My Type

Let me cut your hair they say, you know the girls will surely love it

Let me dress you up they say, those old rags will never do

But can’t you see girl, I don’t care what you wear

Can’t you see baby, I like you for you

I don’t want a girl, who likes me for my haircut

I don’t want a girl, who marvels at my clothes

There are more important things, than pants that match the outfit

So much more important, that the shine of your shoes

It’s the glimmer of your smile, the sparkle in your eyes

Your smell and your touch, I’m not talking about perfume 

Your kindness and your humor, that’s what really matters

The way we care for one another, and teach each other too.

So please, oh please love, don’t put on the make-up

Don’t you know mascara, only hides the real you?

I love the way you look when you wake up in the morning

Roll out of bed and throw on those running shoes

I want a girl, who cares about the planet

The people, the animals, and global warming too

Some may think it’s strange that I’ve never cared for styles

Passing fads and fancies, I only care for you

Take me Home to Baños

Take me home to bñaos, through the paseo entre los montes

Take me home to where I belong,

Where the plants grow wild and the rushing rapids carry water to the masses

I may not have been born here but I’ve lived here all along

A land where bars are run by cats

Coming is easy but leaving takes a toll on the soul

The food will warm you, the baths will feed you

The hostels will house you but I’m afraid you’ll have to cloth yourself

The days are clear while the nights bring cloudbursts to feed the land

The plants and the waterfalls grow vast and sturdy

Under the watchful eye and loving care of the medio ambiente

And the tourists bring money to complete the cycle

Pennies for the adventures of a lifetime

If you’re lucky you might catch a glimpse of the snowcapped volcano

Pila de la ciudad, it’s peak

Peeking through the cover of clouds

Heading off to Somewhere

Heading off to somewhere

Going places unknown

Getting lost and restless

Tryna find my home

Walking through an alley

Just tryna keep chill

Bumped into a mayan

Stuck on some pyramid deal

Flying on a jet plane

Tryna get my fix

Hopeless young and trustless

Singing songs for tricks

Searching for a spell caster

Who will share with me his secrets

I must be running from something

Or could it be from someone

Looking for verdant pastures

Where the grass is greenest

on my way to nowhere

Just beyond that next peak

As I Woke Up in the Morning

As I woke up in the morning

Summer rain began to fall

I looked to you when I needed some advice

You never helped me much at all

Sitting at the kitchen table

Fall wind began to blow

I lit a kettle on the stove

Figured it was time to go

Curling up under a blanket

Winter mist hung in the air

Snow perched softly on a tree branch

It looked so pretty in your hair

I tried and tried to please you

Like I've never done before

But when I came home last night

Found you walking out the door

Strumming on this old guitar

Spring sun rays shining on my brow

Singing, sitting, sleeping asking

Can I get you back some how

As I lay down in the evening

Heard this tune ringing in my head

Found you knocking at my door

Found you laying in my bed 

Us and Them

First come the men in suits and ties.

They make promises of better lives,

Of development, of education, of security.

They speak with eloquence and smile as you sign their papers.

Then come the men in khakis.

With condescension in their eyes and money in their pockets,

They brandish their guns, and uproot you from your ancestral homes

They push you somewhere unlike anywhere you have been before.

They fence you in and take from you your livelihood,

Your food, your water, your hopes and your dreams, your past and your future.

They demand you leave your world of production and enter our world of consumption.

This is their sustainable future.

Then come the people with blue shirts.

They shake your hands, listen to your problems, and ask you questions.

They say they want to help.

Then as quickly as they appeared, they are gone.

But you remain.

As trucks roll by, spraying water on the dusty roads

Where once your crops grew and your animals grazed.

They will never understand your reality.

They will meet with you in air conditioned rooms, 

And then get back on their air conditioned bus,

Which will take them back to their air conditioned hotel.

Is this what solidarity means? Is this what solidarity has become?

And these are the people who are doing more than anyone else to help you.

By getting on their air conditioned planes and explaining to all their well off friends

About the exploitation that keeps those air conditioners running 

And those planes flying.

"Isn't there something more?", you ask.

We ask it too, but nobody seems to have an answer.

Music Therapy

There was a man playing music on my bus

The 71 congrado-congresso, toda la amazonas,

Sube, sigue por favor, cierran las puertas.

He held a charango in his hand

A zampona hung from his neck

And chajchas hung from his wrist.

He was adorned with a brightly colored poncho,

An Ecuador bag, and loose white pants

He played from 5 or 10 minutes.

I was so glad he was there

I had been craving my ipod on the bus lately

It’s too dangerous to take my 160 gb.

I haven’t bought a smaller one yet

My brother in law keeps promising

To bring me his extra one but never does.

I took out ten cents to give him, and,

Considered offering him a dollar to say on till my stop.

When he was done he and I applauded together.

The rest of the bus was silent.

Then he began to speak.

He spoke of how we are the one, aboriginal, mestizo race,

And how we mustn't forget that

He offered cds for a dollar, and asked each person individually for money.

He thanked everyone, but made a few choice remarks,

When he was denied by a few people in a row.

He didn’t seem very happy,

But there was a moment when he was playing

That he and I smiled at each other

Music can do that.

Music therapy.

I gave him my dime and he dropped all the coins

In his brightly colored Ecuador bag

And hopped off the bus.