POETRY BY JUAN MANUEL PEREZ
Juan Manuel Pérez is a Mexican-American Speculative Poet of indigenous descent, and a former migrant worker. He is the author of numerous poetry books, including the poetic-memoir, Thirty Years Ago: Life and the First Gulf War (2023) and the Mexican-American Barrio Horror Novel-in-Verse, La Santa Madre Tamalera (2023).
He has been awarded the Poet Laureate for Corpus Christi, Texas (2019-2020). He won the 2021 Horror Authors Guild’s Inaugural Lifetime Achievement Award winner and is a recipient of a 2021 Horror Writers Association Diversity Grant.
His credits also include two Pushcart Prize Nominations (2017, 2023), three Elgin Book Award Nominations (2021, 2022, 2023), four Rhysling Award Nominations (2011, 2012, 2013, 2020), four Dwarf Star Award Nominations (2012, 2020, 2021, 2022) and one Honorable Mention win in 2022, and one H.E.R.O.I.C. People’s Choice Award Nomination (2024).
Not only is Juan an award-winning poet, but he is also a combat vet, history teacher, and Native American Gourd Dancer.
You can find him HERE
WHEN YOUR PRAYERS GO HARD
from your blue-sky world
Creator hears your message
fulfills your prayer
every wasi’chu
even those of small percent
disappear from earth
not a soul is left
but the true indigenous
handful of full-bloods
it turns out to be
wasi’chu was not from here
invasive species
hate within prayers
give remarkable results
you get what you want
what were you thinking?
that you were not infected?
that you could be saved?
fear, for it is late
grand expunging is complete
space: crowded, dead sea
WHAT IF POE WAS MEXICAN
quizásnuncamás
cries the gifted quetzal bird
question everything
question the sun’s flames
the sharp slivers of the moon
the brightness of life
question the movements
of the oceans at high tide
and the forming clouds
quizásnuncamás
cries the skillful quetzal bird
question everything
question life itself
why it portrays dark puzzles
that never resolve
question even death
why a woman dies for love
why her baby cries
quizásnuncamás
cries the vivid quetzal bird
question everything
Lincoln died for me
Lincoln died for you
Lincoln died for all things do
thirty-eight brothers
swinging from gallows
an old war for the new West
red retribution
confederacy
disguised as angry pale-face
formulated plans
won’t see this coming
they had theirs and I had mine
my arrow of truth
my dark brown fingers
wrapped around a white man’s gun
sunk into darkness
they don’t suspect me
white man’s war against himself
softly pressed trigger
plotters and plottee
with one sound, startled them all