memories of a perfect bookstore

every time a book seems attractive
beware the reader who clutches the meaning
between two shelved intentions…
we sat many times by that window
all of us did, even the dreaming nun…
we all embraced his arguments
unfinished and warmly worrisome as they were:
perverse excursions gracefully tempting
the dysfunctional trumpets in our hearts
to spit on love, trample on beauty
erase the truth… we did it all… we knew him
from others who knew well those who
knew about him from the best storytellers
that were… it was the only place where you
could find the same book on every shelf
each opening by itself or pushed by eager hands
to a different page each meaning the same
yet becoming a chasm in itself…
I knew my way, as others did
like a hurricane through a field of dust
I knew
and I believed…

when the window opened
the sun drenched our truth
stained our balance and
made us love each other forever.

Love as an evening state

The paper being filthy
a pirouette I want
to find next to the door’s entrance
and signs of silence in a principled posture
under your words,
frightened but soft…

I begin to decipher the code of suffering,

reminiscences of my daily vagrancy
can you find (but are you looking?) a marionette
slurping from its hands, doglike?
can you stretch your hand forward? (does it mean a little? a lot?)
to feel the cloth of which her face is made of
and the knots inside the cotton wool filling up her legs?

I must write – to come up close to her sedimentary state

not to cry, no, do not cry…
Better ask yourself, yes, that’s it:
are you ready to retract now
one gesture or another of the gestures you wish
you never made.

Why? Who is asking? Who do you ask? Are you asking?

I would fill a whole page with
question marks, to make up for my lack of answers,
for the unbalance and
other natural gifts, better known by poets as loneliness.

The paper?

I expect it to be rumpled, even torn to be, because
I know: it won’t stay indifferent
to my insistent attacks… I know!

The pirouette is understood as

a form of disdain
and the signs of silence
you assert from the new reflexes of lying,
a pursuing match without conclusions, and
the finale ensues, like we always predicted:
a very small room, a lit up space though,
like a waiting room, not big enough for
your life or mine,
but for honesty is enough.

GENTLE RHYMES OF WINTER

He spends the winter reading
She weeps over the sink
The milk gets used to breathing
And days are turning pink.

Imagine death protesting

The skill of being born
He said while blissfully wrestling
The frogs in his old horn.

She gently strikes a passion

For undernourished thighs
But fails to hear the lash on
The bimbo in disguise.

It all recurs in winter

Intriguing as a smile
When he decides to quit her
But cannot find her file.

Then her lit mouth misfires

And rats on greetings fall
She spits what she admires:
Now smut belongs to all…

The days are turning pink

And cows remember breathing
The color doesn’t link
With him, in winter, reading.

 

 

Crush

                                                            To Emily Dickinson

 

those being young
who can lift the stone
in less than a second

will be left alone

‘cause nothing indeed

will be gone faster
than this sadness
of the old master

venerating the matter

and finding that truth
is dying to early
for its lack of youth.

Love scheduled perfectly

I will set up a schedule for our love
My love
It will tell us precisely when
To show love
When and why
To argue
My love
It will clear the air
And day by day hour by hour even minute by minute
Like a day’s heartbeat should be:
Divided, cut in tiny pieces, shredded…
We will know what we need to know
My love
Now the only think you have to do for me
My love
Is child play, a simple gesture, really!
Don’t mean to put any pressure
On your busy day,
Your minutes are hungry: they eat your life,
And there is no time left,
Not even enough time to
Make promises…

Will you call me back, my love?

 

like a shadow

to wave with the shadow of your hand

to the shadow from your neighbor’s window

and her, reaching inside the darkness

to knock at your door later on

with a yellow smile, velvet like

with the shadow of your hand then

you will reveal her teeth

a row of white and hot keys

letting the shadow of your forehead

to dream on top of them

and the murky flesh to tremble

the shadow of your body sitting in her shadow

like a cradle

bearing a single shadow…

like a scream.

Kafka, the Conductor

If he would be around today,
And signs are that he lurks everywhere,
Franz Kafka would be a music festival director
For the US Congress, playing only during recess
To atone for the absurdity of the power dance,
Or the high pitch screams during the lobbying incest,
And for all the aborted laws favoring social rape
Knowing that even though the chosen ones
Beg for limited love
When the building feels so far removed from its
Original score
Kafka, the un-elected conductor, would continue
To play, to move his hands up and down
Rearranging the notes to fit the clowning
Around, to appease the audience with
Promises of sanity and harmony
Like any good leader of a mad choir would do.