ih-tur-ni-tee

This is the story of a girl,
a girl who collected toys and played with them
while making noise,
in her bed she wasn't coy,
she was more blunt than a club to the head,
her smile, her toys were fed
as she wound them up to let them loose,
to dance in circles chasing her smell,
intoxicated by her scent and her spell,
her stories became their Duracells
and one day she forgot to charge their batteries.
The better part of them now gather dust
as they rust in a non existent closet
with other forgotten toys.
They all call her regret,
through hushed sounds their thoughts concur,
though their eyes have never met.
Dove came with strings,
to them she attached her toys limbs,
and moved them to and fro at the sigh of a breath.
Her eyes, a black abyss
through which one toy crept out of,
escaping through an eye socket,
Sliding down the ridge of her nose,
extending its arms to hold her lips,
because they were sweet and because they spat razors;
to think that they praised her.
She coreographed a dance and they would swing from the hips,
in a trance, playing to save her.
They made themselves sinners, and her a winner.
Looking for something
where there was nothing
their hands have formed blisters
that resemble the volcanoes inside
their chests, ready to erupt the hate she left in her place.
They gather dust as they rust
burning the last remaining images of her face.
Battery's dead, and now she is too.

Ode to Guillermo (the virus, the dancer, the mexican, the god)

I'm physically woken up by your alarm,
7:30 sharp.
My consciousness can escape la cumbia from the box,
but the broken hymn that escapes your straining back,
it cannot.

The sun that warms me, as I sit and sip my morning tea,
is the violent witness that saw you leave-
home, a mango and an avocado tree, piojo the dog-
and your loved ones behind, as you came up north to find
an unspoken promise of a better life.

You packed a thousand stories, a dozen pictures
and as many hugs and kisses. Under the cover of darkness
you left and saw it all fade in the distance.
I would imagine that pictures and calls
bless you with their grace. At times as I'm
on my way home; I see you leaving work
ready to start your inebriated tango/walk up our block,
always at a steady pace.
I realize, from a seat on a bus,
that still frames and calls just aren't enough.
So you hit the bottle, and make the sidewalk
your dance floor, sipping cuervo, patron, cerveza or ron.
Telling it how it feels to walk where you reside,
and never fully make it home.

As you lift milk crate boxes, and your boss watches
for strawberries that may find their way into your mouth
I ask myself how does guillermo live in that house?
That empty space within four walls...
What of the avocado and mango trees you've left in your backyard?
Do you miss them as they miss you?
Piojo y los muchachos
Do you miss them as they miss their absent father?

My curiosity by silence must abide.
Id like to ask but I hate to bother.
I've seen dry flesh tears escape your eyes,
when asked about the distance.
So I let my curiosity fade into the back of my mind without persistance,
like home faded from your sight, the night you left it all behind.

Silence became the last string attached to sanity.
I've picked this much up. As have your torn blacktop converses,
whose flapping sole and few holes in silence persist
so that brand new kicks can arrive in the form of a kiss,
at your children's feet as they are needed.
Your rugged and torn, dirty and worn
blacktop converses in silence persist
to let your children know
their father exists and that their every need is thought of
and will be met, but nothing tangible can help them comprehend
why papa left.

A country formed on the efforts of immigrants,
threatens to expulse you, as if you were a virus.
They call you illegal alien, as if you arrived from another planet,
as if your body didn't hold approximately 5-6 liters of blood,
as if your eyes did not blink about 22 times a minute,
as if you never looked up, with tears in your eyes,
as we all have in a moment of helplessness and desolation,
like a starless sky painted on a lonely night.

Guillermo,
Citizen of nowhere,
refugee of no place,
this ode is for you.
If you feel as if a part of you died
when you began your odyssey up north,
I give you this poem, it's an attempt
to immortalize you through words.
This, is a sculpture made to honor you
and your permanent light brown tan,
because you're a god, in your own right,
waltz/walking among man.

Pariguayo

I wrote this poem for those of us who stare at our cigarettes smoke themselves;
This is for the dreamers.
For those of us who run with our eyes closed,
without fear of regret.
Be mesmerized by the swirling clouds of smoke,
but don't burn away with your cigarettes.

I wrote this poem for those who lock themselves with planted feet behind open doors;
For those who clip their wings,
before the fat lady sings.
Spread them wide!
You have to take a few steps,
before you can fly.

For those, who don't smile whole heartedly,
because they're scared to show the gaps between their teeth.
Stretch you lips!
Wide - from one side, to the other,
know your smile's worth.
Like the rays from the sun, hurrying each morning to touch the earth.
Your smile too can provide warmth.

I sat alone in a hotel,
as I attempted to write this poem.
Nothing in my head, but a self conflicting brain,
that's half analytical, half emotional, and certainly insane,
And at the time empty.
Desolate, like Wyoming.
My mind, addicted to roaming,
afflicted by the stoning of dreams before they start
and ideas left in the dark, for no one to see.
Time rusts and rots - don't let your fruits get sour.
I wrote this for the cowards,
being devoured by the guilt of not doing what's right,
every passing hour.

I wrote this for you.
Cowards and dreamers, be do'ers.
Rise yourself up from the sewers,
and begin to liven your canvass.
Life is a garden, and you're a gardener.
We're all architects.
Build a dome to the metronome of your heart beat,
seek your will and shake it where it sleeps.
Mold your goals into soaring steel structures,
keep working until they reach the skies,
and tickle god's feet.

I wrote this for me,
and my poems. Those streams of consciousness and color.
Aching to acquire my dreams a word at a time.
This is for the rhymes, that orgasm along with my ears,
and this is also for my fears.
For the courage that walked me to this stage,
on which my stomach cramped and my vision swayed.
For the courage that walked me to this stage,
on which my agitated insides started to scream;
No matter how far, you're only steps away from your dreams.

Space Cadet

I wanted go for a walk on the moon,
but got distracted by a three eyed harlot
that whispered through the monsoon.

Her origins I never questioned,
I was hypnotized by her evolving first impression.

She was a foreign blotch of orange,
a heroine splattered on the floor.
She said her name was Lucy,
As she invited me to see,
underneath her dress. There, she said,
a forest hides a fruit, which upon a bite
puts you in a trance, you'll dream of a caress,
through which you could possess,
the orange damsel in distress.

As she spoke I took in a deep breath of life
through the sound of thumping tamboras.
Through snow hands made way, attempting to console her.

But I lost myself in the rapture of her voice,
the light of her glow, her head without a face,
and the warmth of her embrace.
She sung songs in the key of sorrow,
as she moved.

How she moved.
Hips punishing the air,
occupying space with her silk scarlet hair.
Gravity defying breasts, diamond eyes, and lips,
upon which a kiss, this space cadet felt blessed.

Foreign blotch of orange,
let me drink your tears underneath the stars.
Lets dance on water, we can change the tides,
if we barter with sun, space, and skies.
Don't take too long, no one on this rock has time,
and even beauty with time, expires.

Upon my request she began to fade away.
My voice erupted and it called her name
long after she disappeared, whether she was real
or not still remains unclear, but wherever I see orange,
I wish she'd reappear.

Vitta

To live,
is merely an instinctive act.
To be alive.
Therein lies true rebellion.
Active in defying bliss,
locking lips,
in an eternal kiss,
with the singing trees and the soothing breeze;
Where whistling winds whisper and everything the sun touches,
is a brother and sister.
Where green is the vibration of the omni-present om.
Where green is more,
than the color of a scene.
And home is wherever you rest your feet.
Wherever earth may dirty you
and that dirt is worn
like the threads
with which your body is adorned,
worn with pride - there you are alive.

True history

Shuffling feet filled the streets with sound,
they stumbled pass the window,
behind which I’m bound.
Entering my ears – the sound opens my eyes.
I see my plastic Jack O’ Lantern,
with no candy inside.
Today in school, we spoke about the sinister Spaniards.
Daddy said we’d talk, after he spoke to Mr. Jack Daniels.
Mr. Lantern, he lied. And on the couch he now lies sleeping.
He never went outside, don’t make ugly faces Mr. Lantern just listen.
We’ll fill you up with candy next Halloween.
Don’t you want to know of this real horror scene?
Of course you do Mr. Lantern, you’re my bestest friend
So, now, this is how the story begins.
The tainos lived on an island,
they ate what they grew. They spoke to mother nature.
They’d laugh when she laughed
and they cried when she cried.
They invented volleyball,
and were a peaceful little tribe.
And one day Mr. Jack O’ Lantern
came three big ships out of the sea.
The men aboard were the likes
of which the tainos had never seen.
They were happy, at first, to meet the white strangers,
but you know Mr. Lantern that everything changes.
They weren’t happy for long.
They didn’t think they were thieves and killers.
So the tainos had planned to meet with the Spaniards,
with plans to reach peace – their only desire.
They went in the meeting house, the sun must have cried,
the sinister Spaniards burned them inside.
Then the tainos were made into slaves,
sugar and gold is all that they craved.
A little man’s father had died in that fire,
and when another touched his wife, his anger grew higher.
So he learned from Columbus, and he fought and he killed,
the happy brown soil was full of the blood that was spilled.
They signed a treaty, with a trick up their sleeves.
They killed them all off with a white man’s disease.
So, when you hear someone sing, that in 1492,
Columbus sailed the ocean blue.
Mr. Lantern don’t forget to tell them,
that he killed thousands too.

Kamikaze

Diving head first,

Into the targeted gap.

Feeling passion.

Feeling pleasure.

Until it ferociously explodes.

Why I write

I write because it’s soothing.
It’s the colors that I see.
It’s where I drift.
Through pictures and scenes,
within skies that gleam,
inside of a neon fluorescent colored dream.

I write because it’s all that I know
It’s all I can be.
I write because it’s me.

It’s the air I inhale.
It’s the food that I eat.
It’s the air I exhale.
It’s the drum that I beat.

It’s the oxygen in my blood,
The river flowing through my veins;
Extending to my hands, through my fingers making way,
Determined – to scratch sense into words.

This is the menstrual cycle through which,
bloody words stain pages, with proof of my ability to bear life.
This is my testament to God that I too can create.

I can create!
I can create words that meet eachother,
move, dance, and fuck eachother.
And on paper, they give birth to other words.

My hands stretch,
They reach and they push,
They bend and they pull.
My hands hold.
Notes out of keys,
Notes out of strings.
These ashy hands,
They can write hymns.

I write because I feel.
I write because I’m alive.
And ‘this’ is the hand that masturbates my mind.

I write because at times,
the way I exist through those lines,
I can never be.

I write because it helps my curiosity peak.
To beat par with the thumping heart of a child,
To taste through their taste buds,
To see through their eyes
To finally wriggle
Into paradise.

And however much this world preaches,
On how to be a man;
To have many women on demand,
To reign over other men’s land.
How to be a man:
Buy the jeans, and drive the car,
Use ‘this cream to hide that scar.’

They say – that to be a man – you have to own certain things.
Things that are but needles injected into veins,
Things that are but methods to put that child away.
This!
This is how I keep from being led astray.

I write because I want to leave something when I’m gone.
And when I die,
and my body rots,
while in me maggots sway,
feasting on my flesh’s decay,
When my ashes are blown away,
to places they can rest,
and places they’ll be swept.
Someone will say
“here is what he left.”

Becoming

Brown leather briefcase
there you stand, barely.
Once you might have been the want
of a consumers desire; but today
you are the ashes left, of a forgotten fire.
Full of the mental excretions of your owner,
ready to burst them out
at the sight of an opening,
through which they can fit.
Brown leather briefcase,
you’re just like a cyst.
How tired you are, like a mirror you are;
of the aging man, who carries you to and from,
every step taking you closer
to the day you become undone.
Both of you infiltrate my nose
with your distinct scent.
One of leather,
the other of a day mal spent.
Both showing the misgivings of time
through the wrinkles that cover your bodies.
Bodies that once stood erect,
now are bent and contorted.
The image of youth, in you distorted.
How intriguing you are, like a mirror you are,
of nature’s vast beauties, the skies, the earth and sea.
Brown leather briefcase, you’re living proof,
of what time has in store for me.

A rose alone.

If poetry is words alive in motion, what do I call these still life words,
birthed by the fondled ideas inside my mind?
They lack the skill to place emphasis,
on energy the way that you can.
You, who chokes microphone stands
with more than just your ink stained hands.
You own that stage underneath your feet.
You adorn it with your colorful themes, and confident voice,
Concise prose, meter and verse.
Can I do more than observe,
How your metaphors shoot adrenaline from word to line and line to word?
You, rugged poet, are the spark of this desire,
To wait for your bullet words to enter my head,
As I smile on the line of fire.
These are my hands, rugged poet take them and burn them.
I offer you my ears to deafen and eyes to blind.
I give you my mouth- seal it!
They are worth nothing,
If I cannot touch hearts like you, hear, see or speak like you.
This ode is my body. This want is my life.
These words - the forgotten land mines upon which I walk.
You rugged poet are the last proud rose in a field of bodies burning.
Child of Apollo, you are the object of my yearning.

Untitled

I have replaced the ink in this pen
with the essence of my soul.
Its purpose is now my own.

Like a planted seed, inside this pen
my mind has grown.
It's expanded and reached,
Places this world had never shown.

Beyond the limits of my imagination
to stain the white virgin remnants,
of earth's still titan ancients.

These thoughts infuse themselves to words
and become a looking glass,
Capable of reflecting the flame of these yearning eyes,
In constant search of Sophia.

The sound of words
shuffling each other
fighting one another,
to earn their place in these lines –
this is our symphony.
It belongs only to this pen and me.

As ‘la luna’ continues to smile;
The sound of footsteps increases
To express this gratitude –
Triumphant, although trapped,
Within the broken flow of sentences,
the meaning - sound - and feel, of words.

Musica

Música Amante

El oído educado sabe que no tienes precio.

No hay quién te pueda permitir.

Aunque pocos lo comprendan, lo sé yo.

Te le escapaste a Apolo y fuiste creada por dioses de carne y hueso.

Tú, que tantas veces hiciste el amor con Amadeus y andaste de la mano con Bach.

Pasaste un sin fin de atardeceres besando a Chopin

Encendiste llamas de pasión en el vientre de Beethoven;

Y todavía cruzas mares enriqueciendo al rico como al pobre.

Música Viva

Música viva, te quiero desnuda, y te quiero para mí.

Música Pura

No hay quién te aprecie como este instrumento que te escribe hoy.

Mis manos no saben hacer más que entretenerte.

Mi alma no para de recordarme que donde estés, es que voy.

Me baño con las lagrimas brotadas por los llantos del violín,

Y le sonrío al cielo mientras tarareo melodías sin fin.

Mi corazón late al ritmo del tambor.

Y el tempo al cual corre mi sangre cambia de adagio a presto,

acelerando con la cercanía de tu esplendor.

Música Angustiada

Escondes tu dolor tras un velo suspirado por solos de cello.

Te escondes porque no le perteneces a nadie, siendo de todos.

Te sientes sola.

Eres la razón por la cual gritan los coros, lloran las flautas,

Y el saxofón deprimido repite sus llantos.

Me enseñaste afinar y todavía afinas mi guitarra.

Ésa no ha parado de ser tu sirviente fiel.

En su cuerpo de madera no hay cuerda que vibre sin decirme

"Estoy pensando en ella."

Tú, música angustiada, aunque pocos lo admitan, eres una estrella.

Y yo te puedo ver!

Sola en un abismo caminando perdida en teclas de piano.

Abandonada, pero honrada.

Tu, eres tu mi musa y mi concubina.

Yo te puedo ver, y eres bella.

Time's symphony.

Silk white cold blankets, today you cover dead trees.
In days you will melt, and in months they'll grow leaves.
Treacherous time, you're the cure and death of all,
Architect of the cycle to which we all fall.

Some call you a teacher, but I see a tyrant.
Sadistic! Breeder of death, life, peace and violence.
During the four seasons you conduct the grand symphony
Through which you gave life, and set a date- to take it from me.