I do not want to be
remembered for my urine.
In this I differ from
the chowchow and Welsh corgi
who yearn to soak the earth,
to imbue the foggy air,
with their unique pee scents,
who nose through the streets in search
of smells of dogs gone by,
and recorded for canine
history until rain
rinses hydrant and trunk.
If only I could so shed
skin or salt tear as I
tread my neighborhood and thus
plant in friends’ hearts my deeds
Visualize a picture of an apple, one side green,
other, red
Connect by lines—how else?
Look at a lecturer who gestures lineal
connections in air, a teacher with chalk in hand
Arrange facts in an upward slant, parallel or
converging
Arrange geographically, lines of diffusion,
statistical facts reduced to a normal curve
All would be lost without diagrams
Trace history down to the present, up from the
ape
Picture motivation as external through entering
the organism—emerging transformed
Line is inescapable
We are incapable of questioning the reality of its
The day divides into two centuries
While I wait in the rose garden,
looking at unborn roses.
The rain has no wetness in it
And the old man in the story
Has reached his native land;
But the journey is not over.
Where does it end?
I'm sorry the moth-child
does not know it
and so crawls upwards of a twig
Pausing delicately over a thorn;
Sways its fleshy head
into the edge of a fat leaf.
The first century
was when I woke up in the morning
One windy afternoon
I breathed my last
Word to you.
We never met after that.
Where are you then,
My unknown friend?
I have taken the trouble
To memorize your face
The fall of your eyelids,
The quick gasp of a thought
Retrieved just in time
When it could have been a word.
I have been returned into the past
The walking on the thin grass
Talking to myself
Myself being you
I wait to know your secrets
That will be safe within me
But you can only speak to my shadow
And my shadow does not speak to me.
For I live in a world of wind
And night and stars
Far from the brown roots that point
Skeletal fingers at the sky.
Far from the deserted water-hole
With the lonely crow at its edge
Cawing into the empty air.
Far from the searching,
From the moment whe you are silent
Like a mountain;
When my words bleat into your serenity
Which conceals some other exhaustion.
Maybe I won't know you when I feel you,
Maybe you're just another stone
On which I've broken my little toe.
Maybe it's the other way around.
So, when are we ever going to meet?
Go. Bring me a moment
When I can look beyond your face
Into your eyes
Reach your mind
And find myself cradled there.
Else, we must pass eash other by ----
Empty clouds
On a walk into emptiness.
Only today,
I saw two dead crows by the roadside.
And you know,
We reached the river inside grandpa's newly-sanded truck.
My father raised his brows to greet the peasants, ours were with chapped hands,
as they discussed the Devil's apparition in the oak's trunk.
That day we splashed naked
guarding what would only come back with the years
while the music would lower itself on a family reunion.
That day we named the things by its name,
confident that the eldest will take care of the younger
and the youngest will learn from the rest.
That day to dive inside the tide
was the reason to be what we wanted to be,
to stay where we wanted to stay
holding our breath.
Years run after years,
our creased fingers warned
only the river had enough trust on us.
I enjoyed the innocence of burying objects
under the yard's roof sheet.
I stood sentry next to my sisters
waiting for he who never stopped arriving.
I boasted idols in the wall
that with pleasure I defaced.
I untied a pack of wolves
that ran after my years.
I lined up a full battalion between beer caps,
waiting for a salute.
I believed in a childhood murder
facing steadily the Monopoly board.
To play was a simulation to reinvent the void and
the void has always been something to mold.
Every image reduces us to a single try.
The girl with a Russian last name and hazel eyes
attempts to be a model 'til her acne pops out.
The girl who seems to think
will learn how to reduce her years, eyebrows, and
a pair of freckles reflected in the scalpel.
Those who don't seem to stand out will never do
but will end up as a name on a desk
assimilating its distance to the garbage.
The girl who spoke funny will learn Spanish.
The quiet ones will learn how to moan.
The girl who lived around the block
will never leave her home,
but will forge her identity while crossing the street,
greeting the lady at the dollar store to buy bread,
which in time will lessen itself.
The Clothes I wore
While learning to run in my grandma's yard
never ceased to fit me.
Perhaps for my mother,
between the wet socks or
food about to be served
lies the intention
to return to the street and find
her best acquaintances.
It's possible to still find myself
waiting in a grad night,
a theater play, a celebration or
collecting a raffle with her name.
We may never understand
the reason she awaits at the door.
Sometimes looking through the crack and
We are not friends.
We aren't less.
We aren't more.
We're somewhere in between all of that.
In total, it was a disaster.
A complete nightmare
waiting to come alive.
You could write out the script,
but couldn’t edit mistakes made.
Neither snowstorms came,
nor tropical hurricanes blew.
The air was a blazing hot,
but no instrument could tell,
but some intuition you had said so.
You felt awake and senseless.
The diversions of color and taste.
There was no target in mind,
no absolute hero nor villain.
It was just the ticking of clockwork.