In Charlotte, at night,
I hear the sound of mating frogs
And every so often a train – desperately howling –
Leaving and arriving from some place.
And because I cannot see both –
As I lay out on the pulled out futon –
There we are in view of Old Queens,
Croaking the weekend night away –
Tamed every so often by the train behind us.
2 That late afternoon,
perched on the summit
of a dignified sand dune,
I gazed at a landscape
Of a flock of camels’ humps
in the vast Great Desert.
It was the acute sounds of
Berbers hammering the tents
that were the only signs of humanity.
The strong winds that evening,
grazing thin layers off the dunes,
looked like sand-veiled specters taking off.
And for a moment the hammering
might’ve been the sound of
them landing.
1 Within arms reach,
a chest of no significant size.
Its impressive lock
is what lassoes one,
but only to admire from afar.
You see,
the adults tell us that
Time will open it, that Time
is the sole key
to the mysterious chest.
Those naughty grown-ups…
Every so often a handful discover
the lock does not actually lock it.
It is merely a guardian-statue; a scarecrow.
They open it and find that it is empty.
Tragically, they close it and believe
it always was, always will be empty.
Tragic, is their not knowing that perhaps
something was removed
prior to their rebellion.
2 On earth there is no heaven.
Dear Jules, my dear Renard,
Of course there is not.
We exist south of said Paradise!
Raise your head, Maestro,
And look! Pale specters keeping guard,
Vigilant in their slow procession.
Ever wonder which circle we’re in?
On earth there is no heaven,
But there are pieces of it…
Surely from the slamming of His fists
And stomping of His feet.
2 
(Bedroom Face With Oranges, Tom Wesselmann)
Distraught she appears to be,
Though despicable I know she is.
Her skin’s peach begins to wither;
Its color diminishes before its wrinkles arrive.
To the mountains –
A mountain she’ll become.
Where the first two narcissi are the signs
Of more to come!
1 http://www.ganttcenter.org/web/page.asp?urh=ExhibitionsViewer&id=21
(Click on the link above to learn more about what inspired this poem.)
All men are created equal,
yet I do not weep, tell me why,
at the sight of men, women, children
like myself
fastened onto the filed teeth
of a man-made monster of the Atlantic.
Tell me why,
is it because I am both
the shackled and the creator?
I’ll tell you this:
Upon seeing the 14 fangs –
Unsettling as the great white’s myriad flaunted teeth –
with human flesh caught on them…
upon seeing
mixed liquid of human waste
creep towards the end of its mouth,
I weep not,
though I sweat
in this cold room of pasts’ inferno,
trembling at the thought that their (our)
tears are long gone –
tears that have dried up
on faces, chest, stomachs, toes – in which
no longer is there a difference between it
with blood, urine, vomit, feces;
for when mixed they all become one.
You see, like
the mysterious sadness that lingers
moments after making love,
I’m afraid of what is left.
What comes next is instinct’s anger;
an anger un-acted upon
by men such as myself.
And so,
I weep not and
I’ll tell you why;
because I am both
the enraged and the fearful.
So a couple days back a friend of mine expressed, in the form of a question, that she loved reading sensual, erotic passages in books and/or poems. of course my immediate response was the dull, “you must read Neruda, you’d love him.” (*cringing now, as I read this)
At the moment she expressed this, with the most adorable yet unapologetic smile, the competitive side of me began stretching and taking deep breathes, and silently to myself I said I would tackle the un-uttered challenge. Since then the recognizable and timeless Neruda verse, “My mouth went across: a spider, trying to hide. / In you, behind you, timid, driven by thirst.” has been recited numerous times in my head, in hopes of becoming part of my language and way of constructing images…but, no (not surprisingly).
So the following sonnet was an attempt, hoping a Rodin sculpture - that I always saw as the epitome of lusts’ performance of flesh - would trigger something. All in all as you may have guessed, this was all motivated by wanting to impress. I apologize (you know who you are) if you don’t approve, because as of now I am only attempting to write them for the person who instilled them; you.
Femmes damnées
It is for us who are not involved
In the grasps, strokes of adamant flesh
Whose impatient limbs and muscles take turns
Of expressing what their trembling cannot.
Such a trembling that’s unseen but possessed
In a bronze expression, all but captured
To display the yearning of the damned;
Damned stretching of flesh, so damned is such
Pining of body parts, that their skin is but
A border: a web, that a captor, still vibrant,
Pushes against, stretching in hopes of ripping
Through. It is at that moment when the body arches
That it is so close to breaking through, and free
To roam upon where it will beg to be extinguished.
With Life’s leash latched
onto my collar
I follow my owner
I halt at a tug of the leash
I avoid passersby at a tug of the leash
When it’s time to sleep
the leash is removed
but not my collar
Like a dog
I follow the owner’s lead
while silently maintaining
thoughts of my own
My past relationships
can be understood
through the tendencies of
a good-natured cat
(let’s make it a kitten)
who chases mice
without the intention of eating them,
and upon catching them
(it always does, quite easily)
proceeds to play with them
(some for longer than others)
and then lets them go,
only to tragically discover
they had died because
of its claws.
* a small fragment of story that is in the works. (not edited)*
“Beware of all enterprises that require new clothes,” you said to me. Had I paid more attention I’m sure I would’ve noticed the subtle Thoreau-esque sense of urgency in that quote, but I was too caught up with where we were, what we were doing, and we and we and we. We found a spot in the scattered pieces of shade of giant stately trees. You began eating your sandwich, which at a glance could be labeled as one of those ‘healthy’ light lunches. The lettuce was an entire shade greener than the sliced peppers; almost identical to the grass we sat upon. One of the slices happened to fall from your sandwich onto the grass, and appeared to have disappeared, disintegrate into it as though as it were a drop of green liquid falling and disappearing into the puddle of an equally green abundance. I immediately commented, “Poor ants.” You laughed with your mouth full, but gracefully maintained it closed, however, after swallowing you lowered head slightly and dabbed your mouth with your napkin, just to make sure.
I lied down and stared upwards. I’m not sure why I did this and, shortly after, rose back up and grabbed the book I had noticed upon sitting down.
“You would love this book. Aren’t you hungry?” you asked me. You were genuinely curious.
“Are you a big Vonnegut fan?”
“I’m not sure I can say I am. I haven’t read Slaughterhouse Five or Cat’s Cradle. Then again, I have read that entire book of short stories and his hilarious…I guess it could be called a memoir… A Man Without a Country. I’ve read both and absolutely loved them. So yes! I am a rather big Vonnegut fan.”
“Can I borrow it?”
“How do I know if I’m going to see you again?”
“Well now you have no choice.”
I never told you, but a week or so before that following fall semester started, I bought Vonnegut’s collection Welcome to the Monkey House, not because I was particularly curious of the content, but because I wanted to read what you had read, I wanted to gaze at what you had gazed, I wanted to read his stories and think about certain passages you might’ve laughed at and underlined, the pages you folded. I can tell you that I only read exactly 5 of the stories in that book; I found no reason to read any of the stories after I’d read the 5th one, “Long Walk to Forever”.
At that time I was involved in some sort of fling that at the time was anticipated – according solely to her – to intensify upon seeing each other on campus, and I’ll never forget the day she had asked me what I’d bought at the bookstore. I shamelessly, over the phone, told her of the book, in such a tone as though I’d just revealed to her the woman I would leave her for. Until today – this very moment -, the epigraph in the beginning of that book – indeed it was Thoreau – lost whatever meaning it had to it, and resonates solely as the soundtrack of that particular early-afternoon on the cushioned grassy field hugged by the exquisite academic buildings, where right behind us stood the giant statue of Willy the Silent dressed in his elaborate Elizabethan attire; Time had draped a new, livelier coat of aqua green on the bronze statue. The rest of the afternoon we stayed beneath the watchful eye of Willy, and in the overwhelming presence of the University’s finest buildings.
I didn’t end up taking your book with me that day, however every weekday for the next 3 weeks we did see each other in between and after classes.
I was a single raindrop
without an urge to ask why.
Nor did I express gratitude
for not being a tear of melancholia.
Within an instant I was on a window
and slowly began to roll downwards.
Then I saw a woman whose congenial eyes
were contrary to the opaque pouches
beneath them.
When I awoke, I cursed the lightning
That had stirred me, but I was drowned out
by thunder.
I twirled my chair to face the window, only
To hear Simone Weil state adamantly,
such is, what belongs to dreams.
Though I know it, I cannot actually see nor understand it.
I cannot see that which I know but do not understand.
I know of what I do not see or understand.
I do not understand or see what I know.
Though I do not understand that which I cannot see, I know it.
In conclusion:
I yearn to see that which I know of, but care not if I don’t understand it.
Towering among all others, though merely tall. One is convinced it must be an incarnation of Beauty; for its supposed limbs do not waver like ours, its supposed eyes do more than solely blink, and its language does more than penetrate the ear; such a phantom can succeed in mouthing sweet hymns of death; overseer of infinite darkness, artiste of stillness. Flesh, radiant, covers the beloved body and nothing else; for it is in need of nothing else. Timeless epics narrated by the sound of its feet on the earth. Beauty is but death for the beholder, such a sweet death it is, for nothing vanishes with closed eyes; expired eyes are the permanent unleashing of beauteous.
(Photo: Iwan Bann)
…Shortly afterwards I felt a bumblebee
circling my ankle.
I stopped and stared straight ahead
at the emerging green that looked like
scrumptious, slithering trails
of green liquid coming my way.
I smiled and imagined a vine
clasping the said ankle.
Maria Luisa,
Mi parque querida, –
Llena de mujeres lindas
De tu Sevilla –
¡Lo tuyo es mío!
¡Oh mi María Luisa,
Mi Edén preferido!
