The Santa Ana Literary Association will be presenting a new poem by a local poet every week this year. This week’s poem is “Say Something
by Donato Martinez.

Say Something

Bump that loudly
Make the windows rattle
Make screen doors come off their hinges
Make the cats stop in their tracks
Make the 911 emergency sirens go off
Make the neighborhood dogs bark like they see a cat

Make teenage boys rise from their video games to witness the noise
Make Wu Tang ask, who bringing the ruckus
Make old folks get up and dance
Talk their muscles and bones into moving like they haven’t for years
then quiver to the ground
Make flowers rise through the earth and break concrete above them
Rip through the glory to reach the sunshine

Make a loud scream
A testament to your survival
Make your next word mean something
Imagine it’s your last word
Shout it at the top of your lungs
Cuz it feels so damn good to scream
About everything
and about nothing

Make alcoholics gain moments of clarity
Make sinners crawl on their knees for repentance
Make a new drug of words
Make people fiend for another hit of this language
Like scripture
Like speaking in tongues

Bump that dawg
Let me hear that battle cry
The scream for help
The wail from a mother looking for her missing son
Or the pain from a lover who abandoned you

Get to the depth of your pain and rage and sorrow and hurt
And reveal and confess
this new language of forgiveness and healing
A language full of love

Just say something
but say it like you mean it.

Donato Martinez teaches English composition, Literature, and Creative Writing at Santa Ana College. He hosts and curates a bi-annual afternoon of artistic expression with poetry, dance, and live music. He is also a poet and writes about his community, his culture, his bi-cultural and bilingual identities, and other complexities of life. He is influenced by the sounds and pulse of the streets, people, music, and the magic of language. He has a chapbook with three other Inland Empire poets, Tacos de Lengua. His poetry explores the meaning of being a Chicano while living in suburbia. He stays connected to his barrio upbringing and the beauty of his culture, language, and music.