Myself and Kerouac

I cannot see as you did Jack Kerouac,
Even if I tried I would be thrown back,
Into my own cell of ghastly world-sense,
Which since a child I’ve fed.

I cannot close myself to everybody,
But neither can see good in everybody,
That breathes a clean or polluted air,
I oft sense evil or suspect a stare.

And no, to me god is no Pooh bear,
There is none, least of all yellow haired.
In my own world at least,
There is no room for deities.

Still, I admire your individuality,
The new way of writing and the stretching of the beat,
That has opened the eyes of generations,
Now truly aware of their fellow and of nature.

“America!” you seem to say “the roads are there to See and learn”
But then you gulp down life until you’re dead
So no, I cannot see as you did Jack Kerouac
But still I See and still I understand.

(2011)

The Pig’s Lament

“K U I I I I I!!! K U I I I I I!!!”
Was the last thing I heard
From my beloved Chonchi.
One night’s passed and suddenly everything’s prepared
And I stare in the mud at the moonless sky
For I cannot sleep.
But the music starts and those begin to creep
Into the house, full of rum and many other drinks.
For “It is Christmas!” they say, “A time to love and share!”
Yet they disturb my mourning. Of my pain,
What do they care? But the next time to sink
Into my sad remains their greedy teeth.
Away! Let me be, to drown my pains in the still night air.
For they dance, they kiss, they eat,
And Chonchi is sliced into pieces there!

(2011)


-Poem based on Gregory Corso's 'The Mad Yak':

I am watching them churn the last milk they'll ever get
from me.
They are waiting for me to die;
They want to make buttons out of my bones.
Where are my sisters and brothers?
That tall monk there, loading my uncle, he has a new cap.
And that idiot student of his--
I never saw that muffler before.
Poor uncle, he lets them load him.
How sad he is, how tired!
I wonder what they'll do with his bones?
And that beautiful tail!
How many shoelaces will they make of that!

Notes on Trance

He is there,
Stuck in an instant
Outside the door
While the teacher speaks
Dead words in the background.
He plays half unwillingly
With unfinished thoughts,
Reaching the abyss,
Nowhere and everywhere.

He is there,
Trapped in seconds
By the sound of leaves,
By the strong breeze blown.
His unfixed eyes,
The horrid blankness in his face
Reveal the void, his absent mind.
Wake him up, wake him.
What have they done
To one so young?

He is here,
There,
And everywhere,
With a belt of memories
Too heavy on the waist,
With every step realizing
How he has died
So many times.
How he is not the one before
Nor any other anymore.

Copies and copies of him
Now speak in his head,
Piling up words,
Dead bodies without end.
How is this truth?
How has he found himself?
It is unfairly simple to just say
That through time Victor realized
He needed not wake.

The Echoes’ Reply

“We hate poetry that has a palpable design upon us […] Poetry should be great and unobtrusive, a thing which enters into one’s soul, and does not startle it or amaze it with itself but with its subject”
John Keats


I

A confession, is that what you ask?
Somewhat far from my taste, and such a waste
Of time; Oh, how I hate the poetry class.

A time ago I asked for Poetry to the Echoes in the air
And so they did declare:
“We are the same, but do not dwell upon the common world,
Yet we gather all, the bright, the dim, the flight, the fall;
We sing these songs, so fast, so fair, to mimic Realities, the vibrant Stare.”
Ah, by such statement felt so firm my soul.

Who cares about sensationalism, such a stupid thing?
Where to stick tongues, fingers, dicks, or sexual toys,
To better please the joys of girls on girls or boys on boys?
I’d say it’s a boring realism as vane as taking up a shit
And might be even more on the later to enjoy.

“But it’s all so modern”, you might say;
And every moment you tend to deviate the theme,
Ruining another pulsating emotion right beneath the skin.
No wonder how many people got away;
More than once I’ve also felt the bitter sweetness of giving in.

I’ll better decide the things I’ll draft, and how to write them;
A confession? Sylvia Plath’s fell flat; it did not stir a thing on me.
So no self-help involved, I take the Power in my hands and I concede
The Sight upon whichever path I want, as long as it respects the Silence.
No, I will not conform! Long ago I did give up the urge of blending in.


II

It’s never, never Víctor who speaks these truths,
Nor his many yous, who snuggle by the stars, who dream of ice.
I have befriended the darkness and the light,
Having left bare the tree of the forbidden fruit.
None but I, ungraspable; my spine,
Cracked up between the lines.

No, no I am no man.
This is no throat that speaks,
No brain, no bones, no skin.
Yet I dare to give away commands,
And I demand!, a search for ongoing sublimity.

So rise poem, raise your fist!
Ravage it all, consume it all, renew it all,
And claim your victory.

(2009)

(This was an assignment on confessional poetry for a class I ended up hating. I decided to twist the subject of the assignment a bit to write it in my own style.)

At the Mirror

Prepare for bacteria 

There is something abominable in the mirror,
always something out of place.
Each day a new discovery of imperfection,
of the mortal, the human, the animal.

Each day reflected
a face that mocks me when I stare,
the feeble muscles, the newborn wrinkle,
or the bones too small, and the dangling pork meat.

Just when I thought I couldn’t care less.
Always something out of place,
Something always refusing,
to fit how I want it to,
to meet my own demands
of ambiguous perfection.
All this so stupid and yet I stupidly grieve.

Then I meet with the world at night or day,
casually walking through the streets of the city,
casually dressed and casually walking,
through the city of the streets,
filling my lungs with the stench of reality.
I breathe in deep, breathing deep my insecurities.
Because these streets of the city
don’t deserve to know my private pains.

And at times an epiphany strikes,
the epitome of male and female in front of me,
How they walk so happy.
Oh, how happy do they walk!
How gracefully, and so carefree!
Or so they seem or want to be seen to be.

All poignantly passing with perfect steps,
I know they self-adore their perfect limbs,
their faces of perfect measure,
their perfect beauty, success, and happiness.
All so perfect,
too perfect to let them live.

Oh, how I want to steal those smiles.
But none will fit my face,
where there’s a hollow ground for an ominous grin.
How I crave to break those smiles
to curl their lips with sourness,
and shatter their most precious memories,
wither their happiness,
till they twist and scream in pain.

Oh, how I wish to destroy them,
make them die from inside out.
Casually dressed and casually walking,
gathering their pieces of flesh and bone
with my cart of bone and flesh.

To reach home and see once again
how there is something abominable in the mirror
and behold myself.

(2009)

The Fall of Canon

Beyond the window
the hawk spreads its wings,
wings of earth and toasted coffee

But I, unaware, sit still
in dogmatic silence,
a monk devoted to modern comforts,
cloistered in my room,
a shrine to imposed learning,

In my hands the opened book
feels heavy with its laws,
with its conceded posterity.
The pages stick to my fingers with raw sugar.
I breathe the country air, the rum, the filth.
The walls start sweating with sickness,
and I’m sure to hear
the empire pounding at the door;
how they have come,
to twist the neck,
to pierce the tongue.

Oh no, enough of this,
I don’t want to be the victim anymore,
no more blabber of politics or customs,
those stealthily taking full control of words
as any other empire would do.

Still I care,
but I also want to feel
other matters,
other ways to lift the spirit
out of the puddle.

Still I’m not deaf
but the shout is,
always the same,
and ever more distant from me,

You might never know
how it thrills to feel the pleasure
of entombing living letters
with the turning page.

(2009)

Upon Staring at the Face of Death

It struck me suddenly,
without previous cautions.
And I felt overpowered,
drained from every earthly thought,
alone most strongly,
lingering in pain.

The blurred hands of memory
had forced my eye lids open
making me see again that figure
so utterly changed,
those limbs that lay there
crippled and clenched.

The same that had once been eight years old,
a poor boy’s only defense,
laborers for sugar cane,
and pitch black petroleum.
The same that had once held a machete,
held my mother,
held me.

But not yet dead.
No, still not dead…

I stood there again
for an eternity in silence,
bearing my impotence for all to see,
as my mind wandered away,
leaving behind the wall of anguish,
now to a state of full comprehension,
of things I never imagined
I could.

(2009)