{"id":7186,"date":"2019-12-09T16:34:32","date_gmt":"2019-12-09T16:34:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.artvilla.com\/plt\/?p=7186"},"modified":"2019-12-09T17:05:33","modified_gmt":"2019-12-09T17:05:33","slug":"research-on-the-notion-of-freedom-by-alex-z-salinas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artvilla.com\/plt\/research-on-the-notion-of-freedom-by-alex-z-salinas\/","title":{"rendered":"Research on the notion of freedom by Alex Z. Salinas"},"content":{"rendered":"

On a summer morning,
\nI waited outside a county prison
\nto conduct research on the notion of freedom.
\nA short, bald man exited
\nthe building, I assumed, a free man.
\nTurned out he was free indeed because I asked him.
\n\u201cSir,\u201d I said, \u201cwere you just released?\u201d
\n\u201cYeah,\u201d answered the little man, \u201cand who the hell wants to know?\u201d
\n\u201cNobody,\u201d I said, \u201cjust some guy who wants to know what it\u2019s like
\nto be free.\u201d
\nHe chuckled, then scratched his stubbled chin.
\n\u201cIs somebody picking you up?\u201d I asked.
\n\u201cNo,\u201d he answered.
\n\u201cWherever you go then,\u201d I said, \u201cwon\u2019t your legs tire out?
\nYou aren\u2019t used to walking long distance.\u201d
\nThe man looked at me with raccoon eyes, smiled,
\nthen scratched his stubbled chin.
\n\u201cYou know how I got in there, boy?\u201d he said. \u201cWith these legs here.
\nThey never failed me \u2018cept the once, and once is all they ever
\ngonna fail me.\u201d
\n 
\n\u201cBut where will you go? Where will you stay?\u201d
\nHe squinted.
\n\u201cDon\u2019t worry about my legs, boy,\u201d he said,
\n\u201cor where I\u2019m gonna take \u2018em.
\nInstead, worry \u2018bout this here mouth,
\n\u2018bout the words I\u2019m gonna say, and how I\u2019m gonna say \u2018em
\nto people like you.\u201d
\n 
\nII.
\n 
\nWhen the man approached a fork in the road half a mile down from the prison,
\nhe turned left.
\nHe didn\u2019t hesitate, didn\u2019t stop to scratch his stubbled chin,
\nhe turned left.
\nHe turned as if he\u2019d turned that direction a hundred times.
\n 
\nIII.
\n 
\nUpon release,
\nsome men turn left,
\nwhile the rest go the other way.
\n 
\n 
\n\"\"<\/a>
\n 
\n 
\nAlex Z. Salinas<\/strong> lives in San Antonio, Texas. He is the author of WARBLES<\/em>, his debut full-length poetry collection by Hekate Publishing. He serves as poetry editor for the San Antonio Review and holds an M.A. in English Literature and Language from St. Mary’s University.
\n 
\n 
\n 
\n 
\n  
\n 
\n 
\n 
\n 
\n 
\n 
\n 
\nRobin Ouzman Hislop is Editor of Poetry Life and Times<\/a> ; his publications include
\n 
\nAll the Babble of the Souk<\/em> <\/a>, Cartoon Molecules<\/em> and Next Arrivals<\/em>, collected poems, as well as translation of Guadalupe Grande\u00b4s La llave de niebla, as Key of Mist<\/em> <\/a> and the recently published Tesserae<\/em> <\/a> <\/u>, a translation of Carmen Crespo\u00b4s Teselas.
\n 
\nYou may visit Aquillrelle.com\/Author Robin Ouzman Hislop <\/a>about author. See Robin performing his work Performance (University of Leeds)<\/a><\/p>\n

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On a summer morning, I waited outside a county prison to conduct research on the notion of freedom. A short, bald man exited the building, I assumed, a free man. Turned out he was free indeed because I asked him. \u201cSir,\u201d I said, \u201cwere you just released?\u201d \u201cYeah,\u201d answered the little man, \u201cand who the … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[877,808,796,366,401,43],"tags":[18,136,874],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artvilla.com\/plt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7186"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artvilla.com\/plt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artvilla.com\/plt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artvilla.com\/plt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artvilla.com\/plt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7186"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.artvilla.com\/plt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7186\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7192,"href":"https:\/\/www.artvilla.com\/plt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7186\/revisions\/7192"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artvilla.com\/plt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7186"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artvilla.com\/plt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7186"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artvilla.com\/plt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7186"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}