance with fate like the girl sitting behind door number eight inflating demons, egos fate just stepped on her toes her future will be lethal like the age she passes to her unborn because those pink shoes know the scorn of innocence torn and she just sits and she sits and she mourns because she is a sufferer but I can't help but wonder will she finally drown when she's released from this Ark without us to cover her from the rain and the pain that stains those two pink shoes so this last poem is the La Fonte San Antonio and before I read it I want to say what a privilege and an honor to be named among all of you beautiful artists and to have my work represented God has been blowing my mind for the past two years with the things that I've been allowed and blessed to do and people come up to me and they're like, it's very overwhelming so if I don't appear great or I seem awkward it's because I'm very overwhelmed because God is just good and this is beautiful I love my city I was born and raised here and I love every artist that is represented on these walls and that is performing tonight I think the world of you and I tip my hat to you congratulations alright alright here's my love poem to send it to you you are my Pace Picante paradise my south side accordion serenade my west side rooster wake-up call my freestyle music booming drum and bass on military drive my fiesta float raining down the river walk my cascarones of color you crack my smile wide open San Antonio you are my lovers rock reggae and sunken gardens my super soul shake down tucked in the cozy corner my smooth salsa dance covered in sweet azucar my witty amusing me with clever artifacts my legendary mission driving forever showing big screen dreams my oyster shell on Saturdays a coated pearl always brewing with people you crack my smile wide open in this city by having such a wonderful poem thank you brocam if you need a greatness I want to invite up Daryl Pittman I have to start all my performances with a phrase where Susanna will come up and literally slap me from you so before I do anything I'd like to thank my wife for allowing me to come out and play this east side, west side, but it's a smaller section of Pitts SA the Alamo and St. Paul's Square pitters and vegan stylish menswear the Carver and the Renaissance Guild the Rodone and Nelson Wolffield Blue Star, Sama and even Latuna Jim Cullen Jazz and drinks of that Latuna the Riverwalk and those North Star Boots King William and Fresh El Mercado fruits it's SA, SA West Side Chilling but he's from Breonna, sure worth filling CPS and Las Palmas I pay my bills, no lie then Papa's Square on the bench and watch the Chica strut back then driving to McMillan thinking about the Amor cause Juan Gabriel is moaning they love beer passing the Y at 40 miles an hour feeling the relaxed vibe of that Oxfam power it's SA, SA and I'm West Side Chilling living life out here warms the heart it's filling it's say town, bro east side is my heart culture and pride are never far apart shopper and cologne after ball in Lockwood then swing by Tucker's cause the music's so good been shopping at Knicks since the 70's no lie Papa's Square on the bench and watch the sisters strut back then driving on Houston love floating in my ride feeling the relaxed vibe of that east side pride it's a state of mind and when I say like the Eastwood Country Club from back in the day you got Funtown, Kitty Park, Malibu, Grand Prix, Rolando's, Christmas Driz, and the Ole Miss Pharmacy Meteora, Bill Miller and all the H-E-Bs Rudy, the Josephine, and a water burger with cheese Breckerage Park, Combenchy and Rosedale Pippin's Sullivan and Camargo where Roscoe's are on sale I'll be eating that at 4-10 at Rush Hour it's all San Antonio-like prom dates at the top this poem is just the San Antonio part of me San Antonio, Sananto, it doesn't matter can't you see we're all in this together it's our city, don't you know but no essay poem could end without saying Go Spurs, go Miss Tacos I ever had did not come from a room Mrs. Rodriguez When the relationship began one son sprinkled warning my freshman year with her son sleep, Rick told me I couldn't just slide by I had to come inside and say hi because his mom has silver packages for us gifts wrapped in aluminum to foil our anger she offered these gifts wrapped in silver and baptized on a formal her tortillas were anointed with spoonfuls and huevos y chorizo con huevos breakfast for her meeples so it Rick was like my brother and she was like my mother and with all the love she showed my heart grew and as the passing years grew boom corn and she treated her as she would her own natural grandchild rewarding our visits with special folded dollars that were withdrawn from the bank within her bra what I would suggest man, man, you don't have to do that she would snap cut her the bokeh nois para ti this is between Aisha and me yeah, man, she is like my mother but you know time defeats us all and when she began to lose her race with her age and her health and require 24 hours surveillance by St. Francis and his nuns and nurses our relationship grew even more because it was there that I heard tears-stained stories of how she had been given away as a child in Mexico and when illness grabbed her by the throat and she was close enough to see those who had gone before her I witnessed her reach for her dead sister's hand and ask keep you why did mama give me away answer me what could I do but reach for her hand and whisper I'm so sorry I am so sorry soon after that we buried this on a sun-sprinkled winter day when all the smiles I had inside died I missed her still you know there are times especially when I daydream of her smile when I can still smell those warm breakfast tacos Mrs. Rodriguez I miss you I truly do miss you soon because I like vocab only my whole 10 minutes I'm an old geezer and these youngsters talk about their wife being I just don't like that term my wife he introduced me to his son third grade and so proud of his father standing like daddy, walking like daddy just wanting to be like daddy but all that changed when his father said and son heard yeah I think I'm gonna make his mom you're gonna make her your wife is that what you want to say in front of your seed this young brother had no idea what he had just said but it truly meant like the dinosaurs had no idea what that streaking ball of light in the sky truly meant like that Montgomery Buster had no idea what telling that woman where she should sit truly meant he had no idea that he was teaching his son that love and respect has no place in marriage he was teaching his son how to select a wife excuse me a wifey a plaything something one thinks about casually he was teaching his son to be like LeBron cavalier in his attitudes and the most important decision of a man's life finding a soulmate he taught his son to be flippant and chite and uncaring and with that one phrase he gave his son a buy one get buy three Tina Turner marriage coupon because what's love got to do got to do with it apparently nothing now when you look at your woman as a wifey my young brothers teach your sons to seek marriage because love compels them teach your sons to marry because their hearts ache when she is not there teach your sons that real men who love they love with passion and ferocity and kindness and timidness but we do love and when you teach it never tell him always show him show him how you live your life each day show him how you treat his mother tell her you love her in front of him kiss her gently or with passion but always with love and show him that listening and compromise can happen in disagreements show him how to be a man just show him because he is sitting there watching and listening and emulating every stride you simply need to show him show him that marriage is not about finding a wifey it's about finding and giving and sharing love and if you have a daughter daddy's little girl is watching too be the example of the type of man that she will seek when her time comes because you don't want her accepting the role of being someone else's wifey thank you I'd like to invite Amanda Flores Amanda Flores I tried to write a love poem to essay but then I started looking around and saw so many essays I didn't know which one to write that's why I'm not a comedian maybe I have to say it I'd like to share first a couple of haiku I am of, with, and from a city defined by more than just its food though that can be surprising we order all things with ice cream on top because remember the Alamo order? I was friends over my fun usage do you think that we just write a poem? that we just get paper right right and then it's fire, happy hour, snag a seat order something cold to think head home, preheat the oven set the poem out to thaw do you reckon after hearing of the hardships at hand our office supplies are waiting to work miracles while we sleep like birds and mice who tailor ball gowns through the night our tape conspires with our paper clips if only to help us hold it together that little cobbler elves visit the strapped house buried in my notebook so I'll reupholster them by morning and no, my poem doesn't wake up like this you said we must have been born with them these poems like it was inside us all along I didn't just find out how many light bulbs it takes to change this poem like I didn't take five too many visits to salad pastimes to conjure up the sentiment and stand us six shucks, you think I was born with this poem? that it came in tow with these jeans well, thank you but this poem is not my father's nose or my mother's chin though it may be their English degrees and mine still this poem is not innate, not a birthmark nor a mull think these poems came beneath pillow after the last of my baby poems fell out that my syntax and diction are my direct result of my being a cavity free kid well, perhaps but now the permanent poems are coming in and is it supposed to hurt this much? do you think that I just make a poem that we, just to beg them up that I toss on my apron, gather my ingredients and freshly printed recipe and follow along with my favorite chef on Food Network all my notebooks pre-read to 475 no, man and truth be told and it is I don't know what size party this can feed I have no idea how many this poem will serve but who is truth to keep me from still trying to dish it rest it please I make this poem from whatever I have in my pantry most of which is expired 15 life hacks for making poems not pinterest I go on some of this, I pinter that, I loop the people, whatever that is because that's the closest thing to a recipe grammar ever gave me for making poems poem poem, poem, poem perhaps you say I simply called and there the poem came the poem required canine, catchy but according all too tame roses will be roses but this details germane you cannot call a thing to come that doesn't have a name but a poet well a poet is a poet by any other blame we are servants of verse the ring bearers of rhythm we're political producers of the profound a.k.a. if they're lost pretends we are both found we're honest whoever captains as the colloquial engineers of eloquence we are straight up sidewalk historians y'all we are composers of the calm not we are the loud in your volume and sometimes without a sound we're the jukeboxes of our own destinies the dukes of double our condor commanders of creative cacophony and I know what you're thinking how many lyrical licks does it take to make the poetic center of lyrical happens dance pop and I could tell you but then I have to bill you we're humanitarians we are the meticulous tailors of top who frequently take analogies too far and there is a reason but they cannot find the mute button thank you it takes a village to raise a child it takes a village to make this happen and I'm so thankful to live in this village with all of you who especially our wonderful families can I invite Eddie Baker come on I was talking about my phone it has a timer on it I'm sorry so I don't go over it is St. Patrick's Day yes some years ago so I'm going to start with this phone I'm not a real happy Irish phone never it was overcast and bell fast the day we took the unauthorized tour in a mad cab cabbie took us to a spot full of the plots and sons of Ulster where murals filled the sides of apartments just like they do at the Apache courts murals that remember martyrs murals that to inspire successive generations painted walls of cemetery scenes filled with headstones of names that are recognized from newspapers names I knew belong to Irish leaders that weren't dead yet the tour continued on the other side of the wall where the Republican Catholics lived in the same poverty as their Protestant brothers with their own murals murals that remembered martyrs murals meant to inspire successive generations painted walls of hatred and ignorance along tall walls built to separate them so they could keep them from shooting RPGs and forced Molotov cocktails to hire projectors the cabbie drove us out past the neighborhood to a desolate section of the wall near abandoned lot stopped the car opened his door and just as I prepared myself for an impending death headed me a permanent worker without saying a word and maybe it's a cultural thing that I knew exactly what to do it was the first and only time that I've ever tagged a wall but I wrote a message a piece and signed it with our names and today I wonder if she remembers that our names were on the same side of that wall so I wanted to use this as the poem for San Antonio but they limited us to 20 lines and well I think it's more 20 lines there was something about something about the way that she talks something about that look in her eyes something about that Southern California way when she saw the world and then after a week of spending time together we sat on a cab chair with a group of people overlooking Medina Lent and she said something and she said something that just confirms why it was but it just didn't like it the time was at Chichara's etc that noise how can you stand to live here around that constant noise listen woman I said in my head of course because my mother taught me never to speak to anybody but I thought I'd say one of these things the noise is at Chichara or cicada to your people it's the soundtrack that every summer I know it's the sound that tells me that I'm home the sound that reminds me of sitting at grandmother's table eating pan dulce and drinking an orange soda about parents freeing door snapping back because I'm not outside and taking a ride around the neighborhood I'm convincing my little cousins to pick the Chile Piquins from my grandmother's salsa and then watch as they rub sweat from their eyes and start to cry I had to get really close to stop at Chichara so I knew that as long as it was chirping and Kokui was not coming it was the last sound that we heard before plunging into the pool of an herb an August sun and the first sound that we heard before the water released our ears from the captivity it was there as I walked every morning four blocks to Woodrow Wilson Elementary it was there during every game of Chinese freestyle when the Lamar middle school boxers lost their last chance to score a touchdown for the season it was the only sound louder than their songs in high school I stood in attention during two-a-day band practice it was the only sound louder than my heartbeat Rachel Jackson had great green eyes and awkward hair she had a long match with that Texas twang saying anything I'm going to knock you on the head if you don't ask me how and I stood outside her door waiting for her homecoming it was the only sound louder than my heartbeat to sound that inspired accordion music and chomp financing and cruising down the military wading down the last bunch of holding hands through the crush of Woodlock Bay on the prototype horse part of a full-on big redwood family on Saturday morning it's a sound that says that a water burger with cheese and jalapenos will always take it in out of us and we don't wear sweaters in our beaches and the clippers got lucky last year in the spurs like that this season and with yesterday's the party's just starting because summer lasts forever we've got a tube for the cooler this time and we'll float our troubles away down the cold the cold river that your child will be there all along the banks the soundtrack of our song so get up off that capture drone and go back to California because it's a sound that reminds me that I am the son of South Texas and there ain't nothing else that I'd rather be I'm about to send in two poems and this is the other poem that apparently they didn't like but I like it it's called Love is about sharing celebration, distress, moments that change us and make us who we are love is about standing tall amidst tribulation basking beautifully in the sunlight and no one stands as tall albeit with a slight lean as the river walks cyclist the tree that loves San Antonio he's got piercings, hoax from where hand Christmas lights like long dangling earrings of the river twinkling, like the eyes of children waiting for Santa on a river barge like the eyes of a couple holding hands as they stroll in the spring he trades the lights for banners not for the carol of a confetti summer is from among guanadas and pastas streamers in silver and black as we wave at heroes in championship parade Saturday afternoon barbecue on Sunday morning about the plough but it's not always sunshine and Christmas lights with Santa on the cyclist he cries tears of wispy leaves or sons and daughters have never returned bears scarred from bullets and bayonets bears bruises from flood debris but still stands tall saying is that all you got? I'm not going anywhere I'm still here like the people he protects his roots are in this sacred river but as generations go by new branches for each new culture begin to grow his limbs extend toward a full future full of progress saying family welcome home a kiss on the cheek it kind of looks like check over there because part of the meat fell out but maybe that's how some of my people pronounce it it's on the check so we're going to go with it San Antonio San Antonio to those that think they know you Sanaco to those that truly know your papel de calabar cowboy who sold for seeing other cities those others aren't you though they tried their rivers aren't magical, majestic, mystical making memories as I'm the enemy you are cypress trees with twinkling earrings of Christmas lights you are alonoplasa last class talking to sweet smiles of endless summer you are a george straight to stuff and chanca dancy to fatos acorbiose give me a sunlit and I'll still wake up early standing in line with my brothers and sisters for the good as we chat and not in agreement because we know that the spurs are going to take it all this year San Antonio your formal appellation Sanaco because we're intimate friends thank you for letting me in showing me around and loving you I'm known for taco poetry so this is kind of taco maybe come on baby let's go find a taco truck this party's been good and all but you saw Harry dancing but I got the first five minutes we were on the floor and every song sounds the same now as I hear it through your eyes come on baby let's go find a taco truck because we ate digger about six hours ago and who were you kidding with by just having that sound I had to pretend I was full halfway through my entree yet I'm not half as hungry for food as I am today come on baby let's go find a taco truck I'm tired of sharing you with all these strangers the vultures are circling and I'm not liking the way that they look at you I'm begging you let me be selfish and be a hoarder with your attention come on baby let's go find a taco truck we can cruise the west side from Pueleva to Callahan Connors to Casual let's drive with the windows down sing along to whatever jam and jays we can cruise and dance in our seats through this cool October prepare come on baby let's go find a taco truck I'll drive with one hand on the wheel and the other on your body and you can kiss me at the stop right let's order many tacos and share a Mexican coke they say that cane sugar makes it sweeter but I won't believe it until I taste it from your lips chilled from that last sway come on baby let's go find a taco truck or maybe just drive through them out of Evan because it's getting closer to tomorrow and I won't outrun the daylight so we end the night well we end the poetry reading of the night we'll continue the reading with music and libations until 8.30 if you'll please stay enjoy the wonderful company of these wonderful wonderful beautiful poets we are so blessed thank you very much enjoy your tonight I'm going to let you know of course again thank you Lorie and Gerevo for making all this possible