You gaze at me through fractured glass,
counting debts of good and evil,
caught between purgatory’s grasp.
And suddenly, you say you found me—
deep in the hell I left behind,
a restless fire that never grants you peace,
neither in wars that span a thousand days,
nor in a thousand sharp disputes,
nor in a thousand naked truths laid bare.
A litany of cruel inequalities—
for which I am, and will remain,
a martyr to gods who shaped man from clay,
and unleashed souls in shades of gray—
souls that never dared to drink
the bitter elixir of their own sin.
Veins enslaved, flowers wilt unseen,
missed calls echo through silent rooms,
death breathes in emergency halls.
Like crowds of dreams forced into laughter,
like stolen kisses in twilight’s hour.
Mother Nature books her appointment—
ozone breast implants,
botox to disarm the heart,
a transplant for fractured reason.
Winds of every wind blow endlessly
in this half-tide of life,
half-alive without an absolute crisis—
the crisis of being chaos’s mirror,
of so-called love,
of never having learned to suckle at the mother’s breast,
of barefoot children playing marionettes
in hollow shows of ethics.
Drunk on homemade syrups,
caffeine numbing understanding,
alcohol breathing decay,
drugs erasing time’s trace...
And for what?
To live forever in discord.
— “...And who are you?”
— “I am the indispensable.
Take my hand as you have before.
Take me from silence, as you still do.
Take me from the torment of being yours.
You are selfish—
I am not your Judas.”
— “...And have you come to save me again?”
— “I lost the first game.
I am no champion, you will see.
I came from far away, hungry to win for once
what we all dreamed as spoiled children—
but when I won, I realized
I never wished to play.
Playing is for them—
sleeping is for us.”
— “...And what now?”
— “Open your eyes.
We are the first feeling you know.”
Ignore me, cursed demon of reflux,
ignore the urge to return impertinence
from the head of state who rules me.
Humanists with realistic beliefs
that taste more like bitter ashes than caviar.
(Because nothing is truer
than knowing the taste of ashes.)
Festive cake with magic cookies—
guilty of feeling at the wrong time,
guilty of shedding tears at another funeral,
guilty of not being Saturn, the god.
Guilty of looking upward,
enchanted, believing you do the same,
of being present for just a moment—
a dream inside a wandering mind,
a tiny vision—
a smile turning into a glance,
a glance into a shelter,
a shelter into passion,
passion into white sheets and a hand on a hip,
into shared breaths,
sex at the hour of love,
love at the hour of sex,
into choices made beneath trees
with dry branches, and feathers drifting—
bohemian, wandering feathers.
— “...And who are you?”
— “I am yours.”
Regimen Veritas.
complemented and further thought ("Me miras entre cortadas" 11/26/2006)
