Hostile Subject
He reaches into his pocket
“OUCH! Dammit!”
“what happened you okay?”
“Arrrgh!... Yeah.”
Rueful, he examines a bright bead of blood on his middle finger. He then inserts this in his mouth and pulls out suggestively.
Then, suddenly savage, he flicks me off for my inquiring eyebrow which I have raised in his direction.
“So what? So I have a hole in my pocket.”
“eh???”
“So I have a HOLE in my goddamn POCKET.
So of course since I don’t want
to LOSE anything,
so I put a NEEDLE in there to keep my inconsiderate HANDS
from losing any of my precious things.
So what?”
“ooooooohhhhhh. I see.”
my eyebrow is back in innocuous down position.
“I bet you do motherfucker.
Nice observational skills asshole.”
“uummmm…”
“Think you can figure me out?
You’ll never get me with your pathetic observations.”
“phew.”
Saturday, July 11, 2009
I just inhaled and exhaled
and a cloud of blues in confusion
in the shape of smoke-storm din
swirled about and in my frail, worn head.
“It wasn’t unwarranted”
my deep mind angrily, justly said;
head in hole, I swore in it,
“That sweet kind of obscure clarity
that can blow pure in shared air
passed around with cackling, crackling glee
can cure unbending, cracking,
false clear-eye-claiming mentality.”
Then, slowly, the response came
like a punch thrown from periphery
“Then use those troubling blues
when passions run old, when cold pains veins
sluggish with an untold complacency that you must unsettle.”
and a cloud of blues in confusion
in the shape of smoke-storm din
swirled about and in my frail, worn head.
“It wasn’t unwarranted”
my deep mind angrily, justly said;
head in hole, I swore in it,
“That sweet kind of obscure clarity
that can blow pure in shared air
passed around with cackling, crackling glee
can cure unbending, cracking,
false clear-eye-claiming mentality.”
Then, slowly, the response came
like a punch thrown from periphery
“Then use those troubling blues
when passions run old, when cold pains veins
sluggish with an untold complacency that you must unsettle.”
Wednesday, July 01, 2009
I gotta free my manic mind up
so I don’t panic, seize up, wind up
swimming in circles, wildly, hollowly
without originality splashing shallowly
leaving the art of grounded progression for those all around me
so I gotta keep rollin in until I’ve found me
movin in from slipperily barren insubstantial sands
to dry hand-tilled, life-filled daring lands
then I gotta keep on strollin
can’t let this fat head of mine get too swollen
with stale air givin me a stale stare
so I’ll just hit the steaming, people-teeming street
sweep you off your feet
just gimme some rhythm, gimme some beat
and I’ll lift you to an ecstasy
fulfill every fantasy
of the beauty in rhapsody.
So just follow me
on this story
it goes way back
to the cracks
in our history
where we hid collective memory
on the dusk we had decided to play together
onstage that night so we’d stray no further
from the mystic time where our thoughts rhyme in verse…
but somehow we slipped with a curse
were tripped and fell into a crypt
looking up with a lack
of a philosophy
open to difference
willing to listen to
strange wisdom since
we only had small view
of the venue
and this our stage
and we couldn’t trust for all our rage
outsiders’ and criticizers’ less selective perspectives
and who urged us to submerge this lonely invective and emerge as a collective.
Man, this was our night
(was it that from where we sat is seemed we’d rise alone?)
we could have put on such a show
that’d dazzle like proud snow, like substantially dynamic liquid,
the collected clouds’ shivery slivers of creativity,
but without us in concert, hidden in fright,
(could it be that sharing performance would scare away our sense
of sacred security, of comfort in watery ambiguity, of anonymity?)
the curtains were drawn
the audience a pawn
the props were all on loan
only a half inch shown
how could any one know
what would have come with the dawn?
so I don’t panic, seize up, wind up
swimming in circles, wildly, hollowly
without originality splashing shallowly
leaving the art of grounded progression for those all around me
so I gotta keep rollin in until I’ve found me
movin in from slipperily barren insubstantial sands
to dry hand-tilled, life-filled daring lands
then I gotta keep on strollin
can’t let this fat head of mine get too swollen
with stale air givin me a stale stare
so I’ll just hit the steaming, people-teeming street
sweep you off your feet
just gimme some rhythm, gimme some beat
and I’ll lift you to an ecstasy
fulfill every fantasy
of the beauty in rhapsody.
So just follow me
on this story
it goes way back
to the cracks
in our history
where we hid collective memory
on the dusk we had decided to play together
onstage that night so we’d stray no further
from the mystic time where our thoughts rhyme in verse…
but somehow we slipped with a curse
were tripped and fell into a crypt
looking up with a lack
of a philosophy
open to difference
willing to listen to
strange wisdom since
we only had small view
of the venue
and this our stage
and we couldn’t trust for all our rage
outsiders’ and criticizers’ less selective perspectives
and who urged us to submerge this lonely invective and emerge as a collective.
Man, this was our night
(was it that from where we sat is seemed we’d rise alone?)
we could have put on such a show
that’d dazzle like proud snow, like substantially dynamic liquid,
the collected clouds’ shivery slivers of creativity,
but without us in concert, hidden in fright,
(could it be that sharing performance would scare away our sense
of sacred security, of comfort in watery ambiguity, of anonymity?)
the curtains were drawn
the audience a pawn
the props were all on loan
only a half inch shown
how could any one know
what would have come with the dawn?
Sunday, June 21, 2009
Friday, June 12, 2009
voy
haciendo la rumba rumbo a la tumba cruzando el mundo vagabundo trago profundo vuelo del suelo inmundo al cielo inmenso extenso te siento intenso te suelto lo tenso invuelto en el tiempo del freeflow del momento intento no arrepiento no cuestiono el aliento que me lleve el viento que me atreve lo más atrevido temido y lejos del nido no te pido que me lleves sino las llaves
haciendo la rumba rumbo a la tumba cruzando el mundo vagabundo trago profundo vuelo del suelo inmundo al cielo inmenso extenso te siento intenso te suelto lo tenso invuelto en el tiempo del freeflow del momento intento no arrepiento no cuestiono el aliento que me lleve el viento que me atreve lo más atrevido temido y lejos del nido no te pido que me lleves sino las llaves
Tuesday, June 02, 2009
if you just substitute the Bay and the Pacific for the Rio de la Plata and the Atlantic, and ignore the references to earthquakes, this could almost have been written by Buenos Aires instead of San Francisco...
I wish you would follow my streets as they run themselves like hands over my hills, which swell like pregnant bellies, like ripened pomegranates. Devour me. Only… please… consume, digest, and transform to muscle and sinew both the rotten and the ripe: my defiant and desperate trash miners, my rowdy and impatient fist-clenchers, my cafés and their industrious and maternal steam, my sorrowful shrines built about bullet-gnawed trees, my walls bleeding images of struggle, calling out to you, demanding that you perceive and swallow and then spit up some mixture to perhaps patch their crumbling pain, my grim, jaw-clenched-to-breaking warehouses whose doors wince as they are pried wide and force-fed the obese merchandise of decadence, my parks and their pillows of paper and animal mosaic playthings constructed from the shards of dead inanimate toys. Gasps of color must enter your smoke-choked throat and go down smooth.
I’m hungry, too. Feed me.
Dig deep in your past’s backyard and rummage your life’s backalleys with zeal. For I am sunken-eyed, bent-backed, and rash-ridden from clutching too long and too hard to a decrepit nostalgia.
Here: we’ll shake. It’s a deal? No? I’d say kiss and make up… but maybe that’s not your style… too fast for you, huh? Okay, let’s go for a stroll. My dishes never rot, but my sheets go months at a time without washing, so we should get out of this place anyways.
The Bay brings stillness to those shakes I keep getting, which I think come from the stress of too much rubbing shoulders with far-off lands – no, I don’t mean you – yes, I sometimes need that stability that only comes with feeling cradled by loving lands, hands cupping the waters of serenity for me to drink… though I hear it’s polluted.
On second thought, the ocean! Pacific, I hear, but think, hardly; open and careeningly wild distance, easily. The crash and the crush of the liquid chewing rock into sand, the beach bonfires, offerings to poets’ flame-eyed vision and lovers’ molten-glassy-eyed bliss.
Yes. Let’s swim. I’ll race you in.
I wish you would follow my streets as they run themselves like hands over my hills, which swell like pregnant bellies, like ripened pomegranates. Devour me. Only… please… consume, digest, and transform to muscle and sinew both the rotten and the ripe: my defiant and desperate trash miners, my rowdy and impatient fist-clenchers, my cafés and their industrious and maternal steam, my sorrowful shrines built about bullet-gnawed trees, my walls bleeding images of struggle, calling out to you, demanding that you perceive and swallow and then spit up some mixture to perhaps patch their crumbling pain, my grim, jaw-clenched-to-breaking warehouses whose doors wince as they are pried wide and force-fed the obese merchandise of decadence, my parks and their pillows of paper and animal mosaic playthings constructed from the shards of dead inanimate toys. Gasps of color must enter your smoke-choked throat and go down smooth.
I’m hungry, too. Feed me.
Dig deep in your past’s backyard and rummage your life’s backalleys with zeal. For I am sunken-eyed, bent-backed, and rash-ridden from clutching too long and too hard to a decrepit nostalgia.
Here: we’ll shake. It’s a deal? No? I’d say kiss and make up… but maybe that’s not your style… too fast for you, huh? Okay, let’s go for a stroll. My dishes never rot, but my sheets go months at a time without washing, so we should get out of this place anyways.
The Bay brings stillness to those shakes I keep getting, which I think come from the stress of too much rubbing shoulders with far-off lands – no, I don’t mean you – yes, I sometimes need that stability that only comes with feeling cradled by loving lands, hands cupping the waters of serenity for me to drink… though I hear it’s polluted.
On second thought, the ocean! Pacific, I hear, but think, hardly; open and careeningly wild distance, easily. The crash and the crush of the liquid chewing rock into sand, the beach bonfires, offerings to poets’ flame-eyed vision and lovers’ molten-glassy-eyed bliss.
Yes. Let’s swim. I’ll race you in.
Monday, May 25, 2009
Saturday, May 16, 2009
A true story lived in San Francisco:
“You wanna hear a funny one?” he leans his scar- and scrape-lacerated face towards the man sitting across from him in the seats reserved for the elderly at the front of the bus. His voice blurs out of focus at the end of every sentence that I have heard him speak since I got on five blocks ago. I wonder if it’s from booze, mental instability, an affected persona, or all three. The man across from him appears to feign interest, cocking one eyebrow and calmly speaking a few words that are devoured by the din of the engines straining up a hill. I sigh, turning my face towards the buildings bumping by, trying to find some deep thoughts to immerse myself in.
Grinning as if he kept a naughty secret, the man slurs, “So I took my wife to the hospital. She had been purty beat up, she wouldn’t tell me how. The doctor said, ‘If you…’” and again the words are consumed in the gurgle of the engine’s cacophonous combustion. Now he slaps his knee for emphasis, working up to the kicker, “And I told her, ‘Good fer you!” and she turned to me and said, “Not fer you, but fer the three of us!” He grins, but not any more than he had been before or during the telling of the joke. The man across from him doesn’t appear to change expression.
Then the joker puts a ragged hand to his forehead, and at first I think he says, “I’m fucked up,” but a moment later I think he says, “That’s fucked up.”
Either way, I surmise... then I feel fucked up myself for thinking so, knowing I don’t really know the story.
We pull over at a bus stop and the front doors fold open. An unseen woman says, “Is there a bike rack on this bus?”
The invisible driver responds, “Nope. But I tell you what, you drive and I’ll ride along behind.” The bus doors close and we drive off. The joker guffaws gleefully.
“You wanna hear a funny one?” he leans his scar- and scrape-lacerated face towards the man sitting across from him in the seats reserved for the elderly at the front of the bus. His voice blurs out of focus at the end of every sentence that I have heard him speak since I got on five blocks ago. I wonder if it’s from booze, mental instability, an affected persona, or all three. The man across from him appears to feign interest, cocking one eyebrow and calmly speaking a few words that are devoured by the din of the engines straining up a hill. I sigh, turning my face towards the buildings bumping by, trying to find some deep thoughts to immerse myself in.
Grinning as if he kept a naughty secret, the man slurs, “So I took my wife to the hospital. She had been purty beat up, she wouldn’t tell me how. The doctor said, ‘If you…’” and again the words are consumed in the gurgle of the engine’s cacophonous combustion. Now he slaps his knee for emphasis, working up to the kicker, “And I told her, ‘Good fer you!” and she turned to me and said, “Not fer you, but fer the three of us!” He grins, but not any more than he had been before or during the telling of the joke. The man across from him doesn’t appear to change expression.
Then the joker puts a ragged hand to his forehead, and at first I think he says, “I’m fucked up,” but a moment later I think he says, “That’s fucked up.”
Either way, I surmise... then I feel fucked up myself for thinking so, knowing I don’t really know the story.
We pull over at a bus stop and the front doors fold open. An unseen woman says, “Is there a bike rack on this bus?”
The invisible driver responds, “Nope. But I tell you what, you drive and I’ll ride along behind.” The bus doors close and we drive off. The joker guffaws gleefully.
Thursday, April 23, 2009
Hermano hormiga sígame un rato,
un rato sensato, un rato duradero,
Hermano corbatero, corriendo a tientas
en corrientes hundidas en mentes sumergidas,
Hermano subterráneo, con afán
yo te contacto:
No entiendo tus actos, yendo apurado,
mucho menos tu plan, man,
oh cráneo subterráneo,
aunque tengas planes, yo paseo,
pues no me pises con tu prisa,
los matices de tu misa motorizadamentematerialista
sacrifican vida por velocidad balística en la pista.
No ofrezco atajo simplista:
pero acá abajo nos podemos sentar,
cultivar quietud y crecer para arriba.
un rato sensato, un rato duradero,
Hermano corbatero, corriendo a tientas
en corrientes hundidas en mentes sumergidas,
Hermano subterráneo, con afán
yo te contacto:
No entiendo tus actos, yendo apurado,
mucho menos tu plan, man,
oh cráneo subterráneo,
aunque tengas planes, yo paseo,
pues no me pises con tu prisa,
los matices de tu misa motorizadamentematerialista
sacrifican vida por velocidad balística en la pista.
No ofrezco atajo simplista:
pero acá abajo nos podemos sentar,
cultivar quietud y crecer para arriba.
Tuesday, April 14, 2009
Su cara era chueca, joven, sucio, ningún ojo me miraba,
ni miraban los dos para el mismo lado.
Hablaba sin sentido ni sentimiento,
siento el temor relámpago que todavía
me late el corazón con pulsos sacudidos.
De golpe sus dos manos se cruzaron, sacaron
dos cuchillos como si estuvieran hundidos
en sus muñecas – brillan, sonrisas sadistas.
Izquierda, derecha bailamos
me doy cuenta que son cubiertos de mesa –
Amateur, pensé.
Ahora pienso:
No tenía ninguna carne para cortar
sino la mía.
Corrí, me choqué con un hombre - ¿estoy
atrapado, están todos con él? pensé
Ahora pienso:
así que ni grito ni lucho, corro.
Corrí, me choqué con el poste de una parada de colectivo.
Corrí, eché un vistazo por atrás – se fue
en la otra dirección, pensé
Ahora pienso:
Se fue en la dirección de Migraciones, y
yo hacia Retiro.
-¿Te hizo daño?
-No, estoy bien. No me tocó.
Investigo mi torso para asegurar que es verdad.
-¿Qué te dijo?
-Nada. No entendí nada.
-Te pidió monedas. Tenía un cuchillo.
-Sí, pero eran cuchillos de mesa, cubiertos.
-Igual, con eso, si te apuñala…
-Claro, me hace trizas… ¿Viste su cara? Tenía la cara chueca.
-Cara de otro mundo.
Ahora pienso:
Cara demasiado sumergida en este mundo.
ni miraban los dos para el mismo lado.
Hablaba sin sentido ni sentimiento,
siento el temor relámpago que todavía
me late el corazón con pulsos sacudidos.
De golpe sus dos manos se cruzaron, sacaron
dos cuchillos como si estuvieran hundidos
en sus muñecas – brillan, sonrisas sadistas.
Izquierda, derecha bailamos
me doy cuenta que son cubiertos de mesa –
Amateur, pensé.
Ahora pienso:
No tenía ninguna carne para cortar
sino la mía.
Corrí, me choqué con un hombre - ¿estoy
atrapado, están todos con él? pensé
Ahora pienso:
así que ni grito ni lucho, corro.
Corrí, me choqué con el poste de una parada de colectivo.
Corrí, eché un vistazo por atrás – se fue
en la otra dirección, pensé
Ahora pienso:
Se fue en la dirección de Migraciones, y
yo hacia Retiro.
-¿Te hizo daño?
-No, estoy bien. No me tocó.
Investigo mi torso para asegurar que es verdad.
-¿Qué te dijo?
-Nada. No entendí nada.
-Te pidió monedas. Tenía un cuchillo.
-Sí, pero eran cuchillos de mesa, cubiertos.
-Igual, con eso, si te apuñala…
-Claro, me hace trizas… ¿Viste su cara? Tenía la cara chueca.
-Cara de otro mundo.
Ahora pienso:
Cara demasiado sumergida en este mundo.
Monday, April 06, 2009
a boy with a drum
told me ba-boom-boom-bum
this life’s all rhythm!
it’s in and out
hit it and rest
do your best
to make the dance fun
so I listened and hummed
and knew yes, yes, rhythm it is
rhythm is this, what bliss, what bliss
a girl with a knife
told me aaaaargh! this life’s
carving your way through tangled-up strife
it’s jab and slice
till your space is nice
and free of that sticky
icky mess all about the out-
and insides
so I tried to feel alive
and knew yes, that’s right,
so far it’s all fight
a man with a cup
told me drink up, drink up
what luck that life’s
got teats to suck, but
grab yer gulp now
cuz ‘fore you can say ‘wow,’ hup!
that’s it, yer all dried up
so I savored and sighed
felt yes, oh my, the flavor’s so fine, and
knew its time would very soon fly
a woman in the nude
told me heeey, dude,
this life’s me and you,
you and me being truly true
really real with deep-down feel,
we making we squeal with glee…
just leave all those other spiels
for another ride ‘round life’s wheel
and come with me
so I came, with thee,
(hee hee hee hee!)
and knew no more
told me ba-boom-boom-bum
this life’s all rhythm!
it’s in and out
hit it and rest
do your best
to make the dance fun
so I listened and hummed
and knew yes, yes, rhythm it is
rhythm is this, what bliss, what bliss
a girl with a knife
told me aaaaargh! this life’s
carving your way through tangled-up strife
it’s jab and slice
till your space is nice
and free of that sticky
icky mess all about the out-
and insides
so I tried to feel alive
and knew yes, that’s right,
so far it’s all fight
a man with a cup
told me drink up, drink up
what luck that life’s
got teats to suck, but
grab yer gulp now
cuz ‘fore you can say ‘wow,’ hup!
that’s it, yer all dried up
so I savored and sighed
felt yes, oh my, the flavor’s so fine, and
knew its time would very soon fly
a woman in the nude
told me heeey, dude,
this life’s me and you,
you and me being truly true
really real with deep-down feel,
we making we squeal with glee…
just leave all those other spiels
for another ride ‘round life’s wheel
and come with me
so I came, with thee,
(hee hee hee hee!)
and knew no more
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