Buenas dias guatemala you tell me in the streets;
a stranger guatemala, a strange attraction to this mind's distraction,
these concrete hallways paved with cobblestone lives lined in file;
a funeral procession constant guatemala,
always mourning always time to work guatemala.
You are worn short and spread thin guatemala, and it shows.
Paint chips and words fade with use, and
you have been used guatemala.
You still are while mayans wear cleveland indians hats
and I keep mistaking the marlboro man for Sandino guatemala,
and the irony's making me ill but
I've been to your hospitals guatemala.
So many people clearly sick with modern society,
and I wish I could help guatemala, but
that too makes me a villain.
That too makes me american, and
I'm not mayan guatemala,
but I feel the jaguar in my blood and
it's growling guatemala, it's calling.
October 1944 guatemala,
jacobo arbenz guatemala,
commandante everardo guatemala,
che guevara.
and with the right eyes he still walks the streets at night, but
you're selling him guatemala;
you've sold his face in mass production and
you're a nation guatemala,
stand up for yourself,
be proud guatemala.
You are beautiful guatemala.
You are scattered mountains framing psilocybe sunsets
stuck sweet in the eyes of a thousand dogs and
you are their keeper guatemala.
Protect your drunken streets and glue high desperation guatemala,
protect your broken glass sidewalks and fire-crackers exploding at dawn.
Save your graf guatemala because
everything's beautiful and everything's graffiti on this earth.
Buenas tardes guatemala,
times change and you're changing with them,
but remember yourself guatemala,
remember belize guatemala, remember chiapas.
A border is a line in a room somewhere
and all people are wonderful,
everything's transitory guatemala
but nothing truly changes, and
nothing's truly changing.
Your police are corrupt,
your government is corrupt,
the contras have been replaced by mcdonald's and
you yell negro at garifuna and sneer at your mayans
while children starve in your streets.
What the fuck guatemala, do something.
I've seen your schools guatemala,
I've done handstands with your children, and
a rose is a rose is a child, and
innocence is innocence but
you're lost shining shoes guatemala.
I have played basketball against your inmates guatemala,
but in the end no one wins.
Jail is a horrible place to start ones life but
they do, babies awaiting mother's trial.
Everything's sad guatemala but only to a point;
my eyes will bleed your emotion,
but that has no use in the end.
Nothing matters but your emotion guatemala,
and inevitably your action. Because
you have the revolution in your blood,
you wear the stetson of agrarian reform and
your heart knows poetry guatemala.
How could it not with your backyard.
I understand your religion because this is god's country,
and being here makes me feel like a god.
Your fat teardrop moon guatemala,
your mountains a constant bodyguard.
Your nights guatemala, an energy in the air,
and its felt guatemala, a dark total velvet,
and the stars in the sky are amazing guatemala,
but so are the ones in the street.
Your calle guatemala,
your fires your food and your noise guatemala.
Beautiful noise loud noise
chicken busses and trucks stuffed full of people not taught to care.
You're dangerous guatemala but I think its that I love most,
because you do care guatemala. You watch out for your own and
you smile at strangers guatemala.
You say buenas in the street, and I say it back,
because were all brothers and were all sisters on this earth.
Were all human beings here.
Buenas noches guatemala, may you sleep until tomorrow.