Wednesday, July 25, 2012

Self-portrait


The Lacrimation of Pigeons


The pigeons who flutter every
Morning on the fire escape
Act as if they know nothing
About sculpture and form
Pretend to be interested in
Only preening and pecking
Yet, they coo the secrets
To finding your way home
Which is never straight as the
Crow flies, or the wobbly linear
Descent of drops of wasted lacrimation 



Sunday, July 22, 2012

The Tiger and the Hare




We all exist, as we are cornered
Chained together in a tiny room
With no windows or doors
Facing off, antagonistically
As we don't have any control
Over whom we associate with
Acting if our relationships
Are battles to the death
Instead of connections of vivacity
Everybody thinks you have to
Gird your loins against all
Let no one into your citadel
Tearing apart anyone who
Knows your secret places
The coiling paths, the vague corridors
The creaking and shuddering
Inner doors, so embarrassingly
Opened, in acts of vulnerability
The violence of our fangs
And the spattered blood of others
Covering the walls of our limitations
We are diluted, by the wretchedness
Of our delusions and mistakes
Every choice we make, is real
The ripple of the skipping stone
Echoes beyond the moments
We convince ourselves we steal
Our hearts are not prisons
Our loves are not wardens
Our friendships are not battles
Our bonds are not fetters
We will not fight for
The amusements of the elite
If you want to see us rip 
Each other to shreds
Do what you may
We outstretch our necks
Together, but we will not 
Kill each other for you



Thursday, July 19, 2012

Emerge




Despite my urgency
The smell of everything
Is in our nostrils
We always
Regardless of time
Miss the moments of joy
Amid puzzling over our plight
Always, we are powerless, except
To watch the pyre of flame
Lick everything away
As we watch it all
Turn into ashes
With patience, we
Wait for the phoenix
And you to emerge

The Arms of Strangers


Everywhere and everytime
My limbs grasp for you
So full of tenderness and desire
Are my lithe and lean arms
In proud recognition of who
You always have been and
Always will be someday
Maybe you can make me understand
Finally know, myself, as a man

Hide away quietly your gloom
However, I know of many things
The strong traces of your body
The flushed tinge of your loving
The blurred edges of your vision
The delicate width of your optimism
Let us burden together please?

Hey woman, beautiful woman
Have I ever told you that
I believe in forever, always?
Even though my mouth
Is rented, and indebted
My arms are always free
To search for you
Even when I dream

Stroll with me, through the blocks
Filled with dust, anxiety and plastic
And at least, we will never be
Enemies, when we speak
Together, wordlessly 
Who says I must lose before 
I find, but your arms?
Who says we need all the
Arms of strangers?

Tuesday, July 10, 2012

Somewhere River




When we are in the midst of the river,
I gather the flowers near my chest.
Which is naked and drips with cool waters.
But the moon makes them bloom like the lotus.

I give you my lilies
because they are beautiful,
And you always hold my hand.
In the middle of the rushing stream.

In the brook, time moves in every direction.
The universe expanding above our heads.
Feel the current between our toes.
Every river, holds my love somewhere.



Monday, July 9, 2012

A Million Poems





I wish I could write a poem
That made everyone want
To create something
A poem so easy to remember 
That you never forgot it
That would offer comfort to
Those who grieve from loss
That would heal the heartbreak
Moreover, take away the tears and ache
A poem that made you like poetry
Burn inside, to write your own poem
I wish I had the words to describe
The possible futures, instead of the past
A poem that would last, not simply disappear
A poem, which would communicate all
The terrible suffering of poor peoples
I wish I could write a poem
That would make the whole world weep
Shudder with wracks of sadness and
Hug each other in long eloquent hugs
That could capture and seize
All the wounds we carry forward
Urging us to heal and move onward
I wish I had more courage to write
For all of you, and not always me
To see past the trees into the forest
I wish I had the strength to write
To overcome, all of our shame, to
Enunciate our self-humiliation
That which paralyzes rebels
I wish I could write a poem
To apologize to mother Earth
Also, share her agony with us
A poem that finds you in your desolation
Finds you in addiction, during self-mutilation
Finds you when you give up on everything
I wish I could find the essence
Of our humanity so we could see it
In ourselves, and in everyone else
I wish I could write about
The optimism of all us, even in
The reality of life’s shit and piss
I wish I could write a poem
That aroused your brain and 
Made the whole world orgasm
That found someone somewhere
Needing human touch, needing a kiss
Craving contact, this poem would
Rub the shoulders of your back
I wish I could write a poem
Filled with joy and celebration
That could make the world smile
A poem worth billions of dollars
So, that I could fund the movements
A poem that took away all the debts
I wish I could put words together in a way
That would call out your name
In the moment of despondency and terror
or simply when you missed someone
I wish I could write a poem
That repaired all the bridges we burned
Telling us to hold each other closer
A poem that made the rich quake
Speaking to power, confronting authority
A poem that raised goose bumps on
The arms of the working multitudes
That could explain freedom and alienation
Utopias and permanent revolution
A poem that would raise class-consciousness
That was not too dogmatic and condescending
I wish I could write a poem that was
So beautiful people would love themselves
A poem so generous and sympathetic
That we stopped being greedy and selfish
So horrifying, we saw war for what is was
A poem that told of the violence
Towards women, children, and Queer folks
I wish I had the words to tell you I loved you
To tell you that we can make it all better
I wish I could write a poem
That meant something to someone
Forgiving someone of something
This poem would have the power
To destroy everything and to create everything
I wish I could write a poem that would
Crush everything and let go of everything
A poem that described to each other the
Lives of bacteria, viruses, and the smallest life
A poem that the whales and dolphins liked
Something that the coral reefs did not hate
A poem that made the rains ponder falling up
Or the volcano to implode, the tornado not to spin
I wish I could write a poem that showed
That the emperor was naked
A poem that grew the trees tall and wide again
About the past, future, and present at the same time
A poem that made the
Ants and bees stop their toil for a moment
That awoke the cicadas and locusts all at once
I wish I could write a poem that
Exposed and put the army of shadows to rest
A poem that illuminated the shadow armies of death
That taught the map of the world
And the names of us all to each other 
Every town, every city, every person
A poem that made no statement 
That came after, end with a question mark?
I wish I could write a poem
That touched you somewhere, someplace
Enough to give it to someone else
What is a poem that cannot do of one these things?
If one poem cannot do all these things
I must write a million poems




Leopard Again



Peering into scents
Gossamer wisps 
Snapping in the wind
Encircling each other
Pirouetting in the flicker
These contaminants
Made me too wolfish
I will always catch you
When you are weak
I will always howl
At the moon’s light
Even when 
I become a 
Leopard again

Saturday, July 7, 2012

Walking Sticks




Our subconscious bristles of sabotage, ankles deep in the tar pits
This media detritus smothering us terribly, as this humidity does
Cultural hypnosis, everywhere we look, on the loci, we lose focus
Never touch the subway pole, cause its covered in mania and regret
Hand sanitizer; don’t ever, take the crazy off our hands, so stop smearing it
All these, drugged eyes, peering past us, into a faraway-faux-land-in-the-background
Been to every crevice in our minds, every new advance, a new way to waste time
Satisfied, with a lick of the affluence, at least we can smell the cornucopia
The road seldom traveled, is filled with hitchhikers, with walking sticks
Food prices skyrocketing, trying to water our optimism with drool
Why build the passages, traveled by only the mute fools of conceit

Clasped in the Paw of a Future Rat




I remember that I have
always been good at finding these
Large crowds, which march
with banner and hands aloft
I always find life in the chants
Defiance was my first toy

Lately, everything is poison,
which I find leaves little to desire
Everything tastes
like this 
quiet and silent death
My pillow is a ventriloquist
for almost dead people
Or at least an evil fuck

What about the living things,
which can’t find me
within this concrete and steel?
I stand, as usual,
on the other side of the valley,
just out of earshot of my totem

Where I am one of the
self-appointed rangers
of the urban sprawl
Lean on the illusionary walls
My tool belt is,
well worn and faded
With dry spatter
of everyone's blood

While feeling this weariness
of assisting in the erection 
of these complex conduits
Among the diligence
of maintenance of the foundation
I found our future
clasped in the paws of
the city rats

Which, when I unrolled,
each said, nothing memorable
Only a time capsuled narcissism
of egotistical nostalgia
Each had a detailed picture
drawn of a 
empty face
With the underlined word
"ME"
scrawled in pencil underneath

When driving pillars
for the next corridor
I met a future rat
Who had a encrypted note
in his paw that I 
can't read, but at least
I know in the future
There are still rats
who use the channels
We built by our hands

Friday, July 6, 2012

Surplus Coercion



It wriggles under my skin, all these tiny parasites
Searching for comfort, as if, it were a panacea
Some sort of delusion, which bores deeper yet
I lose myself daily, usually when I set the alarm clock
For an hour in the future to trick myself again
Squeezing the surplus of my labor much tighter then they
Making me less of a fool, then my altruism does
How many layers of false consciousness cradle the real?
Forsaken into the happy of consent as coercion embraces

Apolitical Intellectuals


Apolitical Intellectuals

One day
the apolitical
intellectuals
of my country
will be interrogated
by the simplest
of our people.
They will be asked
what they did
when their nation died out
slowly,
like a sweet fire
small and alone.
No one will ask them
about their dress,
their long siestas
after lunch,
no one will want to know
about their sterile combats
with "the idea
of the nothing"
no one will care about
their higher financial learning.
They won't be questioned
on Greek mythology,
or regarding their self-disgust
when someone within them
begins to die
the coward's death.
They'll be asked nothing
about their absurd
justifications,
born in the shadow
of the total lie.
On that day
the simple men will come.
Those who had no place
in the books and poems
of the apolitical intellectuals,
but daily delivered
their bread and milk,
their tortillas and eggs,
those who drove their cars,
who cared for their dogs and gardens
and worked for them,
and they'll ask:
"What did you do when the poor
suffered, when tenderness
and life
burned out of them?"
Apolitical intellectuals
of my sweet country,
you will not be able to answer.
A vulture of silence
will eat your gut.
Your own misery
will pick at your soul.
And you will be mute in your shame.
--Otto Rene Castillo