Enjoy the distance

The routine has begun: school, nonstop work, the wake up early in the morning and force shit out. Things never uncomplicate themselves. They just get worse and worse, deeper into the rut. Is there still a chance for me to climb out?

Everything sucks, especially connections with those whom surround us.

Things don't seem to change. Back on square one, when I had told myself I never wanted to play games again.

More on Rey and me? I think Rey is of the most genuine people I've ever met. I think Rey feels the same as I do, in that context (but perception is all subjective and meant to be bullshit). I see a lot of myself in him, an older version, wearing the scars that I am soon and inevitably meant to accumulate.

Currently we are waiting for word from the publisher. Shit is ready to fly, from my understanding.


I see children who do not speak because they have nothing to say

We do not kiss because
what we have between us
is only time to waste

and to complete us and touch
would be of the utmost insignificance.

I do not want to see us ever again
as friends.

Next time we run into each other
we will yell and look the other way
as awkwardly as possible,
tell people how much we
hate Jesus Christ.

I want to be your lesbian lover,
wear you as a leash.

You’re kissing an uglier boy
with thicker glasses than mine;
his nose is more crooked than mine.

He is five-years-old and I stepped on his feet,
and he only mentioned that the streets weren’t straight
and then tried to bum a cigarette off me.

I will hug you before I leave never to see you again
because I was run over as I nodded off trying to beg for change
in the middle of a busy intersection en Santurce
that became a highway in a Chinese city.

That highway was built entirely out of rocks:
Chinese rocks.

I cherish my words and hold them tightly in my pocket.

How did I make it there if I am here,
with you holding your hand?

Asphalt Slaves

Born like this, into this…
Bukwosky


Here she comes: it is past five o’clock and she is not even capable of faking a smile. Her hands reveal the verge of a nervous breakdown. “I have a couple of tickets back to childhood,” I lie, sipping boring, black coffee. We already know the lies. There are no wings powerful enough that would allow us to cross each others' rivers, and caress those soon to be scars. Wounds made of routine, the good morning kiss goodbye, traffic jams, broken dreams, tormentas, men with empty souls offering rides to the early pleasure and unbelievable comfort - women, giving away plastic flowers out of windows of vehicles that still belong to the bank: the commute to the cubicle's inferno.

But then, it is five again. And as she lies her head on my shoulders, I dream about all the lies:
As if we knew all the lies.
As if we could share all the wounds.
We know this train is going to Humboldt Park (the guns – the gangs – the gongs)
We know there is no car
no boat
no train
no return

to childhood.

Conocer a Gustaff fue una bendición. Nos hablamos mientras andaba con la cabeza bien abajo, intentando grafitis en VSJ, tropezando con las mismas piedras, en fin, bien triste de olor a mar. Qué puedo decir? Janguear con este maldito loco me ha devuelto el gusano que se me revuelca por dentro. Compartimos la misma tristeza, la misma tinta,

"la tinta es la sangre de las palabras..."

Hablando de palabras, he aquí algunas sobre una de las novelas más importantes de la contemporaneidad literaria de esta prisa caribeña... para ver más sobre La muerte de mamá, el fetiche del hijo loco, Iván Silén, haga click acá...


hasta el próximo post.
r

Rey and the Riverbed's first meeting

We met through my mother. My mother lives in Old San Juan. I'm sick of the third-person. I am real. So is Rey. We have hugged. We have smoked joints together. We have walked the nights of Old San Juan under the orange lights of poles together. Rey used to work at Cafe Puerto Rico, a fantastic restaurant in front of la Plaza Colon in Old San Juan.

The first time we spoke we spoke of Bukowski. Then Rey serenaded some gringas and recited poetry. I gave him homemade chapbook: "Seeking the Cause and More." I was in love with Carolyn then. This is no longer true. One day i will forgive Carolyn. Maybe one day her family will forgive me.

Right now I am in love again. With who? I know. She probably knows. I won't speak names.

Who am I?

Is Rey in love? He flies to Chicago for a gringa's birthday. Yes, I think Rey is in love.

La tristeza,
...Qué te digo, es una perra. Uno se siente jaloneado por todo alrededor; redondeado en un abrazo fuerte de tiempo, de espacio, de confusión... miradas y soledad. Sólo queda el libro, aquella canción que se ha traído uno, cosas que no pueden olvidar los inmigrantes. Desarraigo. De todo, incluso de aquella última página que acabamos de maltratar.
Explorarse, encerrarse, trabajar hasta el cansancio, abarcar hasta lo imposible el estudio, amar a todas las criaturas errantes en los cuatro mundos, escuchar a Pink Floyd. Creérselo. Dibujar cerezos con acuarelas imaginables. Escribir hasta enfermarse, he ahí donde radica el problema: el artista es amalgama de carne y alma, de aire de raíz, un cielo al revés, el vaivén de una oropéndola.

Candela
Para mí tiene algo de pariente muerto, lejano, del cual uno nunca pudo llegarse totalmente a compenetrar. Pecaría si digo que pude haberla leído más. ¿Acaso no la viví? Yo viví en ese texto, eso sí te lo puedo decir. Me lo pasé por el cuerpo. entonces al parecer no tenía que releerlo más ná: los ojos son el equilibrio del cuerpo cotidiano. Para el cuerpo cotidiano el equilibrio es una metáfora.

A Night for Theatre

The writer, the musician, and the painter lay on a banister close to la liga de arte. They roll a blunt. The artist acts as doctor Frankenstein with the phillie because it had been bought already broken in half. He is able to roll two mini-blunts and the musician wanders off with one of them to see if someone hanging out will lend him a lighter to light his blunt. After scaring off one group of people, after being ignored by another, the musician returns with the mini-blunt lit and they light the second one and pass it around themselves and get high. They are happy. They are now calmed. They can now have a conversation and bond. They talk about girls and all agree that they shouldn’t think about them and that they all need to only worry about doing their own thing, which means their respective arts. The girls will appear in due time. They compare their levels of fresconess, meaning, what is their current love-situations. They each claim to have someone they can depend on in times of need of sexual-relief. The painter is seeing an older art-teacher who calls him a chamaquito and who is right now travelling the U.S. for a month: New York, Chicago, then San Diego. The writer has a hippy girl who lends him her car so that he can drive out of town. The musician had a girl file a retraining order against him, and each time he plays a show he has to leave because she shows up hanging out with some other rival musician. They notice that a kid is trying to make out with a drunken girl who is wearing a light, thin dress that shows off her ass. She pushes the kid away from her body by pressing her hand against his face. The group of artists laugh between themselves. The kid eventually gives up and leaves her alone, and she wanders off stumbling into a dark street.



This is Old San Juan and many people are getting drunk and hanging out. The musician goes off to his show because he believes that the girl who has put an order against him must have already left and he has a show to play. The writer follows the painter to see some street theatre en la plaza del Totem. The actors are dressed as cops, cowboys, and bureaucrats. Many drunk people do not realize it is theatre or don’t care. They scream at the actors, and the art students who are doing the music and sound for the street-play have to get the actors to quit acting because the crowd of drunken people is getting too rowdy and throwing empty plastic cups of beer at the actors. One of the art students later on will have said that he saw a member of the crowd pull out a gun. One of the art students, after the theatre group has left the crowd of belligerent people being, says to whoever will listen to him, “And they ask why our country is so fucked. It’s because we have destroyed our own culture.”

There was no theatre that night and the drunken people got drunker.

SHINE

LET IT SHINE,
ON YOU.
LAURA IZIBOR

UNO.
No dormí ni un solo día.
Me la pasé conversando con fantasmas y fumando hasta el cambio de turno. Otro doctor y la misma mentira: la condición está mejorando. Estamos tan esperanzados… la infección cede.
Agradezco el gesto desesperado y bajo hasta el café. Las lenguas del sol queman las colas de los aviones. Pero no puedo irme. Soraida está allá arriba, atada a un cáncer de cama: equipos que respiran, excusas y sonidos intermitentes que intentan prolongarle la traición del cuerpo. ¿Podré asirme e insistir en que todo va a estar bien? ¿Que de algo han servido el reguero de flores que han enviado los que no se atreven a enfrentarla en el estado de huida? No. Quiero a la Soraida del abrazo de quebrantahuesos, la resplandeciente, quiero el tamaño de su mordida de bacana: necesito ondearme en el centelleo de su cuerpo.

Dos.
Tropecé con Soraida en un bar demasiado oscuro. Iba por el cuarto trago, sólo por ella. el bartender me sugirió: Llévale una heineken chico. Háblale.
Me volví treinta y tres miedos. La quemé con un cigarrillo.
Vamonos, me ordenó.

Tres.
Caminamos bordeando las murallas. Deteniéndonos para tomar sorbos de aliento: aires con olor a marejada, a deambulante, a orín yerba fresca.
Me llamo Jonás.
Lo sé, dijo con la cadena hermosísima de dientes de miel de leche.

Cuatro.
Salvo el sonido del viento escondiéndose entre las ruinas de la muralla y mi mano terseando su pelo, no se escuchó nada más… quizás alguna espuma de mar estrellándose en la piedra y renaciendo, creando orillas.
Tienes manos de maestro constructor… no puedes ser un mal tipo.
Me demoré en ripostar. Hice apuestas con algún demonio: esta noche la beso. Fui todo pálpito y tropiezo. Los dedos encontraron la boca y midieron.
No había nada que perder.

Cinco.
El doctor, un muchacho llamado Gaastra que nunca pudo adaptarse al dolor ajeno, fue quien me dijo toda la verdad entre cigarrillos. “Suba y confiésele todo porque… Bueno, quizás no quede mucho tiempo. No puedo decirle que lo siento.”

Seis.
Se deslizó un poco entre mis piernas, acomodándose. Proponiendo. Encontré fuerza y la enfrenté: quise escribir una novela pero todo me salía muy propio y personal. La nostalgia. Ya he abandonado todo eso y no hay nada de qué preocuparse, mentí.
Estremeciéndose de risa; elevándose por entre la espuma de las orillas cantó: la alegría no es sólo brasileira... La vida se me partió en dos y sentí una prisa adolescente; un gusano feliz y terrible revolcándoseme. Beso. Sonrisa, otra vez. La luna permitiendo la bahía, el viento retozando. La cadena de dientes blanquísimos, rechina que requeterechina…
Yo soy escritor. Y tú, ¿qué haces?... digo, además de leer la mano.
¿Yo?
Sí tú.
Yo.
Yo brillo.