Julián David Bañuelos

Cómo explicarte 

Pensando en those andando along fronteras, pensando en comfortability nació en el desierto,
truth be sold: I miss ceiling fans and being called my daddy’s son. There are no mistakes.
Confiame. Ya hace veinte años since la primera muerte me cambió and halfway seems to still be
the shortest route. No quiero nada. No quiero na’. I had the want, the gana y las pillas torn de mi
espalda. ¿How I end up becoming upended at the root? A fruitless mulberry on the property line
en un Pueblo where the topsoil splits and suffocates after la lluvia viene. A year ago, el girasol
reminded the hand to reach in las partes más oscuro. Metí la mano y todavía me sentía
incompleta. Even still, Machín. Otro tipo me dijo que no hay nada verde en el desierto, which
warrants asking how he ended up in a concrete jungle after Iditarod-ing for so long, answers are
needless, my time is line breaks and solid titles, cuál es la diferencia entre la musa and ruse: un
montón de palabras listo para un nuevo significado. ¿Won’t you take a stab conmigo?

βάλλ' εἰς κόρακας

Ya sabes 

que te estoy hablando

This is far from slander 

My list of grievances is dying alone 

Como mi bodega 

¿I never worry 

about what I can do without

Even if polvo covered 

What says I when fallen on unused 

tracks or after the village is gone?

 

I grieve enough a day 

And refuse to name it suffering 

In a field at sunset 

I am most afraid a mi mismo

Never the poet, never the girasol

Never the engineer, never the pajarita

You have found yourself birdwatching  

Cuando sale el sol 

Capaz

My kindness extended and lapped itself

quieres que me quede 

pero muero recordándote, the stent 

is poem reaching to dust off the shelf 

quieres que me concede 

though my past, present, and future is movement

underground and timely (most days)(Judas tree) 

quiero k te fede

like a quick dap headed downtown my stint 

here has always been the half-life of las cartas that we 

once sent

Bio

Julián David Bañuelos is a Chicano poet and translator from Lubbock, TX. His poems and translations can be seen in The Cincinnati Review, The Hopkins Review, The Latino Book Review, The Common, and many more. His unpublished collection, Las Cancioncitas, was recently selected as a 2023 National Poetry Series & 2023 X.J. Kennedy Finalist. His forthcoming collection, Epode, will be published by Acre Books in 2027. He teaches literature at St. Paul’s School of Nursing and lives in New York City. You can find his work at www.juliandavidbanuelos.com.