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Ray Gonzalez

CHAMBERINO, NEW MEXICO, 1978

Click on the title The Book of Whispers to explore more of his work in the PDF chapbook available now as a free offering from O:JA&L’s Buttonhook Press.

The cross burned on Christmas Eve and signaled that someone was hiding in the black ruins of the town, morning shapes praying to a desert god that no longer existed, black windows covering the tiny houses with a faith stolen from the men on horseback with their lances that could form crosses. They could even get me inside unwritten history books by those who still believed in hiding each night. The cross sent a light across the road where I witnessed the dogs of Chamberino devour a huge carcass that had flown in above the shadows of the cross, a sound of gorging similar to the noise of buildings coming down with blood and bone from those who turned their backs because they would be buried there. I was among the faces on the other side of the wall that used to hold the cross whose smoke destroyed an old belief in time for the river to wash it away.

 

About the writer:
Ray Gonzalez is the author of 16 books of poetry including the newly published Suggest Paradise (University of New Mexico Press). He received a 2018 Poetry Fellowship from the Library of Congress and has won three Minnesota Book Awards. He is Professor Emeritus at the University of Minnesota where he recently retired. Click on the title The Book of Whispers to explore more of his work in the PDF chapbook available now as a free offering from O:JA&L’s Buttonhook Press.

Image: Paradura by Ray Gonzalez (contemporary). Ink on paper. 9 x 12 inches. 2012. By permission.

OJAL Art Incorporated, publishing since 2017 as OPEN: Journal of Arts & Letters (O:JA&L) and its imprint Buttonhook Press, is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit corporation supporting writers and artists worldwide.

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