I αm.
I don't wish to have my name printed
on paper that ages and withers at a rhythm and pace
slower than my own.
not known or whispered from mouth to mouth in fame
not even slightly recognized by a photo, a companion to
words that have a grasp on truth
firmer than my own.
I want to be the phrase, the anecdotal quote
he reads on the door of a toilet booth,
in the back restroom of a highway bar,
somewhere, on the way to somewhere else
and as he walks out, relieved, and speaks,
I am there, on the lips of the traveling man
shared and appreciated and imagined but not mentioned
by a name of my own.
I don't wish to settle on a shelf and gather the smoking ruins
of broken minds, I don't need to feel their eyes on me,
not their eyes on me, not by identity,
but I want to be the everyman who seduces a fox with red toenails,
as they both watch the sunset from the porch of a cabin
up the mountain, they watch the sunset and he whispers
the phrase,
the quote that I am,
the one I call my own.
Planets
There is a great fire,
a great fire in the desert
and animals gather on the dunes,
watching it from afar.
We converge around it,
oblivious to the eyes on the dunes lying in the distance,
oblivious to the ever-changing landscape around us.
We dance in homocentric circles, our faces painted red
by the fiery glow, wet faces painted red,
flames claiming the glistening surface of tears on our cheeks.
Coming from all directions,
we meet where the flames are high,
bearing no names,
no identity.
The past is an unnecessary burden,
so our feet go deep in the sand wherever we walk
but we bear no names for others.
Tears on our cheeks as we dance around our sun,
flames read our names to ourselves as they graze
our faces, turning them into steam, forming clouds.
Still, no redemption for the past; there is no need for that.
Future is the need that we have. We need a Future.
And time;
time is animals gathering on dunes to watch planets
orbiting the great fire in the distance.
Each of us, a planet of memories and words buried
in the ever-changing landscape of the desert
in our hearts.
The Great War
“Qui plume a, guerre a. Ce monde est un vaste temple dédié à la discorde.”
“To hold a pen is to be at war. This world is one vast temple consecrated to discord.”
--Voltaire--
There is a war,
and this war goes on forever.
You won’t know it’s there;
no one will tell you about it.
Survivors of the war have no scars to show,
they have no limbs missing.
In their eyes, one could see,
if one would choose to,
the battlefields, cities in ruins,
endless nights under a red sky,
and when they speak,
if one would choose to listen,
one could hear the distant echoes of gunfire
and explosion.
Walk the streets;
ride the subway;
somewhere along your journey you will find them,
you will hear them whispered, maybe,
you will see them on a wall about to crumble
from their weight;
you will finally know the words,
verses of spoken poetry,
spoken bullets of war poetry,
pronounced fiercely,
slowly,
violently,
words that roll like tanks on tongues of gravel,
words in neat piles,
ammo for the war that is fought within.
There is a war,
and this war goes on forever.
You won’t know it’s there;
you won’t know that you are fighting it.
The war leaves no scars to show,
no stories from the battlefield to share.
Only the distant echoes
of gunfire and explosion,
in your voice.
Hope is.
hope is granular,
latent seeds in non-linear fractal poetry;
inspiration comes, today she wears a man,
in a blue polo shirt and faded jeans, with pockets full of antibiotics,
commencing a speech he's been rehearsing in the bathroom mirror for a lifetime,
personifying hope; todays she's a helpless, pigtailed, freckled adolescent
who supposedly dies last; but children know, though they can vaguely remember
as they stray further from womb memory, they know that
hope is granular,
latent seeds,
lodged in the contours of non-linear fractal poetry,
sandbox verses spinning at 80 miles per second;
people exchanging yawns on the subway,
apathy explained in tabloid headlines;
people around, like gears, interlocking,
apathy explained in strobes, reflections on their sunglasses;
bottled dolphins on the subway, pretending to read
books which they would later pretend to understand;
lodged in the contours of non-linear fractal poetry,
spinning at 80 miles per second,
sandbox verses that are latent seeds,
water canisters
in the hands of monastic street poets, street painters,
reclaiming the world or just the piece that they step on,
street artists with their noses pressed against a window,
staring at people eating sushi for the first time in their lives;
they come knocking on your door, they come rapping on your window,
famished, wounded and naked, subcultural static with a vision
and cold canisters of purified water;
feed them,
bandage them,
clothe them,
even if people don't do that around these parts nowadays;
give them a blank page where they'll conduct their manifestos,
greasy but honest fingers hugging the quill, dipping the tip in mustard
and mayonnaise;
point them to a wall and they'll paint it with love and sham geometry
of womb memory, planting latent seeds,
spinning at 80 miles per second,
lodged in the sandbox verse of fractal poetry;
hope is granular.
Edge
At times it seems as if
it will all go away
it will fade into a buzz,
like flies on a window, futilely fighting their way
through glass and collected Sunday afternoons,
and the buzz will become a new lullaby,
echoing in the night under a sky colored an unlikely black,
not the kind poets and writers describe or refer to when they use the word
“ebon”.
We may never see the edge of the world,
no matter the distance we walk to find it,
it will all fade into a thought,
a dream that came an hour too late,
some Monday morning when you have to go to work
so you are
wide awake while the dream is still building up,
and you spend moments between sides,
coffee tastes too hot and far away, distant,
and the day is painted an unlikely yellow,
not the kind astronomers describe or refer to when they use the word
“light”.
There is still truth
that we may learn and feel comfortable with,
even though it may not be the kind we sought out,
not the kind of truth we set our course to find,
in all our definitions and constants,
it will be a
convenient pill to swallow,
something that will deter us from walking farther and
higher, reaching the edge of the world
a world we defined
in our image.
We may never understand the reason
behind every why,
we will still live and die and revolve around stars
in the night of a color so much like the true sense of “ebon”,
so finite and beautifully confined in flesh and blood,
bones that act very much like an Ark,
it will all fade into a thought,
a buzz that will vibrate into a light
we may never see,
a light we will wish
we never heard it be described.
Self-Help Poetry
This is self-help poetry
in braille, I punch each line
fiercely in, and so you can read it.
Self-help poetry for minor deities,
the slow train is full of them whenever buses are
on strike, minor deities with rushed lipgloss dabs
and eyeliner curving outwards,
they pray it never rains again,
since water makes their hair feel marshy
in the hands of their casual lovers.
This is self-help poetry in sign language
metaphors in fluid gestures,
poets reciting like street performers in schoolyards,
hospitals and rest stops on motorways,
self-help poetry in bullets and flowers,
in haikus carved on kayak paddles,
rowing against the current.
Poetry intended for salmons,
in the wet tongues of the fish.
Etched on pebbles, thrown in creeks
and so you can read it.
Clastic Poetry
Just do the best you can,
I've been in the trenches for a dozen years or more,
time acts funny on the front line and you'd better come prepared;
just do your best. It's crazy out there, listen; they treat poetry like math.
And they don't shoot blanks.
I've been in the trenches for a dozen years or more,
I know gravel there better than I know my name. My name tastes like gravel.
The letters are gravel-sized clasts and I often catch myself believing that
Gravel is what they used to call me.
It's crazy out there. Do your best and listen; they don't shoot blanks and
they treat poetry like math. It means they either hate or calculate it.
It means they think there is a solution to every verse, a set of definite integrals
to expound catharsis.
It's not the years nor the weather that wear my skin,
and it's not wisdom that moves my lips and laces my breath with uncanny
words, it's just me, I've been in the trenches for long enough,
long enough to feel time hanging above like a bullet hole-infested board,
1995,
1995,
nineteen ninety five and my mind echoes with sirens.
You'll get used to the sirens.
It's when they treat poetry like math, that's when they start wailing.
It's like a baby crying, like a baby crying math over poetry.
Give it some time and you'll listen to ee cummings murmuring his verses,
static currents of poetry woven into low frequency sounds,
sedimentary currents of static poetry,
floating on high pitch echoes like fabric in tatters.
Or not. It might be different for someone else. Poetry might have a different voice,
the voice of a different poet that died or was tortured (and then died) in their hands,
tortured with abstract algebra in their hands (and then died).
They don't shoot blanks but there is no war going on.
You won't see soldiers on the streets and coffee shops still serve cake,
teachers still teach and supermarkets still have rice and milk.
But they treat poetry like math.
Someone you trust,
someone you love,
someone you've known forever
is one of us.
It's crazy out there; do your best.
Hold my hand. Here come the sirens.
Empty Suitcase
some myths speak of them
the invincible champions, the kings and princes,
frozen on their horses,
waiting for the Pleroma to tell them what to do,
their burial sites are listed on every Lonely Planet,
myths that have travelled all this time,
jumping from song to song, climbing murals,
applying hooks into the minds of writers and painters,
crawling in the background of movies;
a cabal of heroes retired.
Let's improvise, don't rely on me,
don't hold onto me,
I feel too abstract lately and you're supposed to run free,
climb the wind, follow the scent of myth,
the trail they left behind for people like us
to find them,
it all happened so quickly, later you would say,
it felt like a twig snapping between your fingers,
in a moment which goes unnoticed if you don't commit to it,
later you would say, in the fraction of a second,
when your eyes shut themselves instinctively,
and you might as well have missed it; but you didn't,
instead you
woke up,
inside a hotel room, your eyes fixed on a suitcase,
moribund echoes of the past and your parents,
your friends and every single person you ever kissed,
bouncing off the walls of a hotel room while
your eyes were fixed on a suitcase,
you wanted to fill it with all the things that mattered,
travel agency ads on the wall, to places you haven't been,
exotic words describing ephemeral realities,
you remembered that knowledge is collective,
not meant to be withheld by one, but sought out by many,
and each one of us,
each and every one of us, holds a fragment of something
which could easily be mistaken for a puzzle,
a shattered egg, an hourglass that cracked
and sand escaped to form Mojave desert,
you stared at the suitcase and the suitcase was empty,
and you remembered that
myths in books spoke of them, the invincible champions,
the kings and princes who would bring about deliverance
but never showed on prom night to pick you up,
you prayed for a white horse, black horse or a '67 Cadillac,
and instead of divine intervention,
you got me and chronic migraines,
you got me, who told you that
dust will come and it will go again,
who knows when, again,
and our names will be forgotten, again,
but for now, let's improvise, let's take risks, again,
leave a mark or face extinction,
go for it all,
and perhaps we will survive,
our deeds or words followed by
'i heard someone say'
preceded maybe by
'I heard that someone finally did'
perhaps, if we can be 'Anyone',
we can live forever, survive forever like
myths, still carrying on, travelling from song to song
percolating through the frame of a hanging photograph,
leaking down on the floor,
like the portrait of rain as it falls on the early autumnal afternoons,
a sign of transition, witnessed but ignored, so often,
so often seen right through like
the heroes you are looking for, they are passersby,
they are rescue workers at Folsom, Pennsylvania,
their art is beer bottles buried in their backyards,
next to a rusty carcass of a would-be getaway ride,
they're bank tellers, retail servants in orange t-shirts and blistered feet,
no armor, no shield, no spear nor sword,
the heroes you are looking for have yellow rubber gloves,
cleaning toilets on a freighter, these goddamn heroes
of filthy nails and sweaty underwear,
their poetry is nicotine spit, cigarette burns across their forearms,
like myths, they may survive this never-ending murder
and your eyes read 'go for it all'
Comp B.
Had the phone rung a few minutes later,
had my mother been an atheist,
had I been asleep when they broke into my house,
had the bus arrived on time,
had I not known how to manipulate silver nitride,
had I been loved any less,
had I had a singular face and a name to brand it,
I'd wear a jacket and walk in the rain
and I could be
someone else.
Everything could have been different
and I could be someone else,
someone like the sudoku girl sitting at the table
on the other side of the cafe, legs crossed,
white framed sunglasses and pierced lips.
I could be that.
I could be the guy on the train with the three-day stubble
and the spark in his grey eyes, an everglowing spark,
present even when caught with an invalid ticket.
Everything could have been different
and I could be you
and I'd be wondering if I could still be me
and not her or him or them.
But I wouldn't be
Us.
I'd be some other me,
I'd probably walk by me in the rain, walking in the opposite direction
in that jacket, with the sirens blaring and the fleet of
ambulances hurrying to pick up the departed
or the would-be escapees.
I calculate the variables and the superficially random patterns,
log the parameters that create each different day,
an infinite cache of facts and non-facts, a colourful catalog
of what ifs and why nots,
a projection of rainbow-textured convictions of today,
all the reasons to conclude why I walk out being me into the night,
I walk out being me into the night looking for people who wear
skins of negative refractive index, people who are you and her
and who dare walk in the rain not wondering
about what could have been done differently
and if they could not be themselves.
Second hand chances in a second hand life,
second hand sex and second hand poetry,
I am relishing the moment my second hand house
will crumble down and a first chance to experience everything,
everything, again, will arise,
through the first hand eyes of an 'I'-less new kind of plague,
a flexible alloy of primal instincts,
of people who are people and not a new breed of mice,
and then all will be different and I can be me but live
in someone else as well, the sudoku girl and the grey-eyed handsome
devil, I can wear my skin of negative refractive index
and slither among the crowd on the subway, being anyone,
being anyone and sitting in anyone's heart, make it my new home,
forgetting the 'I's and 'You's and start being 'Us' again.
Had I studied Law instead of Poverty,
had I not been pregnant,
had this case not been full of ammonium triiodide crystals,
had my father been an architect,
had I chosen to bear my pen like a haiku accident,
had I loved you any less,
I'd wear a jacket and walk in the rain
and maybe I could still be
Us.
Block E.
Don't bring me cigarettes in prison;
each time I smoke, your face will burst in spirals,
your face will travel through the corridors of Block E,
under dim light and broken eyes, dispersing.
Like your face in spirals, I will disperse under dim lights and broken eyes,
filling the lungs and resting in the veins of all the Block E inmates.
I'll never be able to keep up with my dreams.
My calves are burning hot as if from running and I wake up
with a twitch in my spine. Don't bring me cigarettes in prison
because I'll never be able to keep up with my dreams,
I'll end up wheezing at the side of an imaginary road, in my sleep,
panting while watching my galloping dreams fading in the distance,
dust and fractals sent flying from their hooves;
my calves will be burning hot as if from running and I'll wake up,
a twitch in my spine, as my dreams are fading further in the distance.
Your cigarettes in prison, smoke rises, it forms a second ceiling in my cell,
and there I see the same recurring theme, the same mirage or premonition,
a reflection of a dream I used to hold within my arms before that too began to
speed into a fractal vortex. It is the end of the world and everyone knows it.
Television lies no more, politicians lie no more, the world's greatest concert
since 1985 Live Aid, the end of the world, Queen is on stage,
Freddie's back from the dead, the end of the world,
singing 'The Show Must Go On' minutes before an asteroid collision,
a single voice eight billion souls loud, a fireball splitting the clouds open.
A single voice screaming 'on with the show' before incineration.
It's just an illusion, everything is, the end of the world, but
don't bring me cigarettes in prison.
We're irreformable.
Sophia K, cell E12, was a banker thirty years and a Wednesday evening anarchist;
Wednesday night they caught her chalking poetry on
ATMs across Madison Avenue, they caught her chalking alchemy on
billboards and bus stops, charcoal suit and red glasses, looking all serious,
hair in a bun, her hands were white powder and her mouth was
'girls don't play with nitroglycerin'.
Ellen S, cell E15, was a supreme court justice and a theorist on divorce,
Saturday they caught her slipping doomsday verses, printed onto cards,
slipping doomsday verses onto cards and into books chosen at random in a
bookstore, 'girls don't play with nitroglycerin' on blank business cards;
we're irreformable and you should never bring me cigarettes in prison.
The corridors are grey and slippery with hope and lard,
the princesses from fairytales are inmates of Block E and
princes in white horses roam the land of illustrated books,
pointlessly wandering, high towers empty,
Rapunzel and Snow White are playing Liar's Dice in the yard,
nobody's winning, nobody cares,
we are a deck of cards composed of queens of spades alone,
we are irreformable, we are alone, the warden shuffles the deck,
each night we sleep in different cells, we find variety in each other's
personal belongings, exotic combs and different brands of cigarettes,
don't bring me your cigarettes in prison, your taste will be shared in lips
that went from red to bitter, your smoke will be shaped in princessly tongues
of varied texture and moisture, forming a second ceiling in the cells
and so
that's what the end of time feels like;
rose petals, red wine and candles leaking onto our palms,
elevated body heat and a lifetime of making love to Billy Idol posters,
the end of time is a Billy Idol slideshow and a prayer that
Billy will come ringing on my bell but it's always men with pink sweaters.
Don't bring me cigarettes in prison, they remind me of the moments 'after',
the moments 'after' when 'it's all a mistake, I'm sorry', those moments 'after'
when it's all about blowing smoke to Billy Idol posters.
The lights are dead, the echoes are dead, the corridors are grey and slippery
with lard and trails of 'no regrets', it's impossible to write under a lighter's flame,
don't bring me cigarettes in prison, my lighters are dead too, dead by dawn.
There is erotic, romantic, mellow poetry that wants to be written under lighter's flame but
it's impossible to write, every word slips into doomsday verse, obscure
metaphors and backwards clocks. Girls who play with nitroglycerin, violent remnants of
a century past, don't bring me cigarettes in prison,
fill your bags with photographs instead, candid
shots of people having lunch in the park,
faces I have never seen before, women smiling and a man in a suit,
crying, the city lights
and the highway sirens, bring me
the fossilized remains of what lies
beyond the bars that keep the irreformable inside.
The world we imagined and the world you live in,
the world disperses like smoke, spiraling out of polaroids,
under dim light and broken eyes, forming second ceilings,
oracular ceilings, in our cells.
Reprocess
I am born again, when the alarm clock goes off,
I am born again and the day is a hostile womb,
made up of chrome and scrap metal.
I come forth from fire
into the icy arms of an undetermined future,
the incandescent blade of a scalpel, cutting through
the frozen limbs of every day until I'm smothered,
I'm born again each wet and cold morrow.
I ride a caterpillar to work, a stretch of wheels
and orphaned prayers,
fused into a single body of chrome and scrap metal,
the day is rust on the creases of everything perceivable;
I ride a caterpillar to work leaving trails of rust, chrome
and piles of scrap metal at the sides of the highway.
Reality looks distended through raindrops
on the windshield, red lights from cars in front,
green traffic signals, wet and wide like floodlights.
Wipers collect galaxies that settle on my windshield,
bearing an internal swirl, I am looking at the universe
forming on my windshield and my eyes,
my eyes become the colour of rain.
My eyes are rain, they follow kamikaze messengers
of heaven to where the elder clouds conspire.
Converging over cities to observe larval thoughts, words,
the short lifespan of dreams, the rise and fall of vanity,
clouds are clusters of history, thunder is the groan of
primordial myths meeting head-on over cities as
the rain falls; clouds are
history receptacles and raindrops are
stories lost or whispered too softly,
myths expressed in the tears of
could-be skyrivers.
It's raining years on our heads;
we are born into the day to best our fathers,
every day,
to climb a little higher, to go a little further,
to feel a little more and dare to realize that
it's raining years on our heads,
every day.
The day is a hostile womb,
brooding over an undetermined future and we,
we are born again each morning,
brought forth in rain
to labor under nuclei of recycled history.
Awakening.
If you believe what they say,
in the beginning, there was nothing.
Today, we will set out to find its source;
we will wake up and you will hold my hand as we
walk, like nothing matters but this touch,
your hand in mine, as we will walk, the world will be as we
will see it. Nothing will matter, as we will walk in this world,
created as soon as we notice it, walking to find the womb that
gave birth to nothing which in turn created everything,
if you believe what they say.
You will see flowers on the road to the source of nothing,
which in vain created everything, as an act of balancing itself
on the see-saw of the cosmos, if you believe what they say.
Flowers that will speak in tongues we have not yet thought of,
so we will decide they don't say anything, we will surmise they speak
of nothing important because their voice will not have been conceived by us
yet. Free will is our will, if you believe what they say, and talking plants
will not be in our design. So we will decide they speak in tongues
we have not yet thought of, and if we have not thought of them
they can be ignored.
We will be naked and dew will gather on your chest, barely visible
waterfalls on your chest and rivers on your ribs as we walk,
our warm bodies will be releasing the kind of mist that makes trees lean to have
a closer look, we will not feel cold but it will be cold if you let go of my hand.
It keeps everything together, the touch, the definition of one by another,
that was how everything was created out of nothing,
if you believe what they say.
We will be thirsty,
so you will pull out blue cartons of milk from your bag,
and we will drink straight from the carton, our lips
leaving wet imprints on paper, white quasi-dotted lines on blue,
dashes and single drops of milk that could spell something in Morse code.
Tiny birds will be nesting in the space between the lines and to us they will
seem like oscillating blots, rotating dark spots on the blue between white lines.
That too will not matter, your hand in mine, the touch that holds everything firmly
together, that will be the only thing that will matter.
You will pick up stones on the path to the source of nothing,
stones to throw at animalistic dreams when we arrive.
There is a place, if you believe what they say,
where dreams have grown limbs and if you wish them to speak
all you have to do is think of it; mouths will blossom on their patterns
and a resonant voice that will ring in all octaves will greet us.
They say the womb which spilled nothing in the cosmos is a pool
of dreams, dreams that realised themselves and jumped out of the water,
growing limbs. It's a comforting concept, that what we will see when we arrive
is something already familiar and already thought of. If you believe what they say,
the world opens up as we think of it, the path to its source is marked with
stones and flowers we ignore because they speak out of their design.
There is a place where nothing matters
and we may call it home,
if you believe what they say.
I'll hold your hand and take you there, if they ever let us
awake.
Corn Maze.
Father
I've been lost to you,
lost in life -isn't this what they usually say? - so
this will take a while, for both of us, to get used to,
Father - isn't this how they usually say it/ isn't this how
you used to say it ?
I had a dream the other night,
a dream almost threw my body off the hammock
the other night, I think the dream wanted me,
the dream wanted - ME - to reach out to you, Father,
like the old times, reach out to you like when I was
five, get me out of the Ferris Wheel,
Father,
I was out in the field again, the great expanse behind our house,
before they decorated it with highway arms and gas stations
- remember how it was before they folded us in their highway arms ? -
a figure in the field with me, a man wrapped in newspaper articles
I'm wearing track field shorts and no top and he's wearing Sunday
Times sports sections and international politics. I know the man is you but
he doesn't look like you, his nose is Hispanic and his lips look like flat tires. He is
standing by my side, not speaking and I know it is you,
even though he is a foot taller than you in your finest days.
He's not speaking but humming a song you've never listened to,
as I'm about to start running - I'm always running in my dreams, you know that
in my dreams I always run like that bird in the cartoon - he grabs me
from the shoulder, grabs and freezes me in place, just like you would,
he freezes me in place with his steel grip, just like yours,
talons on my shoulder,
so I know it is you.
I think the dream wanted me to reach out to you, just like you would
whenever I
wanted to run/always wanted to run/your hand on my shoulder/when I
wanted to run.
It's still alright, everything is, if you're interested in knowing how I've been.
I work in the corn maze, it's a four hour job I do in ten;
I take my time around the noble crop that expands its domain
a few quarters of an inch each day, its shadow stretching a little more
each morning. Unlike most people,
corn listens when I make the faint sound with my lips which even you
thought was anything but a voice,
corn ears gather my voice/my voice so muffled, travelling underground/
unlike most people, corn knows my voice.
You'd be amazed,
Father,
the corn fields gather individual voices,
it's what they miss the most,
individual voices, corn speaks as one
even though its thought is individualized.
The seed has dreams like we do, Father,
its dream is one but divided evenly,
everything is divided evenly in the corn domain,
its dream is kernels trapped on cobs.
The gatherers come, they gently treat the fields,
the gatherers come, it's not a genocide,
in corn language, they call it evolution.
Kernels in my palms, softly running on my palms,
corn seeds that never knew a Father,
rolling through my fingers, free-falling in the basket,
you'd be amazed, Father,
such grace that slows down the passing of the sun,
kernels in the air, individuals for a single frozen frame in time,
using the voices they've gathered, to declare their fractional deliverance.
It's a four hour job I do in ten,
Father,
I've learned more about life during my hours with corn,
than from a lifetime of walking among people. It is what I don't get,
Father, maybe that was what the dream I had the other night was
trying to tell me/the dream wanted me to reach out to you for an answer.
Born with an individual voice,
look around you -
ending up trapped on a cob with no aspirations,
why have we chosen to live in silence,
Father?
Most of the time/it's been a long time already,
I feel like I'm a kernel that grew legs and walked out of the basket,
Dad.
The Polar Plantation
Act I
I've been feeling it lately;
what lies outside when I look out the window, in the attic
among the memories packed and sealed with gray duct tape,
my 90s air that I blew in thirteen jars when it went out of style,
everything in the attic is my obsolete remains, a museum of me
to wander through when I grow older and older
I'll become.
I've been feeling it a lot lately,
I carry a pen and notebook like always but
when I write, I stop the passersby and ask them
-what do you think/what does it make you think/can you think of anything, man-
and they tilt their heads to the right or left as if their minds went out of balance.
The world is people with tilted heads to the right or left,
and if they line up one day they will form lanes that my words will fly through,
my words will roll through like a bowling ball down the peoples' lane.
I remember, once upon a time it was summer,
and summer went on like a perpetual Monday.
Every dance used to mean something,
- was the sun shining brighter? -
walking out was like stepping inside a High Definition screen,
sharp colors and overexposed emotions, we danced in the street
and the radio was playing music, out loud, music in the streets
-don't tell me that it never happened-
and we were there, we knew nothing about sirens or the future,
the future was the next moment/the future came in moments.
I remember, I tried to be cohesive in the past,
it was when I told you that we live in a perpetual rainy Monday.
It was the year whatever and the sirens used to go off at 11 sharp.
11 05 I told you, under the sirens' din I told you
that I wanted to dissolve myself into your heartbeat,
I told you I wanted to be the next beat.
That's the closest I ever got to cohesion,
and you tilted your head to the left or to the right and joined the
subway tribes, the skateboard kids and the
elder folk who feel confused with all these changes and so
they tilt their heads to the left or to the right, their minds go out
of balance.
The museum of me in the attic,
for when I grow older, days came by, they passed by
and then some more came after, I try,
I try to make my future come
in moments or at the very least, moments that are day-long memories,
instead of experiencing everything at 120 frames per second,
everything mashed together in a gigantic cosmic bowl,
I pull out my notebook and I hold my pen as steadily as I can on the street
as I walk I write/wondering as I write when I walk :
what happened?
So, what happened, man?
I've been feeling it a lot lately,
the static in the radio that makes the people tilt their heads,
the music in the radio is static and we live in a perpetual rainy Monday,
I look outside the attic and I see them/us
getting dressed for work, always late and aggressive,
if they ever form a line I'll bowl my words
right through their tilted heads' lane.
Act II
You know how it is sometimes,
you wake up and find yourself walking around
while you thought that you never left the bed,
it happens - to me - sometimes, every now and then,
it feels - to me - like we are the caricatures of people
who look and talk and act like us,
we are the people who are supposed to be us, you know how it is
sometimes you walk around in a loop, opening seemingly the same door,
wearing seemingly the same shoes that never look worn or walked on
at all,
I woke up today and I found myself walking around
and I thought I never left the bed this morning -
holding a twenty dollar poker chip I found within my pocket,
my fist around a chip that I found buried in my back pocket,
and it's all I've got today/today the Lord provided a twenty dollar
poker chip for Lord works in mysterious ways, sometimes.
My face,
my face is tangerine,
under the morning sun my face is tangerine and I
haven't shaved for days, my tongue wears a bitter coat of
nicotine and espresso, it's just another one of those days
when nothing's really moving, people swim through the street sluggishly
as if their bodies cut through cotton.
I flip a twenty dollar poker chip with my thumb,
it's the only currency I've got today
and it's good for nothing, so I
flip it with my thumb and in the air it spins, faster than the world
that moves around me/their bodies cutting through layers of cotton/it spins
and its yellow interchanging faces smile in a particular way,
as if there is something subliminal, you know, just how people smile when
there is something implied/when there is something subliminal/
reminding me of someone who said that we wake up on a perpetual rainy Monday,
she said she wanted to be the next beat on a perpetual rainy Monday,
and
everything has yesterday's stale flavor
except for me, spinning a yellow poker chip on the street,
I'm the non-linear variety of the day, the glass that fell and crashed
and broke the silence, to someone
I am the differential feature of a yesterday that's yet to come.
If I'm following a routine, I wouldn't be aware,
I just do the things I feel that are necessary to escape what's coming to me,
- I know not what is coming to me but I feel the urge to escape it -
I feel like the surfer who flees from the waves but,
I ask myself as I flip a twenty dollar poker chip,
is that my purpose really/would I flee forever/I have a choice/I have a choice/don't I/
I wouldn't be aware,
if I knew I was following a routine,
something that I'm supposed to do at a given time,
turn a corner and fall into the unsuspecting arms of someone,
someone who moves like cutting through cotton, open arms and a heart
beating
so efficiently,
so predictably.
Act III
I think I am ready now,
I think that I am ready
for full-blown trauma,
I’m ready,
don’t hold anything back now,
I think I’m ready,
no half-written sentences and no half-hearted lectures on
poetics,
no more of that now, I’m ready, I think I am
about to face the full force of any storm,
I’ve grown to stand against it,
my senses have been honed now,
the force of any storm, the full blast, the real deal,
don’t shelter me any more, don’t ‘protect’ me from
the force of any storm, the heart of any great fire,
against any gale,I think that I can walk on both my feet,
no crutch, no more,
I’ve slept,
I’ve slept enough and my eyesight has that certain haze,
the daze of bright light gives me that certain stagger,
as if I’m unsure of whether I should walk or crawl,
as if I’m uncertain, inadequate, not enough a man
not ready/not ready/you are not ready for this
storm, I’ve slept through a century of
storm, but now let me,
let me trial the spirit I’ve been feeding with the stories of the past,
the men who walked against any storm and reached their goals,
made their dreams into houses, into schools, into
culture, they walked and poured their dreams into culture,
mountains and rivers you could actually drink from,
rivers you could actually swim in,
no one was there to tell them
not ready/not ready/you are not ready for this
life, no crutch, just the body of will against the body of
life.
Full-blown trauma,
let me have seven winds around me,
five feet of snow and rocks,
my path should be full of rocks and ice,
it should be a path I could carve with my own hands,
my own hands digging through ice and boulders,
don’t let me have the easy paved road you made for me,
my body, coated with the spirit I’ve fed
with the stories of people who dared to travel through fire,
I’ll test my body against the full force of any storm, I think I’m ready,
marching on, just
marching, against the current to reach my own goal,
my dreams are hardened like the produce of a
polar plantation, I know I am ready,
ready to stand against the full force of a storm
and watch my seeds grow, cracking the face of ice,
like the body of will against the body of
life.
The Docks Sing in Strange Tongues
maybe some morning we will rise,
as something more than human metaphors,
the streets won’t echo
the demise of countless dawns,
your hand will not feel as cold,
our faces will not look so grim,
the sky won’t be the gray of static,
we will be random,
we will touch every person we see,
we will talk to everyone,
and
maybe, maybe we will be spared
from the algorithm of misery,
the docks will be singing in
strange tongues,
songs from uncharted places that do not
belong in maps or
in their deliberate space,
we will rename all colors
and love the saline verses
written in chalk
on the side of containers,
when we rise
as something more than gospels
marooned on metaphors.
